The Mitt Romney video is brilliantly on point. Herman Cain singing John Lennon’s “Imagine” isn’t.

This has been described as another bailout, and it’s not hard to see why. The derivatives go into the insured institution, protecting the counter-parties, and they would be paid off in the event of a failure. Notice that the counter-parties themselves are managing the process, requesting that their bets get implicit government backing. The notional value on these derivatives trades is $75 trillion, with a T. This includes their European derivatives exposure. And according to Bloomberg, JPMorgan Chase has already done this.

In David Brooks latest he explains the good news, that Hard Times are making Americans into a grimly moral and introspective people given to thrift and self-denial as opposed to the frivolous life embracing people we once were who ran up our national credit cards on flatscreens, the latest doodads from Apple, and the occasional big night out splurging on a foreign war or two. And sure those guys that the damn dirty hippies are protesting against are bad actors in this drama, but really good common salt-of-the-earth Americans should be tending to their own gardens and maybe those bad guys will learn a thing or two and be shamed into not being enormous greedheads.

So there I was this morning, having completed my daily check for jobs in my chosen field of Software Quality Assurance and Testing (I do wish it would take longer than five minutes as that would mean there are actually some improvements in the economy but such is life), when I reached the NY Times and saw this article with the headline from Mayor Bloomberg that “‘Tent City’ Goes Beyond Free Speech”:

Tonight’s the CNN/Western Republican Leadership Conference Debate in Sin City aka Las Vegas. Seven candidates onstage (I’m pretty sure Rick Santorum won’t be stationed in a gay bar), Herman Cain and Mitt Romney are this week’s front runners. Jon Huntsman is boycotting in protest of “Nevada’s decision to hold its caucus on January 14.”

Los Angeles educators, parents and students are united to Occupy LAUSD to protest and highlight the state of Los Angeles schools, the second largest school district in the United States. Despite a $55 million surplus, the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Directors have laid off 1,200 teachers, plus hundreds of custodial and clerical staff, school nurses, psychologists, and librarians.

Despite having a resume, and organization, and cash, Perry’s biggest problem is that the more the Republican base gets to know about him, the less they seem to like him. As Perry’s name recognition has gone up, his positive intensity score has gone way down according to Gallup.

Mitt Romney told the Las Vegas Journal-Review that his plan for the mortgage crisis is just like Herbert Hoover’s Secretary Mellon: Liquidate! Romney says we should stop slow-walking foreclosures and let the market hit bottom, not noting it’s the banks doing the slow-walking by not following the law.

Last night, police threatened to take down a medical tent put up during the date, but Occupiers, with help from Jesse Jackson, were able to convince police to leave the tent in place for now. Firedoglake’s premier live blog continues. Kevin will be down at Occupy Wall Street for another day of reporting on whatever happens. He will be conducting more interviews with occupiers and supporters.

John Boehner has declared the China currency bill, which passed the Senate with rare bipartisan support and 63 votes, “dead on arrival” in the House. So Sen. Sherrod Brown has an op ed in Boehner’s home town paper pressuring Boehner to support the bill and explaining how exchange rates are causing Ohio to lose jobs.