***What about the undecided?!?! (Political topic)***

Bessie,

Thanks for the WSJ editorial.  I needed to wait until this morning to read it...just couldn't take in any more for the day.  Why did it take so long?  This is the bigger question--"....over 15 years.." which is two Presidential administrations--one Democratic and one Republican--each trying to adjust the polarity created by the other philosophy of life and economics.  

But this is the blame question I guess ... and as he said ... this is not the time to waste words on blame ... time it too short to waste even one breath.

The experiment in Cern may have been scrapped, but the experiment of our country drafted into the US Constitution seems now matured.  The big bang is eminent driven by energy beyond the limited control that we think we have in our votes.  How these candidates behave and present in these final days as these particles collide as we speak, will drive my vote.   

It's not mystical, it's evolutionary.  How we manage this time can be either divine or darwinian or a hybrid comprehension of both.  For this reason I lean to Obama who is pragmatic.

It makes me very nervous when people mix religion and government...anywhere in the world.  One ideology must not "ethnically cleanse" the other...in this way, democracy fails.  When it is at such extremes, it fails absolutely.  I believe this is the point where we are today.   

I'll vote for the hope that we can guide ourselves away from this self destructive behavior.

 

Perhaps I should be running for president as I recognized three years ago that the housing bubble was just that.  That it didn't burst till now is the only surprise for me.  When I returned in 2004 and heard all my friends and relatives talking about how much money their houses were worth I thought them ridiculous.  How can a house double its value in two years--it can't!  How can people making $50,000 a year buy houses for $300,000 and up, and without downpayments!  Come on.  This is not just the Democrats or the Republicans fault.  When I purchased my first house in my 40's, I put 20% down and my mortgage payment was less than 1/4 of my take home pay. Blame the people who bought houses who couldn't afford them; blame the banks for giving mortgages to people who couldn't afford them; blame the government, Dems and Republicans, for doing away with banking regulations. There's lots of blame to go around here!  

But please remember that you are not stuck with Frick or Frack.  Ralph Nader predicted this crisis years ago, and has been predicting it every year since.  Unless, and until, we get a third party candidate in the mix I promise you that nothing will change.  (Just read that Nader is picking up 10% of the independent vote in Ohio.)  If he can get 5% of the total popular vote this year, then in four years he can get matching federal funds and, hopefully, get into the debates.  I realize, of course, that either Obama or McCain will win this time out, but think long term, please.  Vote for Nader or if you lean right, for a third party on the right.  The two offerings in the major parties will change nothing!  Obama will wage war in Afghanistan or Pakistan; McCain in Iraq or perhaps with Russia.  Nader won't wage war with anyone, other than politicians and corporate America. Remember that Abraham Lincoln won the presidency because the people were disgusted with the two traditional parties.  It could happen again.

Oh, and let me not forget.  Nader is the only candidate who has a proposal for universal health care. Obama, coward that he is, refused to endorse universal health care (and what he is proposing can't work now that the U.S. has increased its debt in the trillions) and McCain's proposal is even worse, if possible.  

On top of all that, Nader doesn't change his mind every other day or make promises he can't deliver. Go Nader! 

Shirley, Naughty asked why we were supporting our candidates.  You gave your reasons, others have given theirs.  But if you insist on hijacking the thread, as usual, here's are two cut-and-paste responses to your demand for a response.  (And I'm sure you'll respond to the response and demand another response.  You're PURTTY determined that way!)

From the New York Times: 

Senator John McCain's campaign manager was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say.

Mr. McCain, the Republican candidate for president, has recently begun campaigning as a critic of the two companies and the lobbying army that helped them evade greater regulation as they began buying riskier mortgages with implicit federal backing. He and his Democratic rival, Senator Barack Obama, have donors and advisers who are tied to the companies.

But last week the McCain campaign stepped up a running battle of guilt by association when it began broadcasting commercials trying to link Mr. Obama directly to the government bailout of the mortgage giants this month by charging that he takes advice from Fannie Mae's former chief executive, Franklin Raines, an assertion both Mr. Raines and the Obama campaign dispute.

Incensed by the advertisements, several current and former executives of the companies came forward to discuss the role that Rick Davis, Mr. McCain's campaign manager and longtime adviser, played in helping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac beat back regulatory challenges when he served as president of their advocacy group, the Homeownership Alliance, formed in the summer of 2000. Some who came forward were Democrats, but Republicans, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed their descriptions.

"The value that he brought to the relationship was the closeness to Senator McCain and the possibility that Senator McCain was going to run for president again," said Robert McCarson, a former spokesman for Fannie Mae, who said that while he worked there from 2000 to 2002, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac together paid Mr. Davis's firm $35,000 a month. Mr. Davis "didn't really do anything," Mr. McCarson, a Democrat, said.

Mr. Davis's role with the group has bubbled up as an issue in the campaign, but the extent of his compensation and the details of his role have not been reported previously.

Mr. McCain was never a leading critic or defender of the mortgage giants, although several former executives of the companies said Mr. Davis did draw Mr. McCain to a 2004 awards banquet that the companies' Homeownership Alliance held in a Senate office building. The organization printed a photograph of Mr. McCain at the event in its 2004 annual report, bolstering its clout and credibility. The event honored several other elected officials, including at least two Democrats, Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania and Representative Artur Davis of Alabama.

In an interview Sunday night with CNBC and The New York Times, Mr. McCain noted that Mr. Davis was no longer working on behalf of the mortgage giants. He said Mr. Davis "has had nothing to do with it since, and I'll be glad to have his record examined by anybody who wants to look at it."

Asked about the reports of Mr. Davis's role, a spokesman for Mr. McCain said that during the time when Mr. Davis ran the Homeownership Alliance, the senator had backed legislation to increase oversight of the mortgage companies' accounting and executive compensation. The legislation, however, did not seek to change their anomalous structure as private companies with federal support.

The spokesman, Tucker Bounds, also noted that the Homeownership Alliance included nonprofit organizations like Habitat for Humanity and the Urban League. "It's not controversial to promote homeownership and minority homeownership," Mr. Bounds said. More than a half-dozen current and former executives, however, said the Homeownership Alliance was set up mainly to defend Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by promoting their role in the housing market, and the two companies paid almost the entire cost of the group's operations.

"They were financed largely, possibly exclusively, by Fannie and Freddie," said William R. Maloni, a Democrat who is a former head of industry relations for Fannie Mae. "We thought it would be helpful to have someone who was a broadly recognized Republican to be the face of the organization, and that person became Rick Davis." Mr. Maloni added, "Rick, for that purpose, turned out to be quite good." (Several executives said Mr. Davis's compensation was not unusual for the companies' well-connected consultants.)

The federal bailout of the two mortgage giants has become an emblem of what critics say is the outdated or inadequate regulatory system that allowed the financial system to slide into crisis this summer.

At the time that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac recruited Mr. Davis to run the Homeownership Alliance in 2000, they were under new pressure from private industry rivals and deregulation-minded Republicans who argued that the two companies' federal sponsorship gave them an unfair advantage and put taxpayers at risk. Critics of the companies had formed their own Washington-based advocacy group, FM Watch. They were pushing for regulations that would deter the companies from expanding into new areas, including riskier and more profitable mortgages.

Mr. Davis had recently returned to his lobbying firm from running Mr. McCain's unexpectedly strong 2000 Republican primary campaign, which elevated Mr. McCain's profile as a legislator and Mr. Davis's as a lobbyist.

"You can say what you want about free-market distortions, but people like the system because it gets them into houses cheap," Mr. Davis said to Institutional Investor magazine in 2000, adding that he would run the advocacy group out of his Alexandria, Va., lobbying firm.

The organization also hired Public Strategies, a communications firm that included former Bush adviser Mark McKinnon. Mr. Davis wrote letters and gave speeches for the group. In April 2001, he sent out a press release headlined, "It's Tax Day - Do You Know Where Your Deductions Are? For Most Americans, They're in Your Home."

But by the end of 2005, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were recovering from accounting problems and re-examining costs, former executives said. The companies decided the Homeownership Alliance had outlived its usefulness, and it disappeared.

Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) -- For the first time since 1932 a presidential election is taking place in the midst of a genuine financial crisis. The reaction of the candidates was revealing.

John McCain, railing against the ``greed and corruption'' of Wall Street, won the first round of the sound-bite war. He came out with a television commercial on the ``crisis'' early on Monday of last week, and over the next three days gave more than a dozen broadcast interviews. He and running mate Sarah Palin would reform Wall Street and regulate the nefarious fat cats that caused this fiasco.

It was a great start. It then went downhill as he stumbled over his record of championing deregulation, claimed the economy was fundamentally strong, and flip-flopped over the government takeover of American International Group Inc.

For his part, Barack Obama didn't come across as passionately outraged and wasn't as omnipresent or as specific.

More revealing, though, was to whom both candidates turned on that panic-ridden morning of Sept. 15, and how the messages evolved before and after that day.

McCain called Martin Feldstein, the well-known Republican economist and Reagan administration adviser, John Taylor of Stanford University, who served in President George W. Bush's Treasury and Carly Fiorina, once the chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard Co.

Obama called former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, and former Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Larry Summers.

It was a mismatch.

Towering Volcker

Feldstein, for all his intellect, was ineffective in the Reagan administration; then-White House deputy chief of staffDick Darman cut him out of important action. Volcker, first at the Treasury and then as chairman of the Federal Reserve, was a towering figure in every way.

Taylor is a well-regarded academic. In four years as undersecretary of the Treasury, he left few footprints. Summers, as both deputy secretary and secretary, left a lot.

Fiorina is smart and quick; to put it charitably, Rubin will forget more about financial markets than she'll ever know.

When it comes to governance, and either Democrat Obama or Republican McCain will inherit this miserable financial mess, the best guide is who they talked to, what they said, where they've been, and how knowledgeable they are.

Obama's record and earlier speeches belie some of his more populist rhetoric. Yet they also suggest, as do his advisers, a much more activist government role than is likely under a McCain-Palin administration.

Comfortable With Subject

Obama called for the overhaul of the financial-regulatory system and tougher enforcement well before this past week's traumas.

Detached observers who watched him last week, especially in a Bloomberg Television interview, were taken by how conversant and comfortable he was on the subject, despite his thin record. Few detached observers came away with that impression watching the Arizona senator.

Much of the re-regulatory fever focuses on the Federal Reserve and any new agencies created to clean up the fiasco. Central, however, will be a more vigorous Securities and Exchange Commission, or whatever holds that investor-protection function.

McCain displayed a sudden interest in the SEC last week when he demanded that Chairman Chris Cox be fired. When his campaign was asked if the senator had ever criticized the current commission's performance before, they failed to respond.

All For Obama

Tellingly, three former SEC chairmen, a Democrat, Arthur Levitt, and two Republicans, David Ruder and Bill Donaldson, have endorsed Obama. Levitt is a board member of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.

Donaldson, who was tapped by Bush to head the SEC, says Obama called him last year about the financial-regulatory problems. He has never heard from McCain.

``Obama has been talking about the need for better financial regulation well before this crisis hit and has done some real thinking about it,'' says Donaldson, a lifelong Republican. ``McCain comes across as someone who suddenly realized changes have to be made.''

There is a case for McCain: it's if you believe in less regulation, that the government should get out of the way and let the markets work their will.

No `Real Understanding'

``I don't think anyone who wants to increase the burden of government regulation and high taxes has any real understanding of economics,'' McCain said this spring at an Inez, Kentucky, town hall meeting, where he also declared ``the fundamentals of our economy are good.''

Until recently, he repeatedly invoked Ronald Reagan's calls for less regulation. He voted for the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley corporate-governance regulations -- then last year said he regretted that vote.

McCain isn't averse to some regulations. He has strongly championed a greater federal role in campaign finance, tobacco and boxing. In each case, he saw a clear villain -- special- interest money, a tobacco product that puts profits ahead of lives, and unscrupulous boxing promoters.

There has been little evidence that prior to last week he ever put financial firms in this category. Although he assailed excessive corporate compensation last week, McCain has opposed a tepid House-passed bill that would give corporate shareholders the right to cast a non-binding vote on compensation of top executives.

Turning to Gramm

The person he has turned to most for counsel on such matters is his ex-Senate colleague Phil Gramm. Gramm is a political Gordon Gekko, a brainy economist with a Darwinian view of markets and public policy.

It's not easy to remember what the financial world looked like 10 days ago much less 10 months ago. Decisions that will be reached after this election will be the most important since the 1930s.

Obama, as more than a few Democrats are complaining, hasn't been as quick, sharp -- or demagogic -- as they would like. McCain has been beset by deeper difficulties: an inchoate and inconsistent message that seems to reflect political exigencies more than principled convictions.

(Albert R. Hunt is the executive editor for Washington at Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

I don't really like any of them.  I never did like Obama's speeches, I can see how they turned some the cranks of some but I want facts not flowers.  I'm not keen on McCain although he's talking a better line at present.  Palin was a masterstroke in the short run (gotta have that star power), but she will scare a lot of independents, including me.  Nader is the reason we've had Bush in the first place.

I'm a PR in Canada and I could vote in the US election, but I won't.  The more I hear from both sides the more horrified I am.

Ok, I am (in part) justly rebuked.  The supreme court, some of whom if I remember right were appointed by daddy Bush, made a decision with regard to a questionable election result in a state governed by brother Bush.  That's how the US got the worse president they never elected.  I lay some blame at Nader's feet because it was obvious that he would not win, the election was close and he would very disproportionately siphon off votes from the democrats, therefore handing it to the third Bush.  Maybe this was a principled stand, maybe it was an ego trip, the effect is the same.

The second time around?  Scared populace, deliberately scared populace.  It worked.  It is still working so far as I can tell.  They didn't need Nader or the Supreme Court althougth swift boating helped.

Actually as I have said before, albeit not on this particular thread, I am a firm believer in multiple political parties.  It dilutes the us versus them mentality, it makes one party have to negotiate with another, it means that several minor parties can join and put the screws to the major one.   This might work better in a parlimentary system where it is easier for a leader to sway the whole lot of legislators. 

Who would have thought it!  I've always been a socialist at heart but I never expected to see it reach these shores, and now it has.  Of course, I would have preferred that American socialism start at the bottom, perhaps giving the poor and disadvantaged health care insurance.  But still socialism is socialism and now that George Bush has introduced socialism into our banking system, perhaps it will trickle down--U. of Chicago economics at play.  And speaking of Chicago, Obama has now informed the world that because of socialism at the top, for all those Wall Street guys, he won't be able to deliver the limited health care he had been promising to those at the bottom.

And there are actually people who don't know yet for whom they'll vote!  Only one person running for president this year predicted all of the above:  Ralph Nader. 

I don't know about the rest of you, but who is this Paulson character? (sarcasm) If Bush appointed him like he did the other bumbling idiots in his cabinet, there ought to be some rules and safeguards put in place BEFORE congress approves this bailout. I fear this will be Bushy's last hurrah as he rides out into the sunset on his way to his Texas ranch and a HUGE salary (paid for by our tax dollars) for the rest of his life. Greed should not be rewarded!

Do the republicans think Palin came from the south? Why are they keeping her "locked up" like she is a fragile flower that will wilt if the press gets to ask her some of the same questions they are asking the other candidates? Afraid she will insert foot in mouth perhaps? It's time for her to face the music like the rest of the candidates. If she wants to play with the big boys she better put on her big girl panties and accept that she will be examined by the press for every detail. It's only fair after all, we live in the era of equal rights and privileges, don't we?

And I do believe that Obama also suggested prior to the economy tanking, that it would happen and there should be safeguards in place--heard that on news on radio on way home from work today--commentator mentioned that both Obama & McCain were ahead of the game on this.

Here's what Newt Gingrich says about the bailout.  You can either read it or click on the NPR link and listen.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94900671&sc=emaf

Enough already.  

Paulson et al did a great job to put on the breaks.  This is how I want MY MONEY spent.

What follows is taken from an email that arrived from Barack Obama this morning and “I (Blundin2005) APPROVE THIS MESSAGE”

• No Golden Parachutes -- Taxpayer dollars should not be used to reward the irresponsible Wall Street executives who helmed this disaster.
• Main Street, Not Just Wall Street -- Any bailout plan must include a payback strategy for taxpayers who are footing the bill and aid to innocent homeowners who are facing foreclosure.
• Bipartisan Oversight -- The staggering amount of taxpayer money involved demands a bipartisan board to ensure accountability and oversight.

What follows now is a message that I sent out to my friends earlier this month.  

To begin ... I'm forwarding this email in tact as I received it. To send disinformation serves no one's best interest.  And, as there is precious little time to get facts straight before the election, it is with that hope that I'm sending this out.  If it's not founded in fact, my apologies and please let me know about it (I know you will).  If it is founded in fact ..... I leave it to you to imagine another Bush administration.

Scary still is that the tactic they are using works.  The crowd was beaming through the speeches.  Is it possible that they actually BELIEVED the excuse given for the absence of Bush?!  Be afraid...be very afraid.

My impressions.... compliments to the McCain camgaign to find a VP with "full options"--a secret weapon revealed at the last minute (Rove at his best), a woman, who takes no prisoners, with her or against her, who (if this email is factual) governs in the style from the Bush school of business, who's acceptance speech was a string of "gotcha's" from cable news and void of concrete ideas.  This is scary.  The country elected Bush on the same platform.

And you know what ... these are the voters who Obama/Biden campaign need to reach.  

To my friends in Philadelphia another thought.  This article put me in mind of another management team--the crew who replaced a retired Hospital President.  They came in the wake of a paradigm shift (oh how I grew to hate this term) with their guns drawn sweeping out experienced management and replaced it with their own...at twice the price.  It was common practice then...consultants upon consultants upon consultants.   They took all of the ideas already on the conference room table before they arrived, and claimed them as their own...even gave prizes and bonuses for them...to themselves.  They took some of the antiques protected by our Librarian and used them to decorate their offices (it broke her heart).  They implemented severe austerity programs...normal for budget crisis...but unusual at the same time were lavish lunches and dinners held in the hospital gardens (maybe from the money they saved?) I watched these parties with intense distain from my office window....while the epidural catheters that we were forced to use were driving the staff crazy with worry.

Staff was cut, equipment purchase put on hold, supply quality downgraded with new purchase contracts BUT their bonus and parties were still in place....sound familiar? Maybe like unbridled Wall Street or building a sports stadium on land without a foundation of environmental supports?

It was not a secret that by the time the "crew" left the hospital (in only a few short years) they had raped what was a very good institution and left it bleeding.  Sound familiar?  Like a budget surplus turned uncontrollable deficit, a weak dollar and weaker international credibility by the Bush administration and now, it seems, McCain/Palin.

But I digress..... Never mind that as the department's administrator, I correlated external and internal, regulatory and otherwise good practice, statistical needs then produced the first and only data base (even nationally at the time) of viable statistics (because I wrote the dbase program and shared it to other administrators) to correlate OR procedures to staff, productive time, and cost (the secretary hated me).  The data was not a secret and I expected to hear from the new management.  They never asked and hissed at me when I offered it.  You were either with them or against them.  They never came to talk to us when they arrived...a signal taken by our very intelligent (although sometimes cranky) chairman who understood it as the right occasion to retire...and he did.  

To the surprise of "outside" consultants (henchmen for a then famous slash and burn technique--crisis management) who wanted to formulate a one size fits all contracts with third party payers (incentive advantage hospital over physicians) ... void of this data .... because again, they never asked.  I brought it to their attention when I attended a meeting (it was hard to debate the facts).... they asked for our discounts based on time. Whewwwww!  Two knees or one....complications (events as I called them in my QA reports--"outliers" as they were called by insurance companies) or none..... Real time .... time entered OR with patient (transport help) .... time anesthesia started and ended (delays true or false?) .... time surgeon started  (delays true of false?) .... time patient exited OR  (transport help and Recovery Room support) .... Recover Room sign in time (end of anesthesia responsibility).    Many surgeons and hospital accountants entered my office, closed the door for a chat and left with a better understanding.....the stats said it all.  

It's all about intent isn't it?  Do we intend to bring some civility and common sense back to our country, our government, and our lives--or do we continue to "slash and burn"?  Do we want to implement a good healthcare system or just talk about it.

By the way, it's a good thing that my breast cancer was diagnosed after I sold my houses and moved to Italy (if that can BE a good thing!).   So often I thought that, even after 20 years of work in the Hospital, by now I'd have lost my job, and then homes, and then insurance because cancer sucks and so does the treatment (we are tired and it hurts).  The US institutionalized extortion through the mismanagement of the best of intentions today known as the business of insurance (health and disability do not support patient's interests).  

Social medicine isn't perfect (is anything?)  Interesting that I had studied at least five health systems when I attended business school--to look for proven solutions.  So I know from where I speak.   My treatment here was at international standards, my medicine is at no charge (Arimidex).  I can afford to pay for my MRI, mammograms, echo mammograms, bone scans, chest xrays, ekgs, carotid echo, (every three, then six months, then yearly) from my savings.  And the people at Gemelli were compassionate as well as trained.  I became endeared to them and famous for my spreadsheet (in color of course) of vital information (including photo ID)... they loved it and showed it to everyone.  And, through this communication I learned that they studied in English as well as Italian and were grateful for my 'cut to the chase' information.  Least we forget, the language of medicine is Latin.

And hell, I understand the woman's thing...I'm one of them.  A decision to divorce instead of remain in an abusive situation.  Raised my two children virtually alone.  Attended college (through tuition reimbursement and loans) in my mid thirties.  Saved my money and didn't buy into keeping up with the Jones'.  Put a few cracks in that damned glass ceiling myself before I grew exhausted from trying.  But from all that I'm reading today, I don't find admiration of Mrs. Palin but a similar disdain that I hold in memory.  Engaging yes...she sells well...but admired no.

Ok so I go on and on ... the point is ... let's get is right this time.  This is my intent  as I write to you.

MY OVERSEAS ABSENTEE BALLOT ARRIVED TODAY!

AnneShirley, McCain is buying it either.  And, Obama wants to add pork unto the bill.  I don't want my money going to pay for CEOs or people who bought houses and knew they couldn't afford them (logic 101).  With what's been going on with the stockmarket in the past and now, we'll probably have to end up selling our house.  It should have been paid for by now.  Refinanced several times for kids schooling and college.  Dumb thing to do..Obviously.  But it's done and there's no going back.  At least my children are doing well. LOL 

Like Newt says, he doesn't know what will happen if we don't do anything, nor does he know if we DO.  Neither do the "authors" of the bill.  I think last night on Fox they said it would cost all of us $10,000 each.

Just the little bit of news I've heard this morning the repubs are not buying it.  Probably not the dems either, but I haven't listened that much to the news today.  I really need to take a break form it.  

Marilyn--Enough already is correct, although I am interpreting it my way, of course.

Both Obama and McCain have indicated they have requirements they want met before this bailout goes through (and for the record they're pretty much the same requirements, with the first being no golden parachutes, which is something, at least yesterday, that Paulson was balking at), yet neither nominee will state (and both were pressed on this) that if these requirements are not part of the package that they won't vote for it. It's pretty much what I've come to expect of both.  One can never predict from one day to the next what position either will take--they put their fingers into the air and test which way the wind is blowing. Admittedly, I am to the left of everyone on these political threads (it does amaze me how far to the left, since I was a core Democrat when I was in my 20's and my thinking on core issues has not changed in 40 years) but in this instance we all have an interest in common, whether right (McCain), center (Obama) or left (Nader). As none of you have indicated in your writing that you're a Wall Street multi-millionaire, I suspect that most of us resent bailing out millionaires.  And since we all have health issues, please note that Obama has clearly stated that he will have to pull back on his health care initiative if this package goes through and McCain would have to as well, as his package is tied to health care tax credits. 

It may be that we need this package to keep other rmarkets from deflating but at this point no one has proven the case.  And remember that Paulson said just a short while ago that he had confidence that the other bailouts (also huge) would stem the tide.  How much more money should we put into these bailouts without any assurance that they might work (Paulson says he can give no assurances that this one will work either).  There are ways to resolve this problem (witness Warren Buffet, in the private sector, putting some $5 billion into Goldman Sachs) and the resolution should come from the private sector, with some help from the Federal government, but not all.  And whatever help the Federal government gives it has to be reasonable. Purchasing assets from the companies that created this mess at above market value is not reasonable--or fair.

Suz--I find the article you posted amusing in its half truths. Of course, the Democrats have blame in this, and in my view equally as much as the Republicans, but to try and stick this on the Democrats is ridiculous.  I should also note that Greenspan did just the opposite of what is suggested in the above article.  I listened to every one of his speeches to Congress over the course of some five years waiting for him to agree that Wall Street was blowing bubbles and never heard it.  I am quite sure he knew right before he retired that this mess was going to explode.  So his retirement, in my view, puts him into Dante's lowest circle and no doubt Bernanke would agree.

Why should any of us credit any of the credentials of these financial guru's more than our own good common sense? When I was in the 7th Grade I learned how to calculate interest rates.  From observing this crisis and those responsible, it seems to me that all these U. of Chicago, Harvard, and Columbia business folks were perhaps so smart they skipped that grade.  Too bad!

If anyone reading here is not aware of the credentials of Suz's financial expert, please note that he is on the board of the American Enterprise Institute.  Here's a description of the Institute from Wikipedia:

AEI has emerged as one of the leading architects of the second Bush administration's public policy. More than twenty AEI alumni and current visiting scholars and fellows have served either in a Bush administration policy post or on one of the government's many panels and commissions. Former United States Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz is a visiting scholar, and Lynne Cheney, wife of Vice President Dick Cheney and former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, is a senior fellow.^[4]

Me again:  These are the same folks that helped Bush architect the Iraq war.  Some of what is stated in the article posted by Suz is true, but the spin is extreme. The housing bubble didn't start when the Democrats took the Congress in 2006 (and the Senate by a very small margin--if that--since we'd have to count Liberman within that margin).  In fact, by 2006 evidence that we were in crisis was pretty much known to most economists but most took a wait and see attitude, afraid I suppose to open Pandora's box.   Bush took office in 2000 and he also took credit for six years of a healthy economy, which in truth wasn't healthy at all.  It was based on a myth, and it was the AEI economists who were advising Bush, and none of them spoke up until it was too late.   I guess we all believe what we want to, but it sure doesn't help us reach any true conclusions.

Is anyone watching CNN right now?

Mccain is suspending his campaign, and obama is about to speak... I think this is ridiculous.  Just because they are in the senate, going to Washington friday instead of having a debate will not fix things... UGH.

thoughts???

Beth--I think they should both suspend their campaigns, mainly because I'm tired of listening to them, and the never-ending spin, from both sides.  But I also think that since one of them will be our next president and will inherit the results of this financial package they should both be linked in whatever package is accepted.  It's ridiculous to even think that if this package goes forward that most of the proposals made by Obama can be carried out as currently written.  I didn't believe they could or would be, even without this package.  McCain also will have to change his positions.  There's no way we can continue with more and more tax breaks (speaking of both Obama and McCain) if we double our national debt, which is way too high at its current figure.

Anne--I agree with your point but it's also why I think the debates should be postponed for a week.  I think the first debate should be on the economy which is all that's on our minds at the moment, and it should occur after this package is accepted, if accepted.  Without knowing what's in the package, it will be impossible to judge the candidate's ecnomic packages as this package, especially if adopted as now written, would force both candidates to recaliberate their positions--although recaliberate is probably too soft a term for the changes that will be required.  No tax breaks for 95% of Americans; no extension of Bush tax breaks; no health care credits, no health care! Eech nominee will be forced to rewrite his plans, and if they don't we can get to see which of them is the greater panderer.  Why hear a debate on foreign policy when we're all thinking economy?  And why hear a debate on economy that has nothing to do with present circumstances.  Hopefully, McCain was only suggesting a week's postponement, and I think that was, in fact, what he was proposing.

I hope they both agree to suspend for this week until the details of this package are worked out.

Marilyn--the Democrats and Republicans have worked together to prevent third parties from getting into the debates.  The requirements are impossible to meet, which was the sole intention of the requirements.  If a left-leaning third party were in the debate it would force the Democratic nominee to admit to certain aspects of his positions that are now well hidden; and the same is true of the Republicans.  If Ralph Nader and, for example, Ron Paul were on the stage it would be a very different debate and might actually make people think about who they're giving their votes to and why.  Or at least one hopes so.

I'm sure Ralph does hold up his finger but since it's only to attract people like me to his campaign, he doesn't hold it up that often.  And unlike most politicians he doesn' t have a natural ability to lie (which is why he lacks charm), so he keeps his wind testng to a minimum.  (Obviously, I despise politicians.)  And by the way, you guys have one of the most accomplished:  Berlusconi.  I see in the Italian news that Alitalia has declared bankruptcy.  How is Silvio wigglying out of that one? 

McCain, bless his heart (and I mean it this time) has set out his proposal for salaries of CEO's whose companies will participate in bailout.  He says no higher than the highest government salary, which I think is the President's of $400,000. Fed Chair makes about $200,000.

Obama, again, no specifics, just says they should be cut.