1 million in seconds = 11 days
1 billion in seconds = 32 years
1 trillion in seconds = 300 years

I saw a comment at Kos…it said that 1,000 trillion has been invested in hedge funds this year.

Someone else commented that with all told, auto, credit…the amount of meaningless trash paper is actually…45 trillion.

I have no links, but it was on Billmon’s diary…

makes my head spin. unbelievable

I personally am happy that the efforts to privatize social security, the most successful program in history was not pushed through in the last eight years.

Thank Josh Marshall. He stopped it almost single-handed.

Aloha, Jo Fish!

jeez, I thought that photo was McCain’s hamhanded fist.

Broken Piggybank with lipstick

You would think McSames head would be spinning from the constant flip flopping and looking over his shoulder trying to figure out what he is actually trying to say as an official statement.

There is a funny but sad and true mock ad on Green 960 about Trash for Cash. A take off on the get rich quick programs.

Here’s a link to Billmon’s diary to read later:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…..246/606905

Nice to see congress being congress again.

Thank you senators.

McCain is now trying to use the words “reformer” and “regulator” as equivalent. In his prior life, before last week’s financial meltdown, the word “reformer” for him meant freeing businesses of all those pesky regulations, including state insurance commissioners setting rules on health insurance. This week, “reformer” means re-imposing the regulations which he fought to eliminate previously.

McCain the “reformer”, even when it means two diametrically opposed approaches to government oversight.

And I calculated this morning that 700 billion dollar bills lined up end to end would stretch 66 million miles. That’s two thirds of the way to the sun. Not the moon, the sun!

He reforms himself several times a day!

And someone mentioned yesterday…what is the thing growing on McCain’s face? Looks larger to me on the TV news. I doubt it would be related to melanoma….to be growing so much. Anyone know?

It’s his nose.

Where are my manners? Great catch, Jo. That quote needs to be in an Obama ad right away. Glenn Greenwald’s interview on Salon radio is with a professor who makes the strong case that the most regulated sectors of the financial industry are the ones faring best and it is the least regulated sectors that are in trouble.

It is mindboggling.

Cramer and Perlstein are on Tweety saying we have to pass this bill within the next few days or all is lost. I wonder if they stand to profit from this.

nah, he’ll just lie or say something to show just how clueless he is and lie about it later

I wonder how much they stand to lose. I don’t trust them.

Cramer says he’s itching to buy homes in California…he said he’d buy 5.

O Thanks. I forgot….Krugman on The Newshour. Likes Dodd’s proposal. Giveaway to Wall Street.

serious? asshole no doubt they are repos

Hank Paulson is a creep! Arrest that man!!!

Yup. Repos.

The bailout will provide one-stop-shopping for vulture investors.

Even Paulson today kept dropping pro deregulation gems in his testimony and on top of that while he is talking about the government putting up the money for this fiasco of a bailout he wants to use market mechanisms to run it and the same guys who created the meltdown to manage it.

I’m saying this on all the threads today: We have to find a way to make sure that part of the negotiations is an agreement from Bush not to have a signing statement on this one. The last thing we need is for a carefully negotiated oversight structure disappear because the deciderer says so.

Yes he did, Hugh. Basically he said today, “Man, do we need some regulation! *fanning face* We are out of control! Give us some regulation WITHOUT ACTUALLY REGULATING US to get us out of this mess, please!”.

Spit.

I just hope the Rats in Congress have enough spine to stand up to them this time. Oh wait…

And we also need a MEDIA that reports on him doing that and telling the American people the current president hates your guts and hopes you don’t notice that John McCain is just like him!

And I calculated this morning that 700 billion dollar bills lined up end to end would stretch 66 million miles. That’s two thirds of the way to the sun. Not the moon, the sun!

It sounds like we will need a trillion then to avoid a solar gap.

So. You have a bank whose assets X+Y = X

You let them give away Y, and they are still worth X.

Then, you value Y at 700 billion (after you take Y away from X)

Does that make 700 billion equal Y????

Or Y = 700 billion?

It sounds like we will need a trillion then to avoid a solar gap.

I feel morally bound to remind you of Icarus. But then, that’s probably the fate of these dollars anyway. Genuine Greek tragedy unfolding in real time.

Per MSNBC
‘FBI Investigating Companies at Heart of Financial Meltdown’

Investigating them for fraud….fraud you say

Congress must be getting overwhelmed with anger. I believe that I have signed about 15 different petitions today not to mention the ones yesterday. The people are watching and letting DC know what they think.

I hope they’re listening this time, unlike with FISA. This is getting scarey.

I’ve given my congress critters an earful (respectfully of course, even to DiFi) This whole thing stinks

great post joe

The list of industries crippled by the deregulators is legion… airlines, banking, insurance… and the successes well, I can’t name any overwhelming successfully “deregulated” industries right off the top of my head.

that’s because “deregulation” really means “forcing industry to pay their own bills”, it means “making certain businesses address the issues they created themselves”

regulation almost never arises from whole cloth, they are usually there because an industry created issues they refused to address and we were forced into making them

for instance, the auto industry was pouring their cancer into my kids air and refused to stop, refused to pay for the operation they caused my mom to have, we had to force them into paying their own bills

bing, the epa

that’s what a regulation is, it is in almost every case productive, regulation in almost every case SAVES us money it does NOT cost us money

in very few instances a particular regulation becomes obsolete or proves counter productive, (to US, not to their profit)

when a regulation proves counter productive to US, THEN we can “revisit” that regulation, we adjust it, we do NOT discard regulation pall mall simply because an industry wants to turn a few extra bucks profit

if there is an industry that cannot survive by paying the bills through regulation and this country counts on that industry, THEN we might relax that regulation so the industry survives

this process is for OUR benefit NOT that industy’s benefit and the fees must be had from somewhere…those fees are not simply forgotten, for instance, if they can’t pay to clean up their air and we need the industry then WE have to pay to clean up that air and if the industry EVER turns a profit we reclaim those expenditures we made on the industry’s behalf

this is the way we have to frame the “regulation” debate, we MUST point out the regulation was created by the industry NOT by government

Congress must be getting overwhelmed with anger. I believe that I have signed about 15 different petitions today not to mention the ones yesterday. The people are watching and letting DC know what they think.

What’s is so amazing that even among all their crazy, shady, stupid schemes this one is on a level all its own for its size, the unchecked power it would give to someone who wasn’t even elected, and the stupendous and obvious unfairness of it. Yet they offered it anyway. I keep coming back to Addington’s statement that I think is the operational philosophy of this Administration: “We’re going to push and push and push until some larger force makes us stop.”

someone care to explain to me why banks that aren’t in trouble would get a piece of this too? This alone screams rip off

dugg!

I hope they are investigating Goldman Sack[sic] cause they be sacking US.

((Margot))

how are you?

Sounds like this bill is a red herring looking for an “immunity” clause…

“It has the potential to be an epidemic,” Chris Swecker, the FBI official in charge of criminal investigations, told reporters in September 2004.”

“We think we can prevent a problem that could have as much impact as the S&L crisis,” he said.

Office Swecker to the Colleen Rowley Courtesy Telephone please . . .

LA Times

2004? yup this is a big ole heist. Raid and pilfer the treasury before they are out of power and leave us with nothing

Oh boy…

http://openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=8451

Wouldn’t surprise me.

someone care to explain to me why banks that aren’t in trouble would get a piece of this too? This alone screams rip off

Because you need a critical mass to establish a Schwarzschild limit. *g*

kay, the points made in the link do make sense but the premise is fundamentally flawed

there is no way anyone coueld imagine this economic disaster would not reflect on this adminsitration and the republicans who deregulated the industry

this turn of events has made it impossible for mccain to succeed

therefore, unless the president intends on using this “catastrophy” to invoke “directive 51″ and suspend the election, this economic disaster could not have been deliberately engineered to happen at this moment in time

Dugg!

I thought McCain took credit for “casino culture”…after all he created the Indian Casino bill.

And he’s constantly the one that says that people who take risks (and I suppose that means “foolish risks”) should be rewarded. Maverick gambled on the Mississippi riverboats…and McCain voted for legislation which allowed Wall Street to do so, as well. Now he’s decrying Wall Street for doing precisely what the legislation he voted for activated.

Here’s a thought. What if they want to bundle our insurance policies just like the mortgages into secondary and tertiary securities? See, the GOP has a plan to privatize health care!

a professor who makes the strong case that the most regulated sectors of the financial industry are the ones faring best and it is the least regulated sectors that are in trouble.

John McCain ponders, “Yes, but what do the people of Czechoslovakia think?”

The bailout will provide one-stop-shopping for vulture investors.

“lost” Iraq money, meet repo house in America.

At the end of the day the American people must ask themselves why the Republicans in Congress wouldn’t help get rid of the Bush administration. Why did they insist on putting us all through this long list of crises, mistakes, criminal activities and embarrassments?