158 Comments

1. exhelodrvr:

I will be shocked if this issue is portrayed accurately by the media.

Oct 5, 2008 - 7:15 am 2. marymcl:

So dear old Alec wakes up on the road to Damascus just in time for Obama’s attack ad against the Republicans on this very issue. You gotta love show business.

It’a amazing isn’t it? As interminably long as this presidential campaign has been, things like this make me almost wish we had more than a month left to go.

Oct 5, 2008 - 7:25 am 3. myna:

way to go, alec baldwin! McCain needs help since he does not know how to fight anymore.

Franks needs to be investigated for failed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Oct 5, 2008 - 8:02 am 4. jimbo:

Wretcherd and the many fine posters on this blog:

I’ve been a longtime reader (and very occasional poster) on this site since the early days.

I’m almost always too far behind the curve to post a comment, but that doesn’t mean I’m not paying attention. Hopefully there are thousands more like me.

Thanks and keep up the good work.

Oct 5, 2008 - 8:04 am 5. Leo Linbeck III:

I am very confident that the truth gets out in the long run. But that’s like say that in the long run, markets are efficient. True, but not particularly useful as a guide for action today.

One of the smartest finance guys I know once said “The markets can stay irrational longer than you can stay liquid.” The point is that in a world of bounded rationality and the relentless march of time, truth does not guarantee success.

The genius of the US system is that it has been robust even in the face of dramatic shocks (Civil War, Great Depression, two World Wars, American Idol). It appears likely that Obama will win largely because popular opinion will not revert to the cente-right mean in time for the election.

One way of viewing this situation is that it is a result of the disconnect between the conventional wisdom regarding the Great Depression and the truth of what went down in the early 1930s. The CW is that FDR and the Democratic party saved the nation with the New Deal. Therefore, when confronted with another economic crisis, the immediate reaction is to turn to the party that saved us the last time.

But there are two facts that make this a bad reaction:

1. The New Deal prolonged the Great Depression.
2. The Democratic party of today is not the Democratic party of the 1930s.

There is no way to correct this misunderstandings in the time frame we face in this election. So McCain must find an alternative path to change the outcome. Attacking Obama is the only path that realistically remains. But it is a path that is fraught with risk – even if he wins, it will exacerbate the polarization of the country and make future governance much more difficult.

Quite a dilemma.

L3

Oct 5, 2008 - 8:14 am 6. Zim:

Barney Frank and Chris Dodd ARE the face of this crisis regardless of how many times the MSM yells Republican. Even someone like Balwin, who is as dumb as a box of rocks, can see this.

Oct 5, 2008 - 8:18 am 7. Boghie:

And, here are our choices:

Ticket 1 will tighten government bloat by not implementing the foolhardy plans of Ticket 2 – and by implementing brilliant investment in self-awareness training or something.

Ticket 2 will tighten government expenditures by vetoing 1% of the spending (earmarks) and flat lining growth on 20% of the budget for one year.

Joy.

Yeah, that will do it.

I feel so confident. None of the four politicians we can choose from has a clue.

Oct 5, 2008 - 8:25 am 8. hdgreene:

The Democrats in Congress organize “Cartels of Caring.” A “Caring” Cartel is at the very center of the Subprime mortgage mess. Its most visible members came in the form of a “big fat Fannie” and its spawn, an adrenalin addled Freddie. This Federal Grendel and his Ma effectively turned the mortgage industry into a government run cartel. Except in this story, Grendel didn’t lose his arm, home buyers and taxpayers lost theirs. It took advantage of home buyers at one end and mortgage instrument buyers at the other — and the entire US in between once the “implicit” guarantee of Freddie and Fannie finally became explicit. They socialized the risk and let speculators hugely profit.

Citizens struggling to make a mortgage payments don’t give money to politicians. Real Estate speculators do.

Cartels are always sold as being good for the public. Their purpose is to steer power and money to their members. The Democrats (but not just the Democrats) combine these two principles to produce “Cartels of Caring.” In the last few weeks we have found out how much “affordable housing” really cost. Ten years from now we will learn the cost of affordable health care — your life, perhaps, but only after your money.

Do you want them to stick their fat Fannies into your health care? In this respect, the “McCain plan” is better since it does give the patients some control. Sen. Obama constructs another “Cartel of Caring,” only this time he invites the insurance companies to join and removes power from the patients. They will construct a system of incentives to over treat the well and hasten the death of the severely ill. This system will not require a Dr. House — a brief bit of grief “consoling” will do. Twelve stages in two minutes. Because we care.

The Main stream Media is another “Cartel of Caring.” They sell themselves at the watch dogs of the American People when they are actually the Guard Dogs of the Washington establishment — and all the Cartels of Caring they create. Hence their Howling at the Moon when Sarah Palin arrived on the scene.

After the election they will want their own position shored up. They are owed that much (and self interest does dictate…)

If you want a movie that most effectively mirrors the current set up in Washington, watch Goodfellows. “Hey, Congressman, I’d like you to meet a friend of mine. Grendel’s a Good Fellow.”

It makes you want to Howl like a Beowulf.

Oct 5, 2008 - 8:29 am 9. hdgreene:

It’s suppose to read: “They sell themselves as The Watch Dogs of the American People …

Sorry. I should “watch dog” my comments better.

Oct 5, 2008 - 8:40 am 10. Tamquam Leo Rugiens:

Amazing, that Baldwin guy. Yes, the Dems were in totally in denial about the impending crisis. Also true that the Reps had majorities in both houses at the time and did not force the issue.

Here’s my take on it from the perspective of someone down where the offal and the impeller collide.

Oct 5, 2008 - 8:43 am 11. Boghie:

Just watched the full video.

Uuummmmm….

They are surprised that there is a huge anti-government feeling out there. Surprised. Surprised that we don’t want either Barney or Tancredo ‘running’ the economy ‘efficiently’. Whining that the government has been inefficient. Whining that politicians don’t know the topics on which they vote.

And, these Libs are demanding more government and brilliant oversight. More.

I, like you Wretchard, am starting to think the Culture Wars are over in a month. It has already been decided.

Soon enough the politicians stuck in office in 2009 – 2015 will have to make the hard choices. Even Alec Baldwin is seeking expertise to blow through the flak politicians and talking heads throw up into the air waves. If Alec is not trusting his sources of information, than we can start to have confidence in the direction we are going. A little late to select true leadership that we can get behind and trust.

The next two years, however, could be very scary.

Oct 5, 2008 - 8:53 am 12. Boghie:

Wow,

Probably too late to save this 4 year cycle. All these dinosaurs fighting the old fights of 1994 – before they looked around and saw the world as it is.

Los Angeles NOW Chapter President introduces Sarah Palin

Oct 5, 2008 - 9:10 am 13. Gordon:

I think Johnson said,”… the prospect of being hanged in a fortnight concentrates the mind wonderfully.”

Oct 5, 2008 - 9:32 am 14. Habu:

THE VIDEO HAS BEEN PULLED…

Oct 5, 2008 - 9:42 am 15. Konyok:

Alec Balwin’s comments only reinforce for me the intuition that if the Democrats had run a decent candidate they would be winning this race decisively. The influence of the netroots in pushing them to the left just might prove the decisive element.

Oct 5, 2008 - 10:04 am 16. NahnCee:

If SNL is hitting at the Dem’s on last-night skit about the bail-out then I, for one, think that the message has gotten through to the progressive liberals that Fannie/Freddie is not a Republican-created disaster. THe skit is very mean to the Bush character, but I can overlook that, because of what they do to Pelosi, Frank, and “average AMericans” affected by the housing crisis.

Go to see it at Hotmail. It has to make you feel better about the grasp of the media slipping away on this particular story.

Oct 5, 2008 - 10:37 am 17. Habu:

Given that I can’t view the video I hope this comment from a previous thread today will stand.

Perspective is a valuable thing. We all view this election as perhaps a turning point. Turning to philosophies and ways that this country has fought wars to prevent. But there was a time when an election cost the life of Alexander Hamilton and came very close to bringing down a very new country. It is called by many historians the second American Revolution, such was it’s gravity. And it occured in 1800. A brief look and an encouragement to each of you to read additionally of this election.

“Two rivals. One goal. One was labeled a hypocritical, wild-tempered elitist; the other an impractical, rabble-rousing atheist.
Their success, depending on who was doing the talking, was yoked with either political salvation or impending doom. Their colleagues were alternately earnest, backstabbing, and fickle, fueling a rancorous national debate. Loyalties shattered. Insults flew. And yet, in today’s popular imagination, both men–John Adams and Thomas Jefferson–are often linked with filmy visions of quietude, temperance, and a more dignified, staid time. It’s a wonder, when you think about it, what a few hundred years and some powdered white wigs can do.
The careening course of history and its tenuous implications fuel the narrative of “A Magnificent Catastrophe,” Edward Larson’s new history of the rough-and-tumble election of 1800. After years of what was basically one-party rule, the race of 1800 gave the nation a face-first plunge into the heat of partisan politics – a race so intense it seemed to some capable of making or breaking the fledgling nation. “For both sides,” Larson writes, “freedom (as they conceived it) hung in the balance. One election took on extraordinary meaning. Partisans worried that it might be the young republic’s last.”
Larson’s book couldn’t be better timed, given the chaos of this year’s primaries and the sure-to-be colorful election this summer and fall. And, in many ways, the election of 1800 was quite similar to this one: attack ads, religious slaps (many of which went to Jefferson, the Deist “infidel”), personal rumors, and cutthroat campaigning. Debates on the meaning of the Constitution simmered, as did hyperbole; dragged-out, state-by-state analysis reigned supreme.
A better electoral comparison to 1800, however, may be a more contentious one: the 2000 election debacle, which ended up in the Supreme Court. The election of 1800, after impressive party-based political machinations on the state level, a year of bated breath, and “a steady trickle of election returns [that] kept the nation on edge for months,” ended up in a rather deflating tie. Two Republican candidates (Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, his eventual number two and self-promoter extraordinaire) split the electoral vote. It took thirty-five votes from a weary Congress to finally break in favor of Jefferson.
“A Magnificent Catastrophe” outlines the intricacies of nineteenth-century electoral politics with great detail, but its more interesting moments hint at the context in which the great contest occurred. Those who long for the purity of our “original democracy” will be reminded that, back in the day, it wasn’t always that democratic…or that pure. It was an era where federal courts collected jurors rather than chose them at random; secret, backroom caucuses ruled the day; where state election laws were changed at the last minute for party gain; where states offered funding to churches; where direct representation, in many states, did not exist; where slanted party press was the norm and freedom of the press, thanks to the Sedition Act, was seriously under fire. Elitism, Larson notes, also ran rampant. “In the minds of many, the people remained a wild card in presidential politics: That was why lawmakers in most states did not authorize them to vote for electors.”
Larson began his book with an eye on two themes: science and religion. “Coming as it did at the sunset of the Enlightenment and the dawn of the Great Revival,” he notes, “the 1800 campaign occurred at the pivot point of massive cultural forces.” And while the clash of philosophies was clearly there (and while comparing Jefferson to a heathen “Jacobin” certainly made good copy for the Federalists), the heart of the election, it seems, came down to a more subtle force: power.
“A Magnificent Catastrophe” outlines the rapid surge of party politics at the turn of the century–a development that Washington and other Framers hoped would never occur. Aaron Burr, the New Yorker who gave lifeblood to America’s first urban political machine, was an early adapter: “Party discipline, not ideological purity or sectional loyalties, should prevail in the casting of electoral votes, he argued.” As the election gained steam, partisan ranks solidified, leading many to replace principle with party pragmatism in order to gain power. The days of the disinterested public servant, as dreamed up by Washington, were short-lived, to say the least.
Larson’s book continually hints at massive overlying themes: the utility and shortcomings of political parties, the weight of religion, the meaning of the French Revolution, the shakiness of the early American republic, and, most importantly, the age-old debate between liberty and order. Each of these topics, of course, could fill their own books; unfortunately, with its brisk historical narrative, “A Magnificent Catastrophe” gives most of them a mere passing nod–and moves on through the election, all the way up to Jefferson and Adams’ deaths, which occurred, remarkably, five hours apart.
As America races towards November, and gripes over our political system fill the air, Larson’s history offers highlights on just how far our democracy has come. Many popular histories of America’s founding period are laced with a quiet historical determinism: a nation bound for success; a Constitution certain to be enshrined for future generations. “A Magnificent Catastrophe” reminds readers of a young, fragile United States, and spells out what was common knowledge in 1800: American democracy is an ambitious experiment, unparalleled in the world. The cacophonous elections that we enjoy (or suffer through) every four years serve as an emblem of our nation’s strength–a strength built upon a number of magnificent catastrophes, unfolding over the past two hundred years”
article by Heather Wilhelm.

Aside from what Heather has written there is obviously more to the election. When you have a chance I highly recommend looking at books ,articles etc about this nearly catasthrophic election.

Oct 5, 2008 - 10:43 am 18. Leo Linbeck III:

Redirecting the Fannie-Freddie narrative is more likely to make a major impact than trying to resurrect the Ayers/Wright/Rezko story, IMHO. It’s not too late to grab the FF issue; people are only just now starting to get their head around what happened, and the search for scapegoats will begin soon.

Stay tuned.

L3

Oct 5, 2008 - 10:50 am 19. peterike:

Redirecting the Fannie-Freddie narrative is more likely to make a major impact than trying to resurrect the Ayers/Wright/Rezko story, IMHO.

Agreed. People simply don’t buy into the homegrown radical bit (unless it’s a right-wing white supremacist, the kind of radical people have been programmed to fear for thirty years). Just like calling BHO a Communist has little impact, despite it being probably true. To paraphrase the old line about the devil, the Communists’ greatest trick has been to make you believe they don’t exist.

Call BHO a Commie and people just chuckle. Younger folks, in particular, don’t even have a context for it in their lives. If anything, they think Communists are like crazy right-wingers, because they have been force fed the notion that repression = Republican. It’s astonishing how badly the Republicans have fared in the war of ideas, but then the deck is so terribly stacked against them.

Hell, anyone who gets motivated to vote against an “America hater” is probably already in the McCain camp. Anyone who even understands that there ARE such creatures is already in the McCain camp. It might motivate the base some, but it’s not making anyone in the befuddled middle change their minds.

Isn’t is just shocking how so many people easily flip between candidates? What in heaven’s name motivates such back-and-forth?

Oct 5, 2008 - 11:02 am 20. Eggplant:

Wretchard said:

“Despite the power of the MSM, facts have the irresistable force of reality behind them. And when facts have serious consequences they can burn through bubble-headedness like nothing else.”

The MSM can’t stop the facts. The Truth always prevails in the end. Unfortunately the MSM doesn’t need to stop The Truth dead in its tracks. They only need to slow it down enough for the Chosen One to get elected President. McCain is now beginning his end-game of bringing out the Chosen One’s dirty laundry, e.g. Bill Ayers, etc. The general public has a memory span of about two weeks so now would normally be the right time to begin his end-game. Unfortunately, McCain is about 6% behind in the polls so he has a lot of catching up to do. Even more unfortunate, the MSM will block or delay McCain’s efforts as much as they can. McCain will have to depend upon his own advertisements, YouTube videos and Internet blogs to get his message out. The Chosen One is responding with his own advertisments, YouTube videos and Internet blogs. The political discussion forums of most Internet blogs are now jammed with thousands of two line slander/troll comments written by moonbats and robots (these comments are often repeated). Belmont Club is one of the few forums left where one doesn’t have to wade through dozens of slander comments before getting to something of interest. By flooding the Internet with white noise and controlling the MSM, the Chosen One maybe winning the information war.

Leo Linbeck III said:

“But there are two facts that make this a bad reaction:
1. The New Deal prolonged the Great Depression.
2. The Democratic party of today is not the Democratic party of the 1930s.”

Arguing whether or not the New Deal prolonged the Great Depression is almost as futile as arguing whether or not Reagan ended the Cold War. Both issues are like the Blind Men and the Elephant (depends upon your point of view). My guess is that both issues will still be debated a thousand years from now by classical scholars, e.g. Why didn’t Hannibal besiege Rome after the Battle of Cannae?

The Democratic Party is definitely not the Democratic Party of 1930s or even the 1970s. However the Democratic Party has always been plagued with moonbats. Henry A. Wallace was Vice President under President Roosevelt and an egregious moonbat. The United States dodged a potentially fatal bullet when Roosevelt recognized Wallace’s incompetence and replaced him as Vice President with Harry S. Truman. Truman’s administration as President was a turning point in American history. I doubt that we would have survived the Cold War if Wallace had become President after Roosevelt’s death in office.

Oct 5, 2008 - 11:05 am 21. E. Nigma:

I tend to disagree with the notion that Dodd, frank, et. al, did not know or expect the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac meltdown.

They expected it, and I think they were counting on it. It was actually the only possible outcome, based on the actions taken.

They attitudes and thought patterns are alien to most of us. They are modern day cannibals, and expect us to serve up ourselves to them so that they can go on dining at the government teat.

Likewise, many other wealthier but anonymous bankers and financiers. They EXPECT us to sacrifice ourselves to them to maintain their status quo.

And the voting in November will indicate just how far gone the electorate is, as whiskey opined, the ’single mommy vote’ asks us all to sacrifice to them, for their historically reckless individual decisions.

So we will basically be asked to lay our necks on the block and pull back the collar, so that some may continue to live in profligate ways, and in a non-sensical reality that cannot be sustained. Except a little while longer if others sacrifice themselves.

A little while longer.

Oct 5, 2008 - 11:07 am 22. Konyok:

Thanks for the heads up, Habu.
Next stop: Amazon.

Oct 5, 2008 - 11:15 am 23. Uncle Jefe:

Peterike asks “What in heaven’s name motivates such back-and-forth?”
Several things, including a lack of critical thinking, ignorance on issues, but mostly the need to feel that you’re on the ‘right’ side, the ‘winning’ side. I’ve heard so many people talking about what a ‘disaster’ Bush has been, how McCain will be Bush’s third term, that obama seems like a sincere guy…basically mouthing all that has been fed to them by the msm over the last 8 years, including all the leftist talking points. People are talking themselves into voting for obama because it’s the ‘popular’ thing to do.

Oct 5, 2008 - 11:38 am 24. NahnCee:

Habu, not sure what the problem is at your end with the video, but when I looked, it was fine and dandy. YOu might want to peer again.

Oct 5, 2008 - 11:45 am 25. NahnCee:

RNC files complaint with FEC asking for an investigation into funding of the Obama campaign, including “foreign” contributions.

McCain simultaneously announces he will be taking the gloves off next week.

Yum.

How do you suppose the Left will react if they find out their Messiah has been paid for by Saudi oil money?

Oct 5, 2008 - 11:49 am 26. John Work:

On page 26 in the introduction to Murray Rothbard’s “A History of Money and Banking in the United States” there is a description of Rothbard’s method of investigating the motives of key players in analyzing economic history. This seems very relevant to understanding our current “financial crisis”. Rothbard’s theory is elaborated over the next 10 pages or so and is too long to reproduce here, but the following excerpts give a good general idea:

‘ .. the State throughout history has been essentially an organization of a segment of the population that forsakes peaceful economic activity to constitute itself as a ruling class. This class makes it’s living parasitically by establishing a permanent hegemonic or “political” relationship between itself and the productive members of the population. This political relationship permits the rulers to subsist on the tribute or taxes routinely and “legally” expropriated from the income and wealth of the producing class. The latter class is composed of the “subjects” or, in the case of democratic states, the “taxpayers,” who earn their living through the peaceful “economic means” of production and voluntary exchange. In contrast, constituents of the ruling class may be thought of as “tax consumers” who earn their living through the coercive “political means” of taxation and the sale of monopoly privileges.’

‘The second reason why the ruling class tends to be an oligarchy is related to the law of comparative advantage. … a relatively small segment of the populace possesses a comparative advantage in developing new software, selling mutual funds, or playing professional football, it is also the case that only a fraction of the population tends to excel at wielding coercive power.’

This section goes on to explain how the ruling oligarchy persuades the productive majority that their rule is “in the public interest” and for “the common good” and how this is furthered by the means of “fabricating an ideological cover” using “court intellectuals” – in our case the mainstream media and the academics.

This theory of the tendency of civilizations to succumb to rule by an oligarchy seems valid in all forms of government, and particularly so for democracies. For all civilizations throughout recorded history, one can see this common thread – except for the United States as it was originally conceived and created by the Constitution. But from day one the Constitution and spirit of its citizens have been under attack, beginning with Hamilton’s central bank and Marshall’s expansion of the power of the Supreme Court.

With the recent “bailout” giving Congress unprecedented power over the economy and the current election where the electorate seems so ignorant and even unconcerned about the possible consequences, we seem to have arrived at the culmination of the development of our own ruling oligarchy. While the modern, ideological Democratic Party has been the driving force, the Republicans have shown that they too are just members of the ruling class and have no intention of “saving us”.

I think it is very relevant to our present circumstances to read and consider Rothbard’s ideas about the ruling oligarchy. If you agree with his conclusions, then the prospects are not good for resolving our current problems without a major revolution (which seems unlikely to happen). Without changes to the Constitution to prevent the existence of career politicians, even “a pox on all your houses” and “throwing them all out” will only result in a new crop of rulers stepping forward. By our gradual acceptance of the propaganda of the Left we are like a mastodon trapped in a tar pit. The coyotes (think Islamic extremists and Leftist ideologs) and the saber-toothed tigers (think China) are hungrily circling. There is no good end for any of the players here.

Oct 5, 2008 - 12:00 pm 27. JFSanders:

@HABU
The link ” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yop7ks9N3bk&eurl=http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=188303 ” works for me.

@Uncle Jefe and Peterike
I see this kind of behavior every day I take my teenage daughter to school.

The reformation of the Constitutional Republic that once was this nation will require starting from the local school board.

It will require the breaking of the monopoly of the teachers unions and gov’t levied millage rates to support such monopolies.

Like the gentleman said. “Think Globally, Act Locally”.

We need a huge infusion of Neo Liberals/Paleo Conservatives into the local political scene. Once we push the Socialist/Marxist from the stage our country will start to regain its footing and climb from the gutter that it has been dragged into by government of the Do Gooders.

Jim

Oct 5, 2008 - 12:10 pm 28. Aristide:

A “Government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

The rest of us are just taxpayers (or tax consumers)!

Oct 5, 2008 - 12:16 pm 29. ricpic:

Will they ever get their comeuppance? the socialist scum that have destroyed America? I doubt it.

Oct 5, 2008 - 12:23 pm 30. Eggplant:

NahnCee asked:

“How do you suppose the Left will react if they find out their Messiah has been paid for by Saudi oil money?”

“The Left” will remain ignorant because the MSM will have suppressed the story. When the story does eventually leak through via the Internet, the Messiah’s robots will bury the story with conflicting lies. This Presidential campaign isn’t McCain versus the Messiah, it’s McCain versus the MSM and the moonbat legions.

Oct 5, 2008 - 12:38 pm 31. Habu:

NahnCee:
Thanks N. I’ll have to have the computer wife look into it. All I know is the little circle goes around for two minutes and then I get a notice that says “The video is no longer available.

It has to be a Communist conspiracy , just has to be.

Oct 5, 2008 - 12:39 pm 32. bogie wheel:

Very, very strange indeed, when Alec Baldwin is the most lucid one in the room ….

But then, with Gary Shandling, the bar is set so very, very low.

Oct 5, 2008 - 12:50 pm 33. Habu:

Peterike

“Call BHO a Commie and people just chuckle. Younger folks, in particular, don’t even have a context for it in their lives”

Man what a great observation. In fact that entire post is a gem.

After the election I think we’ll look at the RED/BLUE map, broken down by county and it will look quite similar to the current one. However the MSM, Obama the candidate-dancing-with-the-stars guy, are going to grab all the metro areas that have money. Add in the dead and the votes from the troops that will no doubt never make it to the states and Obama looks strong.

But we can still win. Hannity will lead off tonight at 9PM with an expose on Obamas buddies.

We just need to get the Republican vote out.

illegitimati non carborundum !

Oct 5, 2008 - 12:55 pm 34. Wadeusaf:

So that is who Alec B. is, I had a totally different dufus face attached to that name. Why does anyone take anything he says seriously?

Oh yeah, he has lots money and pays well.

Oct 5, 2008 - 12:56 pm 35. Konyok:

Here’s another “smell the coffee” link.

Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff writes about questionable Obama donations:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/162403

Oct 5, 2008 - 1:15 pm 36. dla:

I am dissappointed that people, even Baldwin (who is surprisingly level-headed on this issue), don’t get it.

“it” is the proper perspective.

America’s GDP is over $14trillion. 5% is 700billion. Imagine a household with a $48000/year income that suddenly gets hit with a $2400 tax bill, because they trusted some nitwits to do the taxes for them. Is that bill fatal? NO.

Iraq cost’s about $100billion a year – less than 1% of the US GDP.

Perspective folks. Perspective.

Oct 5, 2008 - 1:40 pm 37. hdgreene:

I don’t think the Obama campaign is quite that stupid. I think “Good Will” will turn out to have “Republican ties” and the whole episode will be revealed as a “Republican” dirty “trick.” Then no one can look at the really questionable stuff. It is a diversion. Like Clinton’s “Love child” during the impeachment saga.

Or maybe I give them too much credit for criminally inclined finesse. We shall see.

Oct 5, 2008 - 1:47 pm 38. Cannoneer No. 4:

House Of Lies: How Congress Failed To Protect Our Economy

Youtube is is video samizdat. Watch. Share. Viralize.

Oct 5, 2008 - 1:50 pm 39. peterike:

NahnCee asked:

“How do you suppose the Left will react if they find out their Messiah has been paid for by Saudi oil money?”

I agree with Eggplant’s response to this. And I would add another few points. The hardcore Left with be very happy to hear this, because it will validate what they already suspect — that BHO is no friend of “evil Israel,” and that he will watch and do nothing if it goes down in flames.

The softer Left (softer headed) will think its all lovely and multi-culti. To them it will be evidence that Obama will bring peace and flowers to the Middle East. Because after all, the whole problem there is that we just refuse to understand and to LISTEN.

I dunno know, I think it’s pretty easy to understand the “we want you dead” message that emanates from that benighted armpit of the world, but for some reason Lefties think it’s no more than a heated discussion in a coffee bar. Even 9/11 didn’t shock them out of this demented disconnect from reality for more than a few months.

Muggeridge was so right about the Left. “All resolved, in other words, to abolish themselves and their world, the rest of us with it… It has all just been sleep-walking to the end of the night.”

Or to see the whole thing from another angle, as Shakespeare had it:

I understand a fury in your words
But not the words.

I think that’s how Leftists really view Obama. Beneath all the hopey-changey baloney, what it’s really about is taking revenge on the Republicans they have been taught to hate for eight years. They haven’t the slighest idea what BHO’s policies mean, what they will engender, but oh boy it’s going to FEEL SO GOOD to beat the bastards, and then we can all party like it’s 1917.

Oct 5, 2008 - 1:50 pm 40. sigintel:

In 2008, the MSM has perfected the art of producing and broadcasting propaganda. They use the “big lie” to bury the truth just as Biden buried the truth in his pack of lies during the debate(gee that news never made the headlines!). The distortions, fibs, slander and lies that have characterized the MSM’s coverage of the Republican candidates has been effective and may have assured Obama a win in November. To paraphrase Goebbels…”If you tell a lie often enough people will believe that it’s the truth.” George Orwell’s character “Big Brother” in a 2008 redux may indeed be the MSM, who like the Wizard of Oz are pulling the levers behind the moveon.org curtain. Listening to Biden’s “Double Speak” during the Thursday debate was amazing as he actually believes that the US kicked out Hezbollah from the Lebanon. Who trusts anything they see, read or hear anymore as the filtering is so intense…Google owns YouTube and “video no longer available” is a polite way of saying…”filtered for your own protection.” God help us find the truth in all of this! The crescendo of lies unbearable.

Oct 5, 2008 - 2:03 pm 41. Leo Linbeck III:

Eggplant,

Re: New Deal and Great Depression
Good point; it is always difficult to establish strong causality. I guess it’s been too recent that I’ve read Amity Shlaes’ book The Forgotten Man.

Perhaps a better way to put it would be: it is likely that the New Deal did not cause the end of the Great Depression. The main point is that most people believe the New Deal did just that. It is that belief that underlies their instinctive reaction to run to the Democratic party when there is a major financial crisis. And that reaction has pushed Obama up by 6-10 points nationwide, despite the likelihood that his approach as President would worsen, rather than improve, the situation.

L3

Oct 5, 2008 - 2:04 pm 42. bogie wheel:

dla:

I would be inclined to agree with you if this incident were an anomaly.

Problem is, it’s not. It’s part of the pattern. Washington, in particular the Congress, (a) won’t control its spending, (b) has a habit of passing all sorts of bad legislation in order to achieve social engineering goals, and (c) won’t be honest with the electorate about the tsunami-like levels of unsustainable debt and fiscal obligations bearing down on us.

The $700bn is not just a snowball. It’s the tip of the iceberg.

Will taxpaying voters (or, if you prefer, voting taxpayers) wake up before the fit hits the shan? That’s the $5 trillion question.

Oct 5, 2008 - 2:06 pm 43. Cannoneer No. 4:

Obama allies warn GOP to back off attacks.

Rep. Rahm Emanuel, a Chicago Democrat and Obama supporter, warned against McCain’s strategy.

“If we are going to go down this road, you know, Barack Obama was eight years old, somehow responsible for Bill Ayers,” he said. “At 58, John McCain was associating with Charles Keating.”

“If we really want to talk who is associating with who, we will,” Emanuel said. “The American people will lose in that transaction.”

Keating is all they have on McCain.

Oct 5, 2008 - 2:14 pm 44. Konyok:

hdgreene,

Even if “Good Will” is a Republican dirty trick, the Obama campaign wasn’t policing their donors.

It’s another wispy straw of doubt. Bring the independents to McCain, nudge the progressives to Nader.

Oct 5, 2008 - 2:41 pm 45. Cannoneer No. 4:

The Obama-Ayers TKO punch McCain should use…
Linking radical ties to BHO’s failed educational & economic leadership

Obama says he met Ayers the first time in 1995 – a year before – which would be when he was appointed as Chairman of the Board of the Chicago Annenber Challenge. But from 1993 to 1995, Obama also served on the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago simultaneously with another board member, William Ayers.

Oct 5, 2008 - 2:42 pm 46. RWE:

Cannoneer:

Bob Bennet, the lawyer who defended Bill Clinton, a big time Democrat and the guy who investigated Sen McCain on the Keating 5 business, has said publically and clearly, and more than once, that McCain should never have been included in that investigation, and he formally recommended that to the authorities at that time.

It appears that McCain was included so that they could have one token Republican as well as those 4 Democrats and thus make the investigation look Bipartisan.

If they bring up Keating one of their own has already cut ther legs out from under them.

Oct 5, 2008 - 2:53 pm 47. RWE:

Leo Linbeck: Another book is “Roosevelt’s Folly” which describes why the Great Depression occurred and how the New Deal made it worse.

Few people indeed know that the Great Depression that help sweep in Roosevelt was followed after a few years of New Dealism by what was know as the Roosevelt Depression, and which was much worse.

Oct 5, 2008 - 3:08 pm 48. SpeakEasy:

My problem with McCain has always been my impression that his ordeal in Hanoi took the true combatant out of him. He tries too hard to be nice– not an especially favorable attribute when battling the Democratic Party. I respect the man and his service, but I want a General Patraeus leading when battle drums roll. That I am not alone is evident to me with the reaction to Sarah Palin’s nomination.

Oct 5, 2008 - 3:23 pm 49. aisaic:

“the very gravity of the situation can demolish frivolity and produce unexpectedly clear thinking”

Baldwin does not indulge in facing cold facts. Towards the end of the clip he reverts to standard quote that we are in this mess because of Republicans & Current Administration. Now, that 180o is perfectly OK if, and only if, it is true that the right wing extremist Aristotle invented Logic for the sole and precise end of men being able to subject, er, women, unfortunate minorities, non-western people, etc. However, if the latter proposition happens not to be true, then Baldwin attempts something a lot easier: damage control.
Pretend you take into account the hard facts while cleaving to your basic position even faster than limpets do to rock.

Oct 5, 2008 - 3:50 pm 50. Cincinnatus:

Bill Mahar doesn’t understand anything unless it draws a straight line of cause and effect from “Bush elected” to “Ruin of biblical proportion”. He stares at Alec Baldwin through a breathless fog, that doesn’t lift until he uses meaningless phrases like “the bill that will come due on Iraq”.

Oct 5, 2008 - 4:45 pm 51. NahnCee:

I think that if it can be proven that B. Hussein has been accepting donations from Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, Iran and/or North Korea the MSM can very easily be by-passed. This would be the sort of news that would cause me to stop every Democrat that I know in the hall and ask them if it bothers them at all, just to make sure they know about it. It’s the sort of news that would make me print off flyers at work and then to canvass supermarkets on weekends, or the Pasadena Rose Bowl, or Dodger Stadium to put a flyer under the windshield of every car with an Obama sticker on it.

Progressive Liberals could then go ahead and vote for their Messiah if they are that much in agreement that America should be sold to Islam, but they certainly would not be able to do it while standing behind a false veil of “I didn’t know because it wasn’t reported in the NY Times.”

Oct 5, 2008 - 5:22 pm 52. Habu:

Mr Fernandez,

With good reason you are very well respected. I was wondering if you would put together a list, say a list of ten books you consider to be essential for an individual to read and understand in order to be informed of mankind.

I realize this is no easy task, but you are a person people look to for guidance and understanding. I am sure we would all benefit.

Please conside this. I believe we could all benefit.

Oct 5, 2008 - 6:02 pm 53. myna:

Los Angeles NOW Chapter endorses Sarah Palin. That is huge, considering feminists only standing issue is abortion.

I choose Sarah anytime to represent me rather those crude, vulgar, no morals women in The View, (Barbara Walters cavorting with a married man! Like as if it is an accomplishment.) or the obnoxious Michelle Cho like having an abortion is a trophy, and comedian name Benhard who wish harm to their fellow woman because Palin is a pro life.

All young woman should be inspired with Palin young, beautiful, intelligent, married with beautiful children, and does not need a man to ascend her to the highest position.

Oct 5, 2008 - 6:09 pm 54. Konyok:

Question: How many Obama supporters does it take to change a lightbulb?

Oct 5, 2008 - 6:33 pm 55. Konyok:

Answer: One, they* hold hold the lightbulb and wait for the world to revolve around them*.**

* Gender neutral personal pronoun
** Yes, we can!

Oct 5, 2008 - 6:35 pm 56. Storm-Rider:

“The Democratic party of today is not the Democratic party of the 1930s.”

That’s right, the Democrats have pulled out their shovels and dug deeper Socialist hole for America.

“There are those who still think they are holding the pass against a revolution that may be coming up the road. But they are gazing in the wrong direction. The revolution is behind them. It went by in the Night of Depression, singing songs to freedom. So it was that a revolution took place within the form. Like the hagfish, the New Deal entered the old form and devoured its meaning from within. The revolutionaries were inside; the defenders were outside. A government that had been supported by the people and so controlled by the people became one that supported the people and so controlled them….. In the welfare state the government undertakes to see to it that the individual shall be housed and clothed and fed according to a statistical social standard, and that he shall be properly employed and entertained, and in consideration for this security the individual accepts in place of entire freedom a status and a number and submits his life to be minded and directed by an all-responsible government.” Garet Garett

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/garrett1.html

Oct 5, 2008 - 6:37 pm 57. Storm-Rider:

“How do you suppose the Left will react if they find out their Messiah has been paid for by Saudi oil money?”

The hard Marxist left has allied its self with our Islamist enemies; both would rule without the consent of the governed.

“The enemies we have are common enemies — Left-fascist ideology (formerly expressed as Communism, but now reorganizing around the “scientific materialism” of the environmentalist cause), and Islamo-fascist ideology (now called “Islamism,” to distinguish political from religious Islam, on the assumption that this can be done).
These are the two great contemporary Sirens, and each calls upon constituencies lodged deep in the West itself. The appeal of simplistic ideological movements spreads in the spiritual vacuum left by the recession of Christianity. But whatever dark forces answer to the command of these two great Sirens, there is agreement between the Left and the Islamists that Israel is the front line of the West, and that she is sufficiently isolated to be worth destroying first. There is moreover agreement between them that the ultimate target is “Amerika” and the whole “bourgeois, Judeo-Christian” order that has sustained our freedom and prosperity. What happens if our enemies succeed? I would guess it is then Green versus Green, and the Islamist monster eats the Environmentalist monster, for the former is more wilful and ruthless.”

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/printpage/?url=http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/05/israels_survival_is_tied_to_th.html

Oct 5, 2008 - 6:43 pm 58. Storm-Rider:

“How do you suppose the Left will react if they find out their Messiah has been paid for by Saudi oil money?”

The hard Marxist left has allied with our Islamist enemies.

“The enemies we have are common enemies — Left-fascist ideology (formerly expressed as Communism, but now reorganizing around the “scientific materialism” of the environmentalist cause), and Islamo-fascist ideology (now called “Islamism,” to distinguish political from religious Islam, on the assumption that this can be done).
These are the two great contemporary Sirens, and each calls upon constituencies lodged deep in the West itself. The appeal of simplistic ideological movements spreads in the spiritual vacuum left by the recession of Christianity. But whatever dark forces answer to the command of these two great Sirens, there is agreement between the Left and the Islamists that Israel is the front line of the West, and that she is sufficiently isolated to be worth destroying first. There is moreover agreement between them that the ultimate target is “Amerika” and the whole “bourgeois, Judeo-Christian” order that has sustained our freedom and prosperity. What happens if our enemies succeed? I would guess it is then Green versus Green, and the Islamist monster eats the Environmentalist monster, for the former is more wilful and ruthless.”

realclearpolitics.com/printpage/?url=http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/05/israels_survival_is_tied_to_th.html

Oct 5, 2008 - 6:47 pm 59. cedarford:

The usual snarky rules don’t apply. If Alec Baldwin can face the facts because he must face the facts then anyone can.

The public is in a “pox on both Houses” mood.
They know that for every Democrat that helped foster ruin, there was a Republican complicit.

Republicans, facing up to that truth as admirably as Alec Baldwin did on his side, have to acknowledge not just the failure of Bushism, but the discrediting and obsolescence of Reaganism.

You know, the ideology Bush I properly called “voodoo economics”. That said that all taxes can be cut to nothing because they eventually “pay for themselves”, so “deficits don’t matter!”.
That wealth concentrating almost solely to the rich is not a problem because it “trickles down”.
The Dick Armey/Norquist/Phil Gramm crusade to deregulate the financial markets and remove government oversight so “the genius of the free market!!” can deliver it’s bounty to all thanks to the wise, liberated noble titans of Wall Street.
And how Republicans chimed in with Democrats that 800 billion trade deficits and the gutting of industry and skilled industrial jobs “didn’t matter” because a post-industrial America would prosper by 30,000 fatcats selling “ingenious financial instruments. And providing the world with American wizardry in banking solutions. We were also supposed to excel at “providing exciting green energy solutions” and compensate from China making most the stuff by “unsurpassed American creativity” which appears to be limited to manuals telling Americans how to use Chinese DVRs, Japanese Priuses, and German optics..

If Alec Baldwin admits the past dogma from both Parties has let America down, it is time Republicans do so, as well.

Palin is a small sideshow. McCain will likely lose because he is so long tied to the Reaganites who, like the Neocons, have had their time pass. Obama isn’t any better, he is on paper worse than McCain, but is unburdened with all McCains 30-year long “Dear Friendships” with DC powerbrokers and has no enthusiasm for the endless war and military worship that McCain has..

After the failure of Reagan economic ideas is too obvious to ignore, after the failed Presidency of Dubya, after the 1994 Republican Revolution was betrayed into corruption and corporate cronyism and general incompetence at running Gov’t – it’s a good time as any for the Republicans to “bench themselves” and figure out how to remake themselves as a 21st Century Party again attractive to the middle, working classes, and women…

The Democrats will have 4 years to show if they can clean up the mess of their fellow Democrats and the hapless terrorism-fixated Bush and the Republicans for the Rich. If they succeed, great. If they don’t and Republicans are improved and not still a pack of reactionary, bought & paid for dinosaurs from the 70s and early 80s – then they may get another chance.

If neither are fit to lead we may end up with a State of Emergency and an authoritarian gov’t that has to get debt and entitlements back under control, our Borders and trade back under control, and America comptetive again.

Oct 5, 2008 - 6:59 pm 60. solovyev:

Habu -

You asked Wretchard, not me, so please forgive the reply, but here is a first blush list of ten books I think anyone would profit from reading or re-reading:

Gospel of John
Nicomachean Ethics
The Road to Serfdom
Walden
Paul’s Epistle to the Romans
Leviathan
The Peloponnesian War
The Possessed
the Constitution of the United States
C. Northcote Parkinson’s “The Law”

Oct 5, 2008 - 7:14 pm 61. Konyok:

I second Habu’s request.
It would be very interesting to see our learned host’s list.

Oct 5, 2008 - 7:21 pm 62. Leo Linbeck III:

Habu,

My turn:

Plato’s Crito
Tolstoy’s War and Peace
Austen’s Pride and Prejudice
Tocqueville’s Democracy in America
Shakespeare’s Othello
Newman’s Apologia Pro Vita Sua
Churchill’s History of the English Speaking Peoples
Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings
Dostoyevski’s Brothers Karamazov
Homer’s Odyssey

L3

Oct 5, 2008 - 7:38 pm 63. whiskey:

Cedarford forgets one thing — Pakistan has 100+ nukes, Iran will soon have that many. Giving tribal and factional leaders the ability to kill NYC or other Western Cities.

The world won’t stop while Americans gaze at their navel, wanting a Shaman as leader (Obama) “healing their souls” etc.

Obama is likely more than McCain (because he is weak like all shamans) to get NYC nuked. By failing to project strength and menace.

Far from having a nuclear monopoly, America lives in a world where ANY state can get nukes, if it wants them, and kill US cities.

Oct 5, 2008 - 7:46 pm 64. cottus:

Can we say that Bush, Pelosi, Frank, Dodd, etc. have just legalized bank robbery? There will be many a two – bit MBA grad who will now feel free to give it a try. Why not? It is consequence – free.

Oct 5, 2008 - 8:57 pm 65. NahnCee:

I wonder if myna is a left-over Russian apparatchnik …

Oct 5, 2008 - 10:06 pm 66. Charles:

very curious story of Barack Obama & Raila Odinga
(Raila Odinga is a Kenyan (east german trained )communist from Obama’s tribe who had the backing of the Muslim minorities in Kenya. He ran for president of Kenya last year. Obama campaigned for him but he lost. He has been agitating ever since.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8QcpdUtxNQ

Oct 5, 2008 - 10:11 pm 67. Charles:

Barack Obama & Khalid Al-Mansour
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8npeYfKI_ns&feature=related

Oct 5, 2008 - 10:13 pm 68. ledger:

It’s fairly clear that Barney Frank and company played a large role in this financial crisis.

I suspect that Alec Baldwin thought this sub-prime mortgage crisis would only hit “B” actors and their homes. It’s possible that it is also hitting Hollywood big wigs such as his friends and himself.

Alec Baldwin knew Barney Frank was screwing the pooch now he knows that Barney Frank was also screwing Fannie and Freddie.

Get out the RICO act and put Barney Frank and crew on the stand. Let’s see how dirty they are.

Oct 5, 2008 - 11:10 pm 69. Elroy Jetson:

1) Chicago Annenberg Challenge- a dismal failure to improve inner city schools in Chicago.
2) Illegal campaign contributions
3) Relationship with Ayers that goes far beyond Obama’s assertions to the press, on stage at a democratic debate and in his 2 autobiographies.
4) Long association with Rezko the convicted felon and slumlord.
5) Campaigns for Ralia Odinga (a nut job).
6) Half brother in Kenya living on $1 a month
7) Mysterious opening of sealed divorce papers of rival that doomed his US Senate campaign against him (Jack Ryan).
Refusal to release medical records, college transcripts or applications to law school.
9) Getting all other candidates thrown off the ballot in his effort to become a state senator.
10) “Reverend” Jeremiah Wright. I will always type that title of his in scare quotes. What a horrible man to have as a spiritual advisor.

All of this against Keating, Barack? Bring it on! McCain will hold a presser and answer every question about Keating- you will just whine about a “smear campaign” without explanation about any of the 10 items.

Oct 5, 2008 - 11:39 pm 70. davod:

“Also true that the Reps had majorities in both houses at the time and did not force the issue.”

Wrong. Change was blocked in the senate by Democrats.

Oct 6, 2008 - 5:01 am 71. Habu:

whiskey,

I share your concern for Islamic sountries having the bomb. But keep this in mind. At the current moment Pakistans nuclear arsenal is under US control. They can’t fire nor do they control those weapons.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2556824.cms
http://pkpolitics.com/2008/09/10/live-with-talat-10-september-2008/
http://209.157.64.201/tag/pakistaninukes/index

Fllowing 9-11 Bush and Mushariff agreed to a very secret , now not so secret agreement so that Pak nukes would not fall into the wrong hand.

If you know the relationship Pakistan has with India then you can pretty much go all in that the Palistani does not control it’s nukes…noy as unstable as they are. You can also bet that the recent change in government did not alter this, OR that by this time we would have change critical guidance or launch triggers to make Pakistan nukes the Dodo arsenal. It would be very hard for the US to allow Pak missiles to remain whole or their fissile material warheads to remain atop missiles.

If Obama is elected all bets are off. He is clearly a danger to the world.

Oct 6, 2008 - 5:09 am 72. Habu:

The state of secondary education teaching history is below , way below the Mendoza line. The NEA has for threee decades worked tierlessly to eradicate the teaching of US history in our schools.

Yesterday I read( and unfortuneately cannot find, cause I’m not doing any more ten minute research to see it smoked)that in at least one school (on so it’s one school example) the kids wanted to study Yoko Ono.

It is little wonder were messed up sa a nation. I see it every day on the blogs I read, the almost total lack of history as knowledge.

Yeah, I can get a quick fill up of personal outrage but few can go beyond “how they feel” and inot the history behind the thread’s topic. So here we are with a dumbed down population prepared to possibly elect BH Obama to the WH. It’s sick.

My house in Montana is under construction and i just pray I can get up there before the Shumer hits the fan, because as you know I am full vested in the gathering storm.

Oct 6, 2008 - 5:26 am 73. RattlerGator:

It’s the final month and its high time Republicans and conservatives stop with the punkin’ out and wailing about polls. These people want you to be depressed and fearful. And they will jigger the polls as much as they have to do in an effort to try and maintain the theme.

Some of you need to seek out D.J. Drummond and read his stuff over at Wizbang.

Get to work; this is a fight that has to be fought and they need to know that we are serious. Enough with the bitching and moaning. And this pox on both their houses stuff is pure fantasy.

McCain-Palin 2008.

Oct 6, 2008 - 5:42 am 74. Habu:

solovyev:
Thank you for the suggested list. It looks like a good one. Some I have already read, others not so I’ll have yo start a priority lisying of sugggestions when they come to the group.

I just think this is a valuable group with a broad knowledge but I also am one of those “you should never stop learning” people so recommendations from others is always a nice thing to get. Thx Habu.

Oct 6, 2008 - 6:05 am 75. Habu:

RattlerGator

Amen. We can win this election. We truly HAVE to win this election. I am already canvassing neighborhoods asigned to me and will be driving people to the poll (thank goodness for Tom Tom).

We need a few more FOX specials about Obama and McCain has to aske him why he won’t release any of his records. I thinl we know why by it needs to be asked in front of a multimillion viewer debate audience.

What a slime dog he is.

Oct 6, 2008 - 6:12 am 76. Sobieski:

It looks like Obama is going to counter the Ayers scandal with the Keating scandal.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7654311.stm

The next 30 days are going to be REALLY interesting. I hope the messiah gets knocked off his high horse.

Oct 6, 2008 - 6:20 am 77. fred:

Great list of books, solovyev. I agree with all of them. In fact, I am in the process of re-reading Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics.”

Meanwhile, many of our high school students get tanked up on Howard Zinn’s history books before they go off to college and get the full bore Gramscian Marxist fare.

At least Sarah Palin and Sean Hannity are fighting the good fight. If only John McCain would get with the program.

Oct 6, 2008 - 6:50 am 78. Habu:

DOW goes below 10,000

lowest in a decade .. poof a decade gone.

Oct 6, 2008 - 7:05 am 79. Habu:

Anybody have a good recipe for shoe leather?

Oct 6, 2008 - 7:05 am 80. Ex-fetus:

Habu, get it while it’s still on the cow. My neighbor runs about 60 head. I let him graze some of them on my front and side yard. I expect to eat well regardless.
ASDF meeting Saturday. Got to make sure the tracks are running and there is ammo for all the crew served weapons. Hope it’s wasted effort, but better to be ready and have nothing happen then have something happen and not be ready.

Oct 6, 2008 - 7:56 am 81. Habu:

Ex-fetus,

Prepared absolutely. Way to late once the bad guys show up. I ‘m fortunate to have a private drive and I’m at the end of the road. BLM deadfall behind me and on one side. The other side is a steep deep ravine which is trip wired.Three of the other four families on our private drive are former Marines, so we have a squad. We’ve already pow-wowed about chain of command, duties, all the stuff. We have field phones (buried) and trip wires. We’re about as ready as you can get. I just need the wife to finish her teaching career and we’re gone from the Florida property. It should sell if we need to sell.
We should have some beef, lots of deer, an occasional elk and of course trout. Three of us have the same water purification systems for grid down situations and the Missouri River is only 500 yards away.

We’ll continue to tweak and bring the women up to speed on medical etc..I think we’re ready for whatever. Like you I hope it all just goes away and it will just never be used, BUT if not. Well, BRASS.

Oct 6, 2008 - 8:42 am 82. Habu:

Well that’ll just about kill this thread.

Oct 6, 2008 - 8:46 am 83. mika2k1:

Habu, You might want to tend the veggie garden.

Oct 6, 2008 - 9:23 am 84. njartist:

Habu has a place growing in Montana: who else is moving? I am stuck at the Jersey shore as am taking care of my elderly mother. My only consolation is that the nuclear fallout from NYC, Philly., and Washington will probably miss me.

Oct 6, 2008 - 9:37 am 85. Habu:

mika2k1

Yep, gotta have those greens. there are a fair amount of huckleberrues further up the mountain but you’ve got to beat all the critters away including the bears who love them.

In fact of all the hikes my wife and I have done in Montana (probably over 200+) we’ve only seen one griz and he was content to leave us alone and simply continued to munch away on the huckleberries. We liked that outcome !

Veggies need big strong fences with the wiring bured because every critter wants your veggies.

Oct 6, 2008 - 9:38 am 86. JM Hanes:

RF: I really hate having to read you at PJM.

The pages are a sorry mess of extraneous repetitive material, and the animated pictures are an unrelenting irritant. The huge ad which displaces actual content makes the text look like an afterthought. To compensate, your own column is reduced to a smaller, less readable, font than your comments! Formatting the date/time stamp in the biggest font size of all, to boot, is about as backward as site design gets.

The whole place is like adverts with captions, and I come here as little as I possibly can.

Oct 6, 2008 - 9:39 am 87. bobal:

‘Vegetarian’ is an old Indian word for ‘bad hunter’.

maggie’s farm

Oct 6, 2008 - 9:46 am 88. mika2k1:

‘Vegetarian’ is an old Indian word for ‘bad hunter’.
==

What silencers are for.

Oct 6, 2008 - 9:54 am 89. cedarford:

whiskey:

Cedarford forgets one thing — Pakistan has 100+ nukes, Iran will soon have that many. Giving tribal and factional leaders the ability to kill NYC or other Western Cities.

The world won’t stop while Americans gaze at their navel, wanting a Shaman as leader (Obama) “healing their souls” etc.

Obama is likely more than McCain (because he is weak like all shamans) to get NYC nuked. By failing to project strength and menace.

Far from having a nuclear monopoly, America lives in a world where ANY state can get nukes, if it wants them, and kill US cities.

Some counter-points:

1. NYC will vote Obama by about the same huge plurality ratio as DC will. The rest of the country’s concern & commitment to “save” those two places from the remote hypothetical chance their misguided voters and power brokers will have their asses nuked if Obama is picked – is just about nil. They have their own problems, mostly caused by DC and NYC, to deal with…

2. NYC being nuked by Moscow, ChiComs, Zionists, Islamoids, even Brits is possible, but is binned in the high consequence, extremely low risk category. Right now, America is far more focused on other, more credible risks they see as high risk, actually happening, with high consequences – like losing half their life savings, jobs, health care benefits.

3. America is hardly navel-gazing. They are trying to figure out who among the old DC hands in the Democrat and Republican Party got us into the position of a wastrel debtor nation beholden to nations that killed us at “free trade” due to far cheaper labor, and who allowed the corruption of the financial system in the name of Reaganist deregulation, Dem credit policies. And Bush.

Right now, the general sentiment is that there are guilty Dems, but Republicans created the structure that allowed financial collapse and no to minimum regulation and oversight of the housing bubble. That Obama is the Outsider, while McCain is sometimes a maverick, but 95% of the time is the 30-Year Ultimate Insider who peppers nearly every speech he gives, every meeting he has with words about what “dear friends” all his Democrat and most Republican Senators and Power Brokers are. (Bad for McCain, another lifetime Senator like Kerry).

4. Both Parties could have picked solider candidates on the economy, like Romney and Hillary…but the public was dumb. It got the two candidates it deserves.

5. Screaming “nukes!!” “Evildoers!!” was a fine tactic back in 2002, but not after 6 additional years of America unraveling as a great power. That holds dimmer prospects for the future for skilled workers and their families. Americans are far more concerned about their own families, not on worst case hypotheticals affecting NYC or Our Special Friend Israel, that require further trillion-dollar wars of Imperium.
By failing to project strength and menace. Sorry, the country is honestly not looking for a candidate that will give us 8 more years of Bush.

6. Pretending that nations that may have a few nukes, no ICBMs, no way to deliver a nuke or several nukes but by “Terrahist!!” proxies are therefore “undeterrable” ignores – in post 2002-era Neocon alarmism – that the Geneva Conventions instantly cease to exist once a city is nuked.
The US (and NATO), China, Russia and India-Pak – have all concluded that violation by
any Party attempting to smuggle nukes onto the territory of the other, even taking out a few cities, would trigger almost instant, full nuclear war, to the finish. See “The 4th Protocol”.

The problem with Iran is it is surrounded by nuclear-armed longtime enemies with nuclear-tipped missiles aimed at it. It will at least consider developing it’s own strategic WMD deterrent unless it gets security guarantees.

Meanwhile, Whiskey, get on the same page as your amigos…who now see the priority as an economic collapse, as indicated by their survivalist fantasies..For most Americans, Bush cannot leave the White House soon enough, and it looks almost certain that Obama will be the one that is elected to try and clean up the stupendous domestic and international mess. And Granpa can happily go back to his “dear old friends” in the Senate with a little more of the prestige he craves, and resume “deal-making”.

Oct 6, 2008 - 9:58 am 90. Habu:

Currently Richard Fuld CEO of bankrupt WS firm Lehman Brothers is smelling the coffee right now while testifying before Congress.

His coffee compensation in the last eight years was north of one half billion dollars….that must be a nice aroma. His former investors were the kindling that kept his coffee at just the right temperature.

I just saw one of the former clients at the local car wash doing car detailing.

Oct 6, 2008 - 10:05 am 91. Konyok:

Been there, done that Habu.

You can’t grow vegetables at that altitude and latitude, ie. where there is timber in Montana.

Four families? Sounds like a bloody subdivision.

I love deer meat. Cows, deer, the occasional elk and trout. Sounds nice. How many square miles to sustain one family in that terrain?

Oct 6, 2008 - 10:17 am 92. Coyotl:

Certainly, let’s spread the blame, but let’s get our facts straight to. We need to remember what Freddie and Fannie actually did. Fannie and Freddie didn’t originate any of the bad loans, suprime, NINJA or otherwise. That dirty campaign was done by purely private, largely unregulated banks and individual mortgage lenders, which did it for the usual bubble-logic reason: to make a killing.

The philosphy of deregulation, which was initially a way to reclaim markets from the rise of FDR’s New Deal, has way overstepped its bounds, and the greedheads have run wild. You can’t have a fundamentally conservative view of human nature (”sinful and unclean”) and not be wary of the levels of deregulation that we witnessed since the 90s.

Oct 6, 2008 - 10:26 am 93. NahnCee:

JM Hanes – you have no idea very much your absence is missed.

Oct 6, 2008 - 10:40 am 94. Habu:

Coyotl,

I would add this fact, the BIGGEST fact. The CRA (Community Reinvestment Act) was used by those in the Democratic Party who cudgeled the bankers and mortgage companies to bring parity to sub prime mortgage seekers by lowering their underwriting standards to fulfill what the Socialist Democrats call “economic justice” (a Marxist concept). Thus the bankers were told by Bill Clinton in the waning days of his administration to bring sub prime mortgages up to 50% of the mortgage production at banks etc. or face the federal gov’t in court. The banks , not wanting to get into a litigation fight with Uncle Sam and additionally would make money went along. But they DID NOT initiate the sub prime movement, they were told to do so or else.

So it was a regulation not a deregulation that drove this process. Consult the CRA and the Clinton politics, pushed by ACORN as the prime moving force of this mess.

It wasn’t a free market problem, it was a government regulation problem.

Those mortgages were then sold to Freddie and Fannie. That is a stone cold fact. The banks did not initiate this sub prime problem the Democrats forced it into existence because they insisted people who couldn’t afford home should still be allowed to buy them, regardless of their ability to pay.

Oct 6, 2008 - 10:54 am 95. Habu:

Konyok:
Yeah , by Montana standards it practically is a sub division. Each family has 20 acres.

At the time I bought it I was thinking of keeping the Florida property , which probably won’t happen now.

I’m only at about 5200 feet. I damn sure know about prickely pear, but can I grow tomato,potato, and corn? That I don’t know, help me out pls.
Thx

Oct 6, 2008 - 11:00 am 96. bobal:

At 5200 feet, in Montana, my advice is get a Costco card, Habu, for the veggies.

Well, have we repealed the Community Reinvestment Act yet?

Oct 6, 2008 - 11:05 am 97. bobal:

There’s some nice 20 acre parcels to the west of Laramie, Wyoming, for those that like antelope meat. Scoot into Laramie for the veggies.

Oct 6, 2008 - 11:08 am 98. peterike:

On the subject of the Great Obama Socialist Revolution — the O’gasm — (a “Dictatorship of Virtue” if ever one there would be) a somewhat optimistic thought occured to me.

The Revolution requires a leader who is at least competent in an executive capacity. I don’t think BHO is. He has never shown success at anything other than somewhat ruthlessly getting himself elected to higher and higher office. But can he DO anything? And will his cadre of true-believing academics and lawyers fare any better?

The O’gasm may end up a flaccid mess, nothing more than O stumbling and bumbling around incompetently. After his first few months the press romance will fade and, out of boredom if nothing else, they will begin to challenge him at press conferences. I suspect a lot of “um…ah…” kinds of responses, because he’s just not that quick.

So it might just be four years of futile spinning in circles, damaged minimized by an increasingly angry electorate, with a big Republican win in 2010 followed by retaking the White House in 2012.

That’s my best-case scenario. In the worst case scenario, this post comes to you from Leavenworth.

Oct 6, 2008 - 11:15 am 99. bobal:

In olden time, the four rivers of Paradise were thought to be the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Pishon, and the Gihon. When in actual fact they were the Madison, the Gallatin, the Jefferson, and the Beaverhead.

Oct 6, 2008 - 11:17 am 100. bobal:

The Madison, the Gallatin, the Jefferson, and the Beaverhead, where the eagles eat well.

Oct 6, 2008 - 11:21 am 101. Konyok:

Habu,

At 5200 feet you could grow zucchini, peas and cabbage in a hothouse with a southern exposure, if you start them in the house. Forget about tomatoes or taters. You maybe could run a milk cow or some goats, but you’d have to keep them in hay. Once the deer realized they were being hunted, they’d vamoose and you’d have to range ever farther to find them.

I found 3000 feet a bit of a challenge, in the long run. When I was really into it, I was able to keep my town trips down to less than one a month. Now I’m an urban minimalist. (I like going to movies every now and again … )

Photovoltaics are more efficient and a bit cheaper now, but the long winter nights will try your soul.

If you have the money to spend and you actually want to be self-supporting, you’d be better off buying a working cattle ranch with some bottomland.

Oct 6, 2008 - 11:21 am 102. Konyok:

The Laramie prairie, or just up into the first foothills would be almost doable, and downright pretty besides.

Personally, if I felt the need to skedaddle, I would go to Pocatello, Boise, or any of those small towns in the Snake River valley. You can actually grow your own food, there is a modest local infrastructure and Mormons make good neighbors.

That said, well, you guys know ….

Oct 6, 2008 - 11:31 am 103. bobal:

Plus, Knoyok, you can hire a Mexican for next to nothing to grow it for you.

Senator Steve Symms, R-Idaho, did this for years on the Symms Fruit Ranch, while he was committing adultery and partying in D.C. And for years before he went to D.C. too.

Oct 6, 2008 - 11:37 am 104. Tarnsman:

Since we are throwing up book lists I’ll add mine:

Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations
Robert Middlekauff’s The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution
(reading this made me fall in love all over again with my country)
Alvin Josephy’s The Patriot Chiefs: A Chronicle of American Indian Resistance
Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn
Edmund Morris’ The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt
Goethe’s Faust
Melville’s Moby Dick
Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland
Tacitus’ Annals and Histories
George Stewart’s Earth Abides
-while not books these should be included in any to-read list:
Shakespeare’s King Lear
Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar
Shakespeare’s MacBeth

Oct 6, 2008 - 11:42 am 105. Eggplant:

A very good commentary about the current state of the election at:

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/wehner/35652

My own analysis is that McCain’s probablility for victory scales with the health of the economy. The economy appears to be going into thermal runaway (Dow currently down by 700 points). We are in the toilet and it’s about to be flushed.

Oct 6, 2008 - 11:44 am 106. Charles:

From the National Review

Open this link to see a brilliant diagram of all of ACORN’s work, and the Senators and presidential candidates who make it happen. Dodd, Frank, Schumer, and of course Barack Obama are stuck in the swamp of self-dealing, corruption, and politicial machinations, all masquerading as social justice and cheap real estate for the poor, at quite large taxpayer expense. This is a savvy Democrat web site. Follow the link for a really astonishing set of Democratic web sites which compete with each other in their exposition of Obama’s perfidies, corruptions, and non-messianic attributes. Remember — former libs are much better at political knife fighting than those whose first instincts are, and remain, conservative.

Oct 6, 2008 - 11:46 am 107. mika2k1:

peterike,

Actually it’s not complicated. Cut military welfare by $700Bn, and divert this money towards green energy infrastructure projects. That will reduce oil imports, reduce the hemorrhage of deficit dollars, as well as put people to work. Hopefully, it will also introduce some sanity to the defense budget and military procurement programs.

Oct 6, 2008 - 11:49 am 108. Konyok:

bobal,

!No me necisito no insignia maloliente!

Oct 6, 2008 - 11:51 am 109. David M:

The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the – Web Reconnaissance for 10/06/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.

Oct 6, 2008 - 11:54 am 110. bobal:

Huck Finn
Song of Myself
Joe Campbell
The Tempest
Lear
Theodore Roethke
King James Bible
Parts of Plato
Sir Thomas Browne
Black Elk Speaks

Oct 6, 2008 - 11:55 am 111. Konyok:

The Gulag Archipelago – Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Citizens – Simon Schama
The Dark Tower (series) – Stephen King
The Territorial Imperative – Robert Ardrey
The True Believer – Eric Hoffer
Witness – Whitaker Chambers
The Meaning of Hitler – Ron Rosenbaum
Tao Teh Ching – Lao Tzu
A Conflict of Visions – Thomas Sowell
The Western Way of War – Victor Davis Hanson

Oct 6, 2008 - 12:16 pm 112. Habu:

bobal,

Towsend ,MT has about 1600 people, one blinking warning light so I think a Costco is a nother century away. Maybe I can trade somwthing from folks who live further down the mountain. I bouhgt and have in a 170lb vault $20,000 in pre-1965 “junk” silver so I would actually be trading tomatos for 90% silver. Somebodt with a good crop might do business.

Konyok,
I hadn’t thought about the deer ranging further away. Well I can go almost anywhere within a 20 mile radius and find all the deer I’ll need.

Eaten antelope in Africa. It might have been the preparation but it was not to my liking. It wasn’t chicken , it wasn’t beefy, it was more like an old Danner boot. It WAS tough.

Maybe I can get some of the folks down near the Missouri to grow some veggies. I bet they do but I’ve only met then a few times.

Bobal,
If I sell my Florida property I may well buy in Idaho. Even my father in law, a born and raised Montanan says it’s a darn nice place. Nor would I rule out Wyoming, but any new land has to be in that area of the country.

The I could get that Farmall Cub I always wanted. I use to drive one at a friends “gentlemans” farm in Pennsylvania when I was a 13 year old. An old crank’r upper. Neat.

Oct 6, 2008 - 12:17 pm 113. Habu:

Townsend, MT.

Oct 6, 2008 - 12:17 pm 114. Charles:

Two related articles:
Sources: Taliban split with al Qaeda, seek peace
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/10/06/afghan.saudi.talks/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

Taliban upset over North Waziristan missile strike
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008\106\story_6-10-2008_pg7_12

Oct 6, 2008 - 12:21 pm 115. Habu:

Bobal,

Madison, the Gallatin, the Jefferson, and the Beaverhead. Great rivers. The Smith River is also a great river to float but it is highly restricted as far as the number of people they allow on it. One of my wife’s cousins owns a cabin on the Smith that is NOT out of Orvis but if you enjoy the old ways without the fru-fru it’s heaven.

BTW is it just me or as a group I’m seeing some great book suggestions..are we smart people or just old fashioned readers. Maybe a bit of both.

Oct 6, 2008 - 12:26 pm 116. whiskey:

Cedarford still does not get it:

Pakistan and Iran are not Russia or China. Tribes use attacks on outsiders to gain power against rivals. It’s akin to having Plains Indians with nukes. Same mentality, and decentralized power structure make traditional state-to-state deterrence irrelevant.

Deterrence CAN work, but not State-to-State — it must be People to People. Since the ones who will decide if NYC lives or dies, will be would be tribal leaders, or out of power tribal leaders, in Pakistan or factional leaders in Iran. Khomeni backed the hostage-taking even though Saddam threatened and eventually did attack. Because it got him his rivals executed and he did not fear US response.

Americans care about NYC because losing 6-7 million people, the economic/cultural center of America, will cause a huge economic catastrophe impoverishing Americans for generations, and GUARANTEEING follow-on attacks on Dallas, Atlanta, Miami, Los Angeles, etc. NYC and DC are both important symbols ala the WTC, and huge wealth generators.

The minority-wealthy white yuppie coalition in NYC proper, votes against anything to stop this because they underestimate the danger and feel only the “blue collar” people will be killed. The “bridge and tunnel” crowd has voted for guys like Rudy consistently.

Cedarford looks at the current economic meltdown and thinks — “wow, this will be the only issue for generations” akin to Bush in early 2001 thinking that terrorism was a “declining threat” according to Larry Johnson.

Cedarford basically hopes that if we ignore Pakistani nukes and Iranian nukes + tribal instability they will simply go away. Not a good strategy.

Oct 6, 2008 - 12:29 pm 117. programmer:

Habu,
Saw your comment about a Farmall cub in Pa. Where in Pa?

Oct 6, 2008 - 12:38 pm 118. Habu:

peterike,

I can easily see your scenario work out.
There is one fly I can see buzzing around. The socialist countries and other countries that color outside the lines have a vested interest in seeing Obama be a success so they may “play ball” with him to make him solidify his brand of socialism in the US. Once that’s been done then things may go against him .

Oct 6, 2008 - 12:40 pm 119. Paul:

It’s now or never for Mc Cain. Time for whining over the bailout is over.

First, Mc Cain has to firmly put the blame on Obama and the Dems for the Fannie- Freddie meltdown.

Second, Mc Cain must put forward a pro growth agenda right now to inject hope and optimism for growth in the markets so people with capital will be willing to risk it, while at the same time, he must hammer Obama over his ruinous growth stifling policies that will surely cause a severe recession if not a depression.

There is one leftard out there who now is hopeful that Obama will propose a Five Trillion dollar New Deal. Wonderful. Just what the commie doctor ordered to kill us.

Oct 6, 2008 - 12:59 pm 120. Konyok:

Habu, if everybody else gets the same idea about the deer … , well, you know what I mean. (I mean actually hunting intensively year round for food.)

I see a bunch of pivots with alfalfa in the valley, along with winter wheat, but no sign of any truck farms.

You’d be in the rain shadow of the Bitterroots, so water would be a real issue. (In the west, whiskey’s for drinking, water’s for fighting.)

Looks like a real nice place. Personally, I’d prefer somewhere with an actual economic base …

Oct 6, 2008 - 1:19 pm 121. peterike:

Dostoyevsky – The Brothers Karamazov
Joe Sobran – Single Issues (a little known collection of his essays – just brilliant)
Thomas Bethell – The Electric Windmill (essays)
James Burnham – Suicide of the West (the book that made me understand Liberalism)
R.F. Delderfield – The Avenue series (two novels chroniciling Britain from the end of WWI to the end of WWII. Not great prose, but a true-to-life picture of what it was like)
Wolfgang Samuel – German Boy: A Child in War
T.S. Eliot poems
George Gilder – Men and Marriage
Ayn Rand – Atlas Shrugged
Robert Higgs – Crisis and Leviathan (how gov’t uses crisis to grab power)
G.K. Chesterton – anything and everything

Oct 6, 2008 - 1:23 pm 122. Michael Hoskins:

mika2k1
Military Welfare? Huh? “splain me lucy!”

Oct 6, 2008 - 1:24 pm 123. Doug:

Not Everyone Should Own a Home

Maybe only a friendly foreigner could say this. But America needs to realize that not everyone can own a home. The American Dream of home ownership for all is a fraud. Politicians who pimped this dream created an unsustainable mortgage industry whose collapse is only surprising because it didn’t happen earlier. America’s mortgage industry will not recover, nor deserve to recover, unless it is prepared to challenge this politically unpalatable reality.

Why listen to an Australian like me? For starters, as our central banker, Glenn Stevens, said a few weeks back, Australian banks are “light years away from what’s happening in other banking systems around the world.” Australia’s four major banks sit amongst the 20 AA rated banks around the globe. And as the Sept. 23 International Monetary Fund Country Report on Australia concluded, Australia’s banking sector “is sound with stable profit, high capitalization and few non-performing loans.”

Oct 6, 2008 - 2:03 pm 124. Konyok:

That settles it!
It’ll be “On the Beach.”

Should we think about a nice sheep station, Doug?

Oct 6, 2008 - 2:05 pm 125. Doug:

“The reasons go directly to regulatory differences that should interest Americans. Take nonrecourse mortgage loans. When Australians borrow money to buy a house, they know that if they default and the mortgaged property doesn’t cover the debt, they will be responsible for the shortfall. And the lender will chase them for it. It’s a neat way of reminding Australians to borrow responsibly.”

Oct 6, 2008 - 2:06 pm 126. mika2k1:

Military Welfare? Huh? “splain me lucy!”
==

That’s when you pay $200 a copy for a usless fighter plane. When your main battle tank needs an oil tanker attached to it so it can cover 100 miles. When you spend $1.4 trillion a year on defense and can’t field an army to defeat a bunch of ragtag jihadis.

Oct 6, 2008 - 2:14 pm 127. Konyok:

Doug,

I take it then that this hasn’t been treated as a “social justice” issue in Australia. Refreshing, that. I continue to admire your country’s good sense.

Oct 6, 2008 - 2:19 pm 128. Doug:

I’m just another poorly governed Yank, thanks.

Oct 6, 2008 - 2:36 pm 129. Habu:

programmer,

My friends (parents) farm was in Boalsburg, just down the road from State College and Penn State University.
My father was a department head at the university. He was head of the Naval ROTC unit, a very unusual tour for a Marine fighter pilot, but the Navy wanted the unit shaped up. It was.

Oct 6, 2008 - 3:16 pm 130. Doug:

McCain’s finally done it!
Named names on Freddie and Fannie.

Oct 6, 2008 - 3:17 pm 131. Habu:

Konyok,

I’ll tell ya it wasn’t my first choice but it was close to my wife’s parents. If it were me I would have probably gone to Big Fork, Ennis area, or Bozeman area..

However the price was too good to pass up and the view is very nice. I see the south end of Canyon Ferry and I can see the Missouri River.

Oct 6, 2008 - 3:22 pm 132. Habu:

mika2k1

Where is our money best spent?

Oct 6, 2008 - 4:01 pm 133. cedarford:

Kevin Rudd, PM of Australia, smells the coffee:

There is an alternative political and policy narrative to the one that has tended to prevail in recent times. A narrative that recognises the importance of markets, but one that also recognises the limitations of markets and recognises also where markets fail.

It recognises the role of public goods and that one of those public goods is market regulation. It values transparency, competition and innovation but does not encourage speculation or reward for merely short-term success. It is a political and corporate culture that values profitability and productivity achieved through hard work, but one that does not endorse the Gordon Gekko ethic of the quick buck, based on little more than a single financial transaction.

We believe that market participants need strong incentives and rewards for success. But we believe their success should be measured over a sustainable horizon. We believe in strong incentives for individuals, but we also believe that trust and traditional ethical standards are essential elements of the financial system. We believe strongly in the profit motive but we also believe in responsibility to the community where those profits are made, a belief increasingly evident in Australian corporate philanthropic behaviour.

When we are through this crisis, it will be time to take stock. Because across the length and breadth of the nation, the cry of the people is clear, and that is for a long-term, sustainable vision for the nation’s future. It is a vision that goes beyond the electoral cycle, that goes beyond a quarterly corporate reporting cycle and that certainly goes beyond the 24-hour news cycle.

Oct 6, 2008 - 4:30 pm 134. Patriot Front:

Listen to the lack of applause when Baldwin (of all people) has the nerve to blame something on someone other than Bush. Maher’s show has gone to Hell several years ago.

Oct 6, 2008 - 5:27 pm 135. marymcl:

The Brothers Karamazov – Dostoyevsky
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich – Shirer
The True Believer – Hoffer
Moby Dick – Melville
The Silmarillion – Tolkien
The Pelopponesian War – Thucydides
Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
The Origins of Totalitarianism – Arendt
Oresteia – Aeschylus
The Captive Mind – Milosz

Oct 6, 2008 - 5:29 pm 136. mika2k1:

Where is our money best spent?
==

Vegetable gardens, Habu. Vegetable gardens.

Oct 6, 2008 - 6:02 pm 137. enscout:

Habu:
One word: Collards.
You’ll need to start ‘em indoors though & they’ll need a southern exposure at your alt/lat.

I think you could survive on them alone if you can grow ‘em.

Thanks for the book recommendations guys. Just what an old NC hermit will need to get throught the long nights ahead.

Oct 6, 2008 - 6:15 pm 138. Habu:

marymcl:

Meditations of Marcus Aurelius…yep would be on my list.

Oct 6, 2008 - 6:56 pm 139. marymcl:

Habu – God love the old heathen. One night I couldn’t sleep, decided to read for a bit and picked up the Meditations, which I opened at random to the words “Soon, very soon, you will be ashes” !

Needless to say, I was wide awake for a while after that

Oct 6, 2008 - 7:21 pm 140. Habu:

Is it just me or has this coffee taken on the taste of that which can be purchased at the Greyhound bus terminal out of a machine?

Oct 6, 2008 - 8:51 pm 141. NahnCee:

I think painting a picture of subsisting on collard greens and antelope meat while reading Moby Dick by candlelight is pretty much my idea of hell. Therefore yes, the coffee has gotten very bitter indeed.

Like Miss Peggy Lee lamented, “is that all there is?”

Oct 6, 2008 - 8:58 pm 142. mika2k1:

Sorry. That should have $200 million a copy for a usless fighter plane.
I guess it was understood, as nobody made mention of it.

Oct 6, 2008 - 9:11 pm 143. mika2k1:

should have read:

Oct 6, 2008 - 9:12 pm 144. peterike:

Mapping Obama. Great stuff.

http://justsaynodeal.com/acorn.html

Nothing like a Leftie anti-Obama site.

Oct 6, 2008 - 9:19 pm 145. Habu:

NahnCee,

I couldn’t agree more. Before the world change in some very basic ways I lived in San Francisco. I lived on Greenwich which is one street over from Lombard, the very winding street featured in many movies. I could see SF bay from my condo.

On Sundays I cold walk to the famous Buena Vista and have an Irish coffee or cross the Golden Gate and have brunch at the Alta Mira Hotel terrace. Eggs Benedict and mimosas.

I can say that is better than antelope and collards, at least in my world. But now SF is so freaky, so otherworldly to me that I don’t think a dozen mimosas could help me cope. I’m having a difficult enough time understanding how half this country became socialist after socialism has proved a failure everywhere it’s ever been tried.
I lament that the cleavage this country suffered during Vietnam forever polarized the “Me” generation and once the tie breaker, the Greatest Generation passed away there was no way to contain the arrested adolescence of many of the “Me”.

We will suffer that because as William ButlerYeats said. “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold: Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.

Oct 6, 2008 - 9:35 pm 146. Habu:

mika2k1,

So you cannot claim “qui tacet consentire” allow me to say you prejudiced your position and few, if any, agree with your position.

Quare attero vicis?

Oct 6, 2008 - 9:48 pm 147. Habu:

Millions of American voters will soon go to the polls. Many will vote for one candidate who is already acting like a ruler and not the individual that REPRESENTS the entire corpus of the United States.

By his silent insubordination B.Obama through his total refusal to release any records of his past performance he is displaying a very dangerous behavior and arrogance never displayed before by any presidential candidate. We do not suffer dictators in this country and it would be prudential for the country if he were to alter this arrogant posture. His behavior is that of a dictator, not a presidential candidate

Oct 6, 2008 - 10:47 pm 148. Bob Murphy:

@Habu
I can relate to your experience of my native San Francisco.
I got caught up in war protests, dope and rock ‘n roll after I got out of the Army in early 1967.
And spent five years pulling grip on cable-cars (free coffee at the BV, add own Christian Brothers brandy bought by my conductor), and driving streetcars and all night (Owl) buses.
Exhilarating town. Had to make a decision to keep sleeping four hours a day and continue the buzz or get out of that beguiling town.
I left after Nixon got re-elected.
Only been back for visits since. Still get a buzz out of the place. I always bring a bicycle and pedal everywhere. My house is 12 minute ride from the Golden Gate Bridge Toll Plaza, one block off the water west of China Beach. It’s on the market. heheheheheh. Great timing.

Oct 7, 2008 - 3:46 am 149. Bob Murphy:

Lived in Melbourne 20 years, had two kids, saw them off (paid them to move out when they turned 18)and then I went bush, too.
Grow my own food. High speed wireless broadband connection.
Been in the scrub for eleven years with a couple of nice shacks, but pretty involved in local community.
Told my last gal friend on her way out, “Next time I want something to pat I’ll get a dawg.”
Been catching up on reading, stone wall building, gardens, music and writing ever since.
At last, a reasonable existence.
Peace.
And chatter mind and politics for sport.
All good.

Oct 7, 2008 - 3:58 am 150. mika2k1:

Habu,

Lead, follow, or get out of the way.

Oct 7, 2008 - 6:27 am 151. mika2k1:

Buffett buys into Chinese electric car maker BYD

Oct 7, 2008 - 7:49 am 152. Habu:

Bob Murphy,

Yeah, I’d hit the Royal Exchange at five and mix with the financial types and look for women. Then home . The about 10PM down to Union Street which was always alive and would see many of the same folks who were at the Royal Exchange. Hook-up, racke-em up.

A great town back then, except maybe the Zodiac killer menacing the population.

I suppose you could have gone all the way to Goober Peedee or as I did become a member of the Todd River Yacht Club out at Alice Springs.

I must admit I liked NZ better.

Oct 7, 2008 - 7:51 am 153. Habu:

mika2k1

I know you don’t mind if I don’t do any of those.
I want to be an individual and your shop worn three choices just doesn’t begin to cover my world.

Tell ya what, you travel every continent on the globe, make several million dollars and retire at 59, fight on three continents, get elected at brokerage school as the number one graduate among over 200 other brokers from around the country, manage over 400 accounts with a value of hundreds of millions of dollars, be a Marine and covert courier for the CIA and then come back to me with you very trite saying. Then I might deign to engage you in a colloque. Otherwise to pay you any attention to you is a waste of my time. Otherwise just go bother someone else. Have a nice day.

Oct 7, 2008 - 8:11 am 154. mika2k1:

Habu,

I just do teeth. And I know when someone aint got any.

Oct 7, 2008 - 8:16 am 155. Habu:

QTC

Oct 7, 2008 - 12:38 pm 156. Habu:

xyz

Oct 7, 2008 - 4:00 pm 157. Coyotl:

HaBU:

“The CRA (Community Reinvestment Act) was used by those in the Democratic Party who cudgeled the bankers and mortgage companies to bring parity to sub prime mortgage seekers by lowering their underwriting standards to fulfill what the Socialist Democrats call “economic justice” (a Marxist concept). Thus the bankers were told by Bill Clinton in the waning days of his administration to bring sub prime mortgages up to 50% of the mortgage production at banks etc. or face the federal gov’t in court.”

Habu do you have a source for this nonsense? I don’t think so. You seem totally unclear on what the CRA does. The CRA does not list specific criteria for evaluating the performance of financial institutions, it does not mandate, it encourages through granting approval for applications for banking mergers, acquisitions or branching.

Second, you seem to forget, or have never discovered, that the CRA was massively deregulated by the Office of Thrift Supervision in 2005, despite Democratic protests. Honestly. Look it up for yourself. (The FDIC further loosened the reins, and the power, of the CRA on Sept. of 2005)

Check out the actual law Pub.L. 95-128, title VIII, 91 Stat. 1147, 12 U.S.C. § 2901 on FDIC.gov.

HabU:
“The banks , not wanting to get into a litigation fight with Uncle Sam and additionally would make money went along. But they DID NOT initiate the sub prime movement, they were told to do so or else.”

False. Where do you get this stuff? CRA or “Uncle Sam” did not create Sub prime mortages and then bundle them as securities. Private companies like Conutry Wide and Lehman Bros. did. It is abosultely crazy to claim that a device as complicated as a sup prime mortgage or NINJA loan was created by “Uncle Sam”. You don’t know what you’re talking about. When, where? If you honestly look, you’ll only find private companies.

If Uncle Sam really did this, then when? Under Bush or Clinton. Gotcha!

Habu:

“Those mortgages were then sold to Freddie and Fannie. That is a stone cold fact. ”

True, but Fannie and Freddie did not originate the bad loans, correct? Once you admit that, you have to reexamine the other points you made. Good luck and good night.

Oct 7, 2008 - 7:58 pm 158. Expressions:

The left-wing illuminati do not want to take any of the blame. When in fact they have been in control just as much as the Bush Administration. In fact, the elitists were watching over Fannie and Freddie.

Oct 25, 2008 - 11:37 am

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