He said it again this morning.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/216911.php

what eCAHN said.

He said it just this morning!

http://www.washingtonmonthly.c…..014725.php

W up on CSPAN1.

“adjustments” in fin mkts.

McCain’s insane

Wow. That’s a nonstatement if I ever heard one.

thanks I think

NOTTA DAMN thing has changed for HIM and MEHGAN and CINDY LOU

in fact they will prolly pick up all the FORECLOSED ON condos…wait a bit,and sell them for a bigger profit,while raising the price of the beer

LIFE IS GRAND ..at the top

Hedge Fund

Don’t forget that AIG is having ‘cash’ issues and Washington mutual is also having some ‘problems’. But yeah the economy is solid. /s

Wow, we of great minds are thinking alike this morning. As I noted at my homeblog, Lehman survived the 19th C Civil War, the 20th C Great Depression…but can’t survive Bush-McCain-Republican economics.

In John McCain’s gated little world of which house shall I sleep in tonight, he’s as divorced from the American people as he was from his first wife. And yes, he should be just as ashamed about it.

It’s starting to look more and more like 1928. I wonder why the Dems don’t point out the fact that every time the Repugs deregulate things a disaster follow along with a government bailout.

“I still believe the fundamentals of our economy are strong.”

If you just keep saying it over and over, it’s gotta be true. Unfortunately, it’s starting to sound more and more like a “wish sandwich.”

“Have you ever heard of a wish sandwich? A wish sandwich is the kind of a sandwich where you have two slices of bread and you, hee hee hee, wish you had some meat…”

I hope they start today. I’m going to watch GMA. O is supposed to go after McCain on economics.

RINSE LATHER REPEAT
over,and over and over again…till EVERYBODY GETS IT

When will Americans wake up from the illusion of the GOP Wizards? Republicans are terrible on Economics and they are terrible on National Security and they have been terrible stewards of the Earth. They have Led us into a Fake & Phony war and have yet to fully implement the recommendations of the 911 Commission to keep this country safe and secure. That is not being Strong on National Security! Ground Zero is still a Dark Hole and an open Wound and a symbol of Republican failed polices! We are in an Economic meltdown and Enough is ENOUGH! Let’s expose the myth, deception and lies of the Wizards—GOP (Grand Opposition Party)! Let’s get off the Yellow Brick Road of lies and deception and realize that the power lies within the people to so produce a working government for the people not a government hiding behind a Curtain of corporate greed and special interest groups! They have failed the American people and they have failed themselves. There is no lasting prosperity for thieves and liars and the wrong one does will eventually come back to be reckoned with. This is their reckoning. Even Alan Greenspan has said Americans cannot afford the $3.3 trillion dollar tax cuts proposed by Senator McCain which is not surprising since McCain has admitted knowing nothing about the Economy and told Detroit auto workers their jobs would not be coming back. He cannot even envision a future of 21st Century cars run on solar or another greener more cleaner alternative fuel? Yikes! That is not Change we can believe in!

Now the Grand Wizard, McCain, who is 72 years old has allegedly put his Country First and nominated for V.P. someone totally lacking in national and foreign policy experience, who would be a heart beat away. Woodward in his recent book “The War Within” states that the two sleeping giants when someone takes the oval office come January 2009 will be Iraq and Afghanistan, something Bob Woodward says Bush was disconnected from. Can you imagine that, a President so disconnected from a war he asked Americans to die for? Sadly, there will also be another Giant to face—that of the economy. Brokaw said to Sen. Schumer on Meet the Press Sunday past—I thought when one picks a V.P. pick that they pick the most qualified candidate, referring to Obama not picking Clinton and choosing Biden instead. This goes both ways and McCain did not pick the most qualified person in fact he picked the least. A president will have the Weight of the World on his or her shoulders. Unfortunately for this Country McCain has made a very bad judgment call and a terrible risk. May be he did not use his good judgment in this pick but something less honorable. Barack and Biden are ready to lead and to take up that weight. I do not think McCain and Palin are ready for such a daunting task. We need true leadership and not a false and deceptive wizard giving lip service to lies and deceit instead of truth and light. If we pull the Curtain back from our eyes, we will see he has no Power and McCain the Grand Wizard, is not the person he says he is!

And lastly, all those who fear if they pick Obama/Biden will have to give up their guns is a false/negative. What does having a gun and hunting mean, if their are no jobs to go to? If gas at the pump is $7.00 a gallon? What does it matter if food is sky high and one is unable to prepare even the most basic meals. What does it matter if you get sick and you have no health care—unable to afford a doctor or even medicine? What does it matter if you have your Gun but yet cannot afford the mortgage payments on your home? What does it matter if through a war mentality World War III breaks out and possible nuclear annihilation? Will your guns matter then? We must deal with real issues and not superficial things that will not matter to us in the end when we wished we had of chose wisely instead of through fear, beguilement and deceipt!

McCain Still Thinks The Economy Is “Fundamentally Strong”

No! McCain thinks that saying that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong” will create a good impression with uncommitted voters in swing states.

This is about winning, and that’s the only thing he thinks about.

When will Americans wake up from the illusion of the GOP Wizards?

When they stop winning most of the presidential elections, e.g., seven of the last ten.

revising and extending my remarks:

Lehman survived the 19th C Civil War, the 20th C Great Depression…but can’t survive 21st Century Bush-McCain-Republican economics.

The John McCain who dumped his first wife decades ago for a trophy heiress is now doing the same thing to all the wives and moms of America who must eke out a living for their families. And he’s prepared to offer just about as much support.

John McCain–no honor then, no honor now.
.

I have no reason to beleive that it is both: he thinks it and says it for political expediency. The man thinks people get paid $50 bucks an hour to pick lettuce. If that ain’t divorced from reality, then I don’t know what is…..

uhmmmmmm…me likey

makes another GREAT AD!…all this talk of lettuce made me hungry…off to lunch …keepmhammering girl!

Can’t be saying now that McShame had no honor then when O has been saying for mos how honorable McShame was

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/9/15/1058/03313

If I were to create an Obama ad to run today it would be this:
– Bush saying “Stay the course.”
– McCain saying “The fundamentals of the economy are strong.”
– Bush saying “Stay the course.”
– McCain saying “The fundamentals of the economy are strong.”
– Bush saying “Stay the course.”
– McCain saying “The fundamentals of the economy are strong.”

With Wall Street burning in the background.

One of the essential functions of government, as it relates to business, is to regulate businesses so that they do not get “too big to fail.” If those regulations fail (or are removed), and a business does get too big to fail, then government’s function shifts to regulating that business to prevent it from failing. By removing regulations intended to keep businesses from getting too big and failing, the Republican form of governence has been shown to be a failure.

Rush Limbaugh said

Roosevelt is dead, his policies may live on, but we’re in the process of doing something about that as well.

Today, Rush is probably happy that they never finished doing something about that. He’s not honest enough to admit it, however.

The real question is what is the schematic for the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. The press mentions no names, no reasons except generalities.

Per Economist’s View

On CNBC they are saying that AIG has asked the Federal Reserve for some kind of emergency bridge loans.

Hey, BT. Thanks for the Tom Petty. Local boy makes good.

The fundamentals of John McCain’s economy are still strong. The rest of us, not so much…

Yes. Yes I can.

acknowledging the semi-snark, but truth is truth.

how far they have fallen

The bankruptcy was just filed so it’s too early to tell how it will work out. Probably the pieces that have more value will go first. On CNBC they point to Newburger Berman, a money management arm, as one such example. And I think that all the sales must be approved by the bankruptcy judge.

good grief!!!

Time for a new – harder hitting – out of touch ad.

“He doesn’t even know how many homes he owns” – audio clip

“He thinks economic problems are only psychological” – one of many video clips

“On Sept. 15, 2008, in view of the bank collapses going on, he says’the economy is fundamentally strong’.” – video clip

“Now if you agree McCain’s views are right, vote McCain. If you see anything fishy about this man’s views, please vote for Obama. Your children’s futires are on the line.”

I have no reason to beleive that it is both: he thinks it and says it for political expediency.

IMHO, whether it is true or not never crosses his mind; that would be a distraction and he is very focused. He only cares whether or not it sounds good.

John McCain doesn’t even bother to consider what he says is believeable or not. “Does it sound good?” That’s the only question on his mind. By way of example, note his claim on national TV last week that “Sarah Palin knows more about energy policy than anyone in the country.” If he gave the matter any consideration, he’d know that nobody is going to buy that. He doesn’t care.

“Does it sound good?” That’s the only question he has time for.

No what I am referring to is the schematic for the underlying events and causes for the bankruptcy itself. The MSM goes is just blank on this. It really is quite surreal.

Palin on the tv saying our regulatory system is outdated

I agree that the economy is fundamentally strong. I would, however, put the accent on the fundament part because this is the bit that sits on the crapper that our economy is being flushed down.

me likey. Fire off an email to the campaign

Voters, you can’t trust this crowd of Republicans to fix what they broke.

Just like her running mate: outdated

I’m not arguing with that but on economics (something he has said he does not know much about..hence the $50 lettuce picker) it is more than just saying that, he believes it

McCain’s theme song?

Palin on the tv saying our regulatory system is outdated

Only if she means that we’re past the “use by” date…

Because Republicans keep dismantling the damn regulatory system!

This from the mayor who left her town 20 million in debt? You’ll forgive me if I don’t take any financial advice from her

she must mean we have to deregulate some more

Now that’s an ad!

I don’t even think the Richie Riches of the world are happy about this today.

Palin introduced the first dude as having one some race 4x and a great dad

On CNBC they are saying that AIG has asked the Federal Reserve for some kind of emergency bridge loans.

The technical term for these is bridge loans to nowhere. On the positive side, they are quite modest in size, only about $40 billion. In fact, I was going to make my application to the Fed for about this much for lunch money and such.

Quick clicks indicate both CNN and MSNBC seem to be running palin’s comments in full……sorry, I couldn’t bear to listen for more than a few seconds but sounds like she’s hitting all the talking points the uneducated want to hear. :-(

wigwam, I believe you’ve missed your calling.
That is the perfect image IMHO.

Palin full of BS

LOL let me know how it turns out. I wanted to get alil change for school supplies and such

Obama is supposed to be at the same venue tomorrow. I wonder if they can get the BS scooped out of there in time

I don’t even think the Richie Riches of the world are happy about this today.

The trolliest resident troll on Glenzilla’s blog is claiming that he’s raking it in today by shorting investment banks. Of course, his comments never have any relation to reality…

OT: I’m looking for good poll analysis sites.

So far the best I’ve found are:
– Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight.com
– Sam Wang’s http://election.princeton.edu/2008/

Does anyone have comments about these or others?

Thanks.

Yes. Yes, she is. But I’m heartened by the fact that the undecided voters I talked to our worried about the economy and don’t think the republicans are going to fix the problem they caused. People are smarter than we think (at least the independent voters)

Voters, you can’t trust this crowd of Republicans to fix what they broke.

This puts the cart before the horse. Republicans put the fix in before they break something.

Are you talking with Internals, trendlines and the like?

is she saying :”small towns good.” ?

He may need some hip waders

A friend and colleague of mine who happens to be an economist says that a trailing indicator of a recession is the president saying, “The fundamentals of our economy are strong.”

I’m not sure whether McSame saying it on the Forked Tongue Express qualifies as a leading indicator or a long trailing indicator.

BC

I have not been following this closely but I think the two underlying factors in the financial corporations’ bankruptcies (the Lehmann one that actually ended up in bankruptcy and the prior ones that were bailed out) related to the mortgage market during the housing boom. They issued mortgages to people who had no chance of maintaining them. Then they compounded the problem during the securitization process. I’m not sure I can describe it clearly but they were done in tranches, with all given high credit ratings, but it turned out the lowest tranch was worse than worthless. Wall St. firms had many of those on their books. They never marked them to market because there was no market. So book value of those firms was vastly overstated. When it started to become clear, not only did they have reduced resources to finance their ongoing businesses, but customers became reluctant to do business with them, which caused a liquidity crisis. Also lending is drying up more generally as fear settles in and no one knows the financial health of the counterparty, i.e. a generalized credit crunch. That’s a large part of it, but there are many moving pieces that I didn’t touch on. Each firm has its own particular problems in that general scheme too.

They are going to really use the ’small town’ vs elitism thing to death. What about ‘american’ values? why do they hate america so much?

Need to hit on the standard rightwing approach. When things are booming, we have to be nice to the financial business because they are the basis of all other economic activity. When times are bad the financial,ibusiness is not part of the fundamental economy. It is utter bs and they need to be called out on it every day, every hour, every minute till even low information voters realise that the right got us into this mess and it does affect them so it is the fundamentals of the economy.

Might be me and my training, but I prefer my poll results separated from the analysis. I like realclearpolitics. YMMV, of course.

Here is the official statement from the Obama campaign regarding the Situation in Financial Markets.

a little excerpt:

The challenges facing our financial system today are more evidence that too many folks in Washington and on Wall Street weren’t minding the store. Eight years of policies that have shredded consumer protections, loosened oversight and regulation, and encouraged outsized bonuses to CEOs while ignoring middle-class Americans have brought us to the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression

Couldn’t stand hearing her voice long enough to find out; sorry.

Biden talking about McShames change claim saying we have seen this movie before and the sequel is always worse than the original

I know almost nothing about probabalistic modeling, but it seems to be a well-developed art form. Silver has been using it for sports predictions very successfully for years, and his elections were the best for some of the primaries. He has a lot of cred with folks like Chuck Todd. Wang has a less complex system, but seems to know what he is doing. Silver has McCain winning. Wang has Obama.

eCHAN, as we are seeing mortgage companies, banks, and now a major insurance company failing, is this directly related to the removal of regulations that disallowed mixing of the above three types of businesses?

Quote from FDL (prior thread):

“Lehman Brothers Survived the Great Depression – but not the Bush Administration”

Run with it, Barack, run with it.

I don’t pay attention to national polls. I pay more ( a little more than nothing) to state polls. But I agree with BargainCounter as far as keeping them separated. But research 2000 is also good for the combined analysis trendlines and the such

That is good. Send it to the campaign!! An email takes all but a few minutes to write

Thanks. I’ve been following the polls at TPM, but I should checkout RCP more often.

So where’s bushie? Thought he was supposed to be telling the “Murcan” people all about the economy at 11:10……no questions taken, of course.

wow AIG is tanking in the stock market

My wife doesn’t even look at her retirement investment fund provided by her employer (a university) any longer.

I have a mutual fund and an IRA that I’ve merely diddled with now and again over the years, recently mainly only focusing on the IRA around tax time. Anyway, a few months back I was surprised that both my IRA and mutual fund had actually gained in value about $500 each. I rather suspect that this hasn’t been true, nor will be true, for a good time to come. Maybe I will stop looking (after the next report) too.

It rather pisses me off to be dumping money into something over the years that may easily become a lot of nothing when I need it. I WANT MY MONEY BACK! In the form of cold coins.

The removal of regulations PLUS not enforcing the ones that still exist. One example of the former is that if you allow firms to upfront fees charged for originating loans, and then the loans are sucuritized so that the financial institution does not keep them on their books, then there is every incentive for financial firms to make every possible loan, good, bad and indifferent, to capture the fees. Thus they don’t care if the loans will be repaid. Of course, just as happened to Citibank in the 1930s, they ending up with the bad one on their books because it turned out they couldn’t sell them. We know this. But Rs do magical thinking that it won’t happen this time.

Though, given the scope of today’s crisis, I’m more worried about what this says about McCain’s psychological health than his lectures to us that our economic problems are all in my head.

emptywheel

a la gramm, we’re just a nation, world of whiners

and of course this is the man McCain wants to put in charge of the pocketbook if he is elected.

Just to point out, B Laden’s expressed goal in 2001, after claiming responsibility for 9/11- wasn’t it to destroy us financially with the bait of 9/11?
I could be wrong on this.
But, if I recall correctly, when does some braver-than-all person say BL has just about won… so much for ‘victory’. McCain/Palin: clueless.

Stop whining people and hippies. Life is not fair.

Do you now have a better
estimate of when American forces can come home from Iraq?

McCAIN: “No, but that’s not too important.”
—-
“There’s going to be other wars. I’m sorry to tell you, there’s going to be other wars. We will never surrender but there will be other wars.”
—-
“It’s entertaining, in that I was the greatest critic of the initial four years, three and a half years. I came back from my first trip to Iraq and said, This is going to fail. We’ve got to change the strategy to the one we’re using now. But life isn’t fair.”

They are going to really use the ’small town’ vs elitism thing to death. What about ‘american’ values? why do they hate america so much?

This is all code for stupid vs. fact based. So the next time you do something really dumb just tell yourself it’s the small town side of you shining through.

1,766 DAYZ AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…

Citizen eCAHNomics:

Thanx for the analysis, but right now I think that the micro investigation of the details of the collapse of the financial markets is best left to the economic archeologists because I don’t think that solvin’ the origins of this crash gets us any closer to the immediate solutions. IMO, this crisis is staged, it’s a replay of 1929 but with one big difference, the federal government in 1933 wasn’t faced with trillions of dollars in foriegn debt…that means that most of the basic changes made in the early New Deal are not possible now because the government can’t locate a tax base large enough to tax in order to pay the debt AND support the population AND subsidize the remaking of the economy.

Let’s face it, the families of the oligarchy have studied what went wrong in the last great economic collapse and have been bidding their time to set up the board so that the equity that they have stolen from this crash will be secure from any attempt to reach it in order to use it for the reconstruction of the next “free economy”. The capitalists have, in fact, stolen the wealth of the country and secured it in other economies and left the country completely vulnurable, no army, no state milita, no economy and a population completely at the mercy of the local police structures.

I have long been advocating a new “New Deal” for America but the fascists have made sure that those options are not possible now because of the debt we owe to others and our lack of the military strength to protect ourselves if we want to default on those obligations.

Have a nice day folks, we are experiencing the end of corporate capitaslism and it looka a lot like twelfth century Europe don’t it?

KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNTION, THIS IS THE LAST BATTLE!!

HA! Over at Kos, they ahve a statement from McCain’s adviser, Donald Luskin

But that doesn’t make any of it true. Things today just aren’t that bad. Sure, there are trouble spots in the economy, as the government takeover of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and jitters about Wall Street firm Lehman Brothers, amply demonstrate. And unemployment figures are up a bit, too. None of this, however, is cause for depression — or exaggerated Depression comparisons

HA! tell that to my long ass food bank lines, partner

The 4th largest city in the United States of America is in shambles. 2 million people without power. People running out of water, food, and fuel. The tallest building in Texas has 50% of the windows blown out.

Tell me again…the economy is strong??? Who in Houston can go to work? Where will they work? Who will pay them? Commerce is destroyed in Houston. It will take years to recover. This is an entirely different disaster than NOLA.

Oh yeah, and people are just finding out this morning that if they thought they were covered by “flood” insurance (National Flood insurance)…guess what? They aren’t, because the “storm surge” is NOT covered. That is covered on your homeowner’s policy, if you have one, and only if you have a special “wind” clause that covers surge from the ocean. Great…

Senator McCain…do you fathom the enormity of what has just happened??? It is almost unfathomable….

You can listen/watch live Houston coverage with lots of info at KHOU:

http://www.khou.com

The country has no idea what an incredible disaster this is.

LMAO good idea. No wonder my mom calls me country LOL

so true! and Bush claims he’s kept us safe since then
HA!
Osama’s getting everything he wished for.

John mcShame is fundamentally wrong.

No, he hasn’t a clue. he was watching a Nascar race

You disagree with McShame BT? You must be living in some sort of a reality-based world or something.

Christy is upstairs with:
Peekaboo, Mr. Cheney: Using Sunshine To Crack One Tough Nut

yep. and the new speculation is about WaMu.

yep, they are about to go under

AIG is a Trillion Dollar Company doing business in 130 Countries! If it goes, it will resonate big time. All those insurance policies…

Someone who actually remembers 1928 said as much just yesterday.

Yup. That is the real “biggy”….all those people who just lost everything and they will never, ever be paid for their losses.

The economy is just fab.

Watch for an AIG savior and a ramp job in the markets this afternoon.

Buffett may realize that the entire industry and economy will collapse if he doesn’t step in. He’s going to pay for the sins of AIG one way or the other.

Yeah, I’ve been wondering about the implications for AIG as an insurance company. Are they going to be able to pay claims? And they’re facing huge liability potential from Ike…

Not good. Not good at all.

BC

That Luskin statement is from a WaPo0 Op-ed that was published yesterday.

Thanx, so the value of certain securties were way over valued as carried on the balance sheet. I assume there were inadequate reserves as well. I really want to look into this as it pertains to Lehman Brothers.

then there is every incentive for financial firms to make every possible loan, good, bad and indifferent, to capture the fees. Thus they don’t care if the loans will be repaid.

Very late to this thread, but that would be a “Bingo”!

today is the day our W04 president reports special financial announcements!!!
… we can hear the economic drain go gurgle gurgle gurgle!!

WE NEED CHANGE! WE NEED CHANGE now!

_./’._¢¬¢¬.•¢´**¢´•.¢¬.•¢´**¢´•..•¢´. .
*•. .•* *Obama/Biden o8!!
/.•*•. •¢´**¢´•.,.•¢´**¢´•.,.•¢´**¢´

ummm, I think he tried to add some ’HOPE’ to this situation! LOL

An additional failure besides the dismantling of the financial markets’ regulatory structure has contributed to the mortgage & related meltdowns.

It’s a basic failure to enforce the federal criminal law.

One huge factor in the savings and loan debacle of the late 1980s was fraudulent real estate loans. In these, financial institutions knowingly lent more than properties were worth, based on fraudulent appraisals. In order to dupe bank and S&L examiners, the financial institutions then traded these loans, as they became non-performing, for new but not-yet-bad loans from other institutions. It was known in Texas as trading a dead horse for a dead cow.

Congress attempted to forestall a repeat by hiking the penalty from 2 to 30 years in prison knowingly to make “any false statement or report, or willfully [to overvalue] any land, property or security, for the purpose of influencing in any way” any of a raft of federal financial institutions including “any institution the accounts of which are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation” or any of a raft of other federal entities. Title 18, U.S. Code, Section 1014.

So, practically every knowingly false statement for the purpose of obtaining a mortgage in the U.S. could be prosecuted as a 30-year federal felony.

We’ve read that one factor in the current financial meltdown is that both mortgage applicants, and financial instutions eager to grant mortgages, have falsely stated applicants’ salaries, assets, etc. on a grand scale. (Sorry, I’ve still not learned to link. But there’s been a lot published recently about this.)

In other words, some unqualified mortgage applicants and some greedy financial institutions alike have been ripe for prosecution for violating Section 1014.

And just how many such prosecutions has the Bush Dep’t of Justice brought? None of which I’ve read.

It’s hard not to think that, despite the shredding of the regulatory safety net, vigorous enforcement of Section 1014 would have headed off much of our current disaster.

I think the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war which was greeted with accolades by many neoconservatives and protects us from the boogeyman and promises a Great American Empire has done little for our economy and our domestic policy…as Wall Street comes tumbling down. Four more years…four more years. God help us if McInsane wins!