#1
Again, POST-"8-8-8"/GEORGIA the US is now ina war agz Radicla Islamism for the control and domin of ASIA and any local enclaves/littorals. although Islamist destabilizations will still occur outside of same in Euro, Africa, etal. *2008 -2012 [2016] POST-DUBYA PERIOD > THE ASIAN MAINLAND includ "NEAR-ABROAD" PERIPHER AREAS IS THE PRIMARY OR PRIORITY FRONT RIGHT NOW FOR THE MILITANTS-TERRORISTS AND ALIGNED [Commies-Anarchists], NOT THE OTHERS, ESPEC AS IRAN NUCLEARIZES.
ASIA =
* Large historically or mostly MUSLIM REGIONS-STATES. Read - MANPOWER + SYMPATHETIC GOVTS.
* Leads THIRD WORLD in MULTI-STATE DESIRE FOR INDIGENOUS NUCLEARIZATION ["Energy"}.
* NUCLEAR RUSSIA = potens MUSLIM-MAJORITY before or by 2050 [2050-2100].
* NUCLEAR CHINA = Muslim Uighurs + major PLA Mil-NucBases.
* NUCLEAR INDIA.
Also, as per ANTI-US/WESTERN OWG JIHAD > NUCLEAR ISLAMISM + ELIMINATION OF RUSSIA, CHINA, + INDIA, etal. > = LEAVES ONLY THE US + NATO [read - FUTURE EURABIA?] TO BE MILITARILY, POLITICALLY, ANDOR DEMOGRAPHICALLY SUBORNED OR DESTROYED.
Russia is suffering its own bitter version of financial turmoil, partly because of the summer of antagonism led by Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister. Yesterday Russia suspended its stock market for the fourth day in a fortnight, to try to stem falling share prices. The move headed off a rout, although investors have been fleeing for four months and the market is down by more than half since May.
Those on the receiving end of Mr Putin's belligerence might hope that the plunge will undermine him. His power has rested on his claim to have steered Russia out of chaos and into prosperity in eight years. But, as with every optimistic statement about Russia, that depends on the middle class suddenly revealing itself to be large, outspoken and prepared to challenge the country's leaders if their actions threaten the standard of living. This hasn't happened yet.
More worryingly, the turmoil could strengthen those who argue that capitalism is too risky. In that case, the advantage will go to those, such as Mr Putin, who favour more control of key industries and the stock markets, although that may prove to be at the expense of economic growth.
Since 2000 Mr Putin has tried to have it both ways. He has extracted political capital from the new prosperity, in which average incomes nearly doubled in six years, but he has acted as though there was no contradiction with his growing control of regional government, the media and the energy industry.
His claims for his first years as President are solid. He did steer Russia out of the 1998 crisis; a tangle of debt default and a run on the rouble. Four years of high oil prices have left the country with no debt and with more than $500 billion in foreign currency reserves. But, as foreign investors have been saying for years, Russia has failed to reinvest oil profits back into the industry, and production is now dropping, while Mr Putin has failed to diversify the economy away from energy.
Even though poverty has halved to below 14 per cent of the population, wealth is spread very thinly. The population of 141 million is shrinking by nearly half a million a year, leaving eastern villages deserted (something that China, with tens of millions living along the border, watches keenly).
This summer, Mr Putin's contribution has made the inevitable financial turmoil worse. True, he cannot be blamed for the one-third fall in the oil price since its July peak. But it removes his room for manoeuvre; if it falls below $70 a barrel, the Government will start posting deficits.
Meanwhile, Mr Putin's accusation in July that the coal and steel company Mechel had engaged in price-fixing sent its shares plunging by nearly 40 per cent in a day; it was one of the triggers for the flight of foreign capital. So was the continuing fight between BP and its Russian joint venture partners, with the apparent support of some ministers, which was uncomfortably resolved last month. And then there was the war with Georgia.
In the end, all this weakens his position. The question in the short term is how many Russians buy his line that there is no alternative to his prescription of greater control and that the turmoil in Western capitalist economies only proves it.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/01/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
TOPIX > DER SPIEGEL - US BANKING/FINANCIAL CRISIS LEAVES EUROPE HOLDING THE BILL WORTH BILLIONS; + TEN NATIONS LOSE USD $36BILYUHN IN FOREX.
ALso from DEFENSETECH > RUSSIA SEES POTENTIAL LAUNCH BASE IN CUBA [ROSCOSMOS = Space Missions] + STARSHIP TROOPERS MEETS GI JOE.
#2
More worryingly, the turmoil could strengthen those who argue that capitalism is too risky. In that case, the advantage will go to those, such as Mr Putin, who favour more control of key industries and the stock markets, although that may prove to be at the expense of economic growth.
Since 2000 Mr Putin has tried to have it both ways. He has extracted political capital from the new prosperity, in which average incomes nearly doubled in six years, but he has acted as though there was no contradiction with his growing control of regional government, the media and the energy industry.
Putin, Pelosi... Amazing how much our own "representative" government and the Russian one have in common.
#3
Well, Betty, when one party engages in stuffing the ballot box with as much vigor as their counterpart in another country, why be surprised at the outcome.
Along with the rest of America, I turned on my TV to get a first glimpse of Sarah Palin in action during the GOP convention. I had been aware of Palin before John McCain selected her, but only vaguely, and this would be my first chance to see her in action.
The day before her debut, I watched as she made the customary rounds that all speakers do, walking around the podium, checking out the TelePrompter and surveying the hall. She looked nervous. If looks could speak, she was saying, "Oh dear, what in the world have I gotten myself into? I am way out of my league."
Uh, oh, another Dan Quayle, I thought.
But what I saw the next night was not Quayle in New Orleans, but a tough, powerful, political figure, cool and confident, tossing off jokes and mocking her opponents. The fact that, nationally speaking, she was a political neophyte and yet was speaking so forcefully and powerfully on a national stage brought to mind Ronald Reagan and his powerful debut that has come to be known simply as "The Speech."
The fact that Palin was attacking her political enemies with such charm and with a twinkle in her eye reminded me of another legendary speech by Texas Governor Ann Richards in 1988, when she famously chirped that George H.W. Bush had been born with a silver foot in his mouth.
But Palin was like Reagan in ways beyond speaking style or delivery, because she had managed to capture, as few had, his spirit, the spirit that had turned working class Democrats who hadn't voted for a Republican in a generation into Reagan Democrats, voters who had suspended their dislike for Republicans in order to vote for Reagan.
The Obama campaign appeared to be flummoxed by McCain's choice of a running mate for a few days, as though they had been preparing for the usual suspects: Romney, Pawlenty, etc., but hadn't given a thought to the possibility of having to face Palin.
But then something happened to Sarah Palin. Handlers began to take her into back rooms and tell her how little she knew and how she'd have to quickly learn the names of presidents of small countries and bills in the Senate and how many missiles were in various nuclear arsenals around the world. And that process seemed to kill her confidence, shut down her natural political instincts and kill what made Palin such an interesting political animal.
The cocky, scrappy Sarah Palin who looked like Tina Fey and sounded like Ann Richards was replaced by the deer-in-the-headlights look that Americans have seen before in politicians ... a candidate who was unsteady, unsure of herself, trying too hard to be something she wasn't and trying to make the ridiculous argument that a handler had obviously given her: that being close to Alaska somehow gave her insight into foreign policy with Russia.
The Palin story is steeped in religion. Her supporters believe she is a modern day version of the biblical Queen Esther, sent by God to save the nation from peril "for such a time as this," and prophetic e-mails proclaiming that Palin is going to win are being forwarded around cyberspace as we speak.
But there may be another story that fits Palin's dilemma: In the story of David and Goliath, the young, future king decides that he will take on the 9-foot giant and goes to King Saul and tells him of his plan. Saul is bemused by the teenager who has no chance against the giant, but he consents and immediately gives him the appropriate gear, a heavy protective outfit worn to battle, known as a "coat of mail," along with the king's sword.
David, Scriptures imply, was physically overwhelmed by the get-up and barely able to move. Telling the king thanks but no thanks, the young shepherd boy threw off the gear and proceeded to gather stones found by a brook in his slingshot, which he used to fell the giant.
Not unlike the young shepherd boy, the best thing Sarah Palin can do in the remainig hours before she faces her own Goliath in the form of a tough, smart senator with three decades of experience, and the best thing the McCain campaign can do for her, is to let her rid herself of her coat of mail the overzealous handlers and let Palin run wild and be the natural, untamed politician she is.
David spent his youth battling bears and lions, but he knew nothing about battle. His victory came when he was freed of the then-modern tools of battle and allowed to bring his native skills, cultivated in the wild, to a battle for which he was by all accounts not trained for.
Palin's political skills are the equivalent of David's battle skills, honed in the Alaskan wilderness where she operated as her nickname "Barracuda" suggests, ruthlessly defeating opponents who crossed her (including her own mother-in-law, who ran for mayor after Palin) and political mentors who she thought had become corrupt (Gov. Frank Murkowski).
If that Palin shows up at Thursday night's debate, it will because she dismisses the advisers, trusts her instincts, regains her confidence and remembers where her success came from.
I confirmed for us here on GretaWire: the McCain campaign did NOT know about Gwen Ifill's book (I think I told them when I made my efforts - emails about midnight - to find out!) I am stunned....the campaign (actually both) should have been told before the campaign agreed to have her moderate. It simply is not fair - in law, this would create a mistrial.
I'm betting the Obama campaign knew ...
Addendum at 12:40 CDT: another long piece on this from WND.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/01/2008 09:41 ||
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#1
Par for the course, I'm sure dems wouldn't see it as a conflict of interest. Cause it doesn't conflict with their interests.
#2
I'm about done with this whole charade. McCain doesn't represent me; Biden represents everything I'm against. Teleprompter Barry is the answer to all of 'black' America's issues (oh, and watch the inner cities erupt if his 'holiness' should lose). Now a biased, agenda driven, 'smile hiding her anger' black PBS hack is to be the moderator for the debate. Sheesh. I just want to move to Alaska, ask Sarah and Todd out to dinner and get rip roaring drunk.
Posted by: Total War ||
10/01/2008 12:41 Comments ||
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#3
I watched Palin's acceptance speech on the local PBS channel. All the NPR commentators appeared shell-shocked. Ifill, in particular, looked liked she had just eaten worms.
#4
OS is right. The media in this country needs to be brought down. They don't even pretend to be unbias anymore.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
10/01/2008 14:02 Comments ||
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#5
Of course the Obama campaign knew. The question in my mind is how did the McCain camp not know? Who the hell is running things over there? Have they ever heard of Google? They didn't think to look into the moderator until GSV inquired about it? As a McCain supporter, I'm embarrassed with the poor job they seem to be doing right now. They should have been on top of this before it got to this point as I'm afraid it will only make the campaign look more incompetent now.
A reader is thinking ahead to the second and third presidential debates. In the first debate, he says, how many times did Obama try to tie McCain to President Bush? About a million? McCain needs to answer that. And he suggests that McCain answer as follows:
Say what you will about President Bush, senator, but he is the twice-elected president of the United States and a good and honorable man. I would rather be associated with him than with Billy Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, and Tony Rezko, to begin with.
My reader says this would be a showstopper and a debate clincher. I dont know about that, but I like it . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
10/01/2008 08:52 ||
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In the midst of a rather evenhanded editorial on the events of last Monday:
. . . Pelosi deserves no praise for her leadership on Monday. Even stipulating that we are in the closing weeks of one of the most important political campaigns in a generation, her inability to rise above the tendency to score political points was inexcusable. Monday's vote was a moment to set aside those instincts and talk about the package as an example of Washington's ability to work cooperatively in a time of crisis.
Instead, Pelosi accused Bush of economic policies that create "budgetary recklessness" and "an anything-goes mentality." And she closed with a partisan call to arms. "In the new year, with a new Congress and a new president," she said, "we will break free with a failed past and take America in a new direction to a better future." . . . But for the next president and the next Congress, whatever its makeup, Monday's performance should be looked at as an example of what it was, a performance designed to undermine the public's confidence in its elected leadership.
Posted by: Mike ||
10/01/2008 08:36 ||
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#1
It was a purposeful deal buster, just like it was supposed to be.
#2
Let me get this right. When the Donks retook control of Congress in '06 after losing it in the mid 90s, they put back in place the same mafia leadership that occupied the leadership positions prior to the fall and you expected different results? There was a reason they lost power before. That hasn't changed one bit. Franks, Rangel, Pelosi, what's changed? [even the gullibility of the American public remains the same until it hits home again].
#3
Nancy Pelosi is a waste of oxygen. But ultimately I am glad the bailout failed. It's a bad move. There's only a handful of economists who think it is a good idea versus legions who say it is a bad idea. It's nice to see some Republicans actually be Conservative. Too bad they'll probably get that crap passed this time.
#4
That version of the bailout failed, AllahHateMe. They're supposed to vote on the next version tonight after three stars appear in the heavens, presumably to make sure Senator Lieberman was there.
There is but one issue in the 2008 election. The economy. Or more to the point, the economic meltdown. Whoever wins this debate will win the election. Or perhaps more accurately, whoever loses this debate will lose the election. Period.
It is important to understand this for anyone trying not to lose this upcoming election. That would obstensibly include Arizona Senator John McCain. And it may not be as simple as what side of the Paulson Plan debate you are on. The housing-mortgage virus is eating up billions of dollars of wealth daily and this tends to irritate those who are losing the wealth. That would now include everyone in the country who owns any stock, mutual fund shares or real estate. In othe words, a large share of voters.
When folks are this angry, there is hell to pay and "hell to pay" includes figuring out who to blame. For all of McCain's wanting to stay "above the fray" and his too-clever-by-half comment that now is not the time to assign blame, he is not hearing the public. It is indeed time to assign blame. With this kind of financial destruction on the part of most American families, someone is going to get blamed. You can count on it.
Let me repeat. Someone will get blamed. You will either enter that debate or you will lose that debate. Period.
And short of properly assigning blame to the liberal policies and politicians who are responsible for this mess, the blame will autmatically fall to the current Presidential administation and by extension, his party. Right or wrong, that's how our politics play out. McCain simply has no choice now. He will start doing what he claims he loves to do related to government corruption -- naming names -- or he will be thrown on the ash heap of electoral shame alongside Bob Dole, George H. W. Bush and so on.
The good news for McCain, should he decide to grasp it, is that the party against which he is (supposed to be) running can easily be pegged with the lion's share of the blame regarding our economic meltdown. There is no doubt that liberal policies on energy and housing have combined to put the country in this situation, and only unwinding these policies will lead the nation out of this problem. Naming names properly will name a whole lot of folks with "D" beside their names.
Congress, of course, is now led by the very people who put us into this mess to begin with. If McCain thinks he can thread the needle in a bi-partisan fashion here, he is sadly mistaken. If he does not point out the facts, then his party will take the blame for and he will not win the election. It cannot happen. As far as he has run from President Bush, he will never get as far away from Bush as Obama can.
Bush has actually been on the right side of the energy production debate and the Fannie Mae-Freddie Mac regulation debate all along. The President has been a feckless advocate of the correct positions on these issues to be sure, but at least one can legitimately claim that the administration was intellectually correct on Fannie, Freddie and oil.
McCain himself eloquently and correctly pointed out problems with Fannie and Freddie back in 2005 and 2006, only to have the reforms he wanted defeated by Democrats in Congress. President Bush was with McCain on these issues. Obama meanwhile, garnering more Fannie Mae contributions in two years than all other senators not named Chris Dodd in the last nine, has been on the wrong side of these issues. This is a slam dunk waiting for McCain simply to take advantage of it.
Recently he has been out rambling on about government spending , CEO pay and earmarks. Yawn. None of this is pertient unless you point out that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were Democrat earmarks and that the worst CEO pay abuse in recent memory is Franklin Raines' incentive compensation from Fannie triggered by fraudulent accoutning. McCain did not bother to point any of that out of course. We must not "assign blame.'
The simple fact is this: if the Democrats do not get their deserved blame for this economic situation, Republicans will experience a bloodbath on Election Day. The way our elections work, it is up to McCain to make that happen. The fact that he seems not to understand it is why many conservatives loathed the idea of a McCain nomination to begin with.
It can be argued that if McCain will not assign blame, he will not win the White House. He says he wants to lead. That sometimes mean calling out friends and colleagues in the opposition.
We soon will see whether McCain has it in him to put his country ahead of his instinct to reach across the aisle. If he does not show this ability, he will never occupy the Oval Office.
#1
And the more general point that goes along with those made in this well done little essay: the detachment of responsibility from action, of record and accountability, will be almost complete. A very dangerous - not to mention infuriating and demoralizing - thing.
GOP failure in both energy and mortgage finance consisted of failing to block, or undo, Dem policies that have, indisputably, proven disastrous. That is one sort of failure.
But the donks' failures are of basic policy - their ideas were stupid, and they've led to bad consequences. Yet they stand poised to PROFIT from this record of dereliction? Ponder that for a second.
And of course it goes beyond energy and finance. Think of the despicable, unprecedented (since the Civil War) behavior of many Dems, esp. their leadership, WRT life-and-death issues in the GWOT these last few years. The attempted sabotage of the final phase in Iraq. The unbelievable slander of serving US forces, even of Marines involved in a court martial. The poison dumped into our political culture with the absurd and outrageous assertions made about Bush and intentional deception on issues of war and peace.
The GOP's failings and flaws are many; there are also many fine Dems who clearly have smarts and decency to spare - but the latter have not uttered a peep going on 8 years now, as their once-great party has become an irresponsible and loathsome force on key national issues.
All this - easily a record of accomplishment earning the Dem party as currently configured political oblivion - will be REWARDED with the White House? With an unprepared, arrogant, cowardly, creepy nobody farcically "shouldering" the burdens of leadership?
The link between action or policy and consequence and accountability seems just about gone. One can be wrong about a war - and contemptibly indecent in pushing one's views - and suffer no consequences. One can slander American warriors, trample on the emotions of the families of the fallen, cling steadfastly to policies that impoverish and disrupt, poison the political culture with preposterous claims, echo despicable foreign contempt for American sacrifice and decency in promoting security and human freedom - and prosper in an election, in America.
#2
The polls indicate that a large majority of people believe that the Republicans are directly responsible for this mess. I guess that's the only explanation that they've heard so far.
#4
The reality is that we have a totally unpalatable choice in either one of these candidates. McCain, should he win, would almost certainly be a one-term President even if he wanted a second term.
Obama...I suspect he will be the most hated President in American political history if he gets elected. The ignorant fools on the Left want this guy bad enough to sell their souls to the Devil to get him. If he gets elected, I suspect it won't take long for them to get buyer's remorse. I also suspect the U.S. Secret Service is really going to earn their pay for four years in an Obama presidency.
#7
The polls indicate that a large majority of people believe that the Republicans are directly responsible for this mess.
Has anyone heard any mention of the Community Re-investment Act from the media (outside of Fox news)? OR of the Demon Rats blocking of any reforms from Bush or McCain?
#8
You don't know what kind of doggy doo Obama has ready to throw at McCain. I wonder if they have a gentleman's agreement not the mention certain things.
#1
COLUMBIA Space Shuttle disaster > Columbia's mortal fiery breakup on the final legs of its otherwise successful mission can be symbolically be argued as HOWEVER PERFECT OR ROUGHLY SUCCESSFUL THE USA [COLUMBIA = surname for AMERICA=USA] DOES, IN THE END IT WILL LOSE OR DIE.
* IMPLICATIONS EVEN FOR GUAM, as per the death of COLUMBIA COMMANDER + TEAM MEMBER WILLIE MCCOOL.
#2
"The war against Israel is not a war against Israel. It is a war against the West. It is jihad. Israel is simply receiving the blows that are meant for all of us."
When Wilders speaks, it is like a ray of light penetrating the collective and deliberate gloom that the West imposes on itself. He is a kind of John Galt for Europe-forcing Europeans to remain conscious of what their own actions produce. Americans would do well to revisit consciousness, too; memories are failing.
#3
For those who don't speak french, it's an actual NEOCON french blog, not quite my cup of tea, but very, very odd in France, with "neocon" being a quasi-insult here... and even so at the right, where very few self-identify with neocons (the only two major exceptions I can think of are Guy Millières and Yves Roucaute, who are not "liked" by the mainstream of the french right, which is either crypto-socialists and/or gaullists, think sarko, or a fringe of wingnuts who hates America, capitalism, free-markets, love russia, idolize putin,...).
We Americans are accustomed to regarding political rhetoric much as Dr. Johnson did epitaphs. "They are not," he wrote, "given under oath." In other words, we don't expect public men or women to speak the truth from public platforms. When it comes to our own parochial affairs, there's probably a bit of weary realism in that. However, this casual expectation of rhetorical hypocrisy has inhibited from the start our ability to recognize and deal with the threat posed by Islamist radicalism.
Time and again, the spokesmen for these movements have told the world precisely what they intend. Time and again, the scant handful of Americans who bothered to take notice have dismissed what was said as the product of political alienation, as the consequence of economic marginalization, as a hangover of post-colonial insecurity or as tactical bluster.
No. These people mean exactly what they say, and they mean it for precisely the reasons they say they do. They genuinely believe in the extreme and often heretical variants of Islam to which they cleave, that faith guides their actions, and their public statements are expressions of that faith.
Time and again, though, we willfully have blinded ourselves to this fact, partly because modern minds balk at accepting what is essentially medieval reasoning at face value, and partly because it's the conveniently amicable thing do to. That, plus the simultaneity of a national election and Wall Street crisis, account in large part for the silence that greeted last week's abominable speech by the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, at the United Nations. In the course of a characteristically rambling diatribe, Ahmadinejad, one of the world's great public anti-Semites, had this to say:
"The dignity, integrity and rights of the American and European people are being played with by a small but deceitful number of people called Zionists. Although they are a minuscule minority, they have been dominating an important portion of the financial and monetary centers as well as the political decision-making centers of some European countries and the U.S. in a deceitful, complex and furtive manner. It is deeply disastrous to witness that some presidential or premier nominees in some big countries have to visit these people, take part in their gatherings, swear their allegiance and commitment to their interests in order to attain financial or media support.
"This means that the great people of America and various nations of Europe need to obey the demands and wishes of a small number of acquisitive and invasive people. These nations are spending their dignity and resources on the crimes and occupations and the threats of the Zionist network against their will."
There's a temptation to dismiss all this as simply "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" nonsense. But consider this other statement of Ahmadinejad's, made in a TV address in 2006: "Zionists and their protectors are the most detested people in all of humanity, and the hatred is increasing every day. ... The worse their crimes, the quicker they will fall." Or perhaps this, from 2005: "Israel must be wiped off the map. ... The establishment of a Zionist regime was a move by the world oppressor against the Islamic world." By "world oppressor," Ahmadinejad means the United States. He happens to belong to a Shiite sect that believes it can hasten the coming of the Mahdi, the Islamic savior, by the creation of chaos in the world. And like his brethren among the Sunni jihadists, he means what he says.
Mary Halbeck, one of the West's foremost scholars of jihadism and its religious origins, describes Islamist extremists as "committed to the destruction of the entire secular world because they believe this is a necessary first step to create an Islamic utopia on Earth." Their "view of the enemies of Islam means that their depiction in the Koran and hadith [commentaries on the Koran] is valid today in every detail. The Jews in particular have specific negative characteristics. ... They are notorious for their betrayal and treachery; they have incurred God's curse and wrath; they were changed into monkeys and pigs." This is what the men who brought the hell of 9/11 to America believed. This is what Ahmadinejad believes and what he simply awaits the opportunity to act on.
When the delegates to the U.N. General Assembly applauded Ahmadinejad's speech last week, and the American media passed over it in silence, this is the sentiment to which they gave their respective explicit and tacit approval. Shame on them; shame on us.
#3
It is wise to remember the paradox of Islam. In its founding, its main selling point was not religion, but that it was a better way of living, more civilized, than tribalism or other primitivism. And at the time, they were right.
However, the times changed, but Islam did not. Yet Muslims cannot bring themselves to face the obvious, that theirs is the primitive world to be overcome, and not the other way around.
This means that at the same time they are trying to advance what they think is civilization, they have become the barbarians they loathed, and fight only on behalf of destroying civilization.
Their old argument, that their way is better, is laughable, but the only argument they have. And this is obvious to them as well--that theirs is the inferior way, the primitive way.
This Paulson handout bill is gonna be a seriously large gift to foreign investors, which is why foreigners like Brown, Trichet and China's mandarins are all rooting for it.
Rep. Brad Sherman, D California:
Larry I am glad you have a few seconds to talk to someone who voted against this bill. I am not changing my mind. I want to thank my colleagues who stood up to the purveyors of panic and voted against a very bad bill and voted with 400 eminent economists including three Nobel laureates who wrote to us and said don't panic, don't act hastily, hold hearings, work carefully. The fact is Larry if you read this bill, even you would have voted against it.
It provides hundreds of billions of dollars of bailouts to foreign investors. It provides no real control of Paulson's power. There is a critique board but not really a board that can step in and change what he does. It's a $700 billion program run by a part-time temporary employee and there is no limit on million dollar a month salaries.
Larry Kudlow:
Let me just ask you one question. I think you are referring to foreign banks headquartered in the United States. I do not see how foreign investors get bailed out.
Rep. Brad Sherman:
Larry you have to read the bill. It's very clear. The Bank of Shanghai can transfer all of its toxic assets to the Bank of Shanghai of Los Angeles which can then sell them the next day to the Treasury. I had a provision to say if it wasn't owned by an American entity even a subsidiary, but at least an entity in the US, the Treasury can't buy it. It was rejected.
The bill is very clear. Assets now held in China and London can be sold to US entities on Monday and then sold to the Treasury on Tuesday. Paulson has made it clear he will recommend a veto of any bill that contained a clear provision that said if Americans did not own the asset on September 20th that it can't be sold to the Treasury.
Hundreds of billions of dollars are going to bail out foreign investors. They know it, they demanded it and the bill has been carefully written to make sure that can happen.
#1
In case the explanation in the article isn't clear enough, this handout bill allows for the Treasury to buy toxic waste assets originated abroad. This means the US taxpayer might end up owning foreclosures on British, Spanish and Australian real estate, which are way more overvalued relative to median income than American real estate.
#5
Shades of Goodfellas - note that the banksters cleaned out the place before setting it on fire to make a $700b insurance claim - a claim they want honored by American taxpayers.
No one seems to remember that last Christmas - December 2007 - Wall Street handed out RECORD BONUSES of $35 BILLION DOLLARS. Much of the profits were made in the (then) lucrative Debt Speculation. Here we are bashing American Car Companies again. The Auto Bailout is a LOAN. The Bank BAILOUT is a blank check, and Uncle Sam gambling with your money. Get a clue. Wall Street partied too hard, and now I need to give them money? Their bonuses (1 years worth) amount to 5% of the $700 Billion. I say - let the banks fail. Ive been hearing - from the Wall Street Analysts - that GM and Ford are going bankrupt for years. Funny - I never heard anyone predict Goldman in July - or Fannie & Freddie in August??? Leave the American Car Companies out of this debate. I know theyre everyones favorite punching bag - but get a clue - this is a year old topic that was already approved before the so-called Wall Street Crisis. - AND - ITS A LOAN. NOT A GAMBLE.
#2
The bankers and Wall Streeters are setting themselves up for harder times in the near future. This will kill the Trunks ability to argue against Capital Gains Tax because it will be view as nothing more than royalties paid just like miners and loggers pay on working public land, in this case on the public's money. People are going to expect something in return for being treated as nothing more than multi-generational tax serfs for the financially well placed. They're trading the freedom of their future for a further constrained market. It's welfare for the capitalism. We've seen how well welfare evolves and works.
#3
Over the past 24 hours or so, allegedly following conversations with McCain, Newt Gingrich did a 180 degree turn and now supports the bailout. It would appear that the muted responses and mixed messages from McCain and Obama may reflect their knowledge of the pending senate action. I do not think the truths and secret signals of this situation have been shared with the citizens and taxpayers. The smell of acidosis, melana and uremia are strong in the room of Lady Liberty. Thrasymachus was correct when he wrote; "I proclaim that justice is nothing else that the interest of the stronger."
#4
So do I understand this correctly, the noisy, bothersome voters out here are incidental to the process and just an annoyance and nuisance to be tolerated and to take things from and dole things out to?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
