I feel like I should be blogging about the Wall Street mess, but I have sort of lost interest. There is nothing I can do, and after several weeks of studying it I came no closer to understanding it beyond a superficial level. So, instead, I am going to give you this thread.
Plus, Steelers tonight.
akaoni
Fairing any better with your Civ economy?
jake
Bush breaks out the Pen of Pardoning…
Comrade Incertus
Well, millionaires are having issues in the mortgage market too. Can’t say as I’m all that concerned about them.
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
Bush is saying that the Dems were partisan, but now is not time to fix the blame, now is time to fix the problem. Cats and dogs, living together …
Comrade Incertus
Oh, and fuck ESPN. 90 minutes of Sportscenter last night and not a single highlight of the Saints-Niners game.
Pb
Pop quiz: which one is the beauty queen, and which one is the VP candidate…
Comrade The Moar You Know
There weren’t any, if you’re a Niners fan.
DaveA
Steelers suck.
Unfortunately, my team sucks worse.
Brian J
Here’s the only thing I remain convinced of: the only real steps people can take are making sure that their personal finances are in order. They should make sure they don’t have enormous levels of debt, that they are getting the lowest interest rates possible on that debt, and that they pay off that debt, particularly credit card debt, as soon as possible. They should contribute to savings accounts and to open accounts that offer great interest rates. It may not seem like a lot, but if you’re an adult with a decent sum of money in the bank, an extra percent or two in an account each month will add up at the end of the year.* They should contribute to retirement accounts, particularly when those contributions are matched. Maybe economic theory will refute me, but I imagine that if people are personally secure in their finances, consumption and investment are far more possible. Best of all, these aren’t hugely complicated steps to take, so there’s no excuse to avoid doing so.
*I guess I should have majored in economics and/or finance in college, because I don’t understand why more banks don’t offer things like online savings accounts with higher interest rates. But I find it even harder to believe that people who already have accounts at these institutions don’t take advantage of this. I have no idea if this will continue once the transition from WaMu to Chase is complete, but I have an online savings account with 4.00 percent interest, as opposed to a regular savings account with something like .10 or .25 percent or a money market account with 2.5 percent. It’s not a massive difference, but it’s a greater rate of interest, which leads to more money over time. And there’s so little difference between these accounts and regular accounts. I can understand why older people, like my mom who I helped with online banking last week, is hesitant to jump in, but anybody who is comfortable on the Internet shouldn’t avoid this.
Comrade Fwiffo
Ha! I had the Markov chain idea first:
Darn idea stealing guy!
OriGuy
Tom Waits. Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime?
Comrade Thelonious
Ross Douthat thinks this crisis is what breaks the Republican party for a very long time.
From your lips to the FSM’s ears, Ross.
H/T Sully
w vincentz
After today’s events, I’m changing my party to “silly”. I’m going with Palin (Michael).
If you’d like to sign up, here’s the link: (oops, not done properly, whip me!)
http://www.michaelpalinforpresident.com/
t jasper parnell
I predict that it will all be better, worse, or the same tomorrow and that a new bill, the current bill, or no bill will either pass or won’t pass by Friday. Also McCain will still be a POW, Palin a idiot and a Hockey Mom, while Obama will or won’t make a calming speech and George Bush most definitely will say something highlarryious. You heard it here first.
Dennis - SGMM
Sonny Landreth Blue Tarp Blues (featuring Mark Knopfler).
Balconesfault
I don’t care if it breaks the Republicans. I want it to break the whole freaking Milton Friedman economic bullshit that if you just let the markets run free, all misery and suffering will disappear.
Bullshit. Letting the markets run free left us without a 21st century mass transit grid. It left us with a fleet of cars with a fuel efficiency suited for 1980, not 2008. It left us with with a massive housing glut. It has left us with a 10 trillion dollar national debt and a massive trade deficit.
ExxonMobil doesn’t make decisions by just telling all their division directors “do whatever you think is best, and we’ll put money into the sectors that make the most money”. That’s Enron-style thinking. ExxonMobil kicks ass because they plan 10 years down the road. America has become too stupid to plan 10 months down the road.
The Republicans can stay. But please take all the Chicago-school economists out back and shoot them.
PaulW
The thing that bothers me is the potential 10 percent unemployment looming on the horizon.
Juan del Llano
I hear ya, although I haven’t watched pro football for almost 20 years. Enough already with the stupid bailout. Here in northern New Mexico, everything is still standing, sort of. I mean, if the rest of the world collapses, so what? Except for realtors, carpetbaggers, and slave traders, no one ever makes any money.
Товарищ НеинтереснаяСобака
The Tigers still have a chance to keep the South Side Sux out of the playoffs. That and nr. 500 from the Sheff might just make this season worth it. Kind of.
I refuse to speak of football, other than to say that Millen is finally gone.
Comrade General Stuck
One word makes all the difference. fixt
Comrade General Stuck
Strike don’t work. Assuming S tab is that.
PaulW
And the growing costs of food production.
KCinDC
McCain flip-flops from one sentence to the next:
Comrade Warren Terra
What, the site gets a new and improved back end, and now Comrade Cole doesn’t feel inclined to give us content any more? But you are our monkey! Dance, monkey, dance!
Eh, more seriously, these are confusing times, and I don’t know what to say any more than anyone else. Enjoy the ball game, and thanks for the site upgrade (knock on wood, or on pixels imitating wood).
But, if this becomes a trend, with sparse content and numerous open threads, like some sites I could name, I will fume, I tell you, fume.
Товарищ НеинтереснаяСобака
Hmm…
s
strikedelHyperIon
boy, your simple-mindedness is breath-taking.
if people had done what you are suggesting they do now, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
savings? who needs savings? just re-fi the house and have a party!
pay off credit cards? hell, no. just roll over the balance to the new offer you got last week.
no, not hugely complicated steps at all.
but those steps require deferral of gratification…and we want to party!
Товарищ НеинтереснаяСобака
<s> doesn’t work, but <strike> and <del> do.
dbrown
Pelosi is useless and needs to be removed Asap. If Obama wants to be stupid, he can try and push this bill through and get every right thinking republican that wants McSame to win up in arms. They will simply dig in and shoot this bill down to show Obama that they are not his lap dogs (and in the process, help McSame.) If Democrats want to help bush, then they either get most of their party on board or admit that Republicans really run the house and continue to be door mats under the fool and stooge Pelosi
Comrade Warren Terra
KCinDC, I hadn’t seen the slightly larger quote, so I didn’t realize he turned around in the space of a period, but I also liked Ezra Klein’s version of the same sentiment you qoute from Tapper:
Товарищ НеинтереснаяСобака
<s> doesn’t work, but <strike> and <del> do.
And the ampersand code for less than and greater than still don’t work unless you HAX them.
Comrade Incertus
What I would give to have the chance to kick that guy right in the junk.
gbear
If the White Sox lose their game today, the Twins go to the playoffs! Go Tigers!
Brian J
I know you being sarcastic, but I wonder how a proposal to teach every high school student in the country a course in financial literacy would go over. I don’t remember how much of this, if anything at all, was stressed when I was a senior, but I learned it because my mom taught me it and because I made some slight missteps along the way. One of my three credit scores is almost 800, but I’m only 23, so I think I am doing okay.
Of course, it’s not simply either being a Buddhist or being a spoiled kid who spends money like a drunken sailor. It’s a mixture of using debt responsibly and living within your means. I just think if these concepts were stressed when people were first becoming adults, we’d all be better off.
DaveInOz
McCain should look on the bright side. His base is still solid…
gbear
Thanks but no thanks.
flywheelgrinding (Gravel Blood)
It seems the Republicans have reaped the whirlwind for themselves, and for all the rest of us.
They are listening to their constituents (who don’t want the bailout) when they need to step up and do what is good for the country.
Trouble is, they have convinced their constituents that they (their Representatives and Senators) aren’t any smarter than they are so that they could get elected. How can they now tell them that they know better what the ramifications of the melt down are?
“I’m sure proud of my congressman! He’s as dumb as I am! I’d like to have a beer with him!”
This has been going since before the studied pronunciation of nuclear by the swine George W. Bush.
God damn, I hate these people. They hate America.
bootlegger
I think the NFL and NBA is the reason for this mess. If they hadn’t paid all Those People so much money then Those People’s family and old friends would have known their place and not forced the government to give Those People loans.
And by Those People I mean the owners who demanded the public pay for the Big Ass Stadiums.
The Grand Panjandrum
I am fascinated by McCain’s desire to parachute in and rescue us from the meanies after he sat on his hands through most of the build up to this. Maverick never seems to be aware of a problem until the building is fully involved in a fire. Others around the blogosphere are beginning to note his crisis management style. I find it tiring and potentially as disastrous as the Bush Administration actively supporting war criminals, thugs and other petty larcenists. I do know that we can’t four more years of a Republican in the White House.
Comrade NonyNony
Bush breaks out the Pen of Pardoning…
Is that the one in the 1st edition Dungeon Master’s Guide or the one from the 3rd edition?
Susan Kitchens
Jonathan Martin notes that between Texas (land o Bush) and Arizona (Land o McCain) there were a total of 3 votes FOR the bailout.
Zero from Arizona. Zero. 23 total Republicans from both states.
Leadership that we can beli is EPIC FAIL
Which underscores what Ross Douthat said, as mentioned upthread by Comrade Thelonious.
Svensker
Yup. His voice makes me feel like cougars are ripping his vocal cords out while he’s hacking down Pall Mall straights, with a chaser of rot gut. My ears ache in empathy.
Jon H
All things considered, I would be happier if Bush had left his mark by taking all the W keys on his way out.
Comrade General Stuck
Let me try again testing
The preview has it working. lets see
Ryan S.
This is the most thorough, simple explanation of all the stupid in the economy.
Economic disasters and stupid
Comrade General Stuck
nope, don’t work from my computer. though the preview says it does. Mccains fault?
Velly interesting!
Jon H
“NO DEAL, Democrats, until this course includes TITHING!”
Comrade Warren Terra
I haven’t actually heard much genuine Tom Waits, but the recurring Tom Waits parody in Series 2 of the BBC radio comedy series The Museum Of Everything was pretty funny.
gbear
Well how about that? We can quit arguing about Congress not passing the bailout. Bush did an end run. Hello hyperinflation:
Comrade Thelonious
They’ll take all the keys except the Ws.
Comrade Scrutinizer
So I can go back to being “Comrade”?
Does Bush have the authority to expand the Term Auction Facility by that much?
Comrade Warren Terra
Comrade Thelonius FTW! Or perhaps WWW!
Dennis - SGMM
As well as the hard drives.
Comrade General Stuck
Hey, just print more money. Why didn’t I think of that. That’l fix it till we pay 20 bucks for a cup of coffee. But TZ’s stocks will be saved. Trickle down on steroids ( or how I learned to stop worrying and love the Bush)
jist another day in the Funhouse.
bootlegger
Since when has that mattered to The Decider?
Stevenovitch
You know, for a party that claims it doesn’t blink they sure do make lots of hasty, panicked decisions.
jrg
Yeah, McCain wasn’t trying to get out of the debate last week… He was working hard to get this bill passed. What a leader!
A comment from the linked article:
I can assure you that this political theater is not pleasing Country Club Republicans. We are now witnessing a complete implosion of the GOP. I cannot believe how stupid these people are.
Comrade General Stuck
600 Billion here, 600 Billion there. Pretty soon we’ll be talking about real money.
Kali's Little Sister
I’m in. I’ll pony up my share of 700 bil with a smile, given your suggested incentive plan.
Marshall
Alright, Tovarishch Sobak, now that I have gotten my Russian – English dictionary out, why is your dog boring ?
Comrade Fedorovich Stuck
I’ll have to dig mine up. It’s buried in a Mason Jar out back.
Comrade Josh Vondoktorpepper
Yes, but at least they kept “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, so total financial meltdown was worth it.
Comrade The Moar You Know
This:
is not an “end run”. I can’t believe it. Bush just wrote a $630 billion dollar hot check. There’s not enough in the Treasury to cover this.
Kamishna ya Watu Xenos
Wall street will get its revenge. The Fed is going to drop 630 billion cash to keep everything afloat, so we get to live with serious inflation. Of course, a few hours before Helicopter Ben made the move public, gold went through the roof.
Insiders taking care of themselves- this has been the plan b for a week or more, and the rest of us have been told to take our political process and shove it.
Tar, feathers, bankers – some assembly required.
Comrade Josh Vondoktorpepper
No no no…we’re supposed to do what Thymezone says and give the Randian Ubermenschen whatever they want, and then smile and thank them when they pop us in the mouth and knock out some more teeth afterward.
Comrade Fedorovich Stuck
The treasury is a tin cup with an IOU note to China stuffed inside. We’ll just have to get a bigger tin cup. Problem solved Comrade The Moar
Doug H. (Fausto no more)
Since when did Bush = The Fed? Helicopter Ben’s running his own show.
Comrade The Moar You Know
I thought this was Democratic Party standard procedure.
Товарищ НеинтереснаяСобака
Uninteresting, because a more accurate translation of NonWonderDog (НедивнаяСобака) is too obscure and doesn’t translate in Google. But, as it turns out, my inability to post much on “WordPress >> Error” means that my non-commie name is now too uncommonly seen for anyone to make the connection.
Kali's Little Sister
I made the offer presuming the value of the dollar would make my share of the bailout equivalent to the aluminum cans I have collected for recycling.
But you…with your fancy Mason jar…braggart.
MikeL
An old Dilbert as pointed out on reddit.
Good question.
MikeL
Since this is an open thread, has anyone else tried WarHammer?
Ryan S.
Its awesome, but give em some time to work out the bugs, also it has rather beefy system requirements. But Warhammer has definite potential it just has to grow-up a little.
Thomas Edward Theadore
One of my three credit scores is almost 800, but I’m only 23, so I think I am doing okay.
heh. Three credit cards?
MikeL
I’ve been playing it since launch 10 days ago, and I’m already having more fun than the last few months of WoW (I quit 5 months ago). The bugs are mostly cosmetic from what I’ve seen, animation problems, quest box problems. This game could be a WoW killer. I tried Conan at launch, and was thinking it wasn’t that bad, until I compared it with WH, which was also rushed a bit. They have Litch King coming mid November, so they have to be solid by then.
If you got tired of WoW, it’s worth trying. System requirements are high though.
kommrade jakevich
LOL or COL? I can’t decide.
liberal
Comrade The Moar You Know wrote,
“BREAK OUT THE PRINTING PRESS!”
liberal
Brian J wrote,
Uh, Vanguard has a (non-FDIC-insured) Federal tax free money fund whose yield is currently 5.18%.
Is that TEH AWESOME, or what? (Ticker VMSXX. I don’t own it right now.)
crf
You said the words “I don’t know”. You’ll never get anywhere near and elected office with such an attitude.
DougJ
I started reading some Chekhov short stories today on a friend’s recommendation and you wouldn’t believe how much it’s taught me about Alaska.
Bill H
We already have 10% unemployment if the gov’t didn’t cook the books. It will go to 15%+.
capelza
The Second Coming
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
For days, this has been going through my head.
Yeah, I’d depressed by all this…stupidity.
Conservatively Liberal
I was wondering why the House bill for the bailout was numbered as low as it was. From a poster at Calculate Risk:
Anyway, if you’re scratching your head about how the bailout legislation, which was conceived over the weekend, ends up numbered H.R. 3997 when they’re already well into the 7000s with House bills already (they’re numbered in order of their introduction), the answer is that they’re going back to a trick we’ve seen them use before — taking an old bill that has passed one House but not both, and hollowing it out and replacing that text with the new stuff.
So H.R. 3997, an old tax bill that passed the House, bounced back and forth a few times after being amended, but was never passed in the same form by both houses, which means it’s still available as a legislative vehicle. That means that technically, what’s under consideration in the House today is an amendment to the Senate amendment to the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R. 3997.
Seriously.
Why? Because pretending that the bailout package is just a new amendment (in the nature of a substitute) for what now stands as the old body of H.R. 3997 means they can get expedited consideration on the House floor, plus be protected from a Republican motion to recommit [send back to committee, essentially killing the bill].
In addition to doing this to speed the bill through with fewer chances to kill it, I think they’re also doing this to obfuscate their votes. It’s a lot easier to look up online who voted for “HR 3997” than it is to look up “who voted for an amendment to the senate amendment to the house amendment to the senate amendment to HR 3997.”
Every Congressman already has a vote on the record for the original version of HR 3997, which was originally “The Defenders of Freedom Tax Relief Act of 2007.” It’s purpose was “to provide tax relief and protections for military personnel.” Of course now it’s being amended to be something completely different and will have a completely separate vote for the amendment. This will make it much more difficult for the average citizen to sort through all of this and determine whether their congressman voted for the bill last year as originally intended to provide tax relief to members of the military, or voted this year to pass the bailout.
Nice way to mix things up and screw with who exactly voted for what, plus is allows a bill that has not passed the House to go to the Senate because the House passed the original of this bill in 2007.
Political games.
Kamishna ya Watu Xenos
I am astonished to report this, but David Brooks has a pretty good piece that tries to put some perspective on the GOP revolt that sank the bailout deal. He compares the revolt to the Smoot Hawley Act as a watershed moment that could cause permanent damage to party and country.
CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMVIII
I was thinking this about 24 hours after she was installed as speaker.
obamasmokescrack
Obama may win but he will be stuck with that ugly monkey face bitch Michelle. I would take Sarah any day.