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Sunday, September 14, 2008
Cat 4 hurricane heads for Wall Street
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The next 24 hours are going to be very interesting in the financial markets, to say the least. Lehman Bros., the nation’s fourth largest investment bank, is going down the tubes. The federal government is refusing — appropriately — to bail it out, and major private financial institutions have reportedly balked at trying to save it, afraid of being dragged down into the whirlpool themselves.
Alan Greenspan sounds downright grim:
“First of all, let’s recognize that this [the financial crisis] is a once-in-a-half-century, probably once-in-a-century type of event…,” Greenspan says. “There’s no question that this is in the process of outstripping anything I’ve seen, and it still is not resolved and it still has a way to go.
“I can’t believe we could have a once-in-a-century type of financial crisis without a significant impact on the real economy globally, and I think that indeed is what is in the process of occurring,” Greenspan said.
The AP reports that “Lehman’s collapse would have an incalculable impact on the financial markets, and would likely have a domino effect, with Merrill Lynch and the American International Group (AIG) widely cited as firms most at risk.”
Bloomberg News reports that “the government is probably concerned that panic may spread to other financial institutions, Ladenburg Thalmann & Co. analyst Richard Bove said. American International Group Inc., the largest U.S. insurer, and Seattle-based lender Washington Mutual Inc. each plummeted in New York trading last week on speculation about their financial health.
In London, SkyNews — a Rupert Murdoch outfit, so take it with a grain of salt — posts a headline reading “Bank Collapse Catastrophe Warning: The possible collapse of one of world’s biggest investment banks could be “catastrophic” and lead to the “implosion” of the banking sector, Sky sources say.”
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‘A liar lies to the people….’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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A liar looks ’em in the eye
And lies to a woman,
Lies to a man, a pal, a child, a fool.
And he is an old liar; we know him many years back.
A liar lies to nations.
A liar lies to the people.
A liar takes the blood of the people
And drinks this blood with a laugh and a lie,
A laugh in his neck,
A lie in his mouth.
And this liar is an old one; we know him many years….
— Carl Sandburg
Sarah Palin’s foreign policy credentials may be pretty thin, but at least they’re bolstered by the fact that as governor, she spent some time in Iraq visiting members of the Alaska National Guard.
What’s that?
Oh. Well, the Boston Globe now reports that Palin never visited Iraq, that the closest she got was the Iraq-Kuwait border, and from there she could see INTO Iraq. Kind of like being a Russia expert because you can see it from a couple of Alaskan islands.
But at least Palin “knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America,” according to John McCain. As Palin herself says, and as McCain repeats, she comes from Alaska, which provides 20 percent of the nation’s domestic energy.
What’s that?
Oh. Factcheck.org says “Alaska’s share of domestic energy production was 3.5 percent, according to the official figures kept by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.” But hey, what does the Energy Information Administration know co mpared to the person who “knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America.”
Well, at least the McCain/Palin ticket is drawing a lot of folks to rallies. According to Bloomberg news, “McCain aide Kimmie Lipscomb told reporters on Sept. 10 that an outdoor rally in Fairfax City, Virginia, drew 23,000 people, attributing the crowd estimate to a fire marshal.”
What’s that?
Oh. Fairfax City Fire Marshal Andrew Wilson now says his office did not supply that number to the campaign and could not confirm it. Independent estimates had put the number at 8,000.
Oh, well, at least they did draw 10,000 people to the Consol Energy Arena in Washington, Pennsylvania. That must be a solid number, because the McCain camp says it came from the Secret Service, based on the number of people who passed through magnetometers.
What’s that?
Oh. “We didn’t provide any numbers to the campaign,” Malcolm Wiley, a spokesman for the Secret Service, told Bloomberg, saying he could neither confirm nor deny the crowd estimate.
Well, who cares about that stuff. The Obama campaign shouldn’t be picking on Palin anyway. In fact, the McCain-Palin campaign has released a new TV ad that pointing out that Obama is being “disrespectful” toward Palin.
What’s that?
Oh. According to Factcheck, the ad “distorts quotes from the Obama campaign. It takes words out of context to make it sound as though the Democratic ticket is belittling Palin.” For example:
“The ad says ‘they said she was doing ‘what she was told’.’ But the Obama adviser who’s being quoted didn’t accuse Palin of meekly following orders. What he actually said is that she made a false claim about Obama’s legislative record and added, “maybe that’s what she was told.”
Oh, and Palin is back to lying again about the Bridge to Nowhere, falsely claiming against overwhelming documentary evidence that “I told Congress thanks but no thanks to that Bridge to Nowhere,” as she said in a speech in Nevada this weekend.
“A liar lies to nations.
A liar lies to the people.
A liar takes the blood of the people”
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Here’s fresh thread
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
…. I want you to weave me a fine suit by the time I get back.
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