777

[tvashtarkatena]

The new number of the beast.

[STP]

778

[billcoe]

It must have gotten recalculated on the new IBM supercomputer.

 

The mark of the Boeing?

[olyclimber]

and the mark of wide open permissions!

 

-rwxrwxrwx

[builder206]

[Mal_Con]

[tvashtarkatena]

Looks like Congress may have shot its wad; the pressure now is to retreat to their districts to campaign. It's easy to blame the House Republicans for this, but it was a bad bill, and 95 (I think) voted against it as well.

 

It could have been a better bill, but the way it happened sucked...in typical Bush Administration fashion. First, the declaration of emergency and empassioned speech, which panicked the whole country, and presentation of a shitty, shoddy, gargantuan package. All this from a President who'd long ago lost the trust of both parties; and one whose probably lost the next presidency for his party; a lame duck joke at this point. Bush has always been a weakling trying to play the strong man; a tragic role and a recipe for failure. It's no wonder many House members on both sides of the isle balked, but overall this episode starkly illustrates just how much utterly useless our federal government has become. They squandered our wealth during times of plenty, and are now incapable of a competent response during a time of crisis.

Edited September 29, 2008 by tvashtarkatena

[dberdinka]

It was a bad bill that the taxpayer would have ultimately lost 100s of billions on. The Democrats should go back to the original Dodd proposal, which included real equity sharing to recupe the cost of the program, and pass it with out the help of Republicans.

[tvashtarkatena]

Agreed on the equity. Not sure they can do it without at least some of those Republicans, though.

 

I'd also throw in language to allow the re-negotiation of primary home mortgage debt during bankruptcy to stem the tsunami of foreclosures. It's the only kind of debt that can't be re-negotiated at present.

 

I'd also make the bailout incremental rather than one huge gulp from a fire hose.

Edited September 29, 2008 by tvashtarkatena

[wayne]

If they really wanted the bill would they have called it The Bailout, Sent an All Powerful Frankenstein after it from Goldman and had almost all reps go against it?

THEY SEE IT COMING ON THEIR WATCH AND WANT TO APPEAR TO DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

[tvashtarkatena]

I think Bush really wants the bailout. He doesn't want to leave office with yet one more hyper expensive debacle as his legacy, but, hey, sucks to be him at this point. And us.

 

Ever since 911 Bush, a talentless nare-do-well by nature, has always wanted to make good by becoming the Man Who Saved Merika. But none of us can escape our true nature; he's certainly produced results true to form.

 

Congress has exploded; with elections looming, its every man for himself. None of the reps give a shit about presidential politics at this point; they're getting so hammered by their own constituents over this thing that McCain and Obama may as well be running for Pan Galactic Viceroy for all they care.

 

I'm not sure we'll have a bail out until after the elections, given the motivations and timing involved here. By then the market will probably do most of what it's going to do and we'll be busy burning our houses down for the insurance money, which probably won't be there, either. There will be little incentive to risk voting for a bail out at that point, perhaps.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 30, 2008 by tvashtarkatena

[dougd]

Watch in the next few days and weeks the stream of bank failures around the globe. Lots of people are going to lose their jobs and our economy is going to be circling the bowl. Congress will get a bailout bill done because they have to. We aint seen nothin yet bois and girls...

 

On another note, it's nice to see a special procecutor was appointed to investigate the firing of 9 Federal Prosecutors allegedly by the bush administration for political purposes. bush's lap dog gonzalez will get his in the end of this hopefully...

 

d

[prole]

I think that in light of how deeply financialization has rooted itself in American daily life, the dichotomy between "Main Street and Wall Street" is a gross simplification. Its usage is another effort to dispel fear, raise confidence in the system, and score political points for politicians willing to "stick it to the fat cats". I am no friend to this bill, capitalists, or to the American political elite but the "kill them all, let the market sort it out" option would take pure folly coupled with criminal neglect to a whole new level. This "taxpayer populism" based on the last remains of pop free market economics (as we've seen none of the real players buy a word of it) is nothing more than political grandstanding. Bailout or not, ordinary folks will be left holding the bag, but maybe I'd rather that bag not be full of soup I've just gotten in a bread line. And they'd better hurry before those vampires start smacking their lips looking at your mutual funds.

[tvashtarkatena]

America doesn't really make anything anymore. Furthermore, we are very quickly running out of resources...for good. The latter is a global problem, of course.

 

What we may be seeing is the bursting of a national, and probably global, dot.com bubble. Our value isn't nearly as high as our perceived, hoped for speculative value was. The increasingly wealthy future that the world bet on will not be. It never was going to be: that dream depended on unlimited supplies of cheap energy and resources which don't exist. Nothing in, nothing out.

 

This could have been a slower, transitionary process, but the Bush administration, with its eyes turned towards the past, its Imperial Projects, and back turned towards our crushing debt, greatly accelerated this outcome, loading our increasingly fragile system to the present point of catastrophic failure we may be witnessing right now. Their policies, adventures, and cocaine party spending and borrowing have literally broken the back of the American economy.

 

What skills do we have as a people? We can move information around. OK. Can we eat information?

 

One thing we no longer share in great abundance is belief. A huge percentage of Americans have gradually stopped believing in this country as they've seen its leadership make catastrophic mistake after catastrophic mistake. I wonder if we can get that belief back any time soon. Maybe; we've been on the ropes before.

Edited September 30, 2008 by tvashtarkatena

[dougd]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/09/29/zakaria.sarah.palin/index.html

 

Zakaria has it right I think. Palin's in over her head and should be dumped.

 

d