22
Sep
And the War Will Pay For Itself
We now have at least one Senator on record with the dumbest spin imaginable regarding the bailout:
U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman said the massive government bailout of failing financial institutions is not only necessary but could make money for the federal government.“The government could make 10 or 20 times what it pays on this, possibly,” Coleman said during a campaign stop at Christy’s Cafe in North Mankato Saturday morning.
And if I eat nothing but red meat, cheese, and milkshakes and smoke unfiltered pall malls, I could live 10 or 20 years longer than most people, possibly. I hope the Republicans run with that- “This isn’t a bailout, it is a once in a lifetime investment opportunity! And, you get a chance at winning a toaster!”
There is a reason this incumbent Senator is losing to going to lose to… a comedian.
Incertus
Is he trying to lose to Franken?
BFR
I liked this satire
Nemoudeis
Well … not losing yet. But it is finally getting close.
It IS the nastiest political campaign I’ve ever seen in Minnesota politics, however. If Franken should manage to succeed in badging Norm with this credit dustup, then he could very well walk away with it.
HyperIon
and the market is SO smart that it is running away from these companies…well, smarter than old Norm.
Just Some Fuckhead
Oh, my aching sides.
Oh, and also, we’re fucking doomed.
4tehlulz
If the U.S. Treasury sells this debt to two other governments, and each in turn sells the debt to two more, and so on, everyone will make out like a bandit!
What could possibly go wrong?
Martin
So, we could make $14T off of this deal? Pay off the entire national debt and send everyone in America a check for $13,000, just like they do in Alaska? That’s $52,000 just for my household! Yeah, let’s do this!
Joshau Norton
And you could possibly cure lung cancer and live longer by smoking menthol cigarettes, too. But I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.
Ordinarily, you would need a gun and a getaway car to pull off what the repugs want to do to us.
gopher2b
I posted this earlier under separate comments but its so appropriate here.
Funny real life metaphor for what’s going on right now:
I looked at a house today that is listed for $775k. The realtor told me that the owner had listed it for $1.25 million but its about to be forclosed on so they are listing it for $775k. He looks me in the eye and says “so you’re talking about a house that is worth 1.25M in a down market so when the market turns around, it will be worth $1.7M”
I repeat, it’s listed for $775k. No offers.
Everyone is delusional about how this problem gets fixed. No one has any idea what anything is worth and they just “know” the problem will sort itself out once the market turns around. The government is about to overpay a shit load for crap debt and is telling us we’ll make money when it turns around. Fuck them.
Jon H
Maybe we could pay for the bad debts using Iraqi currency.
r€nato
How we will pay for the shitpile
Walker
If this were true, the Vulture funds would have already bought it. And we trust the people with writing budgets? Sounds to me like he cannot even balance his own checkbook.
Just Some Fuckhead
Is it me or is the noni juice making Norm look younger and younger?
r€nato
And if I had a 12 inch dick I’d be Ron fuckin’ Jeremy.
Just Some Fuckhead
lmfao
r€nato
Walker beat me to it. If it’s such an awesome deal, I’m sure the Republicans will have no fucking problem raising the money from their buddies.
MobiusKlein
Here’s my cure.
Take the existing Dollar,
add another zero, call it the D00llar, and voila, the debt is chump change.
Jon H
Calculate Risk notes that Bush is almost certain to be the 10 Trillion Dollar man, by pushing the deficit over that landmark.
r€nato
That Coleman is a funny SOB, maybe he and Franken can swap jobs in November.
Wait… he was serious?
Jon H
I can’t wait to hear who Paulson is going to put in charge of Big Shitpile.
I bet it’s Robert Mugabe.
cleek
there was some guy on NPR this eve telling us all how we were likely to make money on this, in the long run. he didn’t say 10-20x, but the idea that the govt will make money on this that the private sector can’t seems…. odd.
cleek
is Jeremy hot ?
r€nato
10 times $700 billion is $7 trillion.
What’s Coleman thinking of, another bubble even bigger than the last one?
Stuck in the Fun House
Shit, with all that dough, we could by ourselves. Each American could be a stock option that could be traded around the world for future shares in the coming American Wasteland.
Jon H
“he didn’t say 10-20x, but the idea that the govt will make money on this that the private sector can’t seems”
This is based on claims that the RTC, from the Savings and Loan debacle, almost made a profit. Or maybe made a small one.
But that was simple things like strip malls and offices, commercial real estate, probably held in simple arrangements and not in convoluted multi-tranche deals.
Also, the property was acquired from S&Ls that had been shut down. It wasn’t purchased from operating businesses with incentives to game the system.
Just Some Fuckhead
A musical tribute to financial bubbles.
SteveinSC
God damn, I guess Norm will investing some of his money in big shitpile with this much upside potential?
oh really
Unless you add a fifth of whiskey a day that diet will kill you!
oh really
God damn, I guess Norm will investing some of his money in big shitpile with this much upside potential?
I’m pretty sure if Coleman loses to Franken, he is going to open a GM SUV dealership.
gil mann
The fucking Pets.com puppet is more financially savvy than our ruling class.
Tsulagi
I can’t even snark that it’s so batshit ridiculous.
I heard that line from Ron Paul who was talking about the bailout on CNN this weekend. Of course he didn’t like the bailout and thought the price tag could go much higher than $700B. Likely. Then, not verbatim but close to something like this he added “Remember, this is coming from the guys who told you the start cost for Iraq would be $50B and then the war would pay for itself.”
Yep. And really smart Republicans like Coleman call Paul loony.
The Other Steve
That’s classic Coleman. We’ll probably get a similar response out of Michelle Bachman.
The Grand Panjandrum
Oh, that Norman! He’s good enough, he’s smart enough, and doggone it, people like him.
HyperIon
wrt Paul, if you want a laugh or two, go to Hit and Run and read the comments about Paul endorsing the Constitution Party candidate. pretty funny.
jake
And abNorman could 10 to 20 times stupider, possibly.
Nah, that’s too much of a stretch.
Foxhunter
...or a veneer shop.
Just sayin’.
b-psycho
I repeat, it’s listed for $775k. No offers.
Dude, I would’ve SO called that guy a fucking idiot, right to his face. Once you subtract all the inflation, both monetary & irrational speculation based…300k, tops.
PC
Are you kidding? These people have raided the private and public coffers and now they are asking for more. And congress is about to give it to them. For years they’ve been getting seven figure bonuses. I’d say they are pretty fucking savvy. They’ll walk away with trillions of dollars and the rest of us are going to be eating shit sandwiches.
chopper
What’s Coleman thinking of, another bubble even bigger than the last one?
you gotta remember, after a few years of the dollar taking a dump 7 trillion will buy a nice house in maryland.
r€nato
Well, according to Norm Coleman, if we just wait long enough that shit sandwich is going to taste like a Philly cheesesteak with BC bud sprinkled on top.
gopher2b
I don’t know about you guys, but I already spent my $25,000-$50,000 on lottery tickets.
I’m rich, biatch.
Lori
I’ve been thinking of the “war will pay for itself” line all day. I think Norm is crazy with the huge figures but there is an outside possibility that government might be able to make a little something to go toward the interest on the huge amount of gov debt we are taking on. There is a reason the gov is buying the bad investments and the vultures aren’t. The vultures can’t borrow any money. We are in a credit crisis where nobody is willing to lend and they have no cash. SO the US gov is able to take on debt but as we saw already today the foreigners that had been buying US gov debt aren’t really excited about buying it anymore. That’s why the dollar fell even more.
JGabriel
One trillion dollars
= $1,000,000,000,000.00
= 10^13 Dollars
You know, I think it’s time to get worried when the cost of our bailouts are most easily rendered (i.e. fewest characters) in scientific or exponential notation.
.
JGabriel
Whoops, type. That should be 10^12 Dollars.
.
r€nato
why is this election even close?
why are people not saying, ‘ok, fuck it, let’s have the election now, there isn’t a goddamned thing gonna change my mind, throw the fuckers out before they do more damage’????
jcricket
Here are my plans/cures:
1) Cut taxes to zero, Treasury revenues will shoot through the roof as money rains from the sky. Trickle down economics FTW!
2) Give out coins in exchange for paper dollars (4 quarters = 1 dollar, 20 nickels = 1 dollar, 100 pennies = 1 dollar, 10 dimes = 1 dollar). Have lots of people do this. Profit :-)
On that subject, I was reading Fortune magazine yesterday and they had the fucking gall to describe the plan to raise taxes back to Clintonian levels as “soak the rich”. The fucking corporat-ists and “Libertarians” need to be excluded from any discussions of tax policy ever again. The idea that people who leave the shitpile for the rest of us can’t afford to throw an extra 6% of their ill-gotten gains is ludicrous.
r€nato
in a year or two, Fortune magazine and its readers will pine for the good ol’ days when we were only soaking the rich, rather than eating them.
Dillon
Norm Coleman might actually be right about making a 10-20x profit, if he’s talking about nominal dollars.
Hyperinflation is a bitch.
28 Percent
I got nothin’
UnkyT
This is great! It’s only a matter of time before we are forced to buy up every thing in the heath care industry, and presto! National health care that will pay for itself.
Hell, it will be so successful we will be resurrecting the dead.
Punchy
If this govt makes 14 trillion on this, that’d be…..(scrambles for abacas).....$46.6K for every man, woman, and child. Since kids are too young to deserve it, and the woman should just be lucky to have a roof over her head and a man to feed, that means like almost $130K per American.
Nice.
KG
Sorry, my libertarian streak has been acting up lately, why exactly do we need a bailout? And why does it have to be right fucking now? Has anything good ever come of Congress acting quickly?
Pumping all this money into the system, and really the only way they can do that is by printing a shit load more of it, is going to create a serious fucking inflationary period. What we need right now is some serious deflation. And a serious market correction. And maybe enforcement of anti-trust laws. Oh hell, enforcement of any law that isn’t about terr-ists and pot smokers would be nice.
t jasper parnell
Ha, I say, ha. Norm Coleman, like Pat Buchanon, realizes that the age of capitalism and greed are over. Not like that east coast liberal Bill Buckley will today’s conservatives stand athwart history and shout No! No, they read the tea leaves of the future and see that papa and mama state are the war forward. That great German conservative Karl Marx got the mechanism wrong, sure, but the end result right: the people must own the means of production, or this case control the reins of finance capitalism, not there is much of a diff, when you think about. Johan McCain and his party see, as only a party mavericky enough to nominate a POW and a pitbullish Hockey Mom could, that Bill Clinton’s empty running dog boast about the age of big government being over was just so much paper tiger posturing. Like the conservative Chinese government, the Republicans know that the era of the big state capitalism has only now just arrived and not a moment too soon. All Hail Comrade Paulson and his plan to stop the tide of red ink. And so on.
jcricket
Yes, maybe we should actually let McCain win. His “free market” healthcare “plan” would force a healthcare crisis as bad as this financial crisis, requiring immediate nationalization of the insurance industry and enforced single payer.
I’m kidding, mostly.
Just Some Fuckhead
I just wanna live long enough to shake my fist and exclaim “Why, the no-good…... snore” when someone mentions Bush.
Xenos
Because last thursday, they damn near broke the buck for every money market fund in the country. The market cap for American money market funds is 3 or 4 times the total value of the stock market. It makes up a large part of a lot of 401(k)s where people, being cautious and conservative, have parked their retirement funds over the last few years.
If the several trillion dollar money market instrument market suddenly deflated to nothing, not only would you get the first three years of the depression compressed into a very scary week, but everyone in Wall Street and Washington would be marked men. There would be bloody revolution, just for the getting even of it. Those erstwhile scions of finance just realized they could get strung up from a few lampposts – and as the police pensions are heavily invested in the money markets, they might not get a good response from their 911 calls.
gbear
Christ on crack. I called his office over lunch today to bitch about the bailout, and his spokescritter read this statement about how Norm is totally dedicated to having this bailout be well regulated and transparent. I knew it was a lie when I heard it and I let the spokescritter know I felt that way. She cheerfully continued telling me that NO WAY was wallsteet going to get a free ride with Norm on the job. What a fucking tool he is.
r€nato
...and how is this a bad thing?
Punchy
I’m sooo stealing this. Even if it sends me to hell. Just spit Killians on my lappy.
El Cid
So, now we know that every time we let Republicans get in charge of the country, they kill off a whole sector of our financial system.
Will we learn the lesson this time? Or is the 3rd time the charm?
Xenos
I was in a mood for some direct action just due to the passing threat of the collapse of the money markets. My FSM I have scrimped, to the extent of selling a perfectly good house a few years ago in order to sock away cash. 25% pretax income, for ten years. Almost no vacations, restaurants 2X per year, save save save.
And blown overnight? Fuck, once I decided not to kill myself for being a fool, I wanted to grab some farming instruments and go catch Metro North to ol’ Manhattoes. Then I said, ‘shit’, and had a beer instead.
But if that money was really gone ‘poof’, I would probably be arrested already for a proper postal going. Or just laid up with a stroke.
gbear
And his wife will finally be able to dump him. I don’t even want to think how much he has to pay her to fly in and look like his wife for political events.
I was walking on Grand Ave. one afternoon and Norm pulled up to the curb in his Lincoln Navigator with some sweet young thing in the passenger seat. Norm jumped out to go to an ATM, and I just about walked up to the woman and told her I’d give her $20 if she bit is dick off. I just wanted to see the reaction…
Mary
Hey John: You’re an animal lover! The Humane Society just endorsed Obama. The actual endorsement is a tear jerker for any animal lover and focuses on Palin’s record of brutal cruelty to animals. They have a picture of her with a fresh kill in front of one of her toddlers. Take a look.
https://community.hsus.org/humane/notice-description.tcl?newsletter_id=27497157
Here is what the NRA has to say:
The radical animal “rights”, anti-hunting group (HSUS) has endorsed Barack Obama for president.
http://www.nraila.org/News/Rea.....x?ID=11567
This is the first time the Humane Society has ever endorsed for President. I have to think it is worth more than the NRA endorsement, especially for women. I like the idea of putting Sarah Palin right up there with Michael Vick in the parade of disgusting animal abusers. What do you think?
J. Maynard Gelinas
And let’s face it: Al Franken is thoroughly unqualified to be a US Senator. But at this point I’ll take anyone but the Republican. First, we get rid of the thieves. Then, we dump the swine.
Canus
HSUS is a PETA front group.
The “real” Humane Society is The American Humane Society, not Human Society of the United States.
As someone involved in dog rescue, there’s a huge difference between them. Don’t support HSUS.
t jasper parnell
This is, as they say, both sad and true.
Laura W
Thanks for that link, Mary. Great news.
It led me to go check up on the Best Friends petition encouraging the Obama family to adopt a rescue instead of buying from a breeder.
It is a record for a petition at Best Friends, and your part in this campaign has sent a strong message to America that adoption is the best option.
The campaign is not over, though! Very soon we will have a very big announcement, so stay tuned.
oooooooooooo…...I can not wait to see what the very big announcement is!
Speaking of that (sort of), can Bush call off the elections if he can make it appear as if the financial crisis requires it? Just saw that in my surfing somewhere I can’t recall. Horrifying thought. I’d rather think about adopted critters.
jake
Will we learn the lesson this time? Or is the 3rd time the charm?
Hint: Now might be a good time to learn Mandarin.
Shygetz
Are the banks planning on converting my sensible, fixed rate mortgage to constant dollars at the current price? Because if not, serious deflation is going to put another house on the already overloaded market, and me and my family are coming to live with you.
PC
Don’t worry, Bernanke said he’d drop money from helicopters before he’d let inflation take hold.
Next up: munis, alt-a loans, and the great unwinding of the $596 trillion OTC derivatives market.
I blame the Community Reinvestment Act.
Kali's Little Sister
Can we just put the whole RNC on the shitpile? I mean, if you sell them off as a set, wouldn’t that start to put a dent in what we owe to buy our way out of their mismanagement?
Brian J
Why do you do that? I’ve seen no evidence that this was to blame for most of the trouble. It might be a small par of the problem, in the sense that one of eighteen beers over the course of three hours is in getting someone drunk, but a lot of conservatives have made this claim, and it doesn’t seem to resemble the facts.
Stuck in the Fun House
Beans and Motherfuckers, with a side of Arugula is much better than Deer or Dog. It’s the Special Du Jour here on Saturday nights, or whenever we can get em.
Studly Pantload
As an devotee of the Godfather Trilogy, may I just say I gotta admire the way this administration told us, “Either your signature or your economy is going to be on that contract.”
Goosebumps, people. Goosebumps.
t jasper parnell
It was, I would argue—if I might so suggest, by the way of being a joke.
KT
Who the hell would want to buy the whole set? Maybe if you owned a huge ranch in Texas you could use them as fence posts, but who in their right mind would want to hear their fenceposts screaming “dhimmocrat moonbat commie” every time they rode out to the back 40?
PC
er, deflation.
OriGuy
Not that it would stop him, but there’s nothing in the Constitution about the President postponing an election. Congress specifies the date of the election; the states determine who the electors are; the electors vote in their respective states; and the President of the Senate opens the ballots and they are counted in a joint session of Congress. The only way they could openly bollix the process is if Cheney refused to appear when the ballots were opened, but I suppose the President pro tempore of the Senate would take his place.
Joshua Norton
That is the current wingnut ranting point. Brought to you by the same people who tried the same tortured logic to blame the California energy market meltdown on the environmentalists and not the crooks at Enron.
t jasper parnell
Looks like I picked the wrong week to . . .
Stuck in the Fun House
Looks like I picked the wrong week to
LOL, thank you jasper!
Stuck in the Fun House
Shocking!
lampwick
If Coleman’s right, we should just invest the entire national budget in junk mortgages, cut taxes to 0, and live off the returns on our investment from now until eternity.
lampwick
This site is a like Eschaton for rednecks.
t jasper parnell
I declare, what is or would be a red neck end times? The end of NASCAR? No more Lite Beer? No more Dukes of Hazard reruns? Post longer than a sentence? Do tell, ya’all.
Studly Pantload
So I guess that means even this pony-tailed urbanite who dresses in all black has an inner redneck? Who knew? I wonder how a Johnny Reb flag would look next to my Obama sticker on the back of my stately Crown Vic?
stickler
Ai yi yi:
I have relatives who do this whenever someone mentions LBJ. “God damn it all, I got so I couldn’t stand the sound of that bastard’s voice on the TV!”
I’ve mentioned to them that I have a similar reaction to another Texas politician, every time the worthless son of a bitch opens his mouth …
lampwick
Just to be clear: I wasn’t complaining.
TenguPhule
This is why I always make it a point to always know where the people who run my 401k and investments live and how to find them.
DougJ
I repeat, it’s listed for $775k. No offers.
Buy it now. You could make 10 or 20 times what you pay on it.
Just Some Fuckhead
We aren’t generally urban sophisticates or educated elites like your prototypical Eschaton commenter but I daresay we can outfuck, outfight and outrun you. If that makes us rednecks, then.. aw nevermind.
gbear
This site is a like Eschaton for rednecks.
I don’t think I get to be a redneck when my main vehicle is a 250cc Kymco People scooter made in Taiwan. The Harley guys look the other way when they see me out on Highway 61. Two wheels down!
Martin
Actually, Franken is pretty well qualified. He’s spent his entire career assuming everything we take as true is bullshit and finding a way to demonstrate that it’s bullshit. Not only is he a professional skeptic, but he’s skilled at calling it out and showing it to people for what it is. It’s one of the best traits that someone in Congress could have because that’s the core of oversight.
He may not be terribly qualified to write a budget, but he’s pretty well qualified to rip one apart and show what is good from what is bad. And I don’t think anyone can claim that he is uninterested or unread on these subjects, which is a vast improvement over quite a number of our legislators.
curtadams
Umm – are you trying to convince me to support the bailout or oppose it? That’s definitely a mixed benefit situation.
Brian J
Although I’ve had my doubts in the last two weeks, I’m starting to think that Obama may win big—perhaps not quite as big as Reagan, but perhaps as big as Clinton. If this is the case, it might not show up in the polls until very late in the game, like it did with Reagan versus Carter in 1980 as some people say.
DougJ
You can see Canada from parts of Minnesota. What’s the difference between a pit bull and a Saturday Night Live cast member?
Just Some Fuckhead
$5000/week cocaine habit?
Martin
Keep in mind that Franken would represent 1% of the Senate, not 50% of the White House.
DougJ
$5000/week cocaine habit?
No, the pit bull is more likely to appear in a successful Hollywood film.
Just Some Fuckhead
Hah!
here4tehbeer
Akshuly…
If you toss in a half a bottle of vodka pretty much every night you’ll have my gramma nailed to a “t” – a healthy (until just the last year or so), fiesty old broad who made it to 86.
r€nato
buymyshitpile.com is really a lot of fun!
DougJ
She’s a bit of a roundheels when she’s had a few drinks, eh?
sarsipius
Wow, did anyone catch Krugman on Countdown? About 4 minutes in, speaking about Paulson:
Win.
jcricket
You know, you could pretty much insert this after any wingnut talking point and it would be true. Is there any “root cause” they propose that’s actually the root cause?
No, because somehow they’re never to blame (when they, in fact, almost always are). Republicans, or Republican policies which Democrats idiotically acquiesce to, are at the root of most of our problems (healthcare, taxation, fiscal crisis, war, and so on).
Jeff Fecke
I’m sure Norm’s right! I don’t see anything wrong with suggesting we could earn more than the entire 2007 GDP on this deal. In fact, I’m investing my life savings in AIG! What could possibly go wrong?
Joshua Norton
Ninety-nine percent of wingnutz give the rest a bad name.
Conservatively Liberal
Gee Norm, if the crap is worth that much then I guess the bailout is unnecessary. Now if Norm could guarantee a 10x to 20x profit I would be all for the deal! Checks for everyone but Alaska! ;)
Yup! Did that for just over 300 miles today. We rode from Brookings, Oregon to Newberg, Oregon and are staying at a hotel there. Tomorrow we are riding over to Canby to visit my dad (my once every other blue moon visit ;) ), then we are off to Coos Bay for a couple of nights at the casino so we can have a bit of fun and catch the Wednesday comedy show. Maybe I will win a few trillion dollars and buy something. Any suggestions? ;)
It’s a nice way to enjoy our 22nd anniversary (it’s Sept. 27th). The weather was clear and temps ranged from 50 to almost 80.
fledermaus
dude, you don’t get it John. All that candy and flowers from the Iraqis, the army saved them. Now they’re going to sell them to finance the bailout
JGabriel
Just caught this over at Politico:
Members of the conservative Republican Study Group will hold an emergency meeting Monday night to discuss other approaches. New Jersey Republican Rep. Scott Garrett has circulated alternatives prepared by experts at the Brookings Institution, Heritage Foundation and the University of Chicago.
Alternatives from the Heritage Foundation and those Friedmaniacs at U of C?
Oh. My. God.
That’s just what we fucking need. More input from the jackasses at Heritage and the Friedmanites at U. Chicago who pushed the policies that got us into this fucking mess in the first place.
.
Texas Dem
The whole thing is a sucker play from the GOP. Republicans are going to sit back and let the Dems bail out their rich friends on Wall Street, and then run against them for doing so. Watch McCain vote against the bailout and lead the Republican opposition. Republicans are desperate for a chance to separate themselves from Bush, and the stupid Dems are handing it to them on silver platter. McCain and Palin will ride a populist backlash all the way to the White House.
Hob
There’s never been a better time to buy rasbuckniks. They can only go up!
Mrs. Peel
That’s right. Leave it to a Dem to find the dark cloud behind every silver lining.
I’ll bite my own nails, thank you very much. I don’t need you to do it for me.
Conservatively Liberal
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
Was it the word: p r o f i t that tripped it? Nothing like money pron. ;)
Martin
Not sure how that’s going to happen when the country blames Republicans for this, and so long as the stock market doesn’t completely implode in the next 6 weeks, bailout or no, voters won’t know if it was necessary or not.
Bedlam UK
Two questions I cant seem to get, if anyone can help;
Firstly, where is this money coming from considering your economy is already in the tank? China?
( cor, I bet the interest rate on that sucker is gonna be a bitch )
Secondly, how come the heads and top ranks of these financial companies havent been forced to go bankrupt?
If their houses/planes/cars etc were sold off, that would be a good few Million towards the debt they’ve caused.
Instead, it seems they are getting bonuses (again from the magic China fund?) and being entrusted with all this cash, which they’ve proven they aren’t capable of dealing with.
bago
Goddamned comediands. No wonder they threw his ass out the window.
JGabriel
Texas Dem:
I agree that McCain will probably do this.
But I don’t think it’ll work. The Republican brand, including McCain, is too deeply associated with deregulation for McCain to pull it off.
Also, “probably” is the key word here. There’s a chance that McCain won’t vote against it – if the Dems make credible threat that he’ll be hung with the responsibility of the economy crashing if McCain doesn’t sign on.
Oh, wait. I just used the words “Dems” and “credible threat” in the same sentence.
My bad. You’re right, McCain will definitely do that. But it won’t work.
.
JGabriel
New York Times:
Hmm.
Any chance that’ll flip Florida to Obama?
.
El Cid
Hard to say. One would hope, but right now Florida and Ohio both seem to be committed to be slightly dominated by giant a** bags who apparently like our great Republican governance and just can’t get enough of it.
El Cid
Maybe the most important comment Krugman made on Countdown was, when asked about the likely outcome of a clash between the administration’s ‘plan’ to “give Hank Paulson all the money he wants in unmarked bills” and some slightly more controlled, election-losing Democratic version:
“In a showdown, the Bush Administration can remain irrational longer than the economy can remain solvent.”
El Cid
On the upside, David Brooks suddenly sees it as a wonderful thing that we’re moving past all these Republicans supply-siders and Southern neo-Confederates (as well as mythical Democratic leftists), and for Brooks it turns out that our ideal future is being led by an establishment just like the one who steered us straight into this ditch.
Because, you know, if there’s a tight establishment, Brooks knows that he can kiss nearly infinite amounts of a** to be admitted to its outer circles, which would make his life easy.
Over the next few years, the U.S. will have to climb out from under mountainous piles of debt. Many predict a long, gray recession. The country will not turn to free-market supply-siders. Nor will it turn to left-wing populists. It will turn to the safe heads from the investment banks. For Republicans, people like Paulson. For Democrats, the guiding lights will be those establishment figures who advised Barack Obama last week — including Volcker, Robert Rubin and Warren Buffett.
Yeah, just great. Tired of getting screwed by Newt Gingrich / Reagan / Bush Jr. style nation raping faux redneck anti-government freaks?
No problem.
Now get screwed by sober Wall Street titans who directly appropriate a trillion dollars from the working classes to hand to Wall Street.
Awesome.
Just an awesome, awesome f***ing future. And hey, to all my citizens who have just loved voting for them some a’ them tough Republicans, yeah, f***ing enjoy your g** d*** broke-a** future, you redneck a**holes.
El Cid
Sorry. Link for Brooks’ diarrhetical.
Shygetz
That’s why you drive them pointy-head first.
NickM
OT, I guess.
My wife was flying the other day and sat next to a man that looked like a older businessman and entirely sane.
They started talking about the ongoing economic disaster. Businessman started opining that the financial collapse was engineered by Al Qaeda. He seemed to really believe it. My wife was so stunned there was nothing she could say.
jake
OT: The latest addition the list of Lobbyist 4 McPOW.
Awkward!
Napoleon
Other then Okl. Inoke (sp?) or Mich McConnell loosing Coleman would be the sweetest, not so much that there is a particular reason I would like to see him go so much as Fraken’s winning would make the wingnuts heads explode.
Punchy
Funniest thing I’ve heard in weeks. I’m sure from their state-of-the-art caves and 250 mile-long laptop extension cord, they were able to wreak havoc on oil prices and financial stocks with their stealthy Ameritrade account and a copy of a 1993 Wall Street Journal.
Bob In Pacifica
The S&L scam (Reagan gave GHW Bush the job to oversee the S&L deregulation) cost us what? I remember 500 billion thrown around at the time.
So where did the money go? The people who borrowed money and didn’t pay it back got some. If anyone read Steve Pizzo’s book, a lot of that was planned bustouts. That is, someone inside the bank hierarchy approved bad loans to buddies on the outside who never intended to pay the money back. Some of these were CIA-controlled banks. I recall Palmer Bank being one.
So the money went to those who got the loans and walked away. But eventually most of this debt was given to the government, and banks that loaned us the money to pay off the bad debt are going to be getting money for decades.
So where did the money go this time? Clearly, the 700 billion (times what?) is going to have to be repaid to banks, so the banks again make the money. But the people who got the subprime mortgages aren’t walking away with their houses. That money has disappeared into a class of bankers who generally seem to face no criminal charges, who won’t have to pay anything back, and whose profits may be realized offshore and beyond taxing.
Prescott Bush, banker for the Nazis.
GHW Bush, CIA head and deregulator of the S&Ls.
Neil Bush, inept bumbler or corrupt defrauders of Silverado Savings.
Jeb Bush, pusher of Lehman Brothers junk and then employee of Lehman.
George W. Bush, overseeing the greatest financial ripoff of all time.
Has any other family caused so much damage to our country? A family of crooks who have over the generations robbed us blind. And yet there are tens of millions of people who would vote for another Bush, or vote Republican, despite this.
Just amazing.
Matt Conn Lee
Nixon froze wages and prices not too many years ago. Now Bush should institute a freeze on house prices. The freeze should be nunc pro tunc as of January 1, 2007, before the bubble burst.
This will bring up the fair market value of every house, restore the bank’s balance sheets, give the home owner more equity to spend, and bring back the happy days.
Better yet, freeze the prices at two times a home’s highest past estimated value. This will inject oodles of money into our system and we can all go out and spend, spend, and spend.
Tax Analyst
I got nothin’
You know it’s rough when the truth is so ridiculous you just cannot find a way to spoof it.
Tax Analyst
Actually, Franken is pretty well qualified. He’s spent his entire career assuming everything we take as true is bullshit and finding a way to demonstrate that it’s bullshit. Not only is he a professional skeptic, but he’s skilled at calling it out and showing it to people for what it is. It’s one of the best traits that someone in Congress could have because that’s the core of oversight.
He may not be terribly qualified to write a budget, but he’s pretty well qualified to rip one apart and show what is good from what is bad. And I don’t think anyone can claim that he is uninterested or unread on these subjects, which is a vast improvement over quite a number of our legislators.
Agree. I read his book several years back and he’s a pretty sharp guy. He refuted a whole lot of wingnut bullshit…fully footnoted items…he used college students to vet his items and made sure to credit them all. A lot classier than anything I’ve seen out of any GOP office holder.
Oh, yeah…I found it an interesting read, too.
Shitpile 20,000: a Norman Coleman fantasy « The Mississippifarian
[...] John Cole [...]
Shitpile 20,000: a Norman Coleman fantasy « The Mississippifarian
[...] John Cole [...]