October 2008
September 2008
“
SCARBOROUGH: How has John McCain been erotic….erratic.
BRZEZINSKI: Erratic.
SCARBOROUGH: That’s what I said.
GIBBS: I’m leaving that first one alone.
BRZEZINSKI: Erratic.
” —Obama Spokesman On McCain: We Know ‘Who Is Erratic In A Crisis’
“Not only is Sarah Palin a fraud, she’s the tawdriest, most half-assed fraud imaginable, 20 floors below the lowest common denominator, a character too dumb even for daytime TV -and this country is going to eat her up, cheering her every step of the way. All because most Americans no longer have the energy to do anything but lie back and allow ourselves to be jacked off by the calculating thieves who run this grasping consumer paradise we call a nation.”
—The scariest thing about Sarah Palin isn’t how unqualified she is - it’s what her candidacy says about America | The Smirking Chimp
“The failure of the bailout is being interpreted in some quarters as a Jacksonian-style triumph of democracy over the know-better decisions of the technocratic elite — Main Street’s whims over Wall Street’s needs. And yet, this isn’t really true. When described as a “bailout,” the public opposes it. When the principles of the bill are described without using the word “bailout,” they support it. So the failure of the bill, was, really, a victory for the inadequate and time-bound vocabulary that our elected leaders use to explain.”
—
Marc Ambinder (September 29, 2008) - A Failure To Communicate (What We Have Here) (economy)
Personally, I’m wondering what the connotation of “bailout” is. Parachuting out of a blown-up plane? Getting bonded out of jail? Emptying water from a leaking boat?
Barney!!! http://tinyurl.com/45ysap
wondering if most people think “bailout” refers to parachutes, leaky boats, or jail
Play
“
But unlike the United States, whose Treasury has made a proposal to deal with a similar situation, Sweden did not just bail out its financial institutions by having the government take over the bad debts. It also clawed its way back by pugnaciously extracting equity from bank shareholders before the state started writing checks.
That strategy kept banks on the hook while returning profits to taxpayers from the sale of distressed assets by granting warrants that turned the government into an owner. Even the chairman of Sweden’s largest bank got a stern answer to the question of whether the state would really nationalize his bank: Yes, we will.
“If I go into a bank,” Bo Lundgren, Sweden’s finance minister at the time, said, “I’d rather get equity so that there is some upside for the taxpayer.”
” —Can the U.S. learn any lessons from Sweden’s banking rescue? - International Herald Tribunethe slippery slope to socialism
I wonder how long it will be until we finally outgrow the 1950s. Here are two recent examples of Republicans demonizing as “socialism” two proposals which are vastly more centrist than, say, Chavez nationalizing Venezuela’s oil industry. Especially ridiculous is McCain’s comment, since calling Obama’s health plan socialist is like calling a Big Mac a veggie burger since it has a sliced onion on it.
MCCAIN: Well, I want to make sure we’re not handing the health care system over to the federal government which is basically what would ultimately happen with Senator Obama’s health care plan.
Jeb Hensarling, Republican of Texas, said he intended to vote against the package, which he said would put the nation on “the slippery slope to socialism.”
Even the Hanky Panky Bailout plan is weak sauce socialism, since the minimal equity provisions will only give the government warrants on non-voting shares, not control. What’s wrong with how Sweden did it in 1992? If the government doesn’t actually take over these banks then isn’t their chance for surviving much worse?
can anyone else see my recent tweet with the word ess ell yoo tee tee why? It looks like it’s been censored from search.twitter.com
“[P]utting myself in Barney Frank or Nancy Pelosi’s shoes, I’d look at it this way: the Democrats could start over, with a bailout plan that is, say, centered on purchases of preferred stock and takeovers of failing firms — basically, a plan clearly focused on recapitalizing the financial sector, with nationalization where necessary. That’s what the plan should have looked like. Maybe such a plan would have passed Congress; and maybe, just maybe Bush would have signed on; Paulson is certainly desperate for a deal. But such a plan would have had next to no Republican votes — and the Republicans would have demagogued against it full tilt. And the Democratic leadership cannot, cannot, be seen to have sole ownership of this stuff.”
—Bailout questions answered - Paul Krugman - Op-Ed Columnist - New York Times Blog
“Has there ever been a more pathetic economic proposal than the suggestion of House Republicans that we try to solve the financial crisis by eliminating capital gains taxes? (Troubled financial institutions, by definition, don’t have capital gains to tax.)”
—P-Krug - The 3 A.M. Call - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com
“Overall, Dodd and Frank succeeded in pushing Paulson a fairly long way back; probably as good a deal as they could have gotten. But someday we’ll have an administration that actually proposes good policies to start with.”
—The world according to TARP - Paul Krugman - Op-Ed Columnist - New York Times Blog
uploading a month of photos to flickr… no, i just picked the good ones this time, really
flickr accomplished @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexchaffee/sets/72157607562504190/ . Radical “fewer but better” flixperiment.
Listening to live stream of PoliSciFi Radio: http://tinyurl.com/5h984l — Steve Benen and Bill Simmon wax nerdtastic
PoliSciFinished, now going in search of bratwurst at my housemate’s going-to-Germany BBQ down back (no homo)
