Monday, September 29, 2008
Eventful couple days
Both for the nation and me.
The economy - I was one of the very few blogs predicting this and I now call Rep. Lampson and others heroes for voting No Deal. We should now get a temporary fix until a more Democratic Congress and President get in. Remember that FDR refused to negotiate with Hoover until he and a Democratic Congress were sworn-in in March to write new deals that he and the Democrats would be responsible for. Tell Obama we need new Democratic new deals, not the Bush undemocratic bailout.
Me - I decided to upgrade the memory on my old main PC to cure some of the problems. I installed the memory and no display. There is no way memory affects the display. I reinstall the old memory no display. I check if I had managed to disconnect something - not that I can find. After about three hours I give up and take it into a place I distrust for an evaluation. "You're not outputing a video signal, do you want us to find out why for $70?" "Go ahead." "We'll call you in a day or two."
Blogging will be light.
Hurry Up and Register
The last day to register to vote in Texas is next Monday, October 6th.
Are you registered? Are your friends and family?
If you only forward one email or one link to your friends, family, and neighbors today -- make it this one.
Each and every vote in Texas is absolutely crucial to victory on Election Day.
Visit VoteForChange.com, our one-stop voter registration website, and register before the Texas deadline.
Supporters like you have built the biggest grassroots movement in the history of American politics.
But in just 8 days, the time for bringing new voices into the political process will be over.
You need to be certain that you, your friends, and your family are registered by the deadline -- it's a small step that will have a huge impact on our Election Day results.
Not so fast with our $700 billion
I really should have more to write about this from an excellent election site but I think it speaks for itself.
How to Bail Out Wall St. at No Cost to the Taxpayers
Thom Hartmann wrote an interesting piece on how to bail out Wall St. without costing the taxpayers a dime. The idea is to create a new government agency to manage the bailout. The treasury would then loan it money to bail out Wall St. firms that are in trouble. The government would then institute a Securities Turnover Excise Tax of 0.25% on stock trades with revenues going to the new agency. For long-term investors who buy stock in companies they believe in and keep it for years adding a quarter of 1% to the cost hardly matters, and even to speculators it is not huge. It is estimated that such a tax would generate at least $150 billion a year, so the $700 billion load would be paid off in 5 years. The US has had such a tax in the past and used it to finance the Civil War, Spanish-American War, WWI and WWII. Many other countries have a similar tax. This proposal is clearly a viable alternative to either giving Wall St. $700 billion as a freebie or even getting stock in return for the money. Wall St. managers might even prefer it to a plan that limited their future compensation. Mother Jones lists yet five more alternative bailout plans.
Tags: bailout, wall street, alternative+plans, Bush, McCain, Hartmann
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Kucinich says not enough votes for bailout
I think it'll be close and they better have a compromise bill with more limited funding to push it to the next Congress.
Kucinich was about to enter a Capitol building meeting room with fellow House Democrats who have been critical of the $700 billion relief measure for the Wall Street crisis.
The meeting was organized by Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) and has been termed the “Skeptics Caucus.” Lawmakers were meeting with well-known economists, such as James Galbraith, economics professor at the University of Texas, and William Isaac, former chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Commission.
Speaking before the meeting, Sherman equated the Treasury Department proposal to a power-grab by the Bush administration as well as a gift to failing financial services firms.
“This is greatest shift of power to the imperial presidency and the greatest shift of wealth to a still wealthy Wall Street that anyone could imagine,” said Sherman. In addition, the California Democrat also began distributing Sunday a “Dear Colleague” letter highly critical of the relief package.
Kucinich called for more hearings on the bailout despite Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke speaking about the proposal before lawmakers last week.
Texas Round-Em-Up and Shoot-em for September 28
The Texas Progressive Alliance had another great week discussing the politics of Texas and the nation. Here are some of the best of those posts:
The Texas Cloverleaf has the new Palin plan for foreign experience: sitting pretty with puppets.
CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme says welcome to the United States of Corporate Greed.
Dembones at Eye On Williamson posts on the Texas Association of Realtors (TAR) and their status quo endorsements for the November election, TAR needs to be tarred and feathered.
The past week has been one filled with brilliant people trying desperately to accomplish what is extremely difficult (namely, keeping the US out of a depression) and some exceptionally (some might say BREATHTAKINGLY) stupid people who are narrowly focused on the last shreds of a failed ideology. And their own egos. We at McBlogger have done our best to keep up with all the ups. And downs. First up are the always cretinous folks from the American Enterprise Institute who decided to blame the wrong people for the failures of their own plans. Then there was Congressman Jeb Hensarling (R -unfortunately from Texas) who decided his supercharged ego and underpowered little rat-brain had something useful to add. No, he didn't.
Off the Kuff projects what the Houston Chronicle endorsements for November will look like.
A majority of voters thought Obama won the first debate, but all the media pundits could talk about was what a great job McCain did. jobsanger wonders what debate the "Talking Heads" were watching.
North Texas Liberal led an interesting discussion on John McCain's brief campaign suspension.
Vince at Capitol Annex notes that Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has refused to answer whether or not the Texas Association of Appraisal Districts should be subject to the Texas Public Information Act and discusses why that was a really stupid move.
Neil at Texas Liberal did not allow the dent in his car to be fixed by the guy who solicited him for the work in a parking lot. That's just the type of post-hurricane scam people are being warned about.
Gary at Easter Lemming Liberal News does not like Bush and McCain's response to the Wall Street crisis. He has some items he wants included in a bailout bill and not bags of money thrown at the problem.
The Texas Cloverleaf has the new Palin plan for foreign experience: sitting pretty with puppets.
CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme says welcome to the United States of Corporate Greed.
Dembones at Eye On Williamson posts on the Texas Association of Realtors (TAR) and their status quo endorsements for the November election, TAR needs to be tarred and feathered.
The past week has been one filled with brilliant people trying desperately to accomplish what is extremely difficult (namely, keeping the US out of a depression) and some exceptionally (some might say BREATHTAKINGLY) stupid people who are narrowly focused on the last shreds of a failed ideology. And their own egos. We at McBlogger have done our best to keep up with all the ups. And downs. First up are the always cretinous folks from the American Enterprise Institute who decided to blame the wrong people for the failures of their own plans. Then there was Congressman Jeb Hensarling (R -unfortunately from Texas) who decided his supercharged ego and underpowered little rat-brain had something useful to add. No, he didn't.
Off the Kuff projects what the Houston Chronicle endorsements for November will look like.
A majority of voters thought Obama won the first debate, but all the media pundits could talk about was what a great job McCain did. jobsanger wonders what debate the "Talking Heads" were watching.
North Texas Liberal led an interesting discussion on John McCain's brief campaign suspension.
Vince at Capitol Annex notes that Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has refused to answer whether or not the Texas Association of Appraisal Districts should be subject to the Texas Public Information Act and discusses why that was a really stupid move.
Neil at Texas Liberal did not allow the dent in his car to be fixed by the guy who solicited him for the work in a parking lot. That's just the type of post-hurricane scam people are being warned about.
Gary at Easter Lemming Liberal News does not like Bush and McCain's response to the Wall Street crisis. He has some items he wants included in a bailout bill and not bags of money thrown at the problem.
BossKitty at TruthHugger notes: This is where you and I must take a crash course in the money structure of this country and how to avoid loosing everything down to our underpants, because Bush Sold US Another PONZI Scheme.
nytexan at BlueBloggin worries that McCain's Health Could Mean President Palin.
Tags: TPA, liberal news, progressives, bloggers, Texas, blogs
The economic nightmare will only get worse
Oh, I am not suppose to say that because this is a crisis of confidence.
No it isn't. It is the chickens coming home to either roost or peck eyeballs out. Houston and Texas may seem a safe haven now but next year the energy companies will be taxed hard to fund government.
Special Midyear Update The Great American Nightmare: What Washington Won't Tell You About This Unfolding Financial Debacle
Martin Weiss: This is the first stage of the dangerous bear market we've been warning you about. And just as we've warned, the market is being driven down by the single most important sector: Financial companies, the heartbeat of our economy.
Nearly every major bank, brokerage and lender you can name is up to its eyeballs in leveraged investments whose value is going up in smoke. They're borrowing hundreds of billions from the Fed. They're raising billions more from investors, diluting their shares. They're selling massive amounts of assets — scrambling any way they can to raise cash to survive.
Merrill Lynch, America's largest brokerage firm, has lost more than two thirds of its stock value. Citigroup, once America's largest bank by market cap, has lost even more. Washington Mutual has given up nine tenths of its value. On average, even including the strongest of the banks, half of the wealth of bank shareholders has been wiped out.
This is the first stage of the deep recession we've been warning you about. Banks have no choice but to deny loans to all but the most highly qualified borrowers; and as a result, corporations and consumers have no choice but to cut back on their spending.
Consumer confidence is the worst since 1980. Mortgage default rates are the worst since the 1970s. Even the government's highly suspect official numbers show that the growth of the U.S. economy is grinding to a halt.
This is also bringing the runaway inflation we've been warning you about, with oil and energy leading the way. This time, unlike the 1970s when we had artificial energy shortages created by OPEC or by Iran, the planet is confronting chronic, long-term energy shortages.
But at each step of the way, what truly angers me is that our government leaders — the very people we elect to protect our interests — continually minimize, downplay and sugarcoat this crisis.
Tags: economic, crisis, bailout, wall street, Bush
Friday, September 26, 2008
1st Prez Debate - Ho hum
Old Pancake make-up guy holds his own against the smart college professor.
ThinkProgess has a lot of during and after blog posts and links.
Tags: presidential debate Obama McCain
Possibly the biggest players responsible - Moody's and Standard and Poors
The rating agencies rated AAA a lot of debt that their former employees acknowledge was junk or not reviewed to drive profits. A must read from Bloomberg.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Bush and McCain's response to Crisis
There is a growing grassroots opposition to this current "emergency bailout" crisis. I don't trust any Republican expert to tell me his banker friends need billions of our taxpayer dollars. Yes, capital is freezing up because no one believes the lies about the assets anymore but the DC politician liars aren't to be believed in regards to this bailout.
Contact your Washington representatives now and tell them NO to an emergency $700 billion bailout. This economic act funded by taxpayers to rescue Wall Street must include tough regulation, severe consequences, action on behalf of American homeowners who face foreclosure, and oversight by Congress and the Courts. It must also include a gradual transparent mechanism to write down assets to their true market value without rewarding the players who have driven up the price of the hidden assets.
Harris County Early Voting Locations
Vote early anywhere in Harris County. Here is a great map of the locations.
What to Bring — Any one of these will allow you to vote:
Your Voter Registration Card OR
The pink copy you kept from your voter registration application OR
Personal Identification (driver’s license, government ID, bank statement or utility bill)
This will start soon - get ready.
First Week Monday – Friday Oct. 20 – 24 8am – 4:30pm
Weekend Saturday Oct. 25 7am – 7pm
Sunday Oct. 26 1pm – 6pm
Second Week Monday – Friday Oct. 27 – 31 7am – 7pm
Check your voter registration here.
Thought for Today
NPR has Dick Meyer on Wall Street's Moral Rot:
I am now even more firmly convinced that there really is a predator class. The people responsible for creating and bingeing on the mortgage junk bonds, derivatives and financial insurance scams that are now being bailed out are our society's most educated, highly trained and wealthiest professionals. The Meltdown of '08 was not caused by con men, crazed moguls and panicked masses. It was caused by financial bureaucrats of the baby boom generation who were paid megabucks for office jobs, who wear Patagonia fleece, $12,000 Brioni suits and read books about "reinventing the Self."
There is a basic and indelicate question about the unfolding financial crisis that, to my mind, has not been asked loudly enough: Is the ethical and prudential rot so clearly on display in this historic episode confined to Wall Street and the world of high finance, or are other institutions, vocations, professions and commercial cultures similarly infected?
Tabloid News
US Magazine - McCain uses American Idol make-up artist. Britney Spears tour designer designed McCain's nomination stage.
National Enquirer with more details on Sarah Palin's affair - it is with her goateed husband's look-alike but more rugged and more interested in talking and politics.
Sarah Palin had a witch and demon fighter minister bless her campaign at her spirit-filled church.
This sure is more entertaining that Biden.
McCain Latest Lie - "I am rushing back to Washington to deal with this crisis"
In a sane universe this election would be over. The McCain camp announces it will stop campaigning to deal with economic crisis. Ben Smith: “But in terms of the timing of this move: The only thing that’s changed in the last 48 hours is the public polling.”
McCain seeks to cancel the debate on Friday. Then seeks to cancel the VP debate. The small college where the debate is to be held has spent millions. Then phones David Letterman right before the show that McCain won't be on because he is rushing back to Washington.
On the show Letterman talks about McCain, whom he has great respect for, for most of the show but makes fun of his suspending his campaign because he can't deal with more than one thing at a time and evidently doesn't trust his VP to fill in for him.
"What are you going to do if you're elected and things get tough? Suspend being president? We've got a guy like that now!"Later in the show he finds out McCain hasn't rushed off to Washington but is doing an interview with Katie Couric down the street.
"Hey Senator, can I give you a ride home?"
Obama:
With respect to the debates, it’s my belief that this is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who, in approximately 40 days, will be responsible for dealing with this mess. And I think that it is going to be part of the president’s job to deal with more than one thing at once.McCain aides laughing in the face of a national crisis that "forces" them to suspend the campaign.
McCain and Obama issue joint statement on economy - it is pure meaningless platitudes. Then Marc Ambinder discovers Obama had proposed some meat for the statement and McCain said no. These are the principles McCain could not agree to.
First, there must be oversight. We should not hand over a blank check to the discretion of one man. We support an independent, bipartisan board to ensure accountability and complete transparency.It turns out McCain might have dashed over to Katie Couric to make up for the not-ready-for-prime-time interview Sarah Palin had just given her.
Second, we need to protect taxpayers. There should be a path for taxpayers to recover their money, and to turn a profit if Wall Street prospers.
Third, no Wall Street executive should profit from taxpayer dollars. This plan cannot be a welfare program for CEOs whose greed and irresponsibility has contributed to this crisis.
Fourth, we must help families who are struggling to stay in their homes. We cannot bail out Wall Street without helping millions of families facing foreclosure on Main Street.
Fifth, we both agree that this financial rescue package should move on its own without any earmarks or other measures. We have different views about the need for other action, but this must be a clean bill.
This is a time to rise above politics for the good of the country. We cannot risk an economic catastrophe. This is not a Democratic problem or a Republican problem - this is an American problem. Now, we must find an American solutions.
The wheels off the bus go round and round - McCain campaign accidentally sends talking points about campaign and debate suspension to the media instead of campaign staff.
After McCain suspends his campaign he still meets with the Illuminati representative Lady Lynn de Rothschild.
With McCain rushing back to Washington would you suspect he is the most absent U.S. Senator missing 64%, 412, of the votes so far this year?
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Martial Law for the Election?
Army Unit to Deploy in October for Domestic Operations
Beginning in October, the Army plans to station an active unit inside the United States for the first time to serve as an on-call federal response in times of emergency. The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent thirty-five of the last sixty months in Iraq, but now theunit is training for domestic operations. The unit will soon be under the day-to-day control of US Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command. The Army Times reports this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to Northern Command. The paper says the Army unit may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control. The soldiers are learning to use so-called nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals and crowds.
Greenwald: Why is a U.S. Army brigade being assigned to the "Homeland"?
For the first time in 100 years, and contrary to a legal and constitutional prohibition, an active duty military unit is permanently assigned inside the U.S. just in time for the elections.
What possible rationale is there for permanently deploying the U.S. Army inside the United States -- under the command of the President -- for any purpose, let alone things such as "crowd control," other traditional law enforcement functions, and a seemingly unlimited array of other uses at the President's sole discretion? And where are all of the stalwart right-wing "small government conservatives" who spent the 1990s so vocally opposing every aspect of the growing federal police force? And would it be possible to get some explanation from the Government about what the rationale is for this unprecedented domestic military deployment (at least unprecedented since the Civil War), and why it is being undertaken now?Naomi Wolf believes Sarah Palin was picked to be America's Evita Peron.
In McCain-Palin's America, citizens who are protesting are being charged as terrorists. This means that a violent war had been declared on American citizens. A well known reporter leaked to me on background that St Paul police had dressed as protesters and, dressed in Black -- shades of the Blackshirts of 1920 -- infiltrated protest groups. There were also phalanxes of men in black wearing balaclavas, linking arms and behaving menacingly -- alleged "anarchists." Let me tell you, I have been on the left for thirty years and you can't get three lefties to wear the same t-shirt to a rally, let alone link arms and wear identical face masks: these are not our guys. Agent Provocateurs framing protesters and calling protest "terrorism" constitutes step ten of a police state...
Faking Letters to the Editor for the McCain Campaign
One of McCain's secret advertising weapons is the fake letters to the editor.
Here is what someone who volunteers for political campaigns found when the McCain put her to work making up letters to the editor. If she makes up a letter to the editor that the campaign approves of it will be sent to state and local party headquarters to find someone local to sign their name to it. The secret to success in the McCain campaign is getting their talking point in, appealing to the heart, and lies. The assignment is simple: We are going to write letters to the editor and we are allowed to make up whatever we want -- as long as it adds to the campaign. After today we are supposed to use our free moments at home to create a flow of fictional fan mail for McCain.
"Your letters," says Phil Tuchman, "will be sent to our campaign offices in battle states. Ohio. Pennsylvania. Virginia. New Hampshire. There we'll place them in local newspapers."----------------
Place them? I may be wrong, but I thought that in the USA only a newspaper's editors decided that.
"We will show your letters to our supporters in those states," explains Phil. "If they say: 'Yeah, he/she is right!' then we ask them to sign your letter. And then we send that letter to the local newspaper. That's how we send dozens of letters at once."
No newspaper can refuse a stream of articulate expressions of support, is the thought behind it. "This way, we will always get into some letters column."
Now playing: The Black Eyed Peas - Don't Lie
Yeah uh huh
La da da da la da
Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry
Hey, baby my nose is getting big
I noticed it be growing when I been telling them fibs
Now you say your trust's getting weaker
Probably 'coz my lies just started getting deeper
Another Washington Bailout is Needed - For Houston
Houston Chronicle STEWART M. POWELL and BENNETT ROTH:
Mayor Bill White of Houston described the potential range of costs to both the federal government and insurance companies in an interview with the Houston Chronicle. He then joined Galveston Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas and Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst on Capitol Hill to testify before a Senate Homeland Security subcommittee on disaster recovery.This bailout will benefit the people and there is transparency in the financing. If this was the Paulson plan the head of FEMA would be demanding $30 billion right now to dole out as he saw fit to crony contractors he picked with no oversight to make good the losses of large corporations in the Houston area.
FEMA — the Federal Emergency Management Agency — has not completed damage estimates that would be submitted to the federal government. "But," White said, "I would not be surprised if the total figures (for the federal government) weren't in the $20 billion to $40 billion range. We're going to be enormous."
Latest insurance industry estimates compiled by the Insurance Information Institute of New York foresee privately insured losses ranging from $7 billion to $12 billion. The tally of private insurance losses, coupled with White's, provides the range of all losses of $27 billion to $52 billion.
Some of the federal money is likely to come soon. Late Tuesday, House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., unveiled details of a catch-all spending bill that includes between $23 billion and $24 billion for natural disaster relief.
Have some bailout news with your coffee
You might want to spike that latte. Bilmon was one of the best bloggers from Wall Street but who had retired from blogging until recent events forced him back.
It is pretty bad when the only responsible sensible thing for a private citizen to do is to buy gold and horde oil and food and hold no dollars.
I wouldn't invest in oil stocks now - whoever is in charge of government in 2009 will need lots of money and taxing oil companies will be the politically easiest way to get it.
The FBI is investigating Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and American International Group Inc. in its probe of the collapse of the subprime-mortgage market, according to a senior law-enforcement official.
The fix appears to be in for the Democrats to be responsible and approve something to bailout these crooks while half the Republicans do the same thing. Still questions and a list of responsible things needed in any plan.
Naomi Klein -Socialism for the rich:
But the bomb has yet to detonate. The bomb is the debt that has now been transferred to the taxpayers.Andrew Sullivan, and the recent trumpeting from many small elephants, is wrong, workers did not cause this crisis. The spreading racist rants in the conservative media is that this crash is caused by minorities taking loans they can't pay back. This is crap. This is just the racist stuff you here from the right everyday but will strike a chord among angry taxpayers.
"So it detonates when/if John McCain becomes president in the midst of an economic crisis, and says, 'Look! We're in trouble. We've got a disaster on our hands. We have to privatize social security. We can't afford health care. We can't afford food stamps. We need more deregulation, more privatization.'
"You know the thesis of the Shock Doctrine is that you need a disaster to rationalize pushing through these very unpopular policies.
"So, the real disaster has yet to come. The real disaster is the debt that is going to explode on the American taxpayers. And then they do economic shock therapy."
I don't have the links now for the following but watch in the coming weeks. The real damage has moved beyond sub-prime mortgages and into the unregulated trillions of dollars in the hedge funds and swap markets and the falling confidence in the US government, financial institutions, and the US dollar. Only when the dollar crashes hard will we know the extent of the damage. Perhaps it will be better to let the Dow fall to 8000 before any major intervention. That is what brought on this proposal - unless we inject a trillion dollars into Wall Street the market will crash. I think the money might be better spent on rescues or whatever the people decide after the crash when we know the real values of some of these firms and assets. It is ironic too that the bankruptcy laws designed to stick it to the less well off are hurting corporations who aren't now given enough time for orderly sales of assets but must make immediate decisions when they are most vulnerable.
Should the Democratic majority in Congress stall until they get a good bill that pushes most of the decisions on to the next president? To do otherwise allows the Republican conservatives to claim Democrats are responsible both for the depression and the bailout of the fat cat millionaires. Of course, they will claim that if Obama wins anyway. There are economic decisions that need much more time than this administration is willing to give to push through their terrible plan.
Remember- tell your representative to just say NO to Bush and Bernanke and Paulson proposals.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)