By Hillbilly Deluxe

September 16, 2008 12:00 PM | Link to this

From what I’ve read this situation reminds me a lot of 1929. Hopefully things won’t be that bad. Most of the people who I have known that lived through that time have always been convinced it would happen again. Thankfully most of them didn’t have to see it again during their lifetimes. A few of them are still around though; hopefully they won’t see it again either.

This situation has been bound to happen though. You just can’t let the foxes guard the henhouse and expect good results.

By Fembot Fur

September 16, 2008 12:01 PM | Link to this

If it’s true that trust in our institutions is gone, Jay, it wont matter how we got in this mess.

We have to trust that the dollar bill is worth a continental dam. We have to believe it in our souls, or our system wont work.

My retirement plan now has been reduced to making my own beef jerky, so dont ask me for answers, kind sir.

By CJ

September 16, 2008 12:05 PM | Link to this

Per John McCain, as he told us on The Today Show this morning, he would form a “9/11-type commission” and he “knows how to fix this”.

Sounds like two contradictory messages to me, but whatever.

Incidentally, McCain’s primary economic advisor, Phil Gramm, led the way in eliminating the kind of regulations that might have prevented this nightmare.

By AJC/DNC Management

September 16, 2008 12:08 PM | Link to this

The DOW is up, oil prices are falling, the dollar gains strength and the libs describe this as turmoil.

Isn’t that special?

By getalife

September 16, 2008 12:19 PM | Link to this

Not to worry.

McLiar is going to reform our broken government and now spewing our broken economy.

If you believe that, you are a republican. The rest of us call it the definition of insanity.

Obama calls it like it is. A serious crisis in need of serious leadership.

Then he goes on with the blame game and no solutions.

In other words, business as usual.

By Carbon Footprint

September 16, 2008 12:23 PM | Link to this

Shorts are covering, moron.

By marko

September 16, 2008 12:23 PM | Link to this

The banks are toast, but we got the C.E.O’s out alive. How they’ll survive on their pitiful multi-million dollar pensions remains a mystery.

By Copyleft

September 16, 2008 12:31 PM | Link to this

I have every confidence that Mr. McCain can rely on Phil Gramm’s sound economic advice on how to improve our economy.

After all, we’re just a “nation of whiners” anyway.

By Carbon Footprint

September 16, 2008 12:38 PM | Link to this

This begs the question: Betty or Veronica? Ginger or Maryjane?

Palin or Plame?

Man that’s a tuff one. Valerie Plame is so hot I can barely breath thinking about her sometimes, but Palin has much more depth. She’s more the girl next door, more approachable.

Palin or Plame. It seperates the men as well as “Curly or Moe”.

There’s no middle ground there.

By T

September 16, 2008 12:38 PM | Link to this

The Dow is up 40pt. True, a slight improvement. Not really close to the 500 it droped yesterday, but sure I can see that silver lining.

By Mrs. Godzilla

September 16, 2008 12:43 PM | Link to this

Looks like a government bail out of AIG is back on the table…..

Mister can you spare a dime?

By N-GA

September 16, 2008 12:43 PM | Link to this

It was just a matter of time before some of the wing-nuts would try to tell us it’s really not so bad. The economy is fine. Americans will buy their way out of this problem once again. How? They will simply borrow some more. From whom? Well, they can get it from the people with the dollars.

Pray tell, who would they be? My goodness, it would be the oil producers and the Chinese/Korean manufacturers who have stockpiled dollars.

But what if they decide not to lend those dollars to us? Well, perhaps they will just wait until things fall completely apart, then buy American assets for 10 cents on the dollar.

It really is unusual when the wing-nuts are sitting around singing Kumbayah.

By CJ

September 16, 2008 12:48 PM | Link to this

“Management” sees what she want to see.

McCain thinks he can solve all problems by eliminating earmarks. When is somebody in the media going to inform McCain (because I’m sure that he doesn’t know) that earmarks make up less then one percent of federal spending? Sure, we should eliminate earmarks—and sure, Management should stop eating her boogers, but aren’t there more important things to worry about right now?

The fact that McCain has made earmarks the centerpiece of his domestic campaign should demonstrate how out of touch he is (and the media for letting McCain dominate the discussion with that diversionary tactic).

By AJC/DNC Management

September 16, 2008 12:50 PM | Link to this

Look, I fully understand that this the “hey libs, here is your chance to regurgitate the Phil Gramm dhimmocrat talking points, even though yesterday government had nothing to do with it” blog, and I respect that, but I was wondering if I could start a “Hair Plug’s off the dimocrat ticket by (choose a date)” office pool?

By CJ

September 16, 2008 1:01 PM | Link to this

Following up, an editorial in the Wall Street Journal explains how McCain’s health care proposal, raises taxes on workers who receive health benefits, leads to more people without insurance, leaves people with pre-existing conditions behind, and does nothing to address rising healthcare costs.

In case anybody is interested in something other than McCain’s position on less than one percent of the federal budget (i.e. earmarks).

By WillM

September 16, 2008 1:03 PM | Link to this

Yeah where is Phil Gramm about now?

It’s looking like the only stock rising on Wall Street at the moment is that of Paulson, who may have picked just the right moment for restraint. Well done.

By Carbon Footprint

September 16, 2008 1:03 PM | Link to this

NGa: they’re already saying that on Kudlow and Fox.

I read body language. I watch the bodies on the floor of the NY Stock Exchange closely. There’s no panic. There’s not even a sense of dread. it’s business as usual in that if you’re short, you’re doing well, and happy and making unbelievable money. So it balances out in the overall outlook, like a bookie who must cover the spread, or a gay transexual who ends up making love to the same sex he made love to before his operation…I dont know what I just said…

Hillary 08: America needs it’s mommy.

By RW-(the original)

September 16, 2008 1:08 PM | Link to this

Assuming Jay means it when he asks how we got here…..

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act signed into law is one place to look. President Clinton signed that into law in 1999, but they had already allowed mergers of banking and insurance industries, in violation of existing law, by granting waivers as early as 1993.

Five years ago the New York Times reported that President Bush put forth a proposal to head off upcoming problems with Fannie and Freddie, but the proposal was killed by Democrats, like Barney Frank, that proclaimed there were no coming issues and all was well.

By WillM

September 16, 2008 1:08 PM | Link to this

Well I’ve changed my Leftist ways and am now ready to get behind Palin for president, or VP, or whatever it is:

http://www.michaelpalinforpresident.com/

By WillM

September 16, 2008 1:12 PM | Link to this

….but the proposal was killed by Democrats, like Barney Frank, that proclaimed there were no coming issues and all was well.

OOOH, a LOADED GUN have we?

By Goldie

September 16, 2008 1:14 PM | Link to this

Yesterday Failin Palin was out campaigning and stated that our economic mess is caused by “greedy corporate CEOs with their golden parachutes”… and then she stated that McBush and she were “gonna put a stop to this!”

A couple of questions: why are you Repugs allowing your attack dog to go so far off of your standard script? Hasn’t she been studying up on the Repug talking points that needs to be regurgitated every day?

Also, why hasn’t McBush been putting a “stop to this” before now? What has McBush been waitin’ for all these years in trying to “change Washington”?

By Goldie

September 16, 2008 1:21 PM | Link to this

David Brooks (not a lib he) has a pretty harsh assessment of Failin Palin:

She has not been engaged in national issues, does not have a repertoire of historic patterns and, like President Bush, she seems to compensate for her lack of experience with brashness and excessive decisiveness.

What America doesn’t need is 4 more years of Bush-style “brashness and excessive decisiveness” which is exactly what McBush\Failin are offering today.

By Taxpayer

September 16, 2008 1:22 PM | Link to this

But Gramm’s most cunning coup on behalf of his friends in the financial services industry—friends who gave him millions over his 24-year congressional career—came on December 15, 2000. It was an especially tense time in Washington. Only two days earlier, the Supreme Court had issued its decision on Bush v. Gore. President Bill Clinton and the Republican-controlled Congress were locked in a budget showdown. It was the perfect moment for a wily senator to game the system. As Congress and the White House were hurriedly hammering out a $384-billion omnibus spending bill, Gramm slipped in a 262-page measure called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. Written with the help of financial industry lobbyists and cosponsored by Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the chairman of the agriculture committee, the measure had been considered dead—even by Gramm….

By T

September 16, 2008 1:23 PM | Link to this

Anyone want to go collect on some debts from Iraq? Anyone? I hear they have a surplus, and a little oil.

By mike hussein smith

September 16, 2008 1:28 PM | Link to this

We got into this mess because of Bush’s insistence that we fight a meaningless war we can’t pay for and his surrender to the dictates of Wall Street.

My soapbox Joe Biden may be the NICEST person in the Senate so the fact that he once had hair plugs means very little to me. As a close friend of Strom Thurmond, Biden helped the South Carolinian get about during the last years of his life. Even though they voted differently on most issues, Biden’s care of the aging Thurmond ensured that South Carolina still had the conservative voice its voters had sent to Washington. (After Strom got hair plugs, friend Biden followed suit.) And when Strom died in 2003, his family turned to the Delaware Democrat to deliver one of the eulogies at the Republican’s funeral, which was shunned by most GOP senators though Biden, Kennedy and other Democrats attended. That, to me, says a lot about Biden’s decency and his respect for his fellow man.

By Mrs. Godzilla

September 16, 2008 1:28 PM | Link to this

RW

Your 1:08 mentioning Barney Frank smells fishy to me….can you provide a link?

By Goldie

September 16, 2008 1:38 PM | Link to this

One of McBush’s aides joked today that McBush helped “invent” the Blackberry — and if that wasn’t funny enough, the response from Obama’s camp nailed it:

{{In a statement, Democratic candidate Barack Obama’s campaign spokesman Bill Burton said: “If John McCain hadn’t said that ‘the fundamentals of our economy are strong’ on the day of one of our nation’s worst financial crises, the claim that he invented the BlackBerry would have been the most preposterous thing said all week.”}}

By GOPs got to go

September 16, 2008 1:41 PM | Link to this

Pigs with and sans lipstick at the trough for years now, mortgage brokers, lenders, loan officers, real-estate attorneys and yes, buyers too. And then to think that the best of Wall Street thought that the piper would never show up to get paid. The piper has an Asian look to him, part Chinese and Japanese with a slight hint of a Russian accent.

Thankfully I am well diversified and can weather a storm. I fear for my children and grandchildren yet to come though. I fear that America’s reign as top dog is over. Free Market, no regulation what so ever, how is that working out? We are the edge of an abyss with our arms flailing in wild circles.

How can we get back to a sound economy without an enormous deficit? I am in medicine, not finance, but I know to live within my means. We need leaders who can live within America’s means. And you Republicans cannot continue acting as if YOU are the conservatives because you go to church and say you are. I am saying that I am the true conservative, not you. I am the one who has had one husband and raised 2 good kids and have worked one job for 30 yrs and has saved and paid off my house. Yes I am the true conservative, walking the walk instead of driving the hummer.

By Goldie

September 16, 2008 1:45 PM | Link to this

Oh, and another hilarious thing that McBush said is that he wouldn’t have to create such stinky, lying campaign ads, IF ONLY Obama would do as he says and plan some town-hall-style meetings as he has insisted all summer… like anyone really believes that would stop the stink coming from McBush and his advisors???

BWAAA!

By RW-(the original)

September 16, 2008 1:48 PM | Link to this

Mrs. G,

I already did on the thread below and I was hesitant to appear to be spamming, but I guess Jay won’t get too upset since it’s more on topic up here. Why is it you never believe me?

I never lie

”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

By Tom

September 16, 2008 1:52 PM | Link to this

The economy has been growing into and has finally become a nightmare. Our actions and attitudes in the world have rightfully begotten hatred for us most everywhere. The proof is all there for the looking. Yet our dumbed down society becomes yet dumber by the day. The masses are nothing more than very lower middle-class voters who have never evolved and never will. They know not and care not about economies, world events, et al. They are in awe of such inferiors as McCain and Palin. It is almost - but not quite - beyond belief. Other countries educate their people. The U.S. is content to keep them ignorant. Instead of learning other language skills, fewer and fewer citizens can even speak English. How pitiful it all is.

By ByteMe

September 16, 2008 2:02 PM | Link to this

RW, tossing a subsequent article about the topic back to you. It’s more complex than just blaming Democrats… especially since they didn’t control both houses of Congress and the White House at the time:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12318-2004Dec19.html

Or are you suggesting that Republicans are so incompetent at governing that even when they control all the cards that they still can’t play the game right and get their agenda passed?

By Goldie

September 16, 2008 2:05 PM | Link to this

Oops! Looks like McBush’s Double-Talk Express has lost its wheels again — those darn greedy corporate CEOs!

ABC News’ Lisa Chinn and Jennifer Parker report: Republican ticket mates John McCain and Sarah Palin Monday blasted corporate executives who leave their company with a “golden parachute” and pledged to “stop multimillion dollar payouts” to CEOs, seeming to forget their own top economic adviser Carly Fiorina walked away with $45 million, including a $21.4 million severance package when she was dismissed by Hewlett Packard in 2005.

By T

September 16, 2008 2:14 PM | Link to this

By ByteMe

I’m not sure what this Barney Frank fellow meant about affordable housing, but this is ridiculous.

By RW-(the original)

September 16, 2008 2:17 PM | Link to this

ByteMe,

I know you’re new to stalking me, but over time you’ll find I’m not much more fond of Republicans than I am of Dhiimicrats.

Now the reality is that no party has had a controlling majority in the Senate in any of the Bush years, but they split organizational control four/four, although the first Democrat year started as a Republican one.

Your Washington Post story makes Barney Frank and the Democrats that held his position look like an even bigger idiots though. Thanks.

By getalife

September 16, 2008 2:18 PM | Link to this

The fed leaves rate unchanged the market responds.

Capitalism without corporate socialism is a good sign.

By ByteMe

September 16, 2008 2:29 PM | Link to this

Then you didn’t read the story, RW, since the main quote in there about not wanting to provide more money for oversight was from a Republican who was trying to block the additional money.

As for stalking, you always claim that when I have a better argument. My guess is that you’re not as smart or as unbiased as you appear.

By RW-(the original)

September 16, 2008 2:42 PM | Link to this

ByteMe,

You didn’t even make an argument.

By @@

September 16, 2008 2:58 PM | Link to this

Now, how we got into this mess is a very different question…..

So why didn’t you answer it Jay? Surely you know…..

An agreement between the Clinton administration and congressional Republicans, reached during all-night negotiations which concluded in the early hours of October 22, sets the stage for passage of the most sweeping banking deregulation bill in American history, lifting virtually all restraints on the operation of the giant monopolies which dominate the financial system.

Over the past 20 years the restrictions imposed by Glass-Steagall have been gradually relaxed under pressure from the banks, which sought more profitable outlets for their capital, especially in the booming stock market, and which complained that foreign competitors suffered no such limitations to their financial operations. In 1990 the Federal Reserve Board first permitted a bank (J.P. Morgan) to sell stock through a subsidiary, although stock market operations were limited to 10 percent of the company’s total revenue. In 1996 this ceiling was lifted to 25 percent.

Fair enough? Democrats AND Republicans. We can only guess as to what their motivations were. Opportunity for all? Opportunity for the few?

Consider this! What if all those “greedy” homeowners had passed on the low to no down-payment loans followed by an ARM?

Yep! [Ben Stein, myself, and Thomas Acquinas] know what contributed to society’s ills.](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/business/14every.html?_r=3&scp=1&sq=ben%20stein&st=cse&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin)

Washington is not the problem. Human nature is the problem, and that’s going to be a tough nut to crack. That’s the machine to rage against.

It’s difficult for some to look inward, but that’s where the reflection is lookin’ poorly.

‘Ya ever notice how Stein remains cool, calm and collected? It’s his “Intelligent Design” that keeps him grounded in reality. Me too!!!!!!!

Preghi Jay …….. pregano! allora respiri.

By Taxpayer

September 16, 2008 3:09 PM | Link to this

Bush and McCain are in favor of Gramm’s handiwork such as that infamous Enron loophole and the Dem’s efforts to reform the Republican fiasco have been blocked time and time again by Bush and the Republicans in Congress. We have the Republicans to thank for the credit mess as well as speculators running up oil prices.

By Taxpayer

September 16, 2008 3:23 PM | Link to this

Before passage of the modernization act, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission was attempting to regulate the swaps market through rule-making. The modernization act, Gramm noted in his remarks on the Senate floor, provided “legal certainty” for the growing swaps market. That was necessary, Greenberger says, because at the time, “banks were doing these trades in direct violation of federal law.” Greenberger has also been critical of former Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, who supported Gramm’s banking deregulation. But Greenberger insists that it was Gramm’s slick legislative move that prevented government regulators from halting the spread of the risky financial instruments. “Without Phil Gramm adding that 262-page bill onto an 11,000 page appropriations bill in 2000, it never would have seen the light of day,” Greenberger says. “It was a lame duck Congress … racing off to Christmas recess. It was not an orderly process.”

By @@

September 16, 2008 3:27 PM | Link to this

Taxpayer:

The problem with you, and liberals like you is that you have a finger that’s overused.

No one has yet convinced me that both parties’ intentions were not good — an increase in opportunity for homeownership. The mistake they both made was to trust human nature, both in the banking industry and society at large.

The majority of homeowners are making their mortgage payments. Good for them. They’re the people this country can depend on to do their part in the interest of the common wealth.

By GOPs got to go

September 16, 2008 3:36 PM | Link to this

@@ why don’t you take your over used finger out of your nose.

Human Nature my @ss. The only human nature shown here was pure unadulterated greed, mostly by people who had plenty already.

By "The Corporal"

September 16, 2008 4:19 PM | Link to this

PICK ONE

1) “We have nothing to fear but fear itself” (Franklin D. Roosevelt)

2) “Danger, Will Robertson, Danger (Robot from Lost in Space)

By @@

September 16, 2008 4:45 PM | Link to this

Human Nature my @ss. The only human nature shown here was pure unadulterated greed, mostly by people who had plenty already.

Gopper? I don’t believe I belabored your point.

My point was that the financial industry set out to feed it’s own greed. Homeowners, in their greed, shouldn’t have fed the monster.

WE would all have been the better had THEY not done so.

It’s all in knowing when to say NO.

By Taxpayer

September 16, 2008 5:00 PM | Link to this

Ben Stein was clearly at the height of his career in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

By "The Corporal"

September 16, 2008 5:25 PM | Link to this

Luke Chapter 14

28For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?

29Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him,

30Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.

Wise words from the Banker of the Universe