TheJiggler

I think we should cut off all aid of this kind, but last time I checked we give almost as much to Egypt as we do Israel. I'm glad you have come to youor senses and come out against the War On Terror. Foreign assistance is of course one our most cost effective tools in said war.

That's still pretty far - But thanks for the beta (Snugtop) When are we going to have tea in the Sahara, G-Spotter???

Where do I climb?

If McCain wins I predict a disolution of NATO.

23 in the House. 8 in the Senate

Jesus Spice

Caribou Barbie

Firstly this is just wrong. Investment banks (or those banks formerly known as investment banks), are defaulting because they can't borrow. They can't borrow because nobody knows the value of their balance sheet. Secondly, calling mortgage backed securities "practically worthless" is a strech. How many people that you know are currently in forclusure? Lets assume that 10% of people with mortgages are in or will be in forclosure (this number is ridiculously high). We'll also assume that a house in forclosure is absolutly worthless (not true). What is the value of the mortagage backed securities backing these houses? 90%. The problem is nobody knows who will be forclosed upon. It could be that in a given bond 90% of the houses in it are being forclosed upon. But you can't really know this. So nodoby will buy them. The number I heard, and I could be totally wrong, is that mortgage backed securities right now are selling for 22 cents on the dollar. Do you reall believe the value of the US housing market is down 78% in the last 2 years?

Actually no. The higher the authorization the better. The point of this is to restore confidence in the Financial sector. The world needs to know there is a nearly infinite pool of money that can be drawn upon if need be. The idea that banks will be much more willing to loan out money if they know they can get rid of thier poorly perfroming assets. Additionally if there is a small pool only the worst assets will be bought up by the govt. This would be a worse scenario. Right now there is a fire sale on essentially all mortgage backed securities. Nobody wants these. Not beacuse the are worthless, but because nobody knows what they are worth. Basically the govt is going to buy these securities. Supply and demand works and by buying these their value will increase. If we do this, I suspect we'll lose at most 10%.

I'm sure your mothers recipe is delicious, but I was referring to the other Turkey.

Captions?

Sarah Palin should have Henry Kissinger baby sit her. -Ben Stein

VPILF

What a maverick!

What are you doing reading the liberal media? That's not Fox News!

Sure using term like "emboldened" is simplistic. But I think saying "we've scared the ship out of them" is too. As for Iran and Russia. These are two different cases. WRT Russia, yes, I think moving NATO into their backyard and signaling Georgia that it can do what it wants, that is kinda backing the bear into a corner, so its not surprising its lashing out. Maybe we did scare them a little. Iran is a different story. They know we can't really go in and do much. The political situation in Iran is not at all clear for Amadinejad. If we go in, you can be assured that his domestic support will firm up. The international community is not really behind us, and our millitary is streched very thin. Hell we can't even keep a lid on Afganistan. So yes, Iran is emboldened! That said, you still havn't given us one sherd of evidence that we've scared the shit out of our enemies.

Hey KrispyKream, I'm curious. What has made you come to this conclusion. From my perspective AlQaeda is more active than ever, witness Pakistan, Algeria and Afganistan, all seeing thier largest attacks in the last 5 years or so, just in the last weeks? From where I sit, it really seems to be that these guys are emboldend? I understand that you really believe we have them on the run, but. . . .why? Where is your evidence? I'd love to see it? I know if I thought that I'd be much more optimisitc about our future?

Except Al Qaeda In Iraq didn't exist before we invaded.

EXACTLY. They are acting not out of a feeling of "boldness" but out of fear that they are next, a position of inferiority not security. This situation may not be desirable, but it doesn't change the fact that saying our enemies are "emboldened" is bullshit. Let me get this straight. When our millitary was fresh, the economy was strong, and world opinion was on our side our enemies were emboldend. But now that the millitary is broken, we can't afford to fix it, and basically everyone hates us, our enemies are running scared?? What the F!@#$%? Are you serious? That is simply inane. Do you really think Russia would have gone into Georgia in the year 2000? Do you really think Hezballah would have had their war with Isreal in 2000?

That's complete and total bullshit. We have not emboldened any of our enemies - we've scared the shit out of them. Tell that to Iran, Russia, Sudan, Syria . . . . . +1 for Libya though! That was worth a trillion $$!

Typical liberal mentality: 1) We "can't" - mindset of failure, 2) "we need a dialogue" = replace any action with endless "talk" about doing something. I see. So Bush is a liberal . . "I don't think you can win it"

By this logic we MUST blame 9/11 on Bush. There were no foreign attacks under Clinton, hence Clinton made us MUCH safer than Bush? Right? My logic? My suggestion was to trust in the intelligence community rather than assume they are part of a conspiracy theory. You might want to do some research about attacks on foreign soil during Clinton's presidency again. Remember, not all US soil is in the U.S.A. Touche! This is a fair point. Although it totally invlidate your point too (See Belgrade, Baghdad, Damascus, Sana'a) and thats only in the last year! Would that be the same Intelligence community that: 1) Missed the fall of the USSR 2) Missed 9/11 3) Claimed linking Saddam with 9/11 would be a slam dunk 4) Was certain there were WMD Why on earth would I trust them? Except of course that that kinda pay my salary.

I'll believe this poll in about 3 weeks. Its an odd one though. Zogby reports a -9% change in support for Obama among registered Democrats. That just seems weird. Give me a trend for 3 weeks and I'll believe it.