Frist?

The Bush Economy

I was walking
down the isle
of the grocery store
and I heard
a little boy
ask his mother,

“Mommy,
can we buy
dog food
with
food stamps?”

poem by John Hulse from The Best and Worst Job I Ever Had (1985-2005)

I believe you’re right, Jane. McCain hasn’t the respect of his party, and neither does Boehner.
The bad part of that though, is that Eric Cantor will have a good shot at the Gooper leader spot in the house, which means way more face time for him. Any face time for him turns my stomach.

Seems like the Repubs had not trouble following Newt. Headline should be Repubs rebuke McBushBoehner, all hail Newt.

Pete DeFazio (D) (OR) was just on the local news, he voted against and flat out said that is is unnecessary.
Paraphrasing, he pointed to an accounting change that was used in the Clinton administration during the Savings and Loan disaster that was used to dig our way out.
He said that this accounting change could be signed into law by Bush and no bail out would be necessary.

I have to go to work so I don’t have time to try and find it.

It was on Channel 8 ,the local NBC affiliate in Portland Ore. this morning.

My bailout plan at Oxdown.

No matter what you want to say about the bailout, the Democratic leadership managed to actually lead. The Republicans agreed to a bill and then couldn’t deliver the votes they promised. Now every Republican congressman you’ve never heard of is engaging in triumphalism before the cameras, claiming success in bringing the bill down.

yes. but in the wrong direction. i take no pride in that.

why the democratic leadership decided to tie themselves to the paulson plan is completely beyond my ability to understand. they had a chance to distance themselves from reaganomics and the failure of neoliberal policy - and what did they do? they left the field free for the republicans to respond to popular anger over the bail out.

really stupid. and playing dangerous games with the future of our country.

Oh happy day. The only good news about the financial mess is that people are now shocked into actually paying attention. Bush and his “associates” can do nothing but lie, we already knew that but now the other people are listening. And, now people who want answers from McCain and Palin will actually hear that they have No Answers, just spittle and blathering. I’m really looking forward to Thursday evening.
The revolution couldn’t happen while everyone was happy. Sorry that everyone has to suffer, but that’s how it is.

They’re doing ads here in AZ mocking Shadegg for being excessively proud of his extreme loyalty to party first and stating that it would be better if he gave his loyalties to country first! Now you know why. He’s about 12 slices short of a loaf!

Seems like the Repubs had not trouble following Newt. Headline should be Repubs rebuke McBushBoehner, all hail Newt.

exactly.

so instead of the Rs being tied to the Bush eonomic policies and the Ds repudiating them. what do we have? the Ds supporting Bush and Rs repudiating him. argh!

marcy kaptur was on washington journal this morning, and it sounded like the the bush administration got together with the congressional leadership of both parties to push the bailout through.

Moveon.org has an ad out answering the question who is responsible for the meltdown. Shows John McCain saying “my friends” and showing Gramm and Davis. Really good ad in my opinion.
Listen up America.

No matter what you want to say about the bailout, the Democratic leadership managed to actually lead.

I thought we didn’t like it when Pelosi said politicians like her led while we just advocate.

The Republican base is still following Reagan and waiting for the second coming of the unseen hand to save America.

Hang on, the Goopers are wrestling for the steering wheel of their Bus.

Firepups, please help me out here. I am having a devil of a time trying to understand all of the ramifications of voting no on this bill as opposed to voting yes. It was my understanding that liquidity of the markets was of great concern because this is the end of the fiscal year and many companies will soon borrow funds to carry them throughout 2009. My husband’s company is one of those, and we are worried about the loss of jobs connected to the immediate problem of not being able to borrow. Can anyone help me out? Thanks.

i came away thinking NANCY is a genious….she looks like she is trying for accomadation,and the speech callng out shrub and the gopers,made them say NO….a win win,win…back to the drawing board

Hiya, pups!

Hey, Jane - David Neiwert says “Hi.” He’s enjoying the Alaska autumn, and is investigating Palin’s weird background, with aplomb and fire.

This may break today - Palins implicated in threats to the comany that processes workmans compensation claims:

An Alaska woman who owns a company that processes workers’ compensation claims in the state has told an independent investigator that she was urged by the office of Gov. Sarah Palin to deny a benefits claim for Palin’s ex brother-in-law, a state trooper who was involved in an ugly divorce and child custody dispute with Palin’s sister, despite evidence that the claim appeared to be legitimate, according to state officials who were briefed about the conversation.

Murlene Wilkes, the proprietor of Harbor Adjusting Services in Anchorage, had originally denied that she was pressured by Gov. Palin’s office to deny state trooper Mike Wooten’s claim for workers compensation benefits.

But Wilkes changed her story two weeks ago when she was subpoenaed by Steven Branchflower, the former federal prosecutor who was appointed in July to probe allegations Gov. Palin, Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s running mate,

Yeah, Pete was on Randi Rhodes show yesterday, I heard that plan, it sounded very reasonable, etc.

He also pretty much admitted, in that “I can’t say this but you know what I mean” kind of way that they manufactured the crisis. That something needed to be done, but it wasn’t as bad as they made it out to be, until Paulson opened his mouth about how bad it was, and created a “self fulfilling prophecy.”

Larry Kudlow is whistling past the grave on Sarah Palin. Sez she is terrific & Biden is a loose cannon. Kouric interview is unimportant. Other CNBC guys are attacking him bigtime. What fun.

The Republican base is still following Reagan and waiting for the second coming of the unseen hand to save America.

Just called my Irish bookie.

Early line is 10-1 that The Rapture beats Reaganomics to the finish line.

sorry - sucker bet.

No one can give you a cogent answer because all the “evidence” is anecdotal, and suspect because fear is their greatest weapon at this moment.

Has your husband actually gone to the bank for yearend borrowing and been turned down?

It has to be that “mark to market” deal I was asking about earlier.

GOP in disarray. They’ve always been the ones who had all the keys on the board, ducks in a row, so they could march lockstep and get things accomplished.
Today, not so much.
Nancy is maybe a genius? Gosh, just yesterday someone here was damn her to hell. Trying to make the point that some times we should breathe for a minute before we say things that five minutes later we are proved wrong about. Maybe?

Saw that. Fun indeed. How can Larry say those things? Is he freaking out?

I still say Dems should now take the opportunity to write their own, partisan bill — the bill that should have been written in the first place.

They can say they tried to work in a bi-partisan manner but Republicans were too interested in politicizing the issue so now Democrats have to be the grown ups and take charge of the situation.

We have the votes to pass legislation on a strictly partisan vote in the House. Then the ball’s in R’s court. Will they filibuster in the Senate? Will they pass it and let Bush veto, after predicting Armageddon if we don’t pass something post haste?

Or perhaps they’ll have to swallow hard and allow an Old-School, New Deal Democratic bill pass and begin the process of turning this mess around.

many of us here opposed the Bill as voted on because it was essentially a WH plan - 700 Billion with only token oversight measures

it did not address mortgage holders

it did not address bankruptcy

it was essentially giving money to the the gangstas who caused this mess

it put re regulation and looking in to the root causes aside

I too have to read everything 2 or 3 times to grasp basic concepts and mechanics of the situation -

that said, if you read Ian’s post from late yesterday afternoon, one gets the impression that a big part of the credit markets freezing up is MANUFACTURED by the lenders as a means of scaring everyone in to simply injecting the 700B in to the markets - kinda “give us the money and we’ll address the causes later”

I’m sure one of the smarter kids will be along in a minute to flesh it out better for you :D

Kudlow is an addict. He seems to have kicked the coke habit, but not the R habit.

Yes, but don’t hold your breath. Besided W would threaten a veto & it probably couldn’t get thru the senate anyhow.

I think the GOP has reached a tipping point between loyalty to Bush/the GOP and Election reality in other words Things Are Coming Undone!
How they will break is the question? How will they reform after the election?
Bush getting blamed by the GOP for an election defeat will mean that Bush will have less protection against future investigations under an Obama administration.

I respectfully resubmit my alternative:

1. acquire a combination of bad and good assets from goods from the cancerbanks through a combination of two means: assuming their (good) depositor liabilities and by issuing new special treasury securities (more on that later)…no cash payout with taxpayer funds.

2. Place these assets and depositor liabilities into one or more safe government-created banks (these can soak up unemployed bankers at GS pay grades). These guvbanks may be privatized at some future date, and will probably require some amount of treasury intervention, but they would be legally precluded from further risky behavior and, since they’re owned by the government, would (in the interim) have very low or non-existent reserve requirements (deferring the pain, and allowing them time to recover without the inflationary and j-curve risks of the current plan). Some really toxic assets might be unwound and retired.

3. Leave risky liabilities (swaps, derivatives) and some really awful toxic assets behind at the cancerbanks (now drastically shrunk), and since they no longer hold substantial depositor liabilities or mortgages, they can be left to fail. In partial compensation for siezed lost assets (less their transferred liabilities), they can be issued with TOILETS, a new form of treasury security (I came up with this one in the shower)

4. TOILETS stand for Transitional Obligation-Impaired-Loan-Elimination Tradable Securities, and are, well, the value-equivalent of toilet paper. TOILETS give the cancerbanks a call on the Treasury for some amount of money, to replace their confiscated assets, but subject to a great deal of subordination and conditions that would include limiting payouts to a capped percentage of future Federal budget surpluses (like that’ll happen in our lifetimes). TOILETS are (1) as good as used toilet paper, (2) designed to take their holders down into the toilet with them, and (3) a general commentary on the state of things.

5. Cancerbank CEOs and other senior execs must be paid in TOILETS. This’ll provide them an incentive to work for improving the economy.. since their securities will be effectively worthless unlses things improve tremendously.

6. TOILETS will be fully tradable…. cancerbanks may settle their derivative and swap market liabilities with them, if they so choose. They simply represent the marked-to-market explosure to these instruments for these banks, and their imputed value will be set accordingly.

This solution should satisfy the American masses’ demand for revenge :P Of course, most of this would probably be illegal, but that shouldn’t be a problem for our current administration.

Digg and Reddit this post!

still worth doing on the off chance it can be passed. and also because it would give them practice writing good legislation.

But the GOP is authoritarian. If they don’t have a Great Leader to tell them what to do, they run around like chickens with their heads cut off.

new MoveOn ad - a good ‘un indeed !

oooh so very mean, maybe McGimmick can get Brokaw to stop the network from airing it :D

Yes, but don’t hold your breath. Besided W would threaten a veto & it probably couldn’t get thru the senate anyhow.

Agreed either of those scenarios are more likely, but even in that case Dems can blame R’s for obstructing any attempts at a bailout and that will be fresh in voters’ minds come Nov. 4.

would give them practice writing good legislation

Surely you jest.

We’ll see what happens in January after some of the new more progressive Ds get in, but in the meantime, it’s hopeless.

Not yet. He is not a financial officer, but is in the executive group and they are concerned. They are a medium sized seed and horticultural supply firm. We have already taken a hit as his job was downsized to a lesser salary last year when he completed the computer rehab program they hired him for as a specialist, now that the project has been finished they decided to table the any new projects and he has had to take a steep pay cut just to retain his job. A job, I might add, that we rolled the dice on five years ago, by moving into one of the areas of the country with the highest cost of living and even though we purchased a modest home, we are hanging on by our fingernails. I am a painter and, needless to say, no one is buying art. Also a writer, but my punlishing house declared bacnkruptcy in January. Just wanted to put some details out there. It seems a lot of folks think that only profligate spenders and dead enders are in trouble in this economy.

Poor him. Too bad his friends are so distracted with this adjustment that they’re too busy to do an intervention.
You know me, I usually try to be the sympathetic, kumbaya caring type, but I’m feeling more like Too Bad, So Sad for the Kudlow types this am.
Okay, I’ve had my dip in the lake and the coffee’s gone. Time for breakfast and a sit down with my serious writing. See ya later.

Bottom line — McCain came to Washington to lead, and nobody followed.

You’re right, Jane, but ya know what though? I saw the conservatives who screwed the deal having a presser on C-SPAN last night and 2 of them said McCain inspired them to stand up for their principles. So, from what they said, they did follow McCain and screwed up the whole deal that Gran’pa was supposed to have forged. Didn’t see any Democrats there. So much for reaching out a across the aisle.

true.

in january congress will still be conservative and in any event, there will be enough to filibuster any progressive legislation.

why the reluctance to push for something good now? if it’s bad we can oppose it.

If the GOP members voted no because of their constituents, then how about we here at the Lake put together a “constituent friendly” economic plan with StrangeBedfellows and send it to the Reps and all the Dems?

The time is ripe for a netroots effort.

i think he like Novacula is another Jewish Opus Dei faithfull…”g”

Thanks. I will check out Ian’s colunm.

(((citizensue)))
Sorry to hear your story and I hope you can continue to hang in.

Only the Rs think it’s profligate spenders who get into trouble. Happens to the best as well.

Luv them TOILETs!

Meanwhile, since the rebel GOPers have seized maverick status by defying their Leaders, McSame’s mavericity quotient can only have fallen commensurately. (Assuming that mavericity is fungible.)

I think we agree

Oh, this is awesome. It looks like Mr. Shadegg is still a little miffed that Mr. Boehner got the job he wanted, and he managed to screw Blunt, the other serious competition, and solidify himself with the lunatic “fiscal conservative” supply siders at the same time.

Gosh, it would be an awful shame if the embarassing bombthrowers ended up ruling a weakened minority and behaved so badly that the Democratic leadership didn’t feel compelled to negotiate with them, wouldn’t it?

marcy kaptur on washington journal this morning said that in congress there was a bipartisan effort by the Ds and Rs who didn’t like the bailout to fashion an alternative that they would then take to their leadership. i thought that was great.

Krugman says that this bill is better than no bill at all, and that seems to be the opinion of most reasonable academic economists. IIUC, Ian says this bill is too flawed and we’re better off holding out for better, as do several other economists who make sense to me.

It was my understanding that liquidity of the markets was of great concern because this is the end of the fiscal year and many companies will soon borrow funds to carry them throughout 2009.

It isn’t a liquidity crisis. You can pump in as much liquidity as you want. Indeed Bernanke on his own has made available $620 billion in currency swaps to foreign central banks for just such contingencies as you describe. He and the central banks have essentially taken over this function. The real problem is credit. Bankers don’t want to lend to other banks or other financial players because they don’t know who is solvent and who isn’t. This is the fallout from financial companies not declaring their losses from the mortgage debacle. It was this that the Paulson plan was so expensively and ineptly supposed to handle. The fact is that the value of these assets and/or losses can be known if the government simply told them what it considered they were worth. The Paulson plan proposed reverse auctions to establish this value. That was a charade. In such an auction, both the government and the companies already had to know something about what those assets were worth to do the auction, and if they knew that they didn’t need the auctions to discover it.

What needs to happen is that Treasuy tells companies this is how you valuate your mortgage related securities, and have them declare what their worth is under this formula. The worst will have to be liquidated. The others re-regulated and recapitalized and then credit can flow again because banks know they can lend to each other without it being a gamble.

It seems a lot of folks think that only profligate spenders and dead enders are in trouble in this economy.

hell no. not even in the best of economies. that’s one of the reasons we’re supposed to have safety nets. good luck to you both.

Thanks for the hugs eCHAN. I’m hopeful we can stick it out, but our savings are surely dwindling.
Still, we know that we have it much better than many others.

We are not surprised:

House members who voted yes received 54 percent more than from banks/securities firms.»

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/.....s-bailout/
Pleading guily are my 3: Schumer, Clinton, Maloney. They would probably say they were trying to save Wall St. jobs. Bwahahahahaha.

Bankers don’t want to lend to other banks or other financial players because they don’t know who is solvent and who isn’t.

can you make a guess how much of the industry is solvent?

This morning John Shadegg (R-AZ) was just on Morning Joe saying Boehner’s excuse for the bill not passing — GOP House members having their tender feelings hurt by Nancy Pelosi’s speech

A classic scene in the spy thriller “Ronin” has Rober de Niro as an ex-CIA spook, Sam.

Spence: You ever kill anybody?
Sam: I hurt somebody’s feelings once.

I don’t think the conversations in the cloakroom before the vote did Boehner any good in helping him feel comfortable in retaining his leadership position in next year’s congress.

As I said in my post last night, the anger in the GOP is directed right at him, at Blunt, and at Bush and his White House. Heckuva job, fellas.

Thanks, Hugh. I think I’m getting my head around this.

I want to know what positions Darrell Issa took in the stock market yesterday.

OT
Road in front of my house was dug up about 2 months ago. Put on about 2-3 subsurfaces, with attendant noise, dust, oil spray. Finally putting on top coat today. The house is very close to the road, so I won’t be sorry to see that project come to an end.

Parts 1 and 2 seem like nationalize and regulate the banks which I’m cool with
Part 3 seems like you would leave the banks only with bad debt and would force them all to bankruptcy I’m cool with that but it might be politically impossible.

conditions that would include limiting payouts to a capped percentage of future Federal budget surpluses (like that’ll happen in our lifetimes).

The GOP and CEO’s will call Blackwater first unless we do have a real revolution.

Schumer and Clinton voted on the House bill?

uh, isn’t his junk all supposed to be in a “blind trust” ???

Hugh or eCahnnomics ???

My brain fart.

Got a list of votes from CSPAN yesterday and put them all in the same package. Because we know how Clinton & Schumer would have voted had they had the chance.

well, this is it, nonplused tells us there is an acutal recording of paulson INSURING the bankers that the safeguards the democrats wrote into this bill are EASILY circumvented

that is SMOKING GUN, paulson is a CRIMINAL, we ALL knew it, now we have clear evidence

he wants to steal from us 700 billion dollars, wolf guarding hens

in addition, I don’t the link but someone mentioned there is a kos diary that documents only 100 billion in defaulted loans, 100 billion

if true, and we have to find out, then 700 billion gives paulson all he needs to both fix the mess AND steal from us 600 billion

this is a deliberate undermine of our economy

Here’s some more on the Skeptics Caucus:

http://www.livemint.com/2008/0.....win-o.html

I think we will see the new bill come out of this group.

Krugman says that this bill is better than no bill at all

I find Krugman’s statement incredibly stupid. It is a strawman argument. It places the onus on those who do not support a bad bill rather than on those who wrote it. Why didn’t Paulson come up with a better plan, one that was something more than a generous bailout to his friends on Wall Street?

He also pretty much admitted, in that “I can’t say this but you know what I mean” kind of way that they manufactured the crisis. That something needed to be done, but it wasn’t as bad as they made it out to be, until Paulson opened his mouth about how bad it was, and created a “self fulfilling prophecy

I have words, two of them;

directive 51

I interpreted Loo Hoo’s comment as a snark. And I’ll add one. The only thing that’s blind about a “blind” trust is the public’s inabiliy to see what is going on.

McCain sat in on the 2nd part of Palin’s interview with Couric? I assume that was planned in advance. Did that air? I didn’t watch the first part because I figured she’d just regurgitate the talking points. Of course, by now i’ve heard about it and read the transcript. Jeez. But for those of you licking your chops over Thursday night………… I think she’ll calm down and do at least decently - which will be considered doing well seeing as how low the bar is set. Plus Biden can be a screw up, but i don’t expect that. On the trail, sure, but not in debates. Hopefully.

Is it considered bipartisan if both parties refuse to follow St. McCain?
Cindy’s little man may need to pull the magic POW card out of the deck again.

True.

The GOP and CEO’s will call Blackwater first unless we do have a real revolution.

I have words, two of them, see my 61

Per fivethirtyeight.com, we are likely to elect 18 democrats and 17 republicans this time around, which isn’t much of a gain except for the fact that five of those democrats are replacing republicans.

The bankers need the extra money to pay tributes to Cheney and the Bush family.

I read these comments and cannot believe the bedfellows this thing has produced. Not sayin’ that’s good or bad, just real interesting.

This crisis has not been Krugman’s finest hour. I think he is falling into the problem I described earlier, i.e., bailouts have always been the way credit crunches were solved, whereas in this case, we need a different approach.

me been warning about this ‘catastrophe” for some time

bush has the exact same look on his face as when he was told we were under attack

I have words, two of them

POW card

Prisioner of Washington?
Prisioner of “W”?

I think that only works with some voters. I don’t think Congresspeople give a shit.

two words

my new mantra

“I have words, two of them”

whenever I say this, that is what I said

OMG. Just as you’ve all suspected. I’m running to get me knitting needles…or maybe a pitchfork first, knitting needles later.

good ones.

No argument there. A horrible sellout bill.

hehe.. actually, it’ll basically shrink ‘em into oblivion (since you’re basically bailing them out by transferring bad consumer debt/mortgages and paying for that toxic stuff with a combination of TOILETS and the forced assumption of their good (depositor) liabilities) instead of with cash. So basically they’d just get smaller… consisting only of their risky (non-consumer) liabilities and some really toxic assets. They can then go off and die without further harming (too badly) the rest of the economy. The actual banks will be the new guvbanks, which will be trouble and require ongoing support, but this support will come in progressively instead of in one very expensive shot… basically, the TOILETS defer the requirement to bankrupt the treasury and spread it out, more manageably, over time.

I think it was a different, joint interview. Here’s a priceless clip.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/220763.php
Also Couric did interviews with Biden & Palin (separately I think), asking them each the same Qs, to be aired before the Veep debate. Rumor has it that Palin did not redeem herself.

“Oh the soft discrimination of low expectations….

You can find any GOP talking point and find that it directly applies to their tactics. Or is that Strategy?

Yes but his only other card is the Palin card and the psychotic grin on her face scares people.

ok, selise posted the link to the audio

http://firedoglake.com/2008/09.....-new-bill/

paulson insuring the “safeguards” were easily circumvented

get our congresscriters this info STAT

OK, can someone please explain to this economic ignoramus (me) some stuff: why is the market up so far today? does that mean …. what does it mean, if anything? does that mean maybe we can say muddle through for awhile so as to get a better bill or no bill?

If they don’t have a Great Leader to tell them what to do, they run around like chickens with their heads cut off.

I see it differently - these Republics are their Party’s Frankensteins - raised up under the Reagan mantle, now drunk on what they perceive to be their own effectiveness after 8 years of stunts/kabuki (Brooks Bros riot anyone ?)

and now they roam the countryside freely terrorizing the citizenry

IF we survive through January, I am encouraged that they will predictably screech and oppose anything the Dem Majority advocates - which will go a long way in keeping them a minority Party

I’m serious. I’ll bet he made a small fortune (on top of his large fortune) yesterday.

OT AOL has one of their notorious polls that asks the question who is responsible for the current economic meltdown and who can best address economic issues. At the moment Democrats lead in who is responsible and Republicans lead in who can best deal with the economic crisis. Talk about an alternate universe!

The Republics don’t have a “Great Leader”, but they do have a “Dear Leader”.

I don’t know the difference. Such a naive babe in the woods, I am.

get our congresscriters this info STAT

what DOES “stat” stand for, anyway?

That’s shocking…not the poll but that someone still uses AOL.

who uses AOL?

People who are too dim to realize that there are many better platforms out there.

And tenaciously clinging to the past, because they’re ‘more comfortable’ with it - it’s what they know.

Exhibits “A” and “B” - my parents.

Take your pick.

I know, right. ‘memeber when Newton was their peerless leader and shut down the government?

can you make a guess how much of the industry is solvent?

Maybe someone more clued into the banking system could make a guess but the truth is we won’t know until they do the valuation. What I can take a stab at is the size of the losses, and I have done this before. In a mortgage market with a face value of something like $12 trillion a 40% loss in value would amount to $4.8 trillion. This amount represents the loss of value to the whole system and would have to be borne by everyone from homeowners to the end holders of mortgage backed securities.

Yes please tell me why the Dems and Rethugs are half and half. Both sides faced angry voters (and stomping at the media pulpit) whether the vote was yes or no. Someone I know who works in finance is convinced that Congress has ruined market recovery by voting down this bill. I don’t believe a word of it. And I told my congress critters so, and yet they voted aye. I am sickened. Somebody tell me what I should say to Rosa Delauro who voted aye. And what was Pelosi’s deal?

LooHoo and eCahnnomics -
I too was being snarky in my blind trust comment - as in you’d have to be blind to trust these fuckers with anything :D

Buy low sell high they hope the market won’t go lower they hope a deal raises the market soon I think lots of people after a quick buck I do not advise following their example.

Count me as dim. Well, I was using aol but then it got all fucked up and i don’t know what happened so i use something else now. So I’m a recovering dimwit, i guess. the aol polls always skew to the gop this year. that’s why i was shocked when i saw one that said obama won the debate.

I use AOL for email. It’s now free. Had it forever so everyone who I like knows it. Pretty good spam control. If I used the ones associated with my cable corp, I would be geographically identified whenever I sent an email. Prefer to be geographically anonymous.

makes sense.

re: the Republics Frankensteins -

This Clown emboldened the lil terrorists

I’m fast on dishing out snarks but slow at recognizing them.

In a mortgage market with a face value of something like $12 trillion a 40% loss in value would amount to $4.8 trillion. This amount represents the loss of value to the whole system and would have to be borne by everyone from homeowners to the end holders of mortgage backed securities.

That’s exactly what I think we’re facing. So, the question is, whose accounts diminish by that amount? Pension funds? Mutual funds? Foreign governments? Etc.

Here’s a link with a lot of info on the Paulson conference call:

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com.....ction.html

The DJ is up 265, I thought it was going to be another bloodbath today?

here’s the pelosi speach, see and elle found it on youtube

this is the stuff I fell in love with pelosi till she took “impeachment off the table”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey3ZlsmIkz4

Is this credible?

McBush’s team–i.e., Karl Rove and his henchpersons– have their plan in place to steal this next election: by 51.2% of the popular vote, and three electoral votes.

The way the market is going even if Paulson got everything he wanted we still might have to Nationalize the banks.
For without regulation designed to stop bad practices at the banks the Banks will keep doing what they were doing I’m sure they would change it up some and pray for another bubble to ride leaving us exactly again where we are now.

Stop…
Buyers and seller equal market
Confidence… what Bushco-Bermanke-Paulson are selling, drives the markers-Psychology
Capital the engine of the economy
Expanded the economy yesterday by injecting more capital which is growing by 2.8% now.
Yesterday injected 630000 one million piles of dollars into Federal Reserve from US Treasury to be available to be loaned to businesses so they can do their normal borrowing to make purchses to provide goods and services to consumers.
That is a big supply of capital
Over valued assests need to be revalued not bought by taxpayers (USA)mark to market.
The screw job is Bushco wants us to unload the overvalued assets on taxpayers.
Do we need to trade 700,000 $1,000.000.00 worth of corporate toxic paper? That would have to be a very bad investment by any standard throwing good money away so our wealthy day traders (gamblers at the Wall Street Casino) can get a huge free lunch while 50,000,000 poverty level Americans go without food, shelter or health care?

Bushco-Bermanke-Paulson are representing the investors not us. They should be on the other side of the table. They are supposed to represent us.

Want to know why no one is following McCain or Boehner on the bailout? Because they were spending too much time talking to Gingrich.
“Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was working aggressively behind the scenes to defeat the Wall Street rescue plan minutes before he himself released a public statement in support of the package, NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reported on Tuesday.

Gingrich was whipping up votes for the opposition, Mitchell said, apparently without the knowledge of the current GOP leader, John Boehner…Mike Barnicle offered his own bit of reportorial insight: “Andrea, I could hug you for saying that, because I was told last night by two or they members of Congress that this was the opening salvo of Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign four years hence.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....30487.html

A couple of the “experts” on CNBC who are being asked “what now” are sounding mighty like Sarah Palin. They really don’t know what to say when their talking points are no longer relevant.

correction/largely automated prophit taking.. unless there’s better news the bloodbath will continue tomorrow and proceed on alternating days thereafter. It’s just how the market works.

profit even

may have something to do with the $630 billion with B Bernanke printed up yesterday :D

PBS displayed the salaries of CEOS last Sunday. I would say that in itself would bite into the 700B, because that bill didn’t address CEO salaries did it? Please tell me if I am wrong.

Here is a direct download of the Paulson audio:

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4418763

OH MAH FRIGGING GAWD!!!1

man oh man, we need to get this viral STAT

Search Bradblog on electronic election fraud stories I trust him.

http://www.bradblog.com/

If that’s true, I think Newt Gingrich should go out and brag about it, so everyone can know how he punked McSame and Pelosi. It would sure make McSame’s “experience” in bipartisan dealings look less than “awesome.”

Great Newt wants in on shaping the new Republican party after McCain brings the party down in November.

Respectfully. strongly disagree with:
“…this bill is better than no bill at all, and that seems to be the opinion of most reasonable academic economists”.
There is a long list of eminenet econs some Nobel Prise winners that think it will do much more harm than good… and it will.
Surely wigwam you meant otherwise?

sorry for o/t sort of…

AOL poll on bailout asks which party you trust more on the economy. A wide margin for goopers!!! OMG!!!

the $630 billion with B Bernanke printed up yesterday

… before the vote occurred.

Of course the exec comp provisions are a joke. Who do you think is going to be hiring all those banking cmte staffers and newly retired congresspeople next year during the inevitable post-election turnover? Do you really think they’re going to vote to limit their salaries? Remember that for lots of people on the Hill (including elected reps), govt work is merely time you spend accumulating credentials in preparation for your real life’s work in the vastly richer private world.

Ummm, good point.

Thanks Blub, kinda what I thought but a lot of the talking heads last nite were saying it would open way down. At this point I’m trusting to FDL for more accurate news, especially Ian’s very insightful explanations and everyone else’s.

Hugh we have seen a lot of corporation report lower values over the last year. Is some of the toxic already restated?

Great Newt should just get it over with and give McSame and the Rethuglican party one last kick.

Honestly, I have to agree with Selise that this is all a crock. I believe something has to be done but frankly the administration could do it. Instead, they make a money grab and try to hang Dems with bad news on wall street. All in time for the fricking elections.

My sampling was at most half a dozen but they quoted their colleagues as also saying that this bill is better than nothing. None of them said it was a good bill.

Yep..sagging values leverage your credit downward. Libor the lending points tacked onto big loans is at an all time high.

Huffington Post has an article how Tom Brokaw has been pandering to the McCain campaign. Brokaw has become nothing more than a rich, priviledged celebrity who is the furthest thing from an honest representative of the 4th Estate. I’m hoping NBC is being flooded with phone calls and emails protesting Brokaw. He is going to be moderating the next presidential debate and there is every reason to believe that he will game the debate to put McCain in the best light and try and hamstring Obama.

Here, for instance, is Krugman today:

Jamie Galbraith, pre-House-debacle, offers a jaundiced pro-Dodd-Frank argument essentially the same as mine:

In short, as I said at the beginning, the bill is a vast improvement over the original Treasury proposal. Given the choice between approving or defeating the bill as it stands, I would urge supporting the bill. I do so without illusions. There need be no pretense that it will solve our underlying financial and economic problems. It will not. The purpose, in my view, is to get the financial system and the economy through the year, and into the hands of the next administration. That is a limited purpose, but a legitimate purpose. And it may be the most that can be accomplished for the time being.

He also talks about what should be in a rescue package, emphasizing recapitalization through purchase of preferred shares. Again, I agree.

The academic economists seem to vastly prefer that the government inject money into institutions that are too importants to fail by purchasing preferred shares, as opposed to buying toxic assets, which Paulson thinks are under-valued.

A site has a petition up that he be removed from the debate. Can’t remember which but will look for it.

There is a petition being circulated to get Brokaw booted
http://www.thepetitionsite.com.....-moderator

Thanks. That has been my opinion for a long time, but I didn’t know anyone shared it.

I would say yes, but it is hard to say how much because it has happened in such a chaotic, disorganized fashion.

PBS displayed the salaries of CEOS last Sunday. I would say that in itself would bite into the 700B, because that bill didn’t address CEO salaries did it? Please tell me if I am wrong.

Only prospectively and only in certain instances.

No matter what you want to say about the bailout, the Democratic leadership managed to actually lead.

They’ve mitigated some of the worst of Paulson’s initial ransom note of a bill, but Paulson and friends are still doing the leader. I’m glad that McCain is a laughingstock and that Democrats get brownie points for seriousness here, but much gladder that our Republican friends (the Lord moves in mysterious ways) have sunk this.

This crisis, whatever it’s scale really is, demands a political and democratic — and therefore Democratic — solution.

may have something to do with the $630 billion with B Bernanke printed up yesterday :D

There has been a big expansion in these currency swaps but it was done over a few days. Yesterday increased the limits from $290 billion to $620 billion.

The academic economists seem to vastly prefer that the government inject money into institutions that are too importants to fail by purchasing preferred shares, as opposed to buying toxic assets, which Paulson thinks are under-valued.

My bold. this must be why goopers want to suspend mark to market accounting which would tie the price of those toxic assets to those toxic assets already sold at low prices????

yea i posted the notes on Americablog………………juicy

They’ve mitigated some of the worst of Paulson’s initial ransom note of a bill

This is actually not true. Paulson could do as much under the “compromise” bill as he could have under his original plan.

Not exactly.
All that capital that exited the market yesterday…you know the trillion+ it dropped…well a lot of that went to T Bills so he had a lot of dollars to lend. Just sayin amy not be a all printing.

another post
Lern2Internets: GOP Sexist Gaffe VotefortheMILF.com is Gone

“fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”

Good arguments on all sides. But I just despise these “smartest guys in the room”. It is beyond logic, Paulson is the Devil pulling another False Flag Op. A Partisan, Liberal Rescue, yes. But no bi-partisan deals with neo-cons.

oh My from John A

Republican party was secretly opposing bailout bill BEFORE Pelosi spoke
John Aravosis (DC) · 9/30/2008 11:02:00 AM ET · Link
Make a comment · reddit · FARK · Digg It! · Stumble It!

We now find out that the Republican party cut ads, and sent them to TV stations around the country, opposing the bailout bill even BEFORE Pelosi spoke before the vote yesterday. The Republican National Committee, the official “party,” was planning on the bill passing, and then was going to attack Democrats who voted FOR the bill. Talk about calloused. So in fact, the Republican party was playing games, playing politics, with our economy. Did the RNC tell individual members of Congress that they were going to be running ads attacking anyone who voted for the bill? Is this why Republican members voted against the bill 2 to 1 (while Dems voted for the bill almost 2 to 1), sending Wall Street into a nose dive? And what about John McCain? What does it say about him when his own party is secretly undercutting the proposal that he claimed to “save the day” on?

Thanks so much. I was looking for that.

I presume you’re right. And they haven’t mitigated the political damage that would come from passing this bill, either.

They want to practice Tinkerbell economics. Replacing mark-to-market with mark-to-maturity let’s the banks place whatever value they like on an asset, in which case balance sheets have no meaning. It’s permission to “cook the books.”

Are they really the rethugs really that scared that they voted no to the bailout? And really, why aren’t the Dems scared? They should be. I’m pissed.

The Republican National Committee, the official “party,” was planning on the bill passing, and then was going to attack Democrats who voted FOR the bill. Talk about calloused. So in fact, the Republican party was playing games, playing politics, with our economy.

It is impossible to over-estimate the cynicism of 95% of the Replicans and about 65% of the Democrats.

Good questions all. I am wondering myself.

Rethuglicans: the party for criminals, opportunists, and the far-right lunatic fringe.
Democrats: the party for (fill in the blanks if you feel like it.)

Are they really the rethugs really that scared that they voted no to the bailout?

I’ve posted this before, but it’s very important and helpful in understanding what happened yesterday.

Per Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com:

This was predictable, I suppose, but it’s remarkable to see how strong a relationship there is between today’s failed vote on the bailout and the competitive nature of different House races.

Among 38 incumbent congressmen in races rated as “toss-up” or “lean” by Swing State Project, just 8 voted for the bailout as opposed to 30 against: a batting average of .211.

By comparison, the vote among congressmen who don’t have as much to worry about was essentially even: 197 for, 198 against.

[…]

Also, Nate now projects Obama’s “win percentage” (likelihood of winning in November) at 83%.

They want to practice Tinkerbell economics. Replacing mark-to-market with mark-to-maturity let’s the banks place whatever value they like on an asset, in which case balance sheets have no meaning. It’s permission to “cook the books.”

Yes, and I have yet to hear anyone explain to me how cooking the books is supposed to help fix the system.

Laura Flanders has GRITtv across the hall!
Why Is It So Difficult to Vote?

So Congress critters know that voters think the bill sucks?!? And will only vote yes or no depending on whether it will disadvantge them in an election. No principle? No care for the public in terms of the economy? Disgusting.

It’s the Tinkerbell principle: The banks will survive if we simply believe that they are solvent.

83% that sounds to good to be true. Link?

Exactly!

It’s comparable to your odds in one round of Russian roulette.

Fixing the system is not the goal. The Paulson/Wall Street goal is scamming the system.

And the whole, you know - gazillion dollars thing.

Anyone have a link handy for how the Critters voted? I’m afraid mine got herded into the yea’s.

This is an interesting site
http://www.fedupusa.com/

HR 3997 roll call?

Huh? And what are my odds in one round of russian roulette?

New Christy upstairs!
John McCain’s Pre-9/11 Mindset: “[I]s this guy, Laden, really the bad guy that’s depicted?”

Why do bills tend to have oblique titles? To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide earnings assistance and tax relief to members of the uniformed services, volunteer firefighters, and Peace Corps volunteers, and for other purposes. Could we expand on those other purposes?

Thanks! Mine did right after all.

Derived from BT’s link to the roll yesterday:

Note: H.R.3997 is the vehicle for the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. See documents on the House Financial Services Committee website.

Basically, it looks like they took the original H.R. 3997, gutted it completely, and recycled the number because it already existed in the system? Someone more knowledgable could probably explain this better.

Looks like it didn’t show the link. Hrr.

Library of Congress on H.R. 3997

That was me and I stand by it unless Pelosi was intentionally trying to get the Rethugs to sabotage the bill, which I don’t believe. While the Rethug leadership was sitting around scratching their balls Pelosi was twisting arms trying to get votes for the bill.

Thanks Jane.