YOU FAIL AT BAIL.

As I type this, the Wall Street bailout bill is being voted on in the House. They're holding open the vote far beyond the time limit; it's currently going down to defeat, 207-226. One nay vote has switched to yea in the past two minutes, but they still need ten more to flip. One Republican is not voting.

I don't see how they're going to get ten votes to flip this close to Election Day, but apparently they're going to try until there's absolutely no hope.

After this Congress goes into recess until after the election, barring a special session. If they come back to this, don't look for a bipartisan effort again; one side or the other is going to push for a party-line vote. The center has not held.

YOU FAIL AT BAIL.

As I type this, the Wall Street bailout bill is being voted on in the House. They're holding open the vote far beyond the time limit; it's currently going down to defeat, 207-226. One nay vote has switched to yea in the past two minutes, but they still need ten more to flip. One Republican is not voting.

I don't see how they're going to get ten votes to flip this close to Election Day, but apparently they're going to try until there's absolutely no hope.

After this Congress goes into recess until after the election, barring a special session. If they come back to this, don't look for a bipartisan effort again; one side or the other is going to push for a party-line vote. The center has not held.

And the blame game begins...

... the Republican leadership blames the failure of the bailout on a speech by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi ("pointlessly partisan") and on the biased liberal media.

They're basically posturing for re-election now. This is dead until after Nov. 5.

EDIT: And the Democratic leadership has responded by calling the Republican rank-and-file thin-skinned babies and by blaming Bush and McCain for not providing enough leadership to swing twelve more votes to the AYE column. Second verse, same as the first...

And the blame game begins...

... the Republican leadership blames the failure of the bailout on a speech by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi ("pointlessly partisan") and on the biased liberal media.

They're basically posturing for re-election now. This is dead until after Nov. 5.

EDIT: And the Democratic leadership has responded by calling the Republican rank-and-file thin-skinned babies and by blaming Bush and McCain for not providing enough leadership to swing twelve more votes to the AYE column. Second verse, same as the first...

(no subject)

First, begin with this article.

I disagree with the basic premise of this article for one reason: it relies on the same free market that caused this crisis to work it out... eventually.

And eventually is the operative word. Eventually will grind up a lot of people who are at no fault at all before things settle down again. Eventually will ruin lives, leave people bankrupt- not just the wealthy Wall Street fat cats, but people with 401k's, people struggling to keep their small business afloat, people employed by businesses on the ragged edge of solvency, ordinary non-wealthy people.

The sort of people our government is supposed to protect against crashes like this. We tolerate government regulation for precisely this purpose: to protect people from what, in a true free market, would be the wild boom-crash cycle we saw in the 1800s, where 75% of the financial world could vanish overnight and take millions of people's savings with them.

And- guess what?- with or without a bailout, the taxpayers will still be left holding the bag. Without a bailout, the mortgages will still come due, and foreclosures will continue- or even accelerate. Without a bailout, trust funds and retirement plans will evaporate as the securities they are invested in lose their value, as financial institutions go belly-up. Granted, without a bailout the companies and fat cats that gambled with Wall Street will lose their shirts- but that does nothing to help the rest of us.

Eventually- eventually- we will be left with a more solid foundation, stripped of inflated credit and buy-now-pay-never economics. That's a good thing, on the whole. But this could be done- could have been done- while giving the economy a soft landing, rather than the economic version of the World Trade Center towers collapsing, one level pancaking down onto another until everything's rubble.

SOME sort of bailout, or prop-up, or action was necessary to achieve this.

It's possible that, if the bailout had succeeded, nothing would have been fixed. Possibly Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae would be sent out again with a Congressional mandate to loan money to new homeowners regardless of their income. Possibly government and individual deficit spending would resume as if nothing had happened. It is even just possible that only a total collapse would provide Americans with the shock to the system required to end the cycle of runaway spending which began with Ronald Reagan's "trickle down" theory.

But in the interim hundreds of thousands, millions more likely, of Americans will be wiped out, left in no position to benefit from the new model economy which will eventually emerge. The very wealthiest among us will ride out the storm, as they usually do, and will be all the stronger afterwards for holding capital in a system where much of the capital has crumbled into dust. The economy will be further stratified into the haves and have-nots, with the have-nots being less able to break out of their prior condition.

What failed today was certainly not the best way to do that. My preferred solution- buying up failing mortgages themselves at a discount and re-negotiating or waiving them, thus putting in a sound foundation at the base of the pyramid- was rejected out of hand by the current administration as unworkable. It was an attempt, though, and not the worst possible one, to slow down the crash until better solutions could be found. Now that it has failed, it will be twice as difficult to get a different solution passed in time to do any good. Whatever good faith existed on Capitol Hill is gone- there won't be a true bipartisan effort again until after the election at least.

Somebody needed a bailout- people losing their homes, Wall Street investors, global financial markets, SOMEBODY. Unfortunately, they didn't get it- which means EVERYBODY is in for a very hard landing indeed.

And the American economy will pick itself up, dust itself off, and start again... eventually.

(no subject)

First, begin with this article.

I disagree with the basic premise of this article for one reason: it relies on the same free market that caused this crisis to work it out... eventually.

And eventually is the operative word. Eventually will grind up a lot of people who are at no fault at all before things settle down again. Eventually will ruin lives, leave people bankrupt- not just the wealthy Wall Street fat cats, but people with 401k's, people struggling to keep their small business afloat, people employed by businesses on the ragged edge of solvency, ordinary non-wealthy people.

The sort of people our government is supposed to protect against crashes like this. We tolerate government regulation for precisely this purpose: to protect people from what, in a true free market, would be the wild boom-crash cycle we saw in the 1800s, where 75% of the financial world could vanish overnight and take millions of people's savings with them.

And- guess what?- with or without a bailout, the taxpayers will still be left holding the bag. Without a bailout, the mortgages will still come due, and foreclosures will continue- or even accelerate. Without a bailout, trust funds and retirement plans will evaporate as the securities they are invested in lose their value, as financial institutions go belly-up. Granted, without a bailout the companies and fat cats that gambled with Wall Street will lose their shirts- but that does nothing to help the rest of us.

Eventually- eventually- we will be left with a more solid foundation, stripped of inflated credit and buy-now-pay-never economics. That's a good thing, on the whole. But this could be done- could have been done- while giving the economy a soft landing, rather than the economic version of the World Trade Center towers collapsing, one level pancaking down onto another until everything's rubble.

SOME sort of bailout, or prop-up, or action was necessary to achieve this.

It's possible that, if the bailout had succeeded, nothing would have been fixed. Possibly Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae would be sent out again with a Congressional mandate to loan money to new homeowners regardless of their income. Possibly government and individual deficit spending would resume as if nothing had happened. It is even just possible that only a total collapse would provide Americans with the shock to the system required to end the cycle of runaway spending which began with Ronald Reagan's "trickle down" theory.

But in the interim hundreds of thousands, millions more likely, of Americans will be wiped out, left in no position to benefit from the new model economy which will eventually emerge. The very wealthiest among us will ride out the storm, as they usually do, and will be all the stronger afterwards for holding capital in a system where much of the capital has crumbled into dust. The economy will be further stratified into the haves and have-nots, with the have-nots being less able to break out of their prior condition.

What failed today was certainly not the best way to do that. My preferred solution- buying up failing mortgages themselves at a discount and re-negotiating or waiving them, thus putting in a sound foundation at the base of the pyramid- was rejected out of hand by the current administration as unworkable. It was an attempt, though, and not the worst possible one, to slow down the crash until better solutions could be found. Now that it has failed, it will be twice as difficult to get a different solution passed in time to do any good. Whatever good faith existed on Capitol Hill is gone- there won't be a true bipartisan effort again until after the election at least.

Somebody needed a bailout- people losing their homes, Wall Street investors, global financial markets, SOMEBODY. Unfortunately, they didn't get it- which means EVERYBODY is in for a very hard landing indeed.

And the American economy will pick itself up, dust itself off, and start again... eventually.

(no subject)

*<*div align="center"*>**<*a href="http://tinyurl.com/3gag6m"*>**<*img src="http://www.the-principle.net/images/freedom-of-religion.gif"*>**<*/a*>**<*/div*>*

Copy the code above and remove all the asterisks to link to the image.

Found this meme from scarfman, along with this news item:

Chemical irritant empties mosque

That's right... a terrorist attack on a mosque in the United States.

Almost certainly committed by fundamentalist Christians.

So... when does the War on Terrorism address the crop at home?

(no subject)

*<*div align="center"*>**<*a href="http://tinyurl.com/3gag6m"*>**<*img src="http://www.the-principle.net/images/freedom-of-religion.gif"*>**<*/a*>**<*/div*>*

Copy the code above and remove all the asterisks to link to the image.

Found this meme from scarfman, along with this news item:

Chemical irritant empties mosque

That's right... a terrorist attack on a mosque in the United States.

Almost certainly committed by fundamentalist Christians.

So... when does the War on Terrorism address the crop at home?

Wow, I sure have been posting here a LOT lately...

On Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, there's a feature called "Worst Person in the World." Usually Olbermann skewers conservatives (especially Fox News figures, and most frequently Bill O'Reilly, his competition). On some occasions, though, he's leveled his guns at liberals and otherwise, including twice naming himself as a WPITW.

Tonight, Barack Obama made the list.

To quote Olbermann himself, "This just in: NHL opens hockey season in Hell."

Why did Obama qualify as a Worst Person in the World?

For getting his anniversary wrong. On Saturday he said he and Michelle were celebrating their 15th anniversary this year. Michelle's office released a statement: "16th."

With all the buildup, Keith, that's really, well, lame.

(Obama got the bronze. Silver went to Sean Hannity for silencing a guest who was saying that Obama won the debate, then going on to call Obama's answers "book-learning" and "memorized talking points." Gold went to Karl Rove, who claimed that Sarah Palin was "overprepared" for her interview with Katie Couric. All in all, not one of his better nights.)

Wow, I sure have been posting here a LOT lately...

On Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, there's a feature called "Worst Person in the World." Usually Olbermann skewers conservatives (especially Fox News figures, and most frequently Bill O'Reilly, his competition). On some occasions, though, he's leveled his guns at liberals and otherwise, including twice naming himself as a WPITW.

Tonight, Barack Obama made the list.

To quote Olbermann himself, "This just in: NHL opens hockey season in Hell."

Why did Obama qualify as a Worst Person in the World?

For getting his anniversary wrong. On Saturday he said he and Michelle were celebrating their 15th anniversary this year. Michelle's office released a statement: "16th."

With all the buildup, Keith, that's really, well, lame.

(Obama got the bronze. Silver went to Sean Hannity for silencing a guest who was saying that Obama won the debate, then going on to call Obama's answers "book-learning" and "memorized talking points." Gold went to Karl Rove, who claimed that Sarah Palin was "overprepared" for her interview with Katie Couric. All in all, not one of his better nights.)