Cynical Nation

So now we will truly have a clueless dolt for President?
This is wrong.

On second thought, maybe not. If the stocks rally before the end of the week, maybe Obama's score will sink. People have short memories. And whatever happens mid to late October could change the game plan. You still could be right Barry. Phooey on you :) :P

Key House Republicans were saying that they had the votes and that there was a last minute switch among at least 12.

They were blaming Pelosi for her speech, but they were not making the claim that you're making.

Is Pelosi responsible for counting the other side?

>If the stocks rally before the end of the week, maybe Obama's score will sink.

That could be interesting. It doesn't look like either house of congress will take another look at this until late in the week. If we've made it to Thursday without the world coming apart, it will then probably be even harder for the House to put a deal together.

Yeah, today was ugly, but do you wonder how much of that was a self-fulfilling process? For weeks we've been told nothing from Paulsen & Co other than how failure to pass this bill would spell the End of Christendom.

Yeah, today was ugly, but do you wonder how much of that was a self-fulfilling process?

I'd say about 87%

but I'll argue in their favor. I think they let the markets work for the past year and when things tumbled faster than expected, then they panicked. But what about the 650B bailout to the banks today? If they were going to do that as plan b, they should have never panicked in the first place.

The worst of it all is that it's an election year. You want to save the economy and keep the votes. But this situation can't guar-on-tee that.

Big tough Republicans get upset and vote 'no' all because of a partisan speech? Puh-leeze. Grow some thicker skins, fellas. And gals.
Those GOPers and the 90 or so Dems who voted 'no' were, perhaps, following the will of their constituents, who see this, rightly or not, as just a big bailout of Wall Street fatcats who fucked up (yet were rewarded in many instances with very golden parachutes).
Also interesting to see today was the reaction from McCain and Obama. Obama told a campaign rally to, in essence, be patient...Congress works slowly and all of that and he was hopefult aht a bailout packgae would eventually get enacted and signed. McCain, on the other hand, blamed Obama and the Dems. What a statesman.

Back to the premise of this post..

House Republicans didn't dispute the notion that the bill failed because less Republicans than expected ended up voting for the bill. If it was less Democrats than expected, I think that they would say so. They instead acknowledged that it failed on the Republican side but blamed Pelosi's speech.

So the theory that Pelosi knew that (and wanted) the bill would go down to defeat rests on the assumption that Pelosi could count Republican votes but Republicans couldn't count Republican votes.

It was an Administration-backed plan and arguably the biggest piece of legislation in decades--you want the Republican Administration's plan to pass, have some Republicans vote for it. Why would the Dems go out on a limb, alone, to save George Bush's ass?

Well, frankly, if passing the bill is the right thing to do and I believe it is, then I don't care if it saves George Bush's ass.

Serious shit went down today.

The plan will pass, but whatever form it takes won't stem the consequences of two generations of pure fiat money policy playing into natural human greed, which has finally resulted in the current tug-of-war between debt deflation and money supply expansion (likely only a matter of days until we see the first TRILLION-dollar day of Fed operations).

Possibly the ones (on both sides) who voted "no" today will be able to point to that fact years from now as evidence of their putting their convictions (and those of their constituents) above the urge to jump on the wagon, not unlike the people who voted "no" on a certain war proposal a few years back...

As for the tug-of-war, we're now caught NOT between a shallow recession and skipping through the tulips (and my guy good, your guy bad), but instead we're caught between the abyss of THE Great Depression (which dwarfs the 30s) and the bottomless pit of hyperinflation if Ben overdoes it. Talk about a tightrope act.

I fully expect to make or lose the most money in my lifetime over the next few weeks, assuming they continue to sell both Calls and Puts.

Should be one to tell the grandkids about. Let's watch...

"Why would the Dems go out on a limb, alone, to save George Bush's ass?" (Fred)


Like the misnamed "Stimulus Package" (Hey! Those checks were never mailed out, were they?) THIS is a Congressional Bill, not an administration initiative.

The fact that the current administration supports and has long supported government expansion doesn't make that a "Republican position."

A former instructor I had in College (the ONLY economics professor I had who's remained an ardent Keynesian, even though he's backed away from an earlier view that "the command economy COULD work the best") gloated to me a few years back (and somewhat correctly) that "Conservatism is dead."

And sadly, traditional Conservatism really IS dead, in that so many Conservatives (including myself) supported Guiliani's self-proclaimed "Big-Government Conservatism" in NYC...and now the same from G W Bush (the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the domestic WoT, the massive Homeland Security build-up, along with the prescription drug boondoggle, the NCLB Act, the Stimulus Package, etc).

Still, just because today, upwards of 65% of Americans support the U.S. Military as "the best and most efficient jobs training program in existence," that they support a much larger U.S. Military, a larger, more intrusive law enforcement arm of the government and, in many cases, an even far more intrusive government consumer-health advocacy (one that will tell us what we can eat, drink or not smoke and pretty much how to live our lives to "maximum efficiency") does not make those ideas and ideals part of any "New Conservatism."

I admit, I LOVED the results of the Bratton/Guiliani law enforcement build-up, as well as the results of the massive real-estate oriented inducements that gentrified huge tracts of that city (THEY WORKED)...and I LOVED (and benefitted from) the massive, post-9/11 Homeland Security build-up here at home - both NYPD and FDNY salaries here rose 37% since 2002, many of us in SOC (specialty) Units have been sent all over the country both for training and as instructors in things like Haz-Mat and anti-terror training.

I admit that I've become a heretic to sound Conservative principles through personal gain.

Still, there's no correlary in the minds of those who support "Big Law Enforcement" that "they must also support" "Big Education" and "Big Social Programs."

If there was we'd all be happily embracing the radical ("Big Government") agenda of groups like ACORN...and we're not.

Now, as government revenues, based, as much as they have been, on the booming Wall Street sector, government agencies now find themselves fighting over a shrinking revenues pie.

That's the stark reality we now face.

The Law Enforcement/First Responder arm of the government is pretty much at war with the Educrats and the social-bureacrats over those dwindling funds.

Over the last near decade, and for the first time in nearly half a century, the government's largesse was focused on its Military, Law Enforcement and First Responder sector...and not surprisingly, the social services and education sector haven't been at all pleased about that.

BUT there's been no way for those segments to directly attack fellow civil-servants, nor demean such priorities in the midst of this "global WoT."

What we (in the public sector) probably SHOULD do, in the wake of this crisis, is to accept some retrenching all around and support some of the coming mandated government cut-backs, but that almost certainly WON'T happen.

What will happen, is that we'll probably continue down the current path until we've squeezed every last drop we can from "the (private sector) people" until we're all forced into a major public sector retrenchment.

Maybe traditional Conservatism can be resurrected from that, but lawd, the taste of that free government pie sure tasted gooood.

Let criminal Wall Street fail. Your average American has little or nothing to lose. Let the criminal banks fail. The only rescue plan should be the government taking over the failed institution and jailing the criminals who robbed them from the inside.

I was proud of the Republicans who had the courage and patriotism to vote "No" to transferring massive wealth from the middle class to the rich one last time for Bush and his friends. It reminded me why I am a registered Republican still.

Conservative Democrats and Republicans stopped the most massive theft of middle class income in history.

Pelosi is just as bad as Bush for trying to push through this "Supply Sider" bailout.

Let them all go broke.

JMK: this century's version of the Welfare Queen. At least you have the balls to admit loving that government moolah....

I think what should happen is they should NATIONALIZE them, not bail them out. That is what happened in Sweden and it worked. That is what they would do in France and other parts of europe. I am glad the bailout did not pass. I know that the corrupt Bush administration would never proceed with nationalization, but at least there will be better terms in the 2nd round.

“I think what should happen is they should NATIONALIZE them, not bail them out. That is what happened in Sweden and it worked. That is what they would do in France and other parts of europe.” (BW)


Apparently you didn’t understand the lessons of the Swedish “quasi-nationalization.”

That’s OK, apparently, neither did Paul Krugman. Yeah, I've read his pablum too.

In the early 1990s Sweden spent just under $12 billion to rescue its banks (today, it would cost the U.S. something on the order of over $2 TRILLION do the same here) but in return (Sweden) received warrants, that is paper granting the government the right to buy stock in the banks whenever it wished. This set up a sort of “pseudo-nationalization” and it was done to restore public confidence in the midst of a grave economic crisis in Sweden.

As a part of the Swedish deal, its banks were forced to write down their losses, sell off most of their distressed assets, and the government sold off its shares it held in the banks a short time later. The government's temporary control allowed the financial situation to stabilize, and the re-privatized banks reentered the national and global financial markets somewhat strengthened.

In fact, Japan's experience, more than a decade ago was far more like that of the United States’ today, in many ways. After a period of great productivity and prosperity in the 1980s, Japan's housing bubble burst in the early 1990s, leaving Japanese banks holding onto to tons of bad loans on properties now worth less than the notes outstanding on them.

After having neglected the problem for years, the Japanese government reacted by spending about $440 billion dollars of taxpayer money to nationalize the weakest banks, infuse capital into the stronger banks, and to increase protections for depositors via greater accounts insurance.

The Japanese banks were then required to create a Business Revitalization Plan, at the center of which was a capital/asset ratio.

There are certainly some similarities in the experience of modern nationalization of the banks. In most cases, some of the larger, more established bankers resisted nationalization, and when finally forced by the government to relent, those banks fought for higher compensation for their property than originally offered, and usually won. In none of these cases was bank nationalization complete or full, often with some domestic and foreign banks excluded. Where banks were more completely nationalized, some bankers opened new financial institutions which very often tended to engage in banking functions and this significantly drained off capital. In general, bank nationalization tended to contribute to the centralization of assets and concentrated the banking power into fewer hands. In all cases after a few years the nationalized banks were re-privatized, usually to many of the same financiers who had previously owned them.

As Dan La Botz has noted, “The nationalization of banks does not necessarily represent a progressive measure nor is it a logical next step toward socialism. Government ownership of banks, at least partial ownership and sometimes complete ownership, is quite common around the world. Many capitalist nations - both developed and developing ones - have nationalized their banks during the twentieth century. A 2002 study of banks found that around a third of all banks were government owned, though such bank ownership was more common in the developing world. In capitalist societies governments engage in the nationalization of banks to reestablish financial stability and improve their economic position in the international market, not to advance the common good.”




“I am glad the bailout did not pass. I know that the corrupt Bush administration would never proceed with nationalization, but at least there will be better terms in the 2nd round.” (BW)


There definitely WILL be better terms in the second round!

The “ACORN factor” (some government “proceeds” being funneled to housing rights activist groups, like the nefarious ACORN, has already been.

There are discussions centering around LESS taxpayer money at risk, raising the FDIC limit from $100,000 to $250,000 per account to help small businesses and talk of lowering the Capital Gains tax and lowering the cost of repatriating foreign investment monies, which would infuse the markets with direct investor cash.

I’m glad it didn’t go through as well and I credit scores of those Conservative Democrats who voted against it, as well as the many Conservative Republicans involved.

This was NOT a crisis of “deregulation” or “the market failing,” it was actually, as I’m sure you understand, a crisis of OVER-regulation and “toxic regulation,” some Liberals using the CRA to force banks to lend MORE money to MORE low-income, high-risk borrowers, which were encouraged by even more risky behaviors at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Freddie Mac bought up many of these “bad loans,” then fraudulently re-packaged them as “government-backed mortgage securities” and sold them to Capitol Markets around the world.

What the current crisis can best be defined as is “Enron on the Chesapeake,” with Barney Frank playing Jeff Skillings and Chris Dodd as Ken Lay.

"JMK: this century's version of the Welfare Queen. At least you have the balls to admit loving that government moolah...." (Fred)


This is the kind of hair-brained "liberal logic" that continually gets you bitch-slapped around here(metophorically, of course) and winds up getting your dander up at me.....for merely being logical.

The difference between a welfare recipient and myself is of an even greater degree than that between an elected public official and myself - as I took a Civil Service exam to do my job, rather than merely win some local popularity contest.

Beyond that, unlike many elected public officials, I provide a very vital and necessary service and have for nearly a quarter of a century, just as do cops and others who put their own safety at risk to police their cities, or fight fires in others.

And unlike many elected public officials, I'm always looking out for the people....most elected officials can't say the same.

So here you come paraphrasing PETA, saying, instead of, "A dog is a pig is a boy,"...A Senator is a cop/fireman is a welfare recipient."

You see how hair-brained that logic is.

There are some U.S. Senators who actually work hard doing the people's business, crooks like Barney Frank and Chris Dodd not withstanding. OK, none of them work as hard as myself, at least I never saw any of them crawling down into any burning South Bronx cellars, but to compare the hard working elected officials, police officers, fierfighters to welfare recipients...???

Well, I just had to call you on that kind of stupidity.

Let's see, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd were in the POWERLESS MINORITY and couldn't do a damned thing.

Repugs had SIX YEARS of absolute power, and could have passed anything, but they did nothing.

Stop being stupid, you moron.

This is probably one of the best accounts of the Fannie Mae and Freddie mac debacle;

"...Consider the experience of Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, one of the GOP’s bright young lights who decided in the 1990s that Fan and Fred needed more supervision. As he held town hall meetings in his district, he soon noticed a man in a well-tailored suit hanging out amid the John Deere caps and street clothes. Mr. Ryan was being stalked by a Fannie lobbyist monitoring his every word.

"On another occasion, he was invited to a meeting with the Democratic mayor of Racine, which is in his district, though he wasn’t sure why. When he arrived, Mr. Ryan discovered that both he and the mayor had been invited separately — not by each other, but by a Fannie lobbyist who proceeded to tell them about the great things Fannie did for home ownership in Racine.

"When none of that deterred Mr. Ryan, Fannie played rougher. It called every mortgage holder in his district, claiming (falsely) that Mr. Ryan wanted to raise the cost of their mortgage and asking if Fannie could tell the congressman to stop on their behalf. He received some 6,000 telegrams. When Mr. Ryan finally left Financial Services for a seat on Ways and Means, which doesn’t oversee Fannie, he received a personal note from Mr. Raines congratulating him. “He meant good riddance,” says Mr. Ryan.

"Fan and Fred also couldn’t prosper for as long as they have without the support of the political left, both in Congress and the intellectual class. This includes Mr. Frank and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) on Capitol Hill, as well as Mr. Krugman and the Washington Post’s Steven Pearlstein in the press. Their claim is that the companies are essential for homeownership.

(THAT is an absolute lie on the part of Krugman (a dolt) and Pearlstein, as Fannie and Freddie don't really "make home ownership more available.")

"Yet as studies have shown, about half of the implicit taxpayer subsidy for Fan and Fred is pocketed by shareholders and management. According to the Federal Reserve, the half that goes to homeowners adds up to a mere seven basis points on mortgages. In return for this, Fannie was able to pay no fewer than 21 of its executives more than $1 million in 2002, and in 2003 Mr. Raines pocketed more than $20 million. Fannie’s left-wing defenders are underwriters of crony capitalism, not affordable housing.

"[...] The abiding lesson here is what happens when you combine private profit with government power. You create political monsters that are protected both by journalists on the left and pseudo-capitalists on Wall Street, by liberal Democrats and country-club Republicans."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121677050160675397.html

With the Banking Committeehaving appx 9 Republican members and 8 Democratic members back then, and with the majority of "Moderate (Liberal) Republicans" supporting Fannie and Freddie, the Bush-McCain initiatives had no chance in 2003 OR 2005.

I don't blame the Moderate Republicans for supporting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, they have a constituency (wealthy investors) with a HUGE stake in that.

Liberal Democrats - that's another story.

There's no reason for people who profess to support freedom (ECONOMIC individualism/LIBERTY) to support this kind of credit socialism.

"Let's see, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd were in the POWERLESS MINORITY and couldn't do a damned thing.

"Repugs had SIX YEARS of absolute power..." (Barely Hanging)


Is THAT true?!

I don't think so.

I don't have any information on hand on this, BUT, I think Jim Jeffords' defection handed the Senate majority to the Democrats in June of 2001.

I'll check on this later, when I get the chance, but I think the Dems took back the Senate in 2001.

Where's that fact-checker Fred, who claims he's "only interested in accuracy" when you need him?