202 Comments

1. 3Case:

“…every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.”

3Case’s 2d Amendment corollary: It’s hard to be a dictator in the midst of an armed population.

Sep 29, 2008 - 10:43 am 2. jerry:

The first prerequisite for a free society is an educated and informed electorate. Over the past 30 years the Democratic Party through the Teachers Unions have substituted another educational philosophy … “We will teach them enough to read our orders.” A growing share of the public has lost its literacy. When history is about yesterday, a citizen loses his ability to make a connection between the actions of a corrupt Democratic Party to frustrate attempts to reform the GSEs and today’s crisis. The roots of this crisis go back to 1977 when the Carter adminstration began to force banks to loan money to borrowers who could not pay back the loans. This is concept is beyond the intelliectual reach of the average American. What other explanation is there for Obama to lead McCain on the financial crisis? Obama is on the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac payroll. Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson have advised him and yet people trust him and blame President Bush and the Republicans for the Crisis. We have reached the point where Democratic Party control of the MSM has surpassed Soviet control of the media. They have convinced the voter that the crisis that they caused is the fault of the side that attempted to head it off.

Welcome to the new America where black is white, up is down and 2+2=5

Sep 29, 2008 - 10:48 am 3. Brock:

The biggest problem I think is the disconnect between actions and consequences at the government level (both good and bad). Our structures of government could do much, much more to “link” cause and effect, both at the voter information level and at the legislative level. It could also do a lot more to reduce the perverse incentives at the legislative level.

On the “Voter Information” level:
Our government could use A LOT more transparency, at all levels. Earmarks, tax loopholes, secret holds, hidden taxes, etc. all prevent voters from understanding the real costs of government, and who is really benefiting (and how much).

On the Legislative Level:
A mental exercise of mine is to imagine systems where Legislators have both “pay for performance” and “incentive pay.” In one “pay for performance” model a voter may name certain issues as important to him and put his vote for the next election “in escrow.” A politician to passes a law on that issue would be able to “bank” those votes. The “incentive” part of it is that the legislator gets paid a bonus based on how the law helps achieve certain metrics. These metrics would obviously have to be carefully crafted to avoid any gaming of the system.

The most broad-based incentive pay would be real GDP futures. Legislators could get a small salary with the potential for a large bonus for real GDP growth for X years following his term.

Sep 29, 2008 - 10:55 am 4. Cannoneer No. 4:

Bail Out bill defeated!

Sep 29, 2008 - 10:57 am 5. Cannoneer No. 4:

DOW rebounding!

Sep 29, 2008 - 10:58 am 6. jerry:

Cannoneer:

Rebounding from what? A hour ago the Dow was down 220 or so and then it fell by almost 700 points. That’s not much of a rebound. This could be a 1000 point day.

Sep 29, 2008 - 11:03 am 7. Cannoneer No. 4:

Nancy needed 217. Got 207. ‘rats won’t get away with it this time.

Socialism was rejected today.

Sep 29, 2008 - 11:04 am 8. Eggplant:

Cannoneer No. 4 said:

“Socialism was rejected today.”

Be careful what you wish for. I don’t like socialism either but our economy is hanging by a thread. Also the Messiah’s popularity scales with economic uncertainty.

If the stockmarket crashes, the Messiah wins.

Sep 29, 2008 - 11:21 am 9. peterike:

Obama is on the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac payroll. Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson have advised him and yet people trust him and blame President Bush and the Republicans for the Crisis… They have convinced the voter that the crisis that they caused is the fault of the side that attempted to head it off.

This is too true. Why McCain and Palin can’t paint the Dems with this well deserved brush is beyond me. McCain debates Obama and never mentions how Obama has pockets stuffed with Fannie cash. Incredible.

And this is a perfect issue for Palin to score points on as the outsider who can clean it up. She needs to use the words “Democrats” and “corruption” together about fifty times in her debate with Biden. But I bet she doesn’t.

Sep 29, 2008 - 11:29 am 10. programmer:

I believe that the Republicans have lost the privilege of governing America for a long, long time today. Governments, in an ideal state, are formed to do those things collectively that individuals cannot do by themselves. Today, our elected representatives did not choose wisely.

Sep 29, 2008 - 11:33 am 11. Cannoneer No. 4:

If the stock market crashes, the Messiah can be blamed, along with Pelosi, Frank, Dodd, Soros, community organizers, and The Left in general.

The DNC’s version of al Sahab only seems to have a monopoly on information voters will use in makimg their decisions.

Sep 29, 2008 - 11:40 am 12. jerry:

Programmer:

During the financial panic of 1907 J. P. Morgan road to the rescue not Congress. Let the market settle itself. The Government created this problem, so why do you believe that they can fix it. Remember, the Democrats put earmarks to Acorn, which is little more then a criminal subsidiary of the Democratic Party, into the bill.

See this WSJ editorial: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122264844037784117.html

Sep 29, 2008 - 11:44 am 13. jerry:

Cannoneer:

Sorry, but the alternative media can only moderate the worst excesses of the MSM but they can’t make it cover a story. As my original post states that the Democrats, through the MSM, have an absolute lock on information. It hardly matters what we say here.

I expect that Obama will shut down as many opposition voices during his Presidency as he can.

Sep 29, 2008 - 11:47 am 14. Konyok:

It appears that Nancy jumped the shark:

http://www.breitbart.tv/html/184803.html

Sep 29, 2008 - 11:52 am 15. Charles:

omg the house pubbies rejected the 700 b bill. the stock market will go down 1-2k tomorrow unless they can re tailor something tonight and bring it to a vote tomorrow.

Sep 29, 2008 - 11:55 am 16. Cannoneer No. 4:

<a href=”http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjRjOTZhNTQ4YzNmOWE2MjFhZGFhNWQxY2RlNDZiNmE=The party that controls the chamber is ultimately responsible for getting the bill through that chamber. Pelosi could and should have been able to pass this without a single Republican vote. She got 66, and she still couldn’t do it.

Sep 29, 2008 - 11:57 am 17. Cannoneer No. 4:

http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjRjOTZhNTQ4YzNmOWE2MjFhZGFhNWQxY2RlNDZiNmE=

Sep 29, 2008 - 11:58 am 18. peterike:

About 60% of Democrats voted for the measure, but less than a third of Republicans backed it.

So 40% of Democrats voted against the bailout. Yet it will be spun as “Republicans refuse to save economy.” An economy which, of course, was ruined by “Bush and his cronies.”

Cannoneer writes: If the stock market crashes, the Messiah can be blamed, along with Pelosi, Frank, Dodd, Soros, community organizers, and The Left in general.

I respectfully disagree. Because WHO is going to blame the Left? We here at Belmont? Sure, but we’re talking to ourselves. Only the MSM has the power to “flood the zone” with their message, and they will speak as one voice on this, and that one voice will never utter a word about the perfidy of the Democrats who got us into this mess.

Sep 29, 2008 - 11:58 am 19. Charles:

Boehner speaking (saw on MSNBC). Pelosi apparently gave such a vile, hate-spewing attack of Bush and the Republicans on the House floor, blaming the current financial problems on “Eight years of this administration and its allies in Congress” that, according to one report, the heads of some Repubs who heard it ‘exploded’ and they ‘went berserk.’ The attack was so ugly that several dozen Dems bolted, too.

That smarmy, bug-eyed old Stalinist (”Riches for me; misery for you”) just couldn’t keep her bile bottled-up long enough for the vote. All bets are off now. Source on CNBC now saying DOW will drop an additional 2500 points by the end of the week. And meanwhile, Obama is 8 points ahead of the feckless McCain.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2093265/posts
………….
agree with comments above. this business is the fault of the dems but the pubs are setting themselves up to take the fall for it.

bad news bears.

Sep 29, 2008 - 12:04 pm 20. Whitehall:

Yes, voters giving themselves money from the common treasury is a long recognized systemic problem for democracy.

That’s one reason that the authors of the Constitution made us a Republic, and not a democracy.

Sep 29, 2008 - 12:06 pm 21. Cannoneer No. 4:

jerry, the only Americans left who still rely upon the MSM for their information were going to vote for Obama anyway.

Youtube is going to be an electronic Battle of Midway for the next month. Talk radio will be frothing at the mouth. The fever swamps of the blogosphere will disgust many with their vile nastiness. Obama’s mask will drop and his minions in the MSM won’t be able to pull it up. The fat lady hasn’t sung yet.

Sep 29, 2008 - 12:09 pm 22. jerry:

Cannoneer:

Dream on. It is the swing voters who still pay attention to the MSM not the partisans. Besides, when most people talk about getting their information on the web it is little more then reading the same copy that the news readers read or the electronic version of a newspaper.

It is important that we remember that we live in the Conservative echo chamber. Sure we welcome opposition voices here, unlike the other echo chamber, but it is still people of similar views talking to each other.

Sep 29, 2008 - 12:17 pm 23. NahnCee:

I just don’t see how McCain can be blamed if the market crashes. It seems to me that the people who forced the banks to give loans to those who couldn’t pay them back are the ones to blame.

And when I think of which party is continually trying to give the poor people something for nothing, that isn’t Republicans or McCain.

Unless, of course, we’re saying that the poor people wanting something for nothing are the ones who will vote in B. Hussein, and to hell with Wall Street and what happens there … which just doesn’t seem likely.

Sep 29, 2008 - 12:21 pm 24. Peter Boston:

90 Democrats voted against the bailout. What I’m hearing on the radio are Barney Frank soundbytes blaming Republicans for putting “feelings” ahead of the Country.

The MSM doesn’t care about the Truth. Most politicians don’t care about the Truth – and most people don’t care if they don’t care.

The notion that we’ll get four years of Obama and then everything will be OK again is wishful thinking. If the credit crunch puts deflation on the fast track – as it will – we won’t see normal for a couple generations.

Sep 29, 2008 - 12:39 pm 25. Joe Buzz:

Regarding the vid… and astute poster Cochise Johnson over a JawaReport notices hearing the name Jamie Gorelick at around the 7min mark. Anybody recognize her?

For what its worth Wikipedia:

Federal National Mortgage Association

Even though she had no previous training nor experience in finance, Gorelick was appointed Vice Chairman of Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) from 1997 to 2003. She served alongside former Clinton Administration official Franklin Raines.[citation needed] During that period, Fannie Mae developed a $10 billion accounting scandal.[1]

On March 25, 2002, Business Week interviewed Gorelick about the health of Fannie Mae. Gorelick is quoted as saying, “We believe we are managed safely. We are very pleased that Moody’s gave us an A-minus in the area of bank financial strength — without a reference to the government in any way. Fannie Mae is among the handful of top-quality institutions.”[2] One year later, Government Regulators “accused Fannie Mae of improper accounting to the tune of $9 billion in unrecorded losses”.[3]

In an additional scandal concerning falsified financial transactions that helped the company meet earnings targets for 1998, a “manipulation” that triggered multimillion-dollar bonuses for top executives.[4] Gorelick received $779,625.

Sep 29, 2008 - 12:45 pm 26. programmer:

San Fran Nan played the Republicans like a violin.

Sep 29, 2008 - 12:46 pm 27. Mark:

Andrew Tytler writes:

‘A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.’

Bread and circuses.

If you have to pay as you go along, you probably will make good decisions. If the decision making is done by those closest to the decision (v. ’subsidiarity’), the responsibility for the decision and outcome is clear.

Of course the state and federal governments have roles to play. But we are paying the price now for their overplaying their roles and encouraging us/inviting us to live beyond our means.

Sep 29, 2008 - 12:50 pm 28. Peter Boston:

Pelosi doesn’t want to own the bailout. If it didn’t work out as good as it’s being sold then there would be accountability – the thing that must be avoided at any cost.

There is no end of possibilities for politicians acting stupidly. Pelosi et al will see the Country burn before they risk the possibility of bad press.

Sep 29, 2008 - 12:53 pm 29. fred:

Unfortunately, the people who are in no way responsible for this mess will be the ones blamed for it. The Left controls media and education. It controls the narrative now and we’ve lost this phase of the war. We had better wake up and realize that we are in a war to begin with. Not just an external one with the oldest totalitarianism, but also an internal war against the relatively newer totalitarian ideology, socialism.

This war is about our very survival as a nation with a unique heritage. First, let us understand exactly how the enemy has beaten us to the punch in the first phase of the war. We cannot fight the past. It’s over. It’s done. We have to look at the best way to go forward from here.

Sep 29, 2008 - 12:56 pm 30. sgi:

So why won’t the Republicans step up and explain the roots of this crisis? The MSM would not be able to ignore them if each and every Republican rep, Republican strategist, and John McCain’s campaign began to deliver the same message. Why give the MSM ammunition like “we didn’t like Pelosi’s speech”?

Anyone?

Sep 29, 2008 - 1:04 pm 31. Cannoneer No. 4:

“Oil is going to drop like a rock.” — Donald Trump

Sep 29, 2008 - 1:06 pm 32. jerry:

Programmer:

Just the opposite is true. She expected that they would grit their teeth and vote for the plan anyway. Over at the Corner on NRO they said her speech was so vile that a dozen Dems bolted.

Pelosi’s speech was an intense act of projection to cover up the Democrat’s hand in this. Remember that Obama is one of the top three Senators on the GSE payroll and that the root cause of this crisis is the Community Investment Act of 1977 and the corruption of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to serve the Democratic Party’s interests.

Sep 29, 2008 - 1:07 pm 33. Eggplant:

NahnCee said:

“I just don’t see how McCain can be blamed if the market crashes.”

Check the Gallup tracking polls. McCain’s popularity is clearly tracking economic uncertainty. I agree that this is not rational but the evidence is there.

This is very frightening. The economy now appears set to crash. This crash will result in the least competent candidate becoming President during a time of major crisis.

I wonder if Pelosi really was gaming the Republicans or if her actions were simple stupidity?

Sep 29, 2008 - 1:13 pm 34. Habu:

The Dems will try to blame the Reps.

One needs to ask but one question.

Dems you control the House with 233 members and it only took 218 to pass the bill…why didn’t YOU pass the bill?

The DEMS didn’t need one, not one REP vote to get this passes…Why didn’t they?

Sep 29, 2008 - 1:26 pm 35. programmer:

Habu,

You ever play akido?

Sep 29, 2008 - 1:30 pm 36. Steve J. Nelson:

There are times when I felt like the media in the U.S. was more uniform on the subject of Russia than the Russian media, including the so-called “alternative” conservative media which in my mind mostly offered little more than knee jerk nostalgia for the Cold War. Among the Frank Gaffneys, the Max Boots, and Charles Krauthammers, there is zero recognition that the U.S. would end up borrowing more money from the Chinese and Arabs to pay for a new Cold War with Russia, while China quietly continues its slowmo takoever of the Russian Far East. A lose-lose situation for both sides if you ask me, but for saying this on Pajamas Media and other forums, I’ve been called a Kremlin agent or appeaser or worse by some commenters with John Birchoid tendencies. So in addition to distrusting CBS, NBC, ABC, NYT et al I added the WSJ, National Review and Weekly Standard to this list.

Wretch was right in one of his usually cogent and calm posts, quoting Newt Gingrich, that a rejection of this bailout is not just a rejection of “Wall Street” or “eight years of George W. Bush” (how the Left will spin it) but ALL of our elites, from Wall Street to Washington to Hollywood. And some would say just burn it all down and start over, as if that over will be more free or honest than what we have now. Wretch is right to note the hush Rush law, expansion of McCain Feingold precedents to further restrict political speech and the downgrading of our national debt. That’s when the crap seriously will hit the fan. But some people don’t care, as long as the ones they hate (middle American conservatives, or in the case of La Russophobe, the Russian people) suffer too. The best line from that Batman movie sums up the zeitgeist of our times: “some men just want to watch the world burn.” Apres the Baby Boomers, the deluge. Or at least let the world burn until the election. But the Democrats will find themselves like a dog who has caught a truck and doesn’t know what to do with it.

Sep 29, 2008 - 1:31 pm 37. Charles:

The whole point of democratic politics right now is to pin the blame for their mistakes on the republicans so that the democrats can win in november.

Probably chuck shumer’s efforts in the last several months can be explained by his desire to see this problem accelerated in so that its in the news before the election. But this can’t be proved. Nor is this is not the point.

The point is that McCain’s people need to be running ads that show that the democrats were the ones who were responsible for this problem. They need to do this over and over again.

Because right now the democrats are pinning the republicans to the wall on this. And its a freakin lie.

There are several other videos besides the one above that are floating around. The McCain team needs to splice these sound bites into attack ads.

Right now.

Forget the Chicago stuff.

Sep 29, 2008 - 1:51 pm 38. Charles:

Skip to comments.
The End of the U.S. Financial System as We Know It? (ACORN back in bailout bill?)
National Review Online: The Corner ^ | Larry Kudlow

Posted on Monday, September 29, 2008 4:53:23 PM by TenthAmendmentChampion

A number of Republican House members and staff, along with others who are plugged in, are telling me that Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats will come back with a new bill that includes all the left-wing stuff that was scrubbed from the bill that was defeated today in the House.

As this scenario goes, the House Democrats need 218 votes, and they have to pick up a number of black and Hispanic House members who jumped ship because the Wall Street provisions, in their view, were too benign. So things like the bankruptcy judges setting mortgage terms and rates, the ACORN slush-fund spending, the union proxy for corporate boards, stricter limits on executive compensation, and much larger equity ownership of selling banks through warrants will all find itself back in the new bill. Of course, this scenario will lose more Republican votes. But insiders tell me President Bush will take Secretary Paulson’s advice and sign that kind of legislation.

Personally, if this scenario plays out, I would probably withdraw my support for the rescue mission and switch to plan B, which would center on the FDIC and its bank-recapitalization powers. The bank-ownership issue, in particular, could lead to heavy nationalization of America’s financial system with a three-house Democratic sweep in November.

I’m not forecasting, because I don’t know the next bill’s content. And while McCain’s polls are heading south, he could still win. But a three-house Dem sweep to implement some off the very onerous provisions being talked about could set up the end of the U.S. financial system as we know it.

I’m gonna wait and see. Obviously, the financial markets are in total collapse today. And the economic outlook is suffering.

Tough day. One of the worst I can remember.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2093380/posts

Sep 29, 2008 - 1:58 pm 39. Habu:

Programmer,

I was trained in Dim Mak, and I have an old billy club used by a blackout monitior during WWII.

My wife is a 2nd degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do

I have missed something because I don’t think those are answers you’re looking for. Help me out por favor.

Sep 29, 2008 - 2:04 pm 40. steveaz:

Didn’t Nancy’s husband just make millions selling “Treasure Island,” that fleck of land that the I-80 bridge, from Oakland to San Francisco, is piered to?

This is what makes me spitting mad: all these mad hatters are gabillionaires, and, whether they lose 20 million, or make 5 million, they couldn’t give a rats ass. Once you reach the 10-million dollar level, any additonal greenbacks become just so much confetti to toss around and languish in.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, most Americans are hoping to pull in a whopping 40 or 50 grand this year, and most of that will go to paying taxes, putting braces on their kids, or to running their vehicles.

I’m sick of the permanent political class, and their ties to real estate resellers and monied, foreign gamers. It’ll take a fire-hose and a vat of chlorine to clean out the halls of Washington.

Only McCain and Palin are up to the job.

Sep 29, 2008 - 2:08 pm 41. Habu:

“3Case’s 2d Amendment corollary: It’s hard to be a dictator in the midst of an armed population”

3Case…..great corollary …don’t shoot me but I’m gonna steal it.

Sep 29, 2008 - 2:11 pm 42. dla:

Every talking head uses the term “Wall Street Bailout”. With lies like that, how can we expect the average Joe to know better?

This is a case where the Left has deliberately obfuscated the issue so that voters can’t put the blame squarely on the Democrats. Ultimately, Democrats may claim the Whitehouse, but this ruse will ruin the country.

I don’t think McCain has a chance at getting the truth out.

What the Liberal left is doing right now, by deceiving the public, is worse for America (and the world) than 911.

Sep 29, 2008 - 2:17 pm 43. programmer:

Habu,
Dim Mak, ehhhhh!

Just a riff on your somewhat rhetorical question about why the Dems would do what it appears they have done and the thought that with your experience, you might have had a use for akido. Anyway, in my brief brush with akido, one of the themes was to help people go where they wanted so obviously to go. If someone is rushing toward you with fists upraised, they obviously are in a hurry to get to you, so you most obligingly invite them into your circle and accelerate them on the way out.

To cut to the chase, it was obvious to Speaker Pelosi, et al., that there was a contingent of Republicans who were intent on stopping this bailout. She just helped them be sure to get enough votes. Of course, there is the small matter that the result most assuredly fit into her goals. I’m not sure if the Dems are trying to lever concessions, create chaos, or both. However, nothing in politics is an accident. Oh well, back to programming. I may have to step up production. Even Microsoft stock is going down.

Sep 29, 2008 - 2:20 pm 44. Habu:

Programmer,

I just read your comment on the Republicans losing the right to govern for a long , long time.

That is about as queer a way of looking at it as one can get. When the majority party cannot govern their own party, when their whips fail, when the Speaker fails, how does it then default to a failure of the Republicans?

Clearly the Dems controlled the board. They didn’t need any help from the Reps but they couldn’t even run their own party….I’m sure the American people will be curious about how they expect the Dems to run a country if they can’t get ONE vote through the House that they totally control?

You a one interesting dude.

Sep 29, 2008 - 2:20 pm 45. Cannoneer No. 4:

Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis

Sep 29, 2008 - 2:22 pm 46. peterike:

So things like the bankruptcy judges setting mortgage terms and rates, the ACORN slush-fund spending, the union proxy for corporate boards, stricter limits on executive compensation, and much larger equity ownership of selling banks through warrants will all find itself back in the new bill. Of course, this scenario will lose more Republican votes.

But they don’t need any Republican votes to pass it. Man, this brings great clarity for me. My take: the Dems let it fail on purpose (94 Dems voted ‘no’ on a bill that failed by 23 votes? huh?). They let it fail, knowing the media would blame Republicans and it would make McCain look bad. Plus, Republicans missed their only chance at having a not-so-bad bill.

Now, they will lard it back up with handouts and payoffs and more centralization of economic power, and it will pass quite nicely with — shocker! — all the Democrats on board.

You have to give these Machivellian little vermin their due. They outplay Republicans every day of the week.

Sep 29, 2008 - 2:25 pm 47. whiskey:

Pelosi is not stupid. She tanked the deal to cause a recession/depression. To elect Obama, which is going to happen barring a miracle. McCain is not even trying to fight back.

Dem-Media dominates with blaming Republicans, even though Dems voted against the bill, and form the absolute majority.

Result? Total, decades long Depression, funding back in for another bailout bill for National Council of La Raza and ACORN, Dem domination with racially atagonistic groups against Whites for decades, balkanization and polarization greater than the 1970’s struggle over forced busing of White kids to Black neighborhoods.

Sep 29, 2008 - 2:29 pm 48. sigintel:

The bailout bill was a stinker and Pelosi shrewdly pissed off the pubs to get the bill she wanted with all of the left-wing pork for ACORN et al. The MSM will smear McCain and the pubs even though it all was the social engineering promoted by the Dems that caused this mess in the first place ( along with the Fed’s low interest rates) and Pelosi will bring back a “new bill” that will be even more radical and communist. What I think many people in the heartland are saying is lets let the economy reset…screw wall street, the banks and realtor’s…we are willing to take some pain to get the economy back to some kind of equilibrium and “fairness”.

Sep 29, 2008 - 2:43 pm 49. Ken:

I find it hard to believe that you take things so seriously, whiskey. If you were half as certain of your doomsday scenarios as you claim to be, you’d be advocating assassination of prominent Democrats. Have you actually left your keyboard in years?

Sep 29, 2008 - 2:43 pm 50. Habu:

Pelosi may have tanked this bill for the reasons provided but the question will still be asked over and over….Why didn’t you get the first one passed.

She’ll dance around but there is no avoiding the fact that they could have. So if they pork it up to get the votes the public will be none too happy with a bill they already hate by a 3 or 4 to 1 ratio.

A freshman Republican should be able to manage getting the trnasparency of the Democrats through on this point.

It could also be that she may not be able to get the votes because not every Democratic seat is a 100%, totally ,slam dunk. safe seat and those representatives want to be reelected. If they have a close race in their district and they know their constituency doesn’t like the bill, they’ll save themselves and not vote for it.

And this time around she won’t get any Republican votes, so this is far from a check mated your ass situation. Truth is Nancy just messed up.

Sep 29, 2008 - 2:59 pm 51. jerryofva:

You are all over thinking the problem. As I said above, Pelosi just through a tantrum like when she got pressed on offshore drilling and did her “I’m trying to save the planet” thing.

The bill has to pass both the House and the Senate. There is no change that a porked up bill will survive the conference let alone get Senate approval.

No this about an immature spoiled brat of a woman who couldn’t get her way and could not hold her tongue.

Sep 29, 2008 - 3:14 pm 52. Tony:

The Dems say Republicans caused the problem by supporting their “Wall Street cronies” so the Republicans in the House come out and reject a government bailout of their “Wall Street cronies.”

I don’t think a majority of people will get that sudden change in the landscape. The Dems and media will just tell them it’s all the Republicans’ fault, because, you know, it has to do with money, that substance whose evil is second only to oil.

I’m afraid the facts don’t matter because the Republicans are in the White House, they will be blamed for this. There was one sure way for even an empty suit like Obama to win the White House, and that was for the US economy to suffer a widespread disaster. That’s why the Dems having been declaring recession for years (just like their longed for defeat in Iraq). Whatever is bad for America is good for Dem politicians. This is the CHANGE we’ve been waiting for.

Sep 29, 2008 - 3:16 pm 53. slade:

No this about an immature spoiled brat of a woman who couldn’t get her way and could not hold her tongue.

Whew. That’s a relief. For a brief fleeting moment I thought Pelosi had morphed into the Evil Genius Santini behind the biggest Democratic coup of the century.

With moves like that, she perhaps missed her “street”.

Sep 29, 2008 - 3:23 pm 54. John Work:

An interesting article on the Ludwig Mises website (http://mises.org/story/3131) advocating letting the market handle this (Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand”). In an area like the economy which isn’t “rocket science” – it’s a lot more complicated than that – why would we want to let a gang of no-nothing politicians try to “fix things” for us? It may be a rough ride, but nothing like what’s in store for us with a government “bailout” no matter which party or set of “experts” sets the terms. Somehow that expression “bailout” creates a vision of the country going down in flames while our “leaders” hit the silk using golden parachutes.

Sep 29, 2008 - 3:27 pm 55. Ken:

Calm down, people. Think the Dems will pass the original ACORN bill? Fine. Let them. The problem with the ACORN bill was more the obnoxiousness of forcing it down GOP throats, than that ACORN in and of itself is going to sink the economy. The Congressional Dems have proven their incompetence and cowardice on energy and now on the bailout. What makes you think they are suddenly going to become great at bringing in New Deal 2.0?

The real “bubble” is New Deal 1.0 economics. We have spent the past 19 years propping up the post-Great Depression economy that was held up first by World War II, then by the Cold War. That was the significance of the 1987 crash: Reagan had just punked Gorbachev and won concessions that spelled doom for the USSR, so the end of the Cold War bubble was in sight. The Fed managed to deal with that crisis, as well as successive crises, but in the end, the bubble collapsed.

Just to illustrate the idiocy of the idea that the New Deal could be expanded: in 2010 the Baby Boomers start retiring. Think an Obama administration would be competent at handling that demographic crisis? The only possible solution in the end is the end of Social Security and other New Deal/Great Society programs, and the reinstitution of a nineteenth-century economy.

And yes, that means we’ll have depressions again. Of course, it also means that the times we don’t have depressions will have astronomic growth compared to the “calm years” of the Cold War, just as the nineteenth century had astronomic growth. And we’ll get REAL new technological advances, not just the current game of cramming more bytes into a smaller space and calling it high-tech, but things on a level with electric power, automobiles, and airplanes (all products of the Lincoln-to-Hoover era of old-fashioned capitalism). Think fusion power and asteroid mining.

Sep 29, 2008 - 3:28 pm 56. NahnCee:

Agree with Jerry – I just don’t think Pelosi has the wherewithal to see that many moves ahead in the chess game to deliberately throw it at this juncture, planning for a different outcome later on. Kissinger could. Trump maybe can. The vote is still out on Bush. But Pelosi and her Gang of However-Many (including Obama)? Nah.

Sep 29, 2008 - 3:30 pm 57. Jay:

Pelosi is known to be a turkey as Speaker by the political ingroup. The bailout is unpopular and Bush company have not explained why the rush.
A pork race based laden bailout will will inflame a lot folks who read news on the web or hear Rush and company. They will talk to their friends.
Such a bill followed by O becoming POTUS will destabilize the economy and our society. The Dem left is controlled by a bunch of very rich speculators with ties to Arab financial centers, like Soros.
If you want to project ahead by looking backward forgot bout the US Depression and read about the collapse of the Weimar Republic of Germany in 1932. But there are important differences since we have not lost a serious war and the Left hates the military. They reply on judges and the media.

Sep 29, 2008 - 3:30 pm 58. slade:

That’s what I’m saying John Work (via Chris Whalen).

Main Street sees the forest. Wall Street sees the trees.

Who’s not understanding what about this picture?

Bumpy ride either way.

Sep 29, 2008 - 3:32 pm 59. dla:

OK, so by lying to the American people, Democrats have dodged the bullet for the moment. But somehow I can’t see McCain letting them get to the Whitehould with it.

Maybe he’s planning on using Sara’s debate with LurchII to tell the truth to the American people. She connects better anyway.

Sep 29, 2008 - 3:41 pm 60. Pascal:

3Case’s, Habu. Re: “It’s hard to be a dictator in the midst of an armed population.”

3Case criticized me for what he saw as too glib. He wasn’t unreasonable.

Don’t be too glib about that 2nd Amendment. Need I remind you that our host lives in a country that has outlawed an armed population? When the USA suffers a cold, the rest of the world is afflicted with pneumonia.

Sep 29, 2008 - 3:45 pm 61. Marsh Arab:

If Pelosi and the Dems move to pork up the next proposal with the ACORN handouts and other buy-offs it will be as if they’re placing the noose around their own neck. The power of the MSM wanes, and while it might be able to maintain the veil until election day, it won’t be able to do so for much longer beyond then. The bailout is terribly unpopular and adding political goody bags will only make it more so.

Sep 29, 2008 - 3:46 pm 62. Charles:

obama would rather lose the war if it meant that he could win the election;
mccain would rather win the war even if it meant that he would lose the election.

house dems would rather lose the economy if it meant electing obama
house pubbies would rather win the economy even if it meant defeating mccain.

nice syllogism. don’t know if the last part is true. it does explain some of the actions of pelosi and shumer

.

Sep 29, 2008 - 3:53 pm 63. whiskey:

It doesn’t matter if the MSM has a declining power.

One man, one vote, one time. Obama gets in, he’ll never leave. He’s already constructing “Bolivar Circles” with local Dem law enforcement officials threatening jail for criticizing the “One” … what do you think he’ll do with his Obama Corps funded with equal money to the military when in office?

He is already talking about show trials for Republicans when he takes office.

Obama’s victory means a fifty to 70 year rule by his family. Look at Castro. Wretchard is wrong — dicatorships can last FOREVER. The dictator may change, but not the people or the nature of the rulers. The Castro family is likely to rule for at least a hundred years, as is the Kim Family in North Korea, and the Obama family in the US.

Sep 29, 2008 - 3:58 pm 64. Pascal:

The Dems know how much they are at fault. To admit otherwise would mean their certain downfall.

What makes anybody here think that they’re not willing to “bring it all down baby” just as their nihilists have always wished? The Democratic Party has virtually no resemblence to the party that was dominated by liberals 40 years ago — hence the radical at the top of their ticket.

And yes, they will be helped by the Ministry of Information which I now think deserves an IngSoc sort of abbreviation: MinInfo. This is not being glib; the Dems aided by the “progressive” wing of the pubbies would bring us Orwell’s world if they could get away with it.

So we will have MinInfo on the way to it fully becoming the Ministry of Truth unless we learn to break down the barrier of hate and misinformation that MinInfo has been manufacturing to divide us. The Dems and the Progpubbies already know we hate them. But “a despot easily forgives his subjects for not loving him, provided they do not love each other.”

Sep 29, 2008 - 4:02 pm 65. Ken:

The Democrats still have to get past the American gun owners. Don’t project your own lethargic attitudes onto others.

Sep 29, 2008 - 4:05 pm 66. Foul Harold:

Re: 2nd Amendment

I recently purchased a nice little titanium Smith and Wesson .38 with a Crimson Trace laser sight to accompany my .Remington 770 .30/06 rifle and Browning 12 Gauge semi-automatic shotgun.

If it comes down to defending my rights from “truth squads”, protecting my property, or providing my own food in the event of a financial disaster, I’m ready.

I never thought I would have to think or prepare this way. These are scary times we live in.

Sep 29, 2008 - 4:17 pm 67. ambisinistral:

Standing at the newspaper rack today was a co-worker of mine. Blue collar, union type. He was smoking a cigarette and reading the headlines about how the bail out was going to be passed today. When I walked up, his comment to me was, “SOBs screwing the little guy again.”

That was an unpopular bill.

How it all shakes out today is hard to tell, but if Nancy thinks she’s covered herself in glory with the little guy, my guess is she’s mistaken.

Sep 29, 2008 - 4:19 pm 68. slade:

Time to examine the Congressional races for possible surprises.

Any current polling on that?

Sep 29, 2008 - 4:24 pm 69. Pascal:

To admit *it* would mean their certain downfall.
[about face in how I composed my preceding comment contributed to this error. Sorry.]

Wretchard: I miss the preview and update notification that was at your old blogspot sites .

Sep 29, 2008 - 4:29 pm 70. Ken:

Whiskey:

I want to be fair here, so please don’t take this personally. I get the distinct impression that you are very depressed on a personal level. You fit the profile of a man who has had bad luck with women and projects it, first, onto women, and then onto American society as a whole. I note in particular that you stated that young women hate blue-collar men. That sounds like you are speaking from your own experience.

The thing is, we don’t mind people giving bad news. But let’s face it, when you scream about the inevitability of what the US will be like for the next 100 years, it’s a little bit ridiculous and hard to take. Even the Bolshevik revolution didn’t hold on for a full century, and that was in a country just barely entering the Industrial Revolution, not the most successful capitalist economy in the world.

I don’t doubt your ex was a cold-hearted bitch. But it isn’t relevant to this topic.

Sep 29, 2008 - 4:35 pm 71. Ken:

Here’s a much more likely scenario: full-fledged civil war. It isn’t like the 1930’s, where FDR pretty much bought out everyone except the ultra-rich. There is a strong right-wing element in the nation that won’t take Communism lying down. Obama is no FDR. FDR was politically competent, and Obama will almost certainly alienate large numbers of Americans with almost every move he makes.

Sep 29, 2008 - 4:40 pm 72. ridgerunner:

Re Ken’s full-fledged scenario: The blue states are in bad shape if energy and food are not supplied from red states.

Sep 29, 2008 - 4:50 pm 73. ambisinistral:

This civil war talk is as silly as the Kerry voters claiming they were moving to Europe if he lost.

Sep 29, 2008 - 4:56 pm 74. Steynian 258 « Free Mark Steyn!:

[...] Richard Fernandez, The Belmont Club [...]

Sep 29, 2008 - 5:12 pm 75. whiskey:

Ken, no my observation is based on collecting data over many years. FWIW I have more degrees than I can shake a stick at — so I don’t fit your profile at all.

Women, consistently in election after election have favored Democrats, and in European nations the hard-left parties. Code Pink is exclusively female, and feminists and other female activists melt at the sight of Ahmadinejad. In fact, Jody Evans and Medea Benjamin both met with Ahmadinejad (Evans is the TOP bundler for Obama) and could not praise him enough. The reaction of feminists to Edwards, Clinton, and Todd Palin could not be more instructive.

In vote after vote, women go for the guy who is “hotter” and perceived to be the more “cool” with popular people. This is most notable in the JFK-Nixon election of 1960, where women went for JFK by about IIRC, 20%. In Reagan’s landslides, Carter and Mondale each carried the female vote, by about 8%. Clinton carried women, and even married women (who often vote Republican) by a bout that margin, and it gave him the White House. Gore lost his bid because he only carried married women about 2% or so. Though he and Kerry won single women. Obama had problems among older, married women that seem to have gone away, as he’s made McCain look “old” and himself the choice of glamorous figures.

I certainly don’t blame Blue Collar America for voting against McCain, he’s done nothing to counteract the Media claim that he is responsible for the economic mess and Obama is the solution. People are scared and want security — the media makes Obama seem the safe choice — when in fact he is not. But McCain does nothing to fight that perception, he wants to be an honorable loser like Dole.

Yes, young single women HATE blue collar men (again, does not describe my overeducated self). This is well known, by every single social survey ever taken. All you need to do to verify this is check out sites such as TMZ and such and see for yourself. Check voting records of single women vs. blue collar white men. The breakdowns are striking, and the differing interests are obvious.

You could always watch Oprah and the View. It is quite instructive on the attitudes of women in general. Women are the natural home of hard-left views for obvious reasons. I.E. it gives them power, the power of social exclusion. PC and Multiculturalism are most popular among women. Least popular among blue collar White males. This ought to tell you who it benefits and hurts.

“Gender Gap?” Who does that favor? ALWAYS Dems, and abroad, Socialist parties.

There will be no Civil War. Such a War requires men to made into paupers, instantly, or face other grave threats such as taking to the fields in armed rebellion facing death is preferable.

Sep 29, 2008 - 5:27 pm 76. Bob Murphy:

@Foul Harold
None of your weapons use common military size ammo.
At least for the long guns, .223 or .308.
9mm or .45ACP for the pistols.
Just so you can pick ammo off the dead bodies.

Sep 29, 2008 - 5:33 pm 77. Bob Murphy:

Ummm, Foul.

I was being droll.

But it’s all true.:)

Sep 29, 2008 - 5:38 pm 78. Habu:

Pascal,

Re: I’m still gonna steal it and you’re way too sensitive to what was a joke.

And I gotta be honest with you. I don’t factor in the situation in Mr.Fernandez’ homeland in anything I write. Not only that but if he had a problem with it or interpreted it as a mean nasty slight about his home country believe me the man is articulate enough to convey his angst with my comment directly to me.

But you are obviously a much more sensitive, caring person than I am.

I do know this. If we get into this type of badinage instead of following the thread he will not be happy, and he’ll be right. Now you have my full apology if he appointed you sensitivity monitor and spokesperson, fair enough?

Sep 29, 2008 - 5:44 pm 79. Tony:

When Obama said he was available by phone on the financial crisis last week, he was reassuring his Jacobins that he had his eye on the real prize, Power. America could take care of itself, Obama would be TCB on the Real Deal. Chumps in Congress can do what they want. Real Change only comes from Real Power.

Y’wanna make an omelet….

Sep 29, 2008 - 5:48 pm 80. trangbang68:

Whiskey, I guess you’ve never heard Gretchen Wilson’s “Redneck Woman” There are plenty of girls that like blue collar guys just fine. I’ve been loving one for going on 30 years,
The college g-r-r-r-ls might like faggy baristas ( other than the ones that like other g-r-r-r-ls), but there are lots of Sara Palin types out there. You are way too pessimistic,bro. The Dodgers are in the playoffs, the Buffalo Bills are 4-0. The world is ripe with possibilities.

Sep 29, 2008 - 5:50 pm 81. Panday:

Why does Obama’s popularity rise with the fall of the economy?

In 2006 the Democrats took over Congress. Since then, gas has gone from $2.40 to $4.00, unemployment has gone from 4% to 6%, and the mortgage crisis has hit. But, hey, let’s put a Dem in the White House, too.

WTF?

Sep 29, 2008 - 5:51 pm 82. Habu:

Ken:

I have written on several sites about the coming civil war: This is on todays American Thinker:

A call to arms.

“To avoid interference from Lieutenant-Governor Dunmore and his Royal Marines, the Second Virginia Convention met March 20, 1775 inland at Richmond–in what is now called St. John’s Church–instead of the Capitol in Williamsburg. Delegate Patrick Henry presented resolutions to raise a militia, and to put Virginia in a posture of defense.

This is no time for ceremony. The question before the citizens is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery”.

There have been two parties to our current situation. One party wishes only good and truth for the citizenry , while the other uses subterfuge and stealth to undermine the foundations of our republic. It is not a cause for debate, the record is clear, the object is their power over all aspects of our lives. They must be stopped by any means necessary. The time has long passed for half measure of fruitless negotiations with an enemy whose word is valueless. Fascists do not negotiate after achieving power, they rule by force alone. They will , as they have already shown, suspend the norms and rules by which we have been governed when they can get away with it. Hitler and Stalin did the same thing.

Begin now to form your associations, ready to do battle. This fight can no longer be won by talk and meaningless conflict resolution. Drill. Former military review your history and remind yourself that those who died before you did not die for what this nation has become but for what it was when the Constitution meant what it says. Train and lead your friends and neighbors in a loose but prepared state. Do not be caught lacking the will or the instruments by which freedom is sustained. To the citizen. This is your time to step up and prepare. Do so and we have a chance. Fail and serfdom is your future.

Volumes have been written on the subject of the struggle between fascism and freedom in America. Men of all ranks have embarked in the controversy, from different motives, and with various designs; but all have been ineffectual, and the period of debate is closed. Arms, as the last resource, decide the contest. It is not for light or transient reasons we accepted the challenge to stand with freedom and against tyranny . If the power shifts to the fascists they will show no mercy in quickly deposing of our freedoms. It is the way of the Alinsky,Marx,Democratic Party model.. They must be given pause to reconsider their position for even they will not spare the artist or writer, the potter or peaceful tailor if it suits their ends. Prepare associations now for the gathering storm. Fail at your own peril because fear not, the reckoning is rapidly approaching, and each in your hearts know this is true.

Sep 29, 2008 - 5:52 pm 83. Tony:

The odd snip

Clinton carried women, and even married women (who often vote Republican)

Sep 29, 2008 - 5:52 pm 84. bobal:

One man, one vote, one time. Obama gets in, he’ll never leave.

Whiskey has been drinking whiskey.

These apocapyptic scenarios aren’t coming to pass.

We don’t have that in our character. We don’t have hundreds of years of history like, say, the Russians have of czars.

It won’t happen here.

Sep 29, 2008 - 6:01 pm 85. dla:

Habu is on drugs for thinking about a civil war. Can somebody remind me of a 1st world nation that has gone through two civil wars in the last 3 centuries?

back to the important subject : how do you get the “cigarette smoking, blue collar, union-type” to wake up and realize that the Democrat Congress just stole $1.4trillion from workers pensions/401Ks? How do you get that same person to realize that the Democrats created this mess in 1995 with changes to the CRA?

How does the truth get out to the average American today? What does it take?

Sep 29, 2008 - 6:05 pm 86. biggie:

Whiskey, any texts on human nature to recommend, other than the Theory of the Leisure Class?

Sep 29, 2008 - 6:13 pm 87. NahnCee:

“The blue states are in bad shape if energy and food are not supplied from red states.”

California is a blue state, growing and shipping lots and lots and lots of different kind of food to the rest of the country. However, if red neighbors were to gang up and cut off water, that could get interesting.

I don’t think a civil war is out of the question. Obama is telling his droids to “get in their faces” — to a lot of people that promises a physical confrontation. If the moonbats are ditzy enough to get physical about it, I really don’t see conservatives backing down to spare their dainty little feelings of inferiority.

Sep 29, 2008 - 6:23 pm 88. trangbang68:

Tony, “Clinton carried women even married women”
Define “carried”. That ain’t what I remember him doing.

Sep 29, 2008 - 6:24 pm 89. steveaz:

Habu and John Work,
I just had a calming thought about this “crisis” that dovetails with your comments in this thread.

Three facts demand our reckoning…first, executives from Freddie and Fannie may be hauled before a public court before the election – and this on the heels of Tony Rezko. Second, Citigroup was able to generate billions of private capital to purchase Wachovia’s burdened assets without leaning on the taxpayers. Third, shareholders are gearing up to sue the boards of many of the failed institutions, as usually happens when incompetent boards mismanage their shareholders’ money.

I took heart from these because, together, they suggest that the moves taking place in the House are a shrill but harmless side-show: the executive’s AG, and private, market mechanisms appear to be kicking in to do the heavy lifting.

Here are just three benefits that come to mind..

A. With their run to Congress, sirens wailing, Bush and Paulsen have injected urgency into this issue, and their sirens have reached ears all over the nation. Warranted or not, this urgency has pushed Pelosi’s House to twitch and squirm in the public limelight. Their amateurishness is on grand display.

B. Distracted and stumped, the Congress is pre-occupied with its dithering while real, private players takes steps to secure private capital to solve the financial problems of private corporations. Bush has boxed and busied Nancy’s gang, making them appear to be fussy, obnoxious children locked out of Mom’s way just so that the adults can talk turkey.

C. Because the “kids” are distracted, we may all wake up a month from now to hear that the “crisis” is largely solved despite the maneuverings of DC’s political classes, rather than by them. And all of us Libertarian economist-types can breathe easier for it.

There is so much media chat and static to see it right now, but my contention is, Bush’s hype has given cover to private players to do the real work, and he’s thrown a meat-bone into the House to keep the puppies busy teething and out of the way.

It’s just an intuition, but, if true, things may not be as bad as they appear.

Cheers!

Sep 29, 2008 - 6:29 pm 90. Tony:

Trangbang, it just kinda rhymes for me, y’know?

Clinton carried women, and even married women (who often vote Republican)

NB: I don’t think Hillary votes Republican.

Sep 29, 2008 - 6:32 pm 91. sigintel:

Headline ” Obama Administration Signs Treaty With Mexican Drug Lords”.

Sub-headline: “Obama deals up with former Mexican drug runners” … “Mercenary forces contracted by the Obama administration will enforce the “New, New Deal IV” …with it’s new security laws and “inflammatory” speech regulations”.

Sep 29, 2008 - 6:39 pm 92. Habu:

dla,

Must be good drugs if it’s this easy.
Mexico
France
Guiana
United states
England
Russia
Iran
Cuba

I finally stpped looking at my book on Revolutions but this is a start.

Sep 29, 2008 - 6:41 pm 93. Habu:

dla,
What name do you use at The Elephant Bar?

Sep 29, 2008 - 6:42 pm 94. mezzrow:

There will be more. Between scorched earth and manufactured crisis, I have become convinced of the inevitability of Obama’s rise. I predict much more to come. The best bet for McCain is if the party organs supporting Obama overplay their hand. Right now, things could not be better for his prospects.

That said, consider this. After Obama is elected, how long will it take until the media turns on him? I give it six months tops.

Sep 29, 2008 - 6:51 pm 95. peterike:

After Obama is elected, how long will it take until the media turns on him? I give it six months tops.

They will never turn on him. He is their conduit to complete power. Watch as the (calling George Orwell) “fairness” doctrine returns and starts shuting up talk radio, blogs, National Review, etc.

Actually, the fairness doctrine I think is one of those Black Swans that might show up. If they move very quickly in the O administration to ram that through and we start to see actual turning off of shows like Limbaugh’s, then I think we’ll know for sure something much bigger is in the works. The first victim is always media freedom. The sad part is that the largest portion of the media has willingly given over it’s freedom without even being asked.

Sep 29, 2008 - 6:57 pm 96. Habu:

steveaz:

Reported tonight by FOX ostensibly what happened is that the Reps noticed that Pelosi was giving many of her minions who were involved in tight races the green light to vote against this bill due to it’s unpopularity. This included five committee chairmen. This was apparently pre arranged which is why she needed the Reps votes.

Well the Reps realized they’d been snookered and they started withdrawing there support. I mean why aid the other parties attempt to keep representatives, when they are the opposition and they could pass the bill all on their own , having 233 members and needing only 217 votes.

She almost simultaneously lost her mind and began the now famous totally political diatribe against the Reps for all the failures since water started flowing downhill. This added an octane boost to the Reps leaving and the result was a lost vote by the Democratically controlled House which was suppose to be a done deal. So Nancy blew it. .Arrogance, chutzpah, hubris, however you want to characterize it that appears to be what happened.

Sep 29, 2008 - 6:59 pm 97. slade:

Fascinating.

This is like watching pigeons play chess.

[3-case will be relieved that I have lowered the "glib" bar.]

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Sep 29, 2008 - 7:12 pm 98. Habu:

On the civil war thing. Well Jefferson and many other Founding Fathers, all men of the Enlightenment thought it was a good idea to have one from time to time. Why? Well they were very well read, very smart men who had studied Aristotles sixfold classification of governments and realized through that and thousands of other pages of history that all governments eventually become corrupt and begin to usurp or simply deny the rights of the people.

They were setting up a government, distrusted all governments so they included civil wars as a remedy when the aforementioned occured.

Today most can’t imagine it happening in the country those men established, but lo and behold we’ve already had one. Could we not have another?

Sep 29, 2008 - 7:14 pm 99. Ex-fetus:

“Be careful what you wish for. I don’t like socialism either but our economy is hanging by a thread. Also the Messiah’s popularity scales with economic uncertainty.

If the stockmarket crashes, the Messiah wins.”

Do I smell fear? Do I hear panic? To steal a line; “All you have to fear is fear itself”.
As long as the FDIC sends out Checks, there will be no Great Crash like in ‘29. FDIC covers up to 100,000 $US. I doubt that there are that many people in America that have more then 100 grand in their bank account, and those that do being down to their last 100K doesn’t make my heart bleed.
Sit down and take a deep breath.
There WILL BE a rescue plan, it just won’t be a throw money at them and hope plan. If the market hits 8,000 tomorrow, then there will be some real deals out there.
Remember the hidden treasure in Capitalism is that there are ALWAYS winners and losers. Get the Government off the field so the players can make their best effort at being a winner.
I would like to see a capital gains tax hoilday of at least 6 months. After all if the market goes down and stays own, there won’t be a lot of capital gains to tax anyway. So why not give that tax up to save the tax base?
That won’t be enough by itself, but with a robust insurance program and the repeal of some of the Socialist policies that created this mess, we will come out stronger.
After all, it is how the US economy relates to the rest of the world that counts, not some utopian number.
OIL looks to headed down, which will help a lot. Drilling would help more.

BTW, our economy IS NOT hanging by a thread. Parts of it are sick as ‘ell, but the rest is in good shape. Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water.
Beside, if the world ends tomorrow, Wretcherd will post on it, since he hasn’t, I’m going to act like we have at least one more day.

Sep 29, 2008 - 7:24 pm 100. Habu:

P.S

If the man and woman on the street continue to loose their life’s savings and have nothing we” have what, a party, massive inflation (tonight the FED just injected another 630 billion into the economy. How much fiat money have they printed just in the last year?) That of course leads to massive inflation. So now the man on the street has no money saved, no job, or what money he has is worth 1/1oooth of what it was originally.

Think he’s a wee bit upset at THE GOVERNMENT?

I say yes he is. Him and about 30-50 million other people….somewhere the powder keg gets lit.

Haven’t any of you folks studied the French Revolution? The reasons aren’t exactly the same but it’s heavily studied because it was a fully mature society and it came apart.

I think we can have another one.

Sep 29, 2008 - 7:26 pm 101. ambisinistral:

dla,

back to the important subject : how do you get the “cigarette smoking, blue collar, union-type” to wake up and realize that the Democrat Congress just stole $1.4trillion from workers pensions/401Ks? How do you get that same person to realize that the Democrats created this mess in 1995 with changes to the CRA?

How does the truth get out to the average American today? What does it take?

I’m not sure how that guy would vote, or even if he does vote. My guess us he’s disgusted with politicians in general. There’s the rub, to a lot of people neither party deserves to claim the high ground, and trying to claim it can be counter-productive with those people.

I think much of Obama’s appeal is he can claim not to be a politician. We see his lack of record as a negative and his avoiding Congress the last week as a failure of leadership, but as long as he can avoid looking like a politician he offers the illusion of something different.

Of course, it is all smoke and mirrors, and if he wins six months in that illusion will be shattered (hence, no civil war)). Yet, he would still be President and we would still pay the price of giving the Chicago Machine keys to the Oval Office.

Yes, run against the Democratic Do-Nothing Congress, but I think the more important thing to do is to run against Obama’s record. Not his lack of a legislative record, but his record as a Chicago machine politician. The MSM will never headline those facts, but then again my cigarette smoking co-worked also never dropped coins into the slot to buy that newspaper.

All you can do is work the avenues of communication available, and hope that McCain starts swinging back harder after this fiasco.

Sep 29, 2008 - 7:27 pm 102. dla:

Ex-fetus: its not a zero-sum game. When $1.4trillion was lost today, it is gone. Thats real people’s 401ks. Somebody else didn’t get rich – everybody lost. You must not be part of the work-force yet. When you are, you’ll understand.

Sep 29, 2008 - 7:28 pm 103. bobal:

We could, but who is really oppressed today? We don’t have slavery or serfdom. We have equality before the law. Education is open to all. We’ve got freedom of and from religion. We’ve got some winners and losers, but not really by category. I don’t see the great cause. At least, not yet.

Vote the bastards out. It’s a lot easier.

Sep 29, 2008 - 7:36 pm 104. whiskey:

Can we have one vote, one time?

Sure. Obama can use the economic emergency that San Fran Nan created, along with help from Dodd and Frank, to institute a series of measures … that will make things worse. Requiring even more extreme measures.

Of course Rush and the like will be gone from the airwaves via Fairness Doctrine. Of course, because that’s the way of the winner. Of course there will be show trials of Republicans for the Iraq War and other things. Of course there will be reparations for slavery, just like gay marriage was only a pipe dream last election and now the law of the land. Dems have said they will do these things and will do them.

Obama in the third or fourth year can simply cancel elections based on the emergency. And rule by fiat until it’s past. Which it never will be. With the media cheerleading for him. Heck people worship him as a god now.

Sep 29, 2008 - 7:41 pm 105. Habu:

Another cautionary note: Not all derivatives are mortgage based. Now as far as economists can tell the other several trillions of dollars worth of derivatives haven’t started unwinding, but a continuation of what is going on now will certainly cause them to do so. Then they’ll be NO way to save the situation NO way at all and the collapse will be global , long lasting , and absolutely horrible.

And I’m not wishing any of this I’m simply discussing what is entirely possible. Lets take a quick look at the derivative situation. Ishould start by saying there is also a bubble in that entire world too by a five fold factor.
To grasp how significant this five-fold bubble increase is, let’s put that $516 trillion in the context of some other domestic and international monetary data:

•U.S. annual gross domestic product is about $15 trillion
•U.S. money supply is also about $15 trillion
•Current proposed U.S. federal budget is $3 trillion
•U.S. government’s maximum legal debt is $9 trillion
•U.S. mutual fund companies manage about $12 trillion
•World’s GDPs for all nations is approximately $50 trillion
•Unfunded Social Security and Medicare benefits $50 trillion to $65 trillion
•Total value of the world’s real estate is estimated at about $75 trillion
•Total value of world’s stock and bond markets is more than $100 trillion
•BIS valuation of world’s derivatives back in 2002 was about $100 trillion
•BIS 2007 valuation of the world’s derivatives is now a whopping $516 trillion
Moreover, the folks at BIS tell me their estimate of $516 trillion only includes “transactions in which a major private dealer (bank) is involved on at least one side of the transaction,” but doesn’t include private deals between two “non-reporting entities.” They did, however, add that their reporting central banks estimate that the coverage of the survey is around 95% on average.
Also, keep in mind that while the $516 trillion “notional” value (maximum in case of a meltdown) of the deals is a good measure of the market’s size, the 2007 BIS study notes that the $11 trillion “gross market values provides a more accurate measure of the scale of financial risk transfer taking place in derivatives markets.” Folks that’s a heap of concern right now and it’s the unseen of the seen and unseen that Fredrick Bastiate wrote about.

Sep 29, 2008 - 7:42 pm 106. bobal:

And it seems to me that Jefferson, much as I like him, was a little confused about watering the tree of liberty. Revolutions have at least an equal, maybe more, of a chance of making things worse, sometimes much much worse, and additionally, Jeff himself would likely have been a big loser, if the tree of liberty had received a little more water, in his time.

Sep 29, 2008 - 7:44 pm 107. Doug:

P.J. O’Rourke Has Cancer [Mark Hemingway]
The good news is that it appears entirely treatable, and he’s written an hilarious op-ed about it for L.A. Times. Get well soon, P.J.

Sep 29, 2008 - 7:45 pm 108. bobal:

I’d be wary of revolution. Just exactly what do you propose to put in place of what we have, which is still functioning? What other group of thieves do you propose to put it its place? With what other restraints upon them without making things worse?

And, you might lose, too.

Take care what you wish for, etc.

Sep 29, 2008 - 7:49 pm 109. Habu:

If you care to look at the info:

FINANCIAL POLICY FORUM
DERIVATIVES STUDY CENTER
DERIVATIVES DATA

http://www.financialpolicy.org/dscdata.htm

Sep 29, 2008 - 7:56 pm 110. Habu:

bobal,

Sir, I am not wishing for any of this as I said above. It would be horrible. I’m just writing what is possible and what has already ocurred in this world.

But if you’ll take a quick look at the above derivative figures and then factor in that two Nobel Prize winners in economics Myron Scholes and Robert C. Merton put together a derivatives fund in the 1990’s that went belly up and almost collasped our economy and think that it was only about $129 billion at it’s peak, and now we’ve got $516 TRILLION in derivatives that could come unraveled…..well that’s a concern.

As far as what would replace the USA after a revolution I wouldn’t know any more than the next guy…..all I’m saying is that the collapse of an economy isn’t a hard thing to have happen as we’re witnessing right now.

Sep 29, 2008 - 8:10 pm 111. Habu:

Doug,
I’m glad it’s treatable. PJ has been a favorite of mine for 30 years. Many of us are getting to that “is that a mole or a …oh heavens…dial Doc right now.

Sep 29, 2008 - 8:13 pm 112. Charles:

I go for Gingrich’s proposals:

Gingrich’s four-point plan includes: (1) suspending immediately mark to market provisions (the accounting practice of valuing a financial position in an investment at its current market price) in the hopes of stopping the downward spiral in asset values and eventually replacing it with a three year rolling average; (2) repealing immediately Sarbanes-Oxley, the 2002 accounting law Gingrich described as “an enormous drag on small business”; (3) setting the capital gains tax rate at zero “matching the Chinese and Singapore” (to encourage private capital to flood into the market picking up properties without the taxpayers being at risk); and (4) passing an “extraordinarily powerful” energy bill (”to return $500 billion a year to the American economy that are currently going overseas”).

Sep 29, 2008 - 8:15 pm 113. bobal:

What I’m worried about is the running out of energy. Along with everything else. Damn democrats seem unable to say the words nuclear energy, which I think is the only quick—well, reasonably soon–and viable solution.

We’ve got a nuclear power plant proposed here in Idaho but the usual delaying tactics and riff raff are doing their utmost to oppose. We need to expedite the process, and might do so with McCain. When the One is in the WH, and the folks are without gas and heat, well, it’s gonna be hard to blame George. Just a reminder, it was Al Gore that screwed our nuclear industry.

I sure agree there seems to be a perfect storm brewing with Obama. If Obama declares martial law, then I’ll join you on the barricades.

Sep 29, 2008 - 8:23 pm 114. Habu:

Well I’m all for bedtime or doing some reading…so thanks for the conversation folks..later

Sep 29, 2008 - 8:24 pm 115. bobal:

The people of California, who seem to know how to put an initiative on the ballot, ought to do so with regard to nuclear power, overturning the current ban on new facilities.

Sep 29, 2008 - 8:25 pm 116. peterike:

The Gingrich plan makes way too much sense. Never happen.

Meanwhile, rumors: is Rezko starting to talk?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-il-fundraiserindicte,0,2340035.story

Sep 29, 2008 - 8:36 pm 117. peterike:

And this just in from the Obam-Associated Press. Who could have forseen this spin?

“Analysis: House vote against bailout wounds McCain”

Shocker.

Sep 29, 2008 - 8:39 pm 118. Leo Linbeck III:

Habu,

While $516T is a lot of money, it’s not as big as it might seem on the surface, because it is the notional value of derivative contracts, not the true value at risk to the system. Lemme ’splain.

Let’s say you have borrowed $100,000 for 5 years at a variable rate – say the prime rate, which is currently 5%. But let’s say you’re worried about interest rates, so you want to convert your loan to a fixed rate for one year.

You and I can enter into an interest rate swap contract. Let’s say you want to fix your interest rate at 6% for one year. This means that no matter what happens to the prime rate during this time, you pay me a 6% interest rate, and I pay the variable rate. Now, if rates stay at 5%, I make money. But if rates rise to 7%, I lose money. Depending on the rates involved, you might have to pay me for the contract, or I might have to pay you. It just depends.

The point here is that the actual amount of money I have at risk is much, much lower than the notional amount of $100,000. If the prime rate averages 6% over the term of the contract, I break even. If it averages 5%, I make $1,000; if the average is 7%, I lose $1,000.

Now let’s say that the prime rate stays at 5%, but after 3 months I start to get worried that rates will rise. I’ve made $250 so far, but I want to avoid any further interest rate exposure. I can than swap with someone else to lock in my rate at 6%. This means that for the last six months, I get 6% interest from you, and pay 6% interest to this third party – I break even. When these contracts all expire, I’ve made $250.

Let’s say this sort of risk hedging continues with other parties, who swap the risk with other parties two more times. If rates stay at 5% during the entire year, the total amount paid out during this year to all parties is still just $1,000, but because there are four swaps in total, the total notional value is $400,000, or 400x the amount of the total spread between the fixed and variable rates over the term of the loan.

This sort of activity goes on all the time between banks. Let’s say Bank A has $500M of deposits in the form of 1-year CDs with a fixed interest rate. But it lends money on a variable rate, so it’s “book” is unbalanced between fixed and variable rate paper. Let’s say Bank B has $500M in demand deposits that pay a variable interest rate, but has made a lot of loans with a 1-year term. If Bank A and Bank B execute an interest rate swap, they can both lock in their profits for their lending business. Bank A ends up with fixed-rate deposits and fixed-rate loans, and Bank B ends up with variable-rate deposits and variable-rate loans. The total notional value of that swap may be $500M, but they eliminate all of the risk for both of them. A true win-win.

But what happens if Bank A goes bankrupt? Bank B still has a contract, but it could be voided by the bankruptcy court, leaving Bank B back in the exposed position it had before the swap occurred. This could be good or bad depending upon interest rates, and which side of the swap it held. But it’s probably not likely to lose the principal of the loan; it’s exposure is probably limited to the interest rate spread at the time of default.

The main point here is that you can’t rely on notional amounts to determine the real exposure embedded in a series of derivative contracts. If used properly, derivatives like interest rate swaps can reduce overall risk to the system. And even in the case of a bankruptcy, it’s not clear that much value would be lost by the non-bankrupt counterparty.

Hope this helps, and I apologize for being presumptuous if this is stuff you already knew.

L3

Sep 29, 2008 - 9:13 pm 119. Aristide:

peterike:

“Meanwhile, rumors: is Rezko starting to talk?”

What’s the over/under on how much longer Rezko will be alive?

Sep 29, 2008 - 9:36 pm 120. NahnCee:

Even if Rezko talks, who will report it and who will listen?

Sep 29, 2008 - 9:47 pm 121. Lifeofthemind:

The Republicans have to offer some straight talk. Here is a script proposal.

This financial panic was not largely caused by deregulation. A few good regulations, such as the “uptick rule” and other controls to prevent abusive short selling should be restored. This panic was caused by bad regulations, beginning with the Community Reinvestment Act that forced banks to offer loans to unqualified buyers and then sell those sub-prime loans to other institutions. Once the buyers of those homes began to default on their mortgages it created a cascade of bad debt that has swept through the entire system. Banks that did not participate in these risky practices were threatened by Congress members and the very agencies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that had been created to keep the industry operating smoothly and safely. Senior officers of those agencies collected millions of dollars due to what may have been fraud while concealing the growing insolvency. Therefore any program to restore liquidity to the economy, which is essential so that businesses can hire and ship and qualified buyers can buy the homes that are now more reasonably priced, must include the repeal of those laws and regulations that created this disaster.

In addition no business or agency should be considered “To big to fail.” That would open the public treasury to blackmail by every large and inefficient business competing against clever but smaller new firms. It would stifle the entrepreneurship that renews America. Any large firm facing such a crisis should have an opportunity under the bankruptcy laws to reorganize as smaller units with a better chance of surviving. If a firm is a threat to the overall safety of the nation due to its size and possible weakness then the government might need a procedure to order the firm divided, as we have done in other cases with Anti-trust law. As part of the recovery from this crisis we will propose that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac be divided into 12 smaller units. Each will be tied to operate within a Federal Reserve district and operate under the eye of the local Federal Reserve Bank to promote the health of the economy in its assigned region.

This is not a sign of a fundamental weakness in the American economy. We are facing a largely self inflicted wound caused by bad politics and greed. We can fix this and permit the American people to continue to create new industries and build new wealth. Other real concerns that can affect our future prosperity, such as dependence on foreign oil, will have to be dealt with. We will work on that. We will also lay out a policy to expand and restore the global reach and flexibility of our Armed Forces. That will include a significant expansion of industrial activity that will stimulate the economy. For now be assured that this crisis, while serious, can be surmounted.

Sep 29, 2008 - 9:50 pm 122. Bob Murphy:

@Peterike
“The first victim is always media freedom.”

That is probably true for most countries but in the US the first victim must be the 2nd Amendment.

That’s the real miner’s canary.

Sep 29, 2008 - 9:50 pm 123. whiskey:

Obama scares me, because he’s not a run of the mill leftist like Carter. He has people worshipping him literally as a God. He seems to believe in it. And he’s hard left. Not just moderate left. Filled with hatred towards Whites, his abandoning mother, and yes, America.

He’s provocatively weak, and nuclear weapons means everyone has an equalizer.

Sep 29, 2008 - 10:04 pm 124. fred:

I think Newt Gingrich sees the cultural and political landscape of the country with eyes wide open. He has stated that conservatism, while rational and traditional, has had an eroded base. The country has been drifting leftwards for some time. The base has to be rebuilt before the electoral gains are harvested. We have to find ways to stay alive, fight for our principles, and set them before the American people in the most rational, appealing way possible. The next four years are going to be hard for the nation. We have to build a party that is able to offer a vision in 2012: a vision to restore the Republic to what it was intended to be.

Sep 29, 2008 - 10:07 pm 125. bobal:

Resko is singing, that’s the kind of guy he is. He has two choices, sit silently in prison for a long time, or sing, and sit in prison for a shorter time. And someone will report on it. Trouble is, with only a month to go, it’s unlikely anything will come out in time to change the election, if there is good stuff on Obama.

Sep 29, 2008 - 10:09 pm 126. fred:

We are going to have a man in the White House who, if he applied for a federal job a the FBI, CIA, State, or DoD would NEVER receive a security clearance.

Does that not scare anyone?

Sep 29, 2008 - 10:15 pm 127. sgi:

Posted today in the comments section of the American Thinker.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/how_allies_of_george_soros_hel.html

As we were discussing in the forum related to the article “Drum Beat”, corporate socialism is the far more dangerous enemy of free markets and individual rights than the blatantly disingenuous sociopolitical perspectives and controlling, entitlement-based dependency historically championed by the rationally challenged NWO pundits, regardless of party affiliation (humanity-rotting socialism exists in both American political parties, have no doubt). When it becomes the responsibility of the average citizen to once again sacrifice to pay for the predatory profiteering and reckless speculation indulged in by major financial players, we have in effect returned to a post-fuedal economic scenario where the annointed heads of state can litteraly extort resources from the lower classes with impugnity for the sake of protecting their wealthy constituent’s interests. Contexted in a more modern metaphore, this legislative initiative by the current administration is by all discernable measures an Americanized replication of the corrupt, chrony-driven Soviet economic model. Think of a world where the public pays the bills for this kind of misconduct as a matter of policy while credit becomes so expensive it is almost unattainable to any but the wealthiest few. Sounds like just about any kind of “ism” you might want to name to me.

The self serving push on the part of so-called financial experts, as they are represented currently in the popular media, to pass this legislative atrocity fails to ask a couple of questions of considerable long term economic importance: When has this approach to big government interference in the markets EVER resulted in a change that didn’t require a revisitation of the same tactics again with constantly increasing frequency and cost to the public? When has this approach ever actually resulted in a healthy, long term correction of prices, including the cost of credit? If the market is forced to absorb the costs of its own misconduct and lack of ethical and professional self-enforcement, the resulting effects will clearly be long term economic stabilization due to consistent, moderate growth through the development of a real equity-supported strengthening of the currency and meaningful growth of the average person’s purchasing capacity rather than the current day economic myth that modern economies are only growing and solvent if they are operating under a carefully controled credit driven inflationary trend; this is nothing but pure smoke and mirrors. I consider FDR an intellectually ingenuous socialist who, like many current day leaders, was chronically dishonest with the American people. Nor did I agree with the majority of the provisions of the “New Deal” and the entitlement based system of bereaucratic control and corruption it nefariously integrated within the system of public administration in this country. Despite this, the stark difference in his approach to economic intervention and the one of corporate entitlement that currently pervades both political parties was that the post FDR administration boom years were in fact supported by the use of the vast majority of its public capital on infrastructure development, remedial public service-based employment and training rather than corporate entitlements and bailouts, thus ultimately increasing the number of fiscally productive, trained, work force ready tax payers contributing to the system long term and resulting in a massively improved infrastructure which created an environment ripe for nurturing corporate and long term fiscal growth of the ecenomy as we transitioned away from war production. Reagan entrusted this same process to private enterprise through “Trickle Down economics” and then dropped the ball utterly where a critical part of the process was concerned. By refusing to provide oversight which enforced the terms of his massive tax cut agreement with corporate America, he failed to adhere to his own dictum when it came to “trust but verify”, providing private business with little or no regulatory constraints or enforcement that benefited the economy long term. This allowed private entities to capitulate to their share holders and corporate officer’s more basal, self serving urges by focusing exclusively and increasingly on short term profit taking. Managing to this end is inherently destructive to the growth or long term sustainability of organizations. Those who have benefitted from this legacy from both parties have been far worse in every regard where pandering to this self-involved, short sighted philosophy is concerned.

Currently, there is a constantly shrinking number of productive tax payers who are expected to produce everything that generates revenue and private capital in this society, pay for increasing levels of economy-destroying, frivolous entitlements to a rapidly growing percentage of the population AND pay for the losses and economic damage associated with criminal misconduct in the financial markets with ever increasing frequency. All this as the real benefactors from these practices walk away largely unidentified and unaccountable. This is not the way free markets or a government that supports them work folks. The current scenario is a recipe for economic failure of a catastrophic nature that dwarfs anything we are faced with currently. Regardless of the impact of the demise of AIG, Wachovia or Lehman Brothers, a year from now you can darn sure bet there will be some changes in lending policy and practices industry wide if we let the markets feel the pain of their own indiscretions, self-identify, reconsolidate and correct with ONLY appropriate governmental oversight and regulatory enforcement. If we don’t bite the bullet and force a correction in the markets that clearly identifies and consequates the culprits, providing a meaningful impetus for genuine accountability through substantive legislative, policy and regulatory change and a meaningful adjustment to and long term stabilzation of our currency, this precise phenominon is only going to get worse as it has at an alarming pace throughout most of our life times. It is time to grow up, stop allowing our leaders to side step the problems while treating “special” constituencies like some sort of endangered species or overindulged child they don’t want to fade the heat for spoiling. We must abandon the benignly cloaked elitist idiocy of patrician know-it-alls who have extorted and redistributed our wealth and resources with impugnity IN BOTH PARTIES and take responsibility for doing the hard work to hold these people accountable and put this country and world markets back on a sound and responsible footing grounded in fair practices and genuine accountability. This must happen before we commit the next several generations to an economically destitute living hell and the potential sociocultural and political nightmares that will likely be generated as a result. Those are precisely the kinds of scenarios subhuman socialist trash like George Soros dream of someday, as they consolidate their strangle hold on world domination. IMO, the fix starts with real world consequences. The “bail out” must be resisted at all costs. Let Mr Soros and his chronies eat the cost of the mess they helped engineer and put every one of his lieutenants we can identify in jail. Write your legislators and let ‘em know that if they can’t get the job of representing our interests done the way they are told, we can and will replace them, regardless of party affiliation. I do, I have, I will and it works.

Posted by: Lance Dickison | September 29, 2008 06:46 PM

Sep 29, 2008 - 10:24 pm 128. Fletcher Christian:

Whiskey; these days the film people have all the best lines – and why not, as they have the most money to pay the writers?

Like a lot of other people, I thought all three of the latest batch of Star Wars films were dreck – but one line stands out as a classic one.

“So this is the way freedom dies – to thunderous applause.”

Sep 30, 2008 - 12:18 am 129. ledger:

The dems have many reasons to torch the economy.

Let’s take at the first lesson.

The dems learned that a poor economy hurts the President and his party.

The dems found out that a declining economy caused George H. W. Bush to be a one term President. They will try to repeat it.

Hence, it is to there advantage to trash the economy a quickly blame the Republicans – as democrat Nancy Pelosi did just before the vote.

As for Pelosi’s screed about President Bush turning a surplus into a deficit, this is non-sense.

I can just hear Arnold Schwarzenegger’s rebuttal:

“With Grey Davis’ and Nancy Pelosi’s reckless economic policies, over regulation and fiscal irresponsibility the Great State of California when from a surplus to sea of red (ink) that would make Osama Bin Laden proud.”

“And, quite frankly, Grey Davis and Nancy Pelosi are well versed in Ponzi schemes and how to sell them to the public.”

Second, from Wretchards eight minute clip made it clear that the dems are mostly responsible for this financial meltdown.

To misdirect the public the dems (including Chuck Schumer) have nudged banks to the brink of insolvency – look at the Indymac case.

This is a designed to anger the Average Joe into thinking the “Republican Robber Barron’s” are out to take his house and 401K.

Next, Obama has proved to be a dud.

He is sinking in the poles. He is now seen as a blithering empty suit who has only benefited from racial preferences.

The dems need to take the spot-light off of him and smear the “Rich” Republicans if they can.

Last, the MSM has a firm hold on the public’s consumption of “news” for the time being. If they can pull the dem’s bacon out of fire they will have earned their pay.

In short, the dem’s will continue to trash the economy – unless they are paid-off.

The dems will solicit funds from unfriendly nations in the name of “Worldly diplomacy.”

The MSM will cover for Obama and fling dung at the Republicans.

It’s going to be a very brutal political season.

It is time to get the book on the dems their dealing with Freddie and Fannie. Let the public see their dirty deals.

I hope conservatives can pull together and defeat the dems.

Sep 30, 2008 - 2:56 am 130. ledger:

Cannaoneer No. 4, I bookmarked the ‘Strategy of the Manufactured Crisis.’

That’s a good summary.

Sep 30, 2008 - 3:36 am 131. Brian H:

The whole mess circles around ACORN and its mandate to overhouse and undercharge indigent minorities. “POP! goes the weasel!”

Sep 30, 2008 - 4:18 am 132. RWE:

Fred:

It Already Happened.

Read “Unlimited Access” – the first of the Clinton scandal books.

Sep 30, 2008 - 5:19 am 133. Lifeofthemind:

The NY Sun is going out of business. The world darkens.

Sep 30, 2008 - 6:15 am 134. NahnCee:

Fletcher – just remember who wrote that “thunderous applause” line (George Lucas), and where his sympathies lie on the political spectrum.

Sep 30, 2008 - 6:32 am 135. peterike:

Fletcher – just remember who wrote that “thunderous applause” line (George Lucas), and where his sympathies lie on the political spectrum.

Indeed, when it first came out, that line was widely seen as a smack at the Bush administration, and the era of darkness and crushing of dissent that was falling on America. Indeed, dissent was surely crushed, as were the tables at Barnes & Noble, crushed by the weight of anti-Bush books piled upon them. Somehow, Liberals never did see a contradiction there.

As is so often the case, Liberals claim to fear precisely what it is they do.

Sep 30, 2008 - 7:05 am 136. Charles:

Stocks staged a partial rebound early Tuesday after their biggest sell-off in years, though financial markets remained troubled a day after lawmakers rejected a $700 billion rescue plan for the financial sector. A key rate that banks charge to lend to one another shot higher, a tightening of the availability of credit that could spill through the economy.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080930/wall_street.html

Sep 30, 2008 - 7:12 am 137. steveaz:

The Dows up 250 points this moring, and oil’s dropped below $98 barrel.

If oil drops, our economy will boom. Let the markets work, and, drill, baby, drill!

BTW: All this talk about bailouts is letting the Dem’s off the hook for their intentional shorting of our domestic energy production. They’re reveling in our distraction from their irresponsibility.

Let’s not let them get away with it.

Sep 30, 2008 - 7:30 am 138. fred:

Ledger,

It isn’t Obama who is sinking in the polls. It’s McCain, who personally and whose party had little to do with the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mess. I read somewhere that now even OLDER females are turning towards Obama.

It is the female vote that is going to fling this country and its unique heritage into the abyss.

I agree that women should have been enfranchised, but I have moments like this when I wonder if that was a wise thing to do?

Sep 30, 2008 - 7:35 am 139. slade:

“So this is the way freedom dies – to thunderous applause.”

Coming from the Rollerball (James Caan) Rink.

When I was younger, the culture argument was the old coots chewing their gums again. I think the turning point for me was the movie Blue Velvet by David Lynch, then hooked up with Isabella Rosselini, the female star. The critics loved it. I didn’t. But some of the images have stayed with me to this day if that’s any metric of success.

George Lucas sure got fat.

Sep 30, 2008 - 7:44 am 140. slade:

I wonder if that was a wise thing to do? – Fred

Like giving The Boyz the keys to the lock boxes?

NahnCee I think this is another “people without penises” moment.

Oh my. Sighing.

Deeply.

Sep 30, 2008 - 7:51 am 141. Doug:

Thank You, House Republicans
Mark R. Levin

I have read the posts here and elsewhere. Sometimes these things are made to look more complicated than they really are. From an economic perspective, if the problem is liquidity and credit, there simply is no need for the federal government to assume massive amounts of debt on its book by assuming loans in anticipation that their holders or borrowers will default. This seems to me like a brand new expanse of government power that is not justified (if it ever is) by the arguments made on its behalf. The government controls monetary policy through supply and interest rates, among other things. It can further ease money supply and credit, thereby increasing the flow of capital. The government controls tax policy. It can increase liquidity and the flow of new money into the economy both from within the country and from foreign sources by eliminating the corporate income tax and the capital gains tax even on a mid-term basis. No matter what is done, some financial institutions will fail, as they did in the 1981-82 recession and have since. And the Fed and Treasury and other instrumentalities of government will have to determine, on a case-by-case basis, whether to intervene and how to intervene. They will also have to determine whether other policies require modifying, such as the McCain proposal today, in which he suggests increasing federal insurance for individual depositors from $100,000 to $250,000. Other smart suggestions include modifying the mark-to-market rule requiring financial institutions to downgrade the valuation of assets. If the goal is to prevent panic in the economy by investors and depositors, then increase credit, liquidity, and the flow of capital, and deal with problem institutions that are significant enough in size that their demise could resonate to the wider economy. But the Soviet-style, top-down five year plan a la Paulson’s proposal, and to a significant extent the proposal that was voted down yesterday, could easily do more damage to both the economy and our governmental structure. So, in this respect, I must depart from NRO’s editorial.

Also, count me among those few here who want to thank the House Republicans for taking a bold stand against what had been a stampede on a scale I have never before witnessed on matters of huge consequence. Conservatism is more than a quaint belief-system to be embraced and debated over donuts at Starbucks. It is more than a list of talking points. It is the foundation of the civil society. The liberal uses crises, real or manufactured, to expand the power of government at the expense of the individual and private property. He has spent, in earnest, 70 years evading the Constitution’s limits on governmental power. If conservatives don’t stand up to this, who will? If they don’t offer serious alternatives that address the current circumstances AND defend the founding principles, who will? The House Republicans have done both. And I, for one, thank them.

Incidentally, if you want to buy a home or car today you can. And if your credit is decent, you can get loans at a good rate. Last week we were told that if a deal was not struck by last Friday, our economy would collapse. It has not. That is not to say the evidence of economic troubles or worse should be ignored. It is to say that now is a time for reasoned decisions based on tried and true principles, not for abandoning them. I notice that the socialist, who, for the last 30 years, has insisted that private institutions make risky loans based on non-economic reasons, still has not abandoned his policies. Socialism does not work. We shouldn’t support more of it.

Sep 30, 2008 - 8:32 am 142. Doug:

Pelosi is the Fraud of Franks, Raines, Dodd, & Co writ loud.
…and of course, ACORN Head Fraud Obama.

Sep 30, 2008 - 8:33 am 143. Eggplant:

Ledger said:

“Next, Obama has proved to be a dud. He is sinking in the poles. He is now seen as a blithering empty suit who has only benefited from racial preferences.”

I don’t like the Messiah and also believe him to be an empty suit. However he is NOT sinking in the polls. He is currently 8% above McCain in the Gallup Tracking polls, refer to:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/110788/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Maintains-8Point-Lead.aspx

The “Bradley Effect” is probably less than 5%. If the Messiah is at 8% then he can win.

Palin needs to work her magic on Thursday and McCain needs to do a better job in his next debate against the Messiah.

B. Hussein is a dangerous demagogue. People need to be more concerned about this.

Sep 30, 2008 - 8:34 am 144. Ken:

Whiskey, if you really want people to take your predictions for the next 100 years seriously, maybe you should get your facts right for the last 50 years.

Reagan carried the women’s vote in 1980, 47% to 46%:

http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/elections/how_groups_voted/voted_80.html

and by a 58-42 landslide in 1984:

http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/elections/how_groups_voted/voted_84.html

They also voted for Bush I over Dukakis in 1988, 51 to 49:

http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/elections/how_groups_voted/voted_88.html

And again, I don’t know what kind of women you have met to give you the impression that they HATE (your emphasis) blue-collar men. If anything, the ones I’ve met seem to prefer them; when they do hook up with a white-collar type, it’s usually pretty pro forma and joyless, whereas many women think of working-class men as “hot.”

Sep 30, 2008 - 8:38 am 145. Eggplant:

NahnCee said:

“Even if Rezko talks, who will report it and who will listen?”

NahnCee is right. The MSM is in bed with the Messiah. Rezko could sing like a bird and the story would only appear in National Review and maybe Drudge Report.

Sep 30, 2008 - 8:42 am 146. Habu:

The Internet must now be included in the MSM and it doesn’t take much reading of various “popular” sites to realize this.

Some of the threads are nothing but propaganda, designed and executes for just that purpose. People cite Wikipedia all the time, many times as their only source when practically everyone with a pulse knows the “facts” on that site can be changed by almost anyone minute by minute.

Most contributors us the blogs as a theraputic device, giveing their “opinion” on this and that, much of it simply junk. Hell, you could be reading a junior college freshman simply typing in propaganda for the instructor for extra credit.

Take MCNBC, putatively an “honest” purveyor of events but in reality simply a propaganda organ.

Most of these sites are now as leftist as the “traditional MSM” and those that aren’t get very marginal readership.

We all know about Moveon.org and their ilk.

It is becoming almost an impossibility for the average citizen to get honest reporting from any source

(I wrote this myself and I approve it’s message)

P.S. If Obama wins I don’t believe I’ll have the stomach to watch the ride down PA AVE lined with his demographic and lefists of all strips, or his searing in. I don’t thing mid America will be there. He may win the EC but the Red/Blue map will remain largely red. He’ll win by taking the inner cites and the money centers. So here I am using the blog for therapy, geez.

Sep 30, 2008 - 8:46 am 147. slade:

Pelosi is the Fraud of Franks, Raines, Dodd, & Co writ loud. – Doug

Two words – Peter Principle

If the scenario posted earlier by Habu is right – that Pelosi thought she had enough Republican support to allow a handful of pressured Democrats to vote against – then she gambled and lost.

We used to call that in over your head.

Not to mention that her behavior has been tacky. If you’re going to melt in public, do it with style.

What I am wondering is how long the next (likely) Democratic administration thinks they can ride the blame game into the recession, which will be on the order of years – pick your favorite hysterical estimate but minimum holding time for portfolios is now ten years, which means worst hit are those 5-10 years from retirement.

Sep 30, 2008 - 8:49 am 148. fred:

Ken,

What you wrote may be true for the period described. But not now. Obama is running so far ahead of McCain among females, especially the under-30 ones, that it defies description. And I read a report yesterday about recent polling that shows OLDER females are now deserting McCain for Obama.

I’m telling ya, American women are up to their eyeballs in the looming disaster. And when Iran nukes Israel, maybe even Europe, and millions die, I AM GOING TO LAY IT RIGHT AT THE FEET OF AMERICAN WOMEN, who fell, hook, line, and sinker for that long-legged mack daddy.

Sep 30, 2008 - 8:51 am 149. Doug:

A READER AT A MAJOR NEWSROOM EMAILS:

“Off the record, every suspicion you have about MSM being in the tank for O is true. We have a team of 4 people going thru dumpsters in Alaska and 4 in arizona. Not a single one looking into Acorn, Ayers or Freddiemae. Editor refuses to publish anything that would jeopardize election for O, and betting you dollars to donuts same is true at NYT, others. People cheer when CNN or NBC run another Palin-mocking but raising any reasonable inquiry into obama is derided or flat out ignored. The fix is in, and its working.” I asked permission to reprint without attribution and it was granted.

UPDATE: The Anchoress hears similar things. And reader Eric Schubert: “The Edwards debacle was proof enough of where the heart of the MSM lies, and lack of curiousity of the press about Edwards probably cost Hillary the nomination. And that shameful episode offers a warning to the MSM. What if Obama does have a skeleton in his closet (such as a shady deal or outright bribe) that is revealed after he wins the election? While the chance of this scenario is remote, imagine the backlash against the MSM if it could be shown that a reasonable investigation by the MSM would have easily revealed this secret to the public prior to the election?”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Rand Simberg isn’t so sure: “Where was the backlash against this about Bill Clinton in 1992? They just seem to continue to get away with it.” Well, yes and no. Their reputation and readership/viewership keep falling. And layoffs keep happening. I think they’re willing to pull out all the stops because they realize this is the last election where they have a chance at swinging things this way. No point saving your credibility for the future when you don’t have a future, I guess . . . .

Glenn Reynolds

Sep 30, 2008 - 9:12 am 150. peterike:

I AM GOING TO LAY IT RIGHT AT THE FEET OF AMERICAN WOMEN, who fell, hook, line, and sinker for that long-legged mack daddy.

I agree completely that, writ large, letting women vote has been a disaster. Of course there are many exceptions, but overall women tend to be more Left, because they are far more swayed by their emotions when they vote, and are more easily influenced by emotionally charged (and factually incorrect) arguments. Like the old standbys from the Democrats, “vote for the Republican and old people will starve and children will die” kinds of nonsense. Women believe this stuff at rates far more than men.

Also, women are generally more ignorant of economic issues, how markets work, etc. Though for sure way too many American men haven’t a clue about it either.

So if there’s a vote to repeal female suffrage, count me in. But then again, I think the voting age should be 35 or 40, I think anyone on the government dole should not have a vote, and I think that you should be required to pass a basic civics test to register (which many people would fail). So what do I know?

Sep 30, 2008 - 9:15 am 151. whiskey:

Ken, your perceptions of women are skewed by individuals not the larger data.

WHO are the consumers of astrology, fortune telling, mediums, and the like? Who are the audience for The View and Oprah?

Who voted for Kerry and Clinton? What single-demographic (unmarried) voted for Gore?

Who voted for JFK based on looks and youth? Women will always vote for whoever seems “Alpha” — that is socially dominant and more powerful and in with the cool crowd. Women generally hate blue collar types, and any examination of Women’s movies and tv shows will verify this. [Any "hunky" Blue Collar guy is carefully constructed to be an Ivy League grad.]

Sep 30, 2008 - 9:21 am 152. Doug:

“I think the voting age should be 35 or 40”
—
The NEA/Monopoly Education Ammendment.

Sep 30, 2008 - 9:21 am 153. trangbang68:

The women thing. It’s the Ophraization of our culture, feeling ,emoting,etc. The younger women
who marry and have children want strong leadership for their posterity. The younger ones who emulate Rachel and Phoebe and the other chick on “Friends”(I’ve never watched the show) live in a make believe world of the trivial. They don’t realize the light at the end of the tunnel is an ongoing train. They will be useless anyways in time of national crisis. To them Obama is not judged on gravitas or character. He just reminds them of a glib talker they met over Lattes and Biscottis at Starbucks; someone who knows the plot of obscure French movies and can affect a Euro accent at a hat’s drop. We live in different worlds. That’s why I reiterate, the election will be decided by Joe Lunchbox in the Rust Belt. Either he’ll remember the ethos of his forebearers or he’ll vote class envy and sell the farm.

Sep 30, 2008 - 9:24 am 154. whiskey:

Let me add, this is not limited to the US. In Sweden, in Britain, in the Netherlands, PC, and Multiculturalism are the policies of well … women. Who remain the core of it’s supporters.

Women find POWER in these policies, which seek to identify “unbelievers” or “witches” and punish them socially and economically and legally. This is why kids calling each other names can land in jail (if the child is White that is). This is why women support Sharia law, even though they lose long term, because short-term they can displace White males in social power.

This is why Code Pink and other groups are dominated by women mostly. Why Cindy Sheehan found so many female supporters. Why the Peace at any price movements have historically been driven by women.

Women ARE totally risk averse. Understandable, they suffer badly in war. Women in pre-War Britain formed the core of the appeasement movement’s political backing, and women argue that if they ran the world there would be no war, based on their “superior” morality. In the US, organizations such as the DAR led isolationist, pro-Hitler movements.

Women hate, hate risk, love the Welfare state, and love “Big Men” such as Obama or Chavez. That is just the facts, demographically speaking, no matter how individuals may vary.

Sep 30, 2008 - 9:27 am 155. fred:

It is mainly women who sneering at Sarah Palin and her demonstrable leadership skills. Young and educated women trash Palin like she’s a soft drink cup from a drive-up fast food outlet.

Sep 30, 2008 - 9:38 am 156. Doug:

Understanding $700,000,000,000.00
The Bottom Line:

If the Treasury simply took the $700 Billion and started paying off taxpayer mortgages, they could pay off every mortgage in the country worth less than $75,000… Or put another way, $700 Billion could pay off well over half of all outstanding first mortgages in the entire country.

Do you really think they need this much money?

So I say we just take the cash and pay off half the mortgages out there and see what that does to the credit market and the economy.

Sep 30, 2008 - 9:39 am 157. fred:

I would like to add that my wife is not smitten with Obama. Neither are my two sisters. But every one of them there are many tens in a comparative ratio.

I agree, based on my experience of being on the Left many years ago, that women are disproportionately the rank and file of various socialist movements.

Women are, generally, not risk-takers, and capitalism rewards risk-taking. I’m in the investment business, so I have a little exposure to many years of experience watching and listening to people talk about investing. Women DO tend to do more thorough research, which is something I tend to favor (I’m an analyst)and find commendable. But we need to take a good, hard look at our education system and why it so reinforces the dysfunctionality that is at the root of the Leftward drift of the nation and why women tend to not become entrepreneurs and investors.

Sep 30, 2008 - 9:45 am 158. peterike:

But we need to take a good, hard look at our education system and why it so reinforces the dysfunctionality that is at the root of the Leftward drift of the nation

Because that education system at every level before college is dominated by… women. Universities of course have a very strong female presence as well (in sci/math not so much)but not as overwhelming as in the preK-12 sector.

Indeed, this is hardly an original thought of mine, but the disappearance of male teachers through the K-12 years has had a terrible impact on male educational achievement in the US.

Oh yeah, boys and girls should never, ever be in the same classes during high school. More Left wing idiocy that has harmed the world.

Sep 30, 2008 - 10:00 am 159. NahnCee:

So you guys must think that Saudi Arabia has the right idea, huh? Look what a successful society their repression of women has wrought. And Afghanistan, and even India where they’re still throwing acid and burning up brides.

Besides, I can’t believe you’re basing your comments on what “polls” say, for god’s sake. Have you *read* any of the stuff on how these “polls” are weighted.

I sort of think, though, that ya’ll are just funnin’ and hoping to get a rise out of someone. Except for Whiskey who is obsessive over “what women think”.

Besides, there’s more of us than you and we gots guns, too, so get used to it, lads.

Sep 30, 2008 - 10:05 am 160. fred:

peterike,

I agree with the idea of sex segregation in the high schools. I went to a Catholic boarding school, and the absence of girls as a distraction was good for us. We really did focus on our studies more. I’ve seen research about how girls perform academically – even in math and the sciences – in sex segregated schools, and they do better as well.

I agree that Lenin and the Communists were all about making us useless, sex-besotted imbeciles who ramble more than be faithful to our wedding vows. That especially attends killing our Christian and Jewish morality. The socialists are after destroying the family and its bonds. They always have.

Sep 30, 2008 - 10:08 am 161. fred:

NahnCee,

I stated that I am in favor of enfranchisement of women, but I have my moments of doubt because of the very skewed demographic information about Obonga’s supporters (overwhelmingly female).

No, I do not want to imitate Saudi society.

But the onus is on women in America to explain themselves: why are they so overwhelmingly besotted with Obonga? In view of the disaster his Presidency is going to be, I want an accounting from the women of America. I’m not saying YOU personally, NahnCee, but you do realize that there are ten females for every one of YOU. It is that dramatic.

Sep 30, 2008 - 10:12 am 162. programmer:

NahnCee,

Shhhhh. Please keep the effectiveness of women to yourself. It gives the USA approximately a 2 to 1 edge in the battle against radical Islam and any other nation that keeps women from utilizing their full potential. You’re going to give away one of our best kept secrets. Actually, it really isn’t very well kept, is it.

Sep 30, 2008 - 10:21 am 163. peterike:

So you guys must think that Saudi Arabia has the right idea, huh?

Well that’s a leap for ya.

Actually, no, SA doesn’t have the right idea. About anything. I concur with programmer, that we have been well served by letting the female half of our society be as productive as the male half.

However, in the matter of voting, women tend to make my side lose, so of course I’d cut them off if I could (this is of course all pointless speculation). Though I’ll happily split the difference with you. We can keep the female vote if we can raise the age to 40 and include the nobody-on-the-dole part of my plan. Younger women are the worst of the lot. By 40 a lot of them have figured stuff out and gotten over the romantic dreams of their youth.

Fred is right that the notion of co-ed education is a deliberate Communist infusion into our culture. Prior to that, almost no culture on earth was stupid enough to think that you take a bunch of 16 year olds with exploding hormones and put boys and girls in the same room together — to learn! Yeah, right.

It also dramatically changes the tone of the classroom. I went to an all boys highschool and then taught at a co-ed school. What a difference in the tenor of the classroom. Uniforms too. Every young man over 13 should be wearing a shirt and tie every day he is in school. But this is now becoming a thread hijack, so I’m outta here.

Sep 30, 2008 - 10:33 am 164. enscout:

My list of folks who should not be allowed to vote.

-anybody who does not pay federal income taxes (prove it)
-convicted felons (done – for now…)
-minimum age: 25 (prove it)
-Non-US citizens (prove it)

Sep 30, 2008 - 10:45 am 165. Konyok:

I was about to post what I thought was a sharp and well reasoned denunciation of Nancy Pelosi on the comments section of my local newspaper’s “plenty of blame to go around” editorial this morning. My jaw hit my keyboard. None of the usual partisan imps had posted. (”Obamamessiah!” “McSame!”) The forum was full of angry/triumphant first-timers railing against bailing out the fat cats on Wall Street. Pure inchoate populist frenzy.
I saw a lot of stuff about CEO compensation, corporate greed, illegal aliens and crooked politicians. An extraordinary melange of libertarian and socialist impulses. The common thread was: no more Democrats or Republicans! Libertarian, Green Party, whatever! Throw the bums out!!
Apparently, the House switchboard and website were swamped with just this kind of reaction from the public.

It seems to me that there is a third term in this equation that most of us are unable to process. Similar to the the Immigration Reform and Dubai Ports reactions, but much larger and passionate. This is not partisan, not Blue vs Red. It looks more primal – people vs ruling class.

This might be to Obama’s immediate benefit, I mean like today, this week. But, he is intrinsically unable to ride this tiger. (Bitter, clinging). This threatens to become a game changing tidal wave. No doubt, Nader and Barr will both benefit.

Both of the major campaigns have locked in so tightly in favor of bailout that I don’t see how either of them can capitalize on this wave. (If Sarah had remained a blank slate on the issue, she could capture the wave … )The election will probably go to the candidate with the best damage control. Obama might be advantaged by being so aloof, but something tells me that his association with ACORN is just about to become his defining attribute to the public. McCain wagered big on suspending his campaign, however, he was clear that he thought there was no deal on Friday and didn’t make a public appeal for passage yesterday.

The Chinese curse is coming true …

Sep 30, 2008 - 10:46 am 166. Eggplant:

fred said:

“Women are, generally, not risk-takers, and capitalism rewards risk-taking.”

My perception is our DNA programmed behavior tends towards young men out hunting or raiding in small groups or as individuals while the women stayed behind in large social groups gathering food and managing children.

When I’m by myself in the junk yard, hunting for an elusive car part, I can feel my inner Cro-magnon man.

Sep 30, 2008 - 10:49 am 167. enscout:

Those first mentioned would, of course include spouses who file jointly.

Sep 30, 2008 - 10:50 am 168. peterike:

Oh. My. God.

http://www.reason.com/blog/show/129137.html

Do not eat before watching this video. Or maybe ever again.

What did I tell you about Obama Youth? Every impulse of Obamatrons is totalitarian.

HT: Instapundit

Sep 30, 2008 - 11:25 am 169. slade:

“Women are, generally, not risk-takers, and capitalism rewards risk-taking.”

And punishes it.

Maybe need to deleverage the testosterone.

Get in touch with our inner accountant.

Sep 30, 2008 - 11:25 am 170. DougRek:

Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson for BASSANIO:

‘Tis not unknown to you, Antonio,
How much I have disabled mine estate
By something showing a more swelling port
Than my faint means would grant continuance;
Nor do I now make moan to be abridg’d
From such a noble rate; but my chief care
Is to come fairly off from the great debts
Wherein my time, something too prodigal,
Hath left me gag’d. To you, Antonio,
I owe the most, in money and in love;
And from your love I have a warranty
To unburden all my plots and purposes
How to get clear of all the debts I owe.

Warren Buffett for ANTONIO:

I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it;
And if it stand, as you yourself still do,
Within the eye of honour, be assur’d
My purse, my person, my extremest means,
Lie all unlock’d to your occasions.

Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson for BASSANIO:

In my school-days (Goldman Sachs), when I had lost one shaft,
I shot his fellow of the self-same flight
The self-same way, with more advised watch,
To find the other forth; and by adventuring both
I oft found both. I urge this childhood proof,
Because what follows is pure innocence.
I owe you much; and, like a wilful youth,
That which I owe is lost; but if you please
To shoot another arrow that self way
Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt,
As I will watch the aim, or to find both,
Or bring your latter hazard back again
And thankfully rest debtor for the first.

ANTONIO, a merchant of Venice
BASSANIO, his friend, suitor to Portia
________
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE by William Shakespeare

Sep 30, 2008 - 11:26 am 171. Whitehall:

Bobal,

there was an intiative proposed to overturn California’s anti-nuclear legislation. However, it was withdrawn when the advocates decided that spending $25M on the campaign was a waste when $2M in lawyers could achieve the same goal.

Too bad, we might have won that one and we’re still waiting for someone to pony up the $2 mil.

Of course, the state bureaucracy and legislature could still make it prohibitedly expense to proceed with a nuclear project. Even the prospect of such opposition deters out-of-state developers from building to even sell into the state.

Sep 30, 2008 - 11:58 am 172. bobal:

Women vote more social programs.

And Obama has Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Recall the Greek columns.

Also, he doesn’t have any self deprecating sense of humor, another major flaw.

Palin may well be right when she says Alaska might serve as a last redoubt, but only for the self sufficient, from the chaos sure to come.

Alaska–men and women to match my mountains.

Sep 30, 2008 - 12:31 pm 173. bobal:

Looking at those poor poor indoctrinated clone kids sing, it’s time to revisit Zombies

h/t Sam

Sep 30, 2008 - 12:58 pm 174. Bob Murphy:

Seems to me the first thing that happened in the US after women got the vote was Prohibition. With predictable results.
An engineer friend of mine came up with this in a conversation at a party (the conversation became quite spirited after his contribution.:))
female human genetic inequation: VERBAL SKILL + ANXIETY LEVEL >> LOGICAL CAPACITY

There is a real compatibility problem between anxiety and reason in a person. Perhaps the default response to that conflict is emotional once anxiety reaches a certain level of urgency.

I don’t know what the answer is. I have always supported equal pay for equal work and could not countenance women not having a vote. Hmmmm, NahnCee, perhaps this is the 2008 version of “The White Man’s Burden”.:)

I agree in principle that we should have some simple, reasonable vote criteria and it should not be discriminatory by sex, race, etc etc but the Democrats know that the lower the voting criteria, the better they will do at the polls.

The left has stolen the social narrative to such a degree that it would be impossible to implement intelligent voting criteria, now.

The big question is how do we lay the groundwork for a return to the traditional values that built the nation?

How do we wrest control of the schools and universities back from the left?

How do we stop the brainwashing?

Hell we can’t even get Bush or McCain to make the case for conservative values in the public arena.

Sep 30, 2008 - 1:02 pm 175. Habu:

Barack Obama has put out an ad that simple minded John McCain cannot use a computer.

Well guess what; Barack cannot, AND NEVER COULD, land a jet plane on an aircraft carrier at night.

Sep 30, 2008 - 1:22 pm 176. peterike:

Looking at those poor poor indoctrinated clone kids sing, it’s time to revisit Zombies

The real Zombies are their parents. You can catch glimpses of their dazed, Jim-Jones-ish faces in the background, smiling euphorically as they offer up their children to Zeus. Cue the inevitable Goya painting and somebody photoshop Obama’s head onto it.

More than anything, the far Left consists of really creepy, nasty people with serious emotional problems.

Sep 30, 2008 - 1:33 pm 177. bobal:

I noticed those vacant, brain dead, moronically smiling parents, too.

Those kids are going to have to rebel to live.

Rebels with a cause.

Sep 30, 2008 - 2:00 pm 178. Alexis:

True, the parents are creepy and the video is yucky worshipful kitsch.

And yet, I can’t keep myself from laughing at the producers of that video. I’m laughing and laughing and laughing. When I was a child in kindergarten, I hated getting forced to sing stupid insipid songs, and these children don’t seem to share the enthusiasm of their parents either. It will be interesting what those kids tell the public twenty-five years from now.

Just think, some people actually like this stuff. Still, this video is so appalling that I actually regard it as funny. No satire by opponents of the Obama campaign can match this children’s chorus. And the most hilarious aspect of all of this is how they take themselves so seriously.

By the way, look at the middle of the video at 1:31. Is the man in the right of the picture Professor Ayers or is he merely an Ayers lookalike? The resemblance is uncanny.

Sep 30, 2008 - 2:09 pm 179. slade:

I’m laughing and laughing and laughing. – Alexis

I agree. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry so I have taken temporary residence in flippant. But that one had enough impact to pull out the laugh meter.

While Pelosi melts on Capital Hill,
The young raise their voices in Hope from above.

Looking for Change in all the wrong places.
Looking for leverage in too many tranches.

My mind is starting to reassert itself in an environment that makes no sense anymore. That video is just balarney.

Sep 30, 2008 - 2:26 pm 180. Roderick Reilly:

“”"”"”Obama in the third or fourth year can simply cancel elections based on the emergency. And rule by fiat until it’s past. Which it never will be. With the media cheerleading for him. Heck people worship him as a god now.”"”"”"

No need to cancel elections. ALL illegal aliens will have been declared U.S. citizens by then (what 5-year waiting period? Doesn’t a judge’s mere decision override the Constitution anyway these days?) and ALL of them will vote for Democrats. Washington DC will become a state by then (again without the Amendment process — all-powerful judges, ya know), and there will be two more Democratic Senators.

Sep 30, 2008 - 2:35 pm 181. slade:

NEW STOCK MARKET TERMS

CEO –Chief Embezzlement Officer.
CFO– Corporate Fraud Officer.
BULL MARKET — A random market movement causing an investor to mistake himself for a financial genius.
BEAR MARKET — A 6 to 18 month period when the kids get no allowance, the wife gets no jewelry, and the husband gets no sex.
VALUE INVESTING — The art of buying low and selling lower.
P/E RATIO — The percentage of investors wetting their pants as the market keeps crashing.
BROKER — What my broker has made me.
STANDARD & POOR — Your life in a nutshell.
STOCK ANALYST — Idiot who just downgraded your stock.
STOCK SPLIT — When your ex-wife and her lawyer split your assets equally between themselves.
FINANCIAL PLANNER — A guy whose phone has been disconnected.
MARKET CORRECTION — The day after you buy stocks.
CASH FLOW– The movement your money makes as it disappears down the toilet.
YAHOO — What you yell after selling it to some poor sucker for $240 per share.
WINDOWS — What you jump out of when you’re the sucker who bought Yahoo @ $240 per share.
INSTITUTIONAL INVESTOR — Past year investor who’s now locked up in a nuthouse.
PROFIT — An archaic word no longer in use.

Sep 30, 2008 - 2:49 pm 182. Fletcher Christian:

NahnCee & peterike; Actually, it is a widely-held belief that extreme Left and extreme Right meet in the middle, at the back of the circle on the other side of which is freedom.

Most people consider Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy to have been Right-wing, and just about everyone thinks of the Soviet Union and Communist China as on the Left. I submit that the differences between those places were and are far less important than their similarities. And as I see it that line expressed rather well and succintly the fact that in times of crisis people look for a Strong Man to lead them out of the mess – and then, too late, discover that the Strong Man outlives the repairs.

And totalitarianism must be resisted from whichever direction it comes, whether that be religion (any religion) or political ideology. Real world example of the former; Mordor AKA Saudi Arabia. Real world example; Catholic Spain and Italy in the time of the Inquisition. Fictional example; a little more obscure, but check out “If This Goes On” (also called “Revolt in 2200″) by Heinlein – which is a rather convincing story of a future America that has let itself be taken over by the Moral Minority (which of course calls itself the majority). That world’s religion looks like Christianity or a bastard descendant of it.

There is a core of types of behaviour that are immoral wherever and whenever you are. There are also some types for which this varies. The trouble is that some people believe in imposing their morality (in the fringe cases) on everyone else. I do not.

“An it harm none, do what ye will.”

Sep 30, 2008 - 3:12 pm 183. JFSanders:

@ L3,

Thank you for that extremely clear and understandable explanation of that type of derivative. I have copied it and will use it to explain to a lot of my friends that do not understand the economist speak they are hearing on the news.

Newt Gingrich stated during a radio interview today that he could see the seeds of a third party taking root and possibly being a player in the near future in American politics. I like his plan as well. But I feel that in order for the free market to make the correction needed we need to get gov’t off the field. Right now congress is like a 6 foot wide 15 foot tall referee running around the field getting in the way.

@ Habu

I am a “blue collar” guy and I hear the same things you are saying from my coworkers all the time. I work with a racially diverse group that includes a black guy, a cuban refugee that swam the last two yes two miles to the beach and two women. One married with children and one single. The thing we all have in common is our income. But to a person they believe in self reliance and personal responsibility. They have lost all confidence in our elected representatives.

What we are seeing today is a crisis of confidence not a crisis of credit.

Jim

Sep 30, 2008 - 4:34 pm 184. Whitehall:

Here’s a news clip from 1995 about Fannie Mae spreading some money around San Francisco to the delight of Pelosi and Feinstein:

“The company has committed to provide $1 trillion in targeted lending for 10 million homes by the end of the decade [2000]. The targeted lending will serve low- and moderate-income families, minorities, new immigrants, residents of central cities and other underserved areas, and people who have special housing needs.”

Full article here:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_1995_May_2/ai_16888514

Sep 30, 2008 - 4:35 pm 185. Steynian 259 « Free Mark Steyn!:

[...] Democrats in their own words Covering up the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac [...]

Sep 30, 2008 - 4:52 pm 186. Night Owl:

I’m a little late to this thread, so forgive me for rehashing this but I can’t resist:

Fred said:
“I agree that women should have been enfranchised, but I have moments like this when I wonder if that was a wise thing to do?”

So true! We all know that all men are wise and always vote their head not their heart. As for that Chris Matthews guy, who got that tingle in his leg when Obama spoke? He must really be a woman!

and then Fred said:
“And when Iran nukes Israel, maybe even Europe, and millions die, I AM GOING TO LAY IT RIGHT AT THE FEET OF AMERICAN WOMEN, ”

Damn right! And if Eve hadn’t given Adam the apple we’d be living in paradise!

Cherchez la femme!

Sep 30, 2008 - 6:24 pm 187. NahnCee:

As for women being averse to risk, how many female Irish immigrants went down with the Titanic? The ocean crossing didn’t work out too well for them, but you certainly couldn’t say that they were averse to taking a risk. In the pictures of immigrants coming across the Atlantic to Ellis Island there are lots and lots of women both with children and without.

How many women were on the wagon trains headed to California and Oregon in the 1800s? How many women in the Donner Party starving to death?

At least throughout American history, any time they were allowed to women were right there striving and taking risks along with the men. Sacajawea. Pocahontas.

Great disasters without women also happen, like Custer’s last stand, but I don’t see anyone saying that blonde men with big mustaches should never be allowed to lead troops because they’re too stupid.

IF – and it’s a big “if” — women are averse to taking risks, perhaps it’s because it’s been bred out of them, that the selection process has been aimed more at preserving the malleable with the wide hips and big breasts suitable for breeding. More likely, though, is that women have just been denied the opportunity to “go where no man has gone before” on the grounds that they’re being protected from unknown dangers, but really because men didn’t want to be shown up in their own performance.

There are stupid women, yes, of course there are. All you have to do is watch The View and the House of Representatives to come to that conclusion. But geez, what sort of blinders do you have to have on not to notice tht there are also stupid — and greedy and vicious and psychopathic and violent — men?

It’s just an absurd comment to make from the get-go — not to allow women to vote, and frankly I’m flummoxed that this group would even think to go there.

Sep 30, 2008 - 6:53 pm 188. NahnCee:

Isn’t what you’re really all saying in your hypothesis that “more women” will vote for B. Hussein is that it’s sex appeal? Isn’t that the bottom line? Some kind of uncontrollable pheremone thing that we can’t control, so therefore let’s ban it.

Sep 30, 2008 - 6:58 pm 189. slade:

The Line is foolish and low-rent. Don’t over think it. A couple of the boys just had a Three-Martini Lunch. If I am wrong, the blowback will make them long for a Dow 6000.

Sep 30, 2008 - 7:13 pm 190. fred:

NahnCee,

Far be it from me to deny the truth of the things you just posted. I know that my initial post on this topic kicked off a discussion about women and Obama, but I also commented that I would not disenfranchise women even if in my neural flatulence and frustration I begin to wonder why at least 80% of young females and 50% of older females say they are going to vote for Obama. If it does indeed pan out that way, then American women have made a decision that will do great harm to the country.

I want to know and understand why they are doing this. And I think there is something to it that Obama is appealing to their fears and insecurities. But, my wife is going to vote for McCain and my two sisters are going to vote for McCain. Yet, for their votes there will be tens of others in the ration that cast their vote for Obama instead.

Most young men under 30 will vote for Obama, but the percentages are much closer there. I find that interesting.

Sep 30, 2008 - 7:52 pm 191. Night Owl:

NahnCee said:

“Great disasters without women also happen, like Custer’s last stand, but I don’t see anyone saying that blonde men with big mustaches should never be allowed to lead troops because they’re too stupid.”

IMO, this is because men as a group are more often judged by the best, not the worst, among them, while women are judged mainly by the worst. Therefore if a handful of women swoon for Obama, then all woman are silly swooners. Meanwhile Mr. Matthews gets the vapors over the big O., but no one believes or suggests he is representative of all men. Men are more often allowed their individuality; women are not.

And blaming women for the ills of society is an old tradition that goes way back. It’s useful in that it lets lots of men off the hook for their bad behavior.

Sep 30, 2008 - 9:51 pm 192. Wadeusaf:

I am bothered by this whole shifting of the blame thing. As a GOPer, I recall (with pride) that the House was taken over by Newt in 1994 and control was not relinquished until 2006. The laws we’re talking about were passed in 1997.

It is like the ear marks scams, it only takes a little imagination for someone truly gifted to shake down everyone in the neighborhood. I will not say that one party is better than another, I can only say how one representative did among the rabble, and how two senators did out of one hundred. Throw the bums out, and you only add to the homeless population of carpet baggers and consultants er lobbyists. There is too much money and too much power in too few hands to trust any of them with anything alone let alone for too long. Something akin to abolition of the current political parties system and a more representative and more transparent structure needs to be constructed. There are too many people to be effectively represented by so few.

Sep 30, 2008 - 10:27 pm 193. fred:

Night Owl, you appear to be unaware of the demographics of Obama support. His largest demographic group are young, single females – something in the order of at least 80%. That’s huge. And about 50% of older females are leaning Obama. That is also huge. I’m not saying that there are not guys who lean towards Obama. Young men under 30 are smitten with him too, just not to the degree of women in the same age group.

Sep 30, 2008 - 10:31 pm 194. jj mollo:

Yes, Tytler was right, and that’s the reason that the Founding Fathers of the US Constitution did not give us a democracy. There are intrinsic problems with democracy. The checks and balances of the American government and the peculiar method of tabulating votes are designed to prevent the majority from tyrannizing the rest of us. For one thing, its hard enough to get the Senate and the House in agreement. They have different perspectives on what the people need, and which people we’re talking about. The President, representing the interest of the People as a whole, can then veto any attempt to raid the treasury, and the Supreme Court can likewise overturn any illegal attempt to do so.

Sep 30, 2008 - 10:46 pm 195. Ken:

“This is why women support Sharia law, even though they lose long term, because short-term they can displace White males in social power.”

Wow.

I can see we come from different parts of the country. I’m in the State of Nevada, and you’re in the State of Anbar.

Two principles that will improve your life, if you choose to follow them:

Short skirts: good.

Crack pipe: bad.

Oct 1, 2008 - 4:25 pm 196. buddy larsen:

Well, I for one am damn glad women have the vote. Back before they got it, all our elected officials seem like super old-fashioned. Just look at the pictures.

Oct 1, 2008 - 4:37 pm 197. Ken:

Fred, don’t think I don’t understand the problem. The problem is that I don’t like it when the woman-haters hijack a thread. If the past is any indication, I fully expect someone any moment to start singing the praises of Asian, Latin American, and Russian women, because unlike those evil American women, they do what they’re told.

Truth is, there are a lot of Sarah Palins out there. They are neither bitter feminists, nor are they some idealized wide-hipped obedient geisha girl who is SO HOHNY! They are willing to be a man’s woman, but not a latte-sipping gossipy half-man’s woman. Honestly, I think a lot of the woman-haters were just men who were remarkably unimpressive to those evil American women.

Yes, I know the overall women’s vote sucks. No excuses for them there. But keep in mind that that’s only since 1992; in other words, only since the Democrats toned down the far-left rhetoric on economics and played cultural wars instead. The votes for GOP and Democrats were virtually the same before that; I recall reading somewhere that Nixon actually carried the women’s vote in 1960 against Kennedy! (No, I can’t find any stats on it, but it was a very small plurality, so it was probably simply an indication of the fact that there were more very old, conservative women than very old, conservative men–since they lived considerably longer then.)

Oct 1, 2008 - 4:38 pm 198. Eggplant:

Fred said:

“… you appear to be unaware of the demographics of Obama support. His largest demographic group are young, single females – something in the order of at least 80%.”

The Messiah is a demagogue after all. Young women tend to be emotional. Is it unreasonable that a demagogue appeals to emotional people?

Oct 1, 2008 - 4:50 pm 199. Ken:

“And blaming women for the ills of society is an old tradition that goes way back. It’s useful in that it lets lots of men off the hook for their bad behavior.”

There was actually a significant gender gap in the 1980’s. It always worked in favor of the GOP. Men voted overwhelmingly GOP, women were about even. What caused the GOP’s relative decline in terms of votes was not so much that Democrats gave reason for women to vote Democrat. It was that Republicans stopped giving men reason to vote Republican. They still usually did, but not to the same enthusiastic degree.

When the Republicans take an issue overwhelmingly supported by men–like gun rights–they clean up. When they try to seem effeminate, they get creamed. And, for the record, when Republicans do take up issues like guns–or, during the 1980’s, anti-Communism–women usually end up seeing which way the wind is blowing and hop along for the ride (to mix metaphors). Women don’t so much love leftists as they love winners.

Oct 1, 2008 - 4:53 pm 200. Ken:

“Young women tend to be emotional.”

Sorry, but just as I’m not willing to condemn all women on the basis of generalities, I’m not going to excuse them on the basis of generalities. Women in the Old West didn’t refuse to fight the Indians until men fulfilled their Emotional Needs, and women today don’t need to fulfill their EN’s at the expense of the nation. However, most women–not all, but most–would be capable of seeing the light if men would grow a pair and be honest with them. If you press women on the consequences of things, most will see the light. See gun control for an example: as long as it’s framed as “oh, no, people are shooting people, many women will support it. Except for a man-hating minority, however, they won’t support it when you ask if men should lose their rights to defend their families.

Oct 1, 2008 - 5:18 pm 201. buddy larsen:

Down memory lane, to 1999:

(open quote)

“The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets — including the New York metropolitan region — will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

Fannie Mae, the nation’s biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates — anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans.

”Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990’s by reducing down payment requirements,” said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae’s chairman and chief executive officer. ”Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.”

Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan market.

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980’s.”

(close quote)

Oct 1, 2008 - 9:23 pm 202. Jonathan Levy:

This post reminds me of Polybius’ theory on changes in government, first formulated almost 2,200 years ago.
To summarize: A (possibly benevolent) monarchy deteriorates into a tyranny; the tyrant is usurped by the nobility, who form an aristocracy; the aristocracy degenerates into a corrupt oligarchy, which is overthrown by the people who establish a democracy; the democracy devolves into unrestrained mob-rule, which allows an autocrat to establish himself, and the cycle begins anew.
For all its flaws, it can be argued that the history of Rome from the second Punic war through the reign of Augustus acts out a large part of the cycle; from aristocracy all the way through to monarchy.

Here’s a link:
Chapters 2-3
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Polybius/6*.html

Oct 1, 2008 - 11:52 pm

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