County Payments? Smith yes, Wyden and Merkley no.

Look I can spin a story too!!!

In other profiles in courage, it was nice of Jeff Merkley to wait until 9pm PST to boldly denounce the plan, after carefully making sure Wyden would give him cover to oppose the most important legislation for rural Oregon in a generation.

There is leading and being led. The latter applies to Jeff Merkley.

Smith's anvil? Bill is virtually the same thing? Passed the Senate 75-24 but failed in the House is the same thing?

Does this sound familiar Carla (btw even for a Merkley staffer you responded quickly to my last comment)?

"We cannot fail...This is a nation that's faced down war and depression, great challenges and great threats. And at each and every moment, we have risen up to meet these challenges, not as Democrats, not as Republicans, but as Americans, with resolve and with confidence."

Barack Obama speaking about the Senate bill, which passed with the support of 40(!) Democrats.

I eagerly await Jeff's denouncement of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Harry Reid.

Unreal, as I understand it, the Senate bill is the House bill with added FDIC funding, AMT patch and capital gains tax cuts. Since you seem to know so much, exactly what is the oversight mechanism in this bill? It may have been the best that the negotiators could get in a short time frame, but is it something you are comfortable with?

DeFazio speaking in one interview (forget which one) specified the paragraph which describes the oversight mechanism. Didn't sound like it said oversight could be done in the coming months, but rather in coming years. Unreal, what did you read in the bill about the oversight mechanism?

Smith doesn't get to hide behind Wyden's county payments bill. Smith had nothing to do with Wyden's bill being in the bailout. Even Smith is too smart to claim credit.

But beyond that, I think there's a reason that goes well beyond "cover" for Jeff Merkley for Wyden, DeFazio and others to vote against the bill. Unreal, are you saying that Smith voted for a $700 billion bill so Oregon could get 1/10 of 1% of the money? Oregon will get about $700 million from Wyden'sbill, according to the Oregonian story.

So does this mean Merkley can't work with his fellow Democrats, and the person we hope will be the President? After all, isn't that what he made the entire theme of his campaign against Novick.

All we have here is that Wyden and Merkley are Western state Democrats who stuck their fingers in the wind, and saw which way it was blowing. After all, Wyden vote FOR Gramm-Leach-Bliley that gave us this mess. Glad they did it, but it's not because either of these guys were doing anything out of principle, except the principle of whatever it takes for them to get elected.

So we now have Merkley criticizing Obama? Guess he'll have to take this off his website:

Merkley: Obama will fight special interests http://www.jeffmerkley.com/trail/2008/04/merkley_obama_will_fight_special_interests.php

You also just have to chuckle at what a joke this whole thing has become. The official name of the bill: "Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act of 2007".

I'm feeling better about Jeff Merkley all the time. I just hope enough voters see this scheme for what it is.

This bill is a scam to steal money from us and future taxpayers and give it to Henry Paulson's buddies.

David Sirota has written some excellent posts where he notes that many economists oppose the $700 billion bailout. Read them here: Top 5 Reasons To Vote Against Wall Street's $700 Billion Bailout and here: STRATEGY MEMO: Turning A Wall Street Giveaway Into An Economic Rescue For All Americans

Anyone who votes for the $700 billion bailout plan in any form is not doing any favors for rural Oregon or urban Oregon for that matter. Peter Defazio's plan actually addresses many of the basic problems with the system without spending any taxpayer money up front.

Jenni

One quick question regarding your post. If I understand you correctly, you support providing banks with funding to meet their short-term needs and then expect them to pay it back later. You also suggest rolling back mortgage payments to their original amounts, something I also support if done for a fixed time period. My question to you is this: would you also expect mortgagees to pay off their debts in full or are you suggesting that they should get a "handout" and not be required to fulfill the obligations to the "bank" that they willingly entered into?

The thing about all this that amazes me is that HAD smith voted AGAINST this bill, this article would read "Smith Votes Against Renewing Timber Payments to Rural Counties!!"

Get real people. This was a catch 22. I'll say that I'm not happy Smith voted for it, and I like him. How about you be fair and shine this same negative light on your own personal savior, Barrack Obama?

I'm sorry, but I can't take hypocrisy. If someone on here that IS NOT A REPUBLICAN will openly criticize Obama, JUST AS THEY HAVE SMITH, then I will truly accept that person as a fair and balanced person. Anyone who does otherwise is truly a Dem party shill and has no legitimacy.

Sorry folks, but a "yea vote" is a vote, no matter who it came from. Don't just yell at the person who's convenient.

I'm not a republican and I think Obama's vote was wrong. So was Smith's. As were the votes of the rest of the senators who voted yea.

We need a completely new type of economy, and Obama's emphasis on the production of clean energy is a start which will be especially good for Oregon and much of the West. But I notice in this election how divided the country is: half of us are willing and excited to face a brave new world while the other half is so fearful of stepping out of the old ways which have failed and are causing the country to go under. This bailout is for them. Kevin Phillips calls this a FIRE economy, based on the Financial industry, Insurance companies, and Real Estate. It is a shell game, and the capitalists should realize that production is a key element of capitalism now missing from our consumer society. It appalls me that the politicians are only concerned with getting more credit out to the public. My hope is that Obama is only going along with this in order to get elected, and it is only a stopgap measure until them. Meanwhile, I applaud Senator Wyden and Jeff Merkely for telling it like it is.

I give Smith credit for voting for the bill. And Merkley a little credit for opposing it, but not slamming Smith for voting for it. Smith was there and made a tough choice. And if you're going to call out Smith for saying Merkley's opposition to the bailout was unpatriotic, you should do the same for Pelosi.

I don't have time to post a link but there is an interesting op-ed in the New York Times today (10/2) discussing what happened to the Japanese economy in the 1990s when that nation's government did NOT support a financial bailout. It makes a pretty compelling case that action now is better than inaction -- especially given the prospects of modifying the bill once President Obama takes over.

Economics was one of my college majors, but I don't profess to understand macroeconomics very well. What I do understand, however, is that this nation's economy cannot survive intact with an extreme credit crunch. In addition, despite all my skepticism, which is at an all time high after the idiotic Iraq War, I have trouble believing that this entire crisis is being fabricated just to protect the greedy.

There is a real credit problem, but I don't think there are many advocating doing nothing. This is not a binary choice. There is a real alternative to giving away hundreds of billions to a bunch of crooks. An alternative that actually does something to fix the underlying structural problems. An alternative that will leave an Obama administration with enough of a budget to implement progressive policies. Enough of a budget to ease the inevitable slow down in the economy which is coming whether we pay off the Wall Street extortionists or not. That alternative is Peter Defazio's plan.

Most economists that have examined the Defazio plan agree that it will prevent a depression and that the $700 billion bailout has a chance to plunge us into a depression. The bailout rewards bad players in the economy by covering their bad bets. This encourages them to take even bigger risks in the future.

I'm supporting Defazio's plan because it is the best hope for our economy.

We don't have a parliamentary system, folks. That fact goes a long way toward explaining the way congressmembers vote. Vote against your party in, say, the British parliament, and you will be soon find your office is now a broom closet, you have no staff, and at the next election you will be out of office anyway, because the PARTY, not the local electorate, decides who will be the candidate in a particular constituency. In the US system, the same effects are achieved in other ways, mainly by larding important bits of legislation with earmarks.

But enough of that. I'm really, really angry that the Senate bill did not include anything to pay for remodeling my beach house.

This bill absolutely stinks...but it had better pass.

I keep hearing people talk about "bailing out Wall St" or "the little guy bailing out corporate America".

Nothing could be further from the truth. Guess who get's hurt if the credit markets contiue to freeze up? It certainly won't be the executives. They won't fire themselves.

They will fire workers when business drops off due to the cost of financing new projects and investments become too costly or un-attainable. We're already seeing this in the banking industy. The bank employees that had nothing to do with poor executive decisions are being the ones laid off, not th executives.

Guess who's pensions plans will go under-funded and then belly up if the markets plunge 3000 points? That's right, union members. Not only will they lose hours on the job as the economy freezes, pensions will flip upside down. Pensions guarantees will get re-written for public employees, and not to their benefit.

If the Dem's don't pass this bill (they have the votes to do it without any R's), the political consequences will be heavy.

I'm no economist, either, but the analyses I read are all over the map in terms of whether the present bailout scheme is really going to relieve credit crunch for "regular folks", which, if this is still a functioning democracy, ought to be the ultimate goal, I would suggest. The Senate bill seems to fall short: it seems (again, I'm an economic rookie) to provide relief for the big financial players, does NOT adequately give taxpayers stakes in the big companies that benefit, and they buys votes through via earmarks. Yech.

The term economists like to use is "moral hazard": do you face consequences for your decisions, including potentially dire consequences? If financial wizards are relieved of moral hazard by government bailouts...well, chances of a repeat seem strong. You know damn well that a President McCain, despite his recent pseudo-conversion experience, would never sign a bill to implement strong regulatory measures. Would a President Obama?

I totally agree with you Scott J on the need for the bailout. People keep saying "this is a Wall Street bailout", as if Wall Street and Main Street are different places. It's kind of like the small town/big city thing Palin does. Main Street won't do well if Wall Street falls apart, and vice versa. You can't let Wall Street fail and not feel it on Main Street. If credit markets freeze, we're all screwed.

One thing that bugged me about Merkley's opposition to the bailout was his statement that he didn't want us to purchase assets from foreign banks. I think it's a terrible idea to discourage foreign investment in the US. It seems like great populism, terrible policy that Jeff's suggesting.

There is a reason that all the people we respect- i.e. Obama, Krugman, etc. are suggesting we pass the bailout bill. It's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but we can't afford the consequences of its failure.

in an email from Russ Feingold:

I will oppose the Wall Street bailout plan because though well intentioned, and certainly much improved over the administration’s original proposal, it remains deeply flawed. It fails to offset the cost of the plan, leaving taxpayers to bear the burden of serious lapses of judgment by private financial institutions, their regulators, and the enablers in Washington who paved the way for this catastrophe by removing the safeguards that had protected consumers and the economy since the great depression. The bailout legislation also fails to reform the flawed regulatory structure that permitted this crisis to arise in the first place. And it doesn’t do enough to address the root cause of the credit market collapse, namely the housing crisis. Taxpayers deserve a plan that puts their concerns ahead of those who got us into this mess.

-Senator Russ Feingold, October 1, 2008

A short story:

The Captain had committed an un-pardonable sin the last time he was at port. Although his was the last ship that would make it into harbor before the winter months set in, the townspeople wanted to punish the captain. He was denied a safe harbor to dock his ship and unload the critical cargo the town so desperately needed.

"He must be punished", the chief of the town, Russ Feingold shouted from the top of the courthouse.

With that bold, righteous decree, the ship's guilty captain and hard working, obedient crew, sank off the coast as the storm intensified. With the ship went the very supplies that the town needed to make it through the winter.

As the townspeople buried their dead throughout the winter, their folly became apparent, yet noone dare speak a word of it, for pride is stronger than common sense.

Just strip this bill down to two things.

1. The "rescue/bailout" funding mechanism with an oversight board, and

2. A two year suspension of the 60 vote rule in the Senate.

Then the Democrats tell the public...OK we're providing funding, you now need to vote Democrat for congress/senate and we'll figure out the recoupment mechanism and other terms necessary to fix our economy gone haywire by January, 30th 2009.

If you vote us into a majority,we'll promise to at the very least, cap ALL CEO compensation, re-impose the stock transfer fee (but lets call it insurance towards the bailout, not a fee, because thats what it is really), and impose a surcharge on incomes over $500,000 to go exclusively to debt reduction.

Other things we'll look at....fixing the AMT, taxing all income in the same way, imposing a $3 million estate tax credit and index it for inflation.

The Real News Network has some very good videos on the bailout. Well worth listening to.

If someone on here that IS NOT A REPUBLICAN will openly criticize Obama, JUST AS THEY HAVE SMITH

If you have been paying attention you will find a few independents/NAVs posting on this site have been critical of Obama (almost) as much as McCain and as critical of the Democrats as much as the Republicans. I entered the "(almost)" because I question McCain's emotional stability and consider Obama the lesser evil - which still leaves him as something other than the great hero some mistakenly believe will lead us to the promised land. His vote for this scam supports that opinion.

On another thread I said that Obama's plan to add more troops to the Afghanistan battle is as lunatic as McCain's. Change? What change?

Once again the Senate has seen fit to have the U.S. Capitol live down to its reputation of being the biggest and most expensive whorehouse in the world.

I retired in March, and my retirement income depends on the money I have invested in the market, via my 401K. I would gladly go back to work for another 30 years before I would give that group of scoundrels in the banking and credit industry one red tax dollar cent of mine. Of all the representatives speaking for us DeFazio is the only one who is least making some sense, but I will never again vote for any politician who supports this pork filled bill. To hell with em all, and I am ready to suffer the consequences!

Fred, How about these economists for a start (follow the link):

Mortgage Protest

Princeton economist Paul Krugman: "To this day [the bailout proponents] have never been able to explain clearly why buying up bad mortgage assets at market prices will solve the credit crunch...The Wise Men, as far as I can tell, have never had a clear idea of what they're doing."

Not your typical Customer said: "If someone on here that IS NOT A REPUBLICAN will openly criticize Obama, JUST AS THEY HAVE SMITH, then I will truly accept that person as a fair and balanced person."

You must be a newbie. Obama is a corporatist and a militarist whose differences with McCain on most issues important to progressives are NIL.

Obama supports our system of privatized profits for the rich and socialized costs and risks for the rest of us. He is telling us that we are unpatriotic if we do not roll over and beg for one more crack of the riding crop from his Wall Street investment backers.

Here is a progressive plan:

1.No bailouts without conditions and reciprocity in the form of stock warrants.

1. No more lobbying for any company that is bailed out.

2. No golden parachutes or get-out-of-jail-free cards for guilty executives.

3. No bailouts without public hearings.

4. Reduce the moral hazard in U.S. mortgage markets by introducing covered bonds for the majority of mortgage products, as is done in Western Europe. That gives institutions that finance mortgages an incentive to be prudent, because they cannot just unload them and wipe their hands clean of the liability, but are instead on the hook if the homeowner defaults.

5. Maintain neighborhood stability and housing security by passing a law with a sunset clause allowing below-median-value homeowners facing foreclosure the right to “rent to own” their homes at fair market value rates.

6. Avoid future housing bubbles by removing implicit government guarantees for new mortgages that exceed thresholds of greater than 15 to 20 times the annual fair market rent value of the home.

7. Make the Federal Reserve a Cabinet position, so it is accountable to Congress, as well as make sure all Federal Reserve Bank presidents are appointed by the president and answerable to Congress.

8. Reduce conflicts of interest by taking away power for auditor and rating agency selection from companies and placing it in the hands of the SEC to be administered on random assignment.

9. Implement a securities speculation tax, starting with derivatives, to deter casino-style capitalism.

"Ralph Nader, who has spent his adult life battling corporations, understands more about the rise of the corporate state and the steady fleecing of American citizens by corporations than anyone else in the country. The core of his message is that Republicans and Democrats are hostage to corporate power." (Chris Hedges, Fleecing What’s Left of the Treasury).

Fred, The honest truth is I cannot bring myself to trust anything that comes out of the Bush administration. Perhaps "most economists" is wishful thinking. I haven't studied economics in over 20 years, but I've been studying the game of Poker intensively over the last 2 years and my BS detector is finely tuned. I didn't like the Treasury plan from the start because:

1. They've been working on it for months, but all of a sudden it must be passed in less than a week or economic armageddon will happen.
2. They want the money with no oversight and no review by any court of law. My understanding is there are no teeth in oversight provisions that have been added since the original proposal.
3. It seems like a huge transfer of wealth in the wrong direction.
4. People keep telling me this is all to complicated for me to understand and that I should just leave it to the rich fat cats that got us into this mess or to economists that are smarter or specialize in banking to fix.

Do you really think we are possibly headed into a Great Depression? Even if we are could it possibly be as bad as the last one?

My understanding of the Great Depression in a nutshell: very little regulation, big bubble caused by massive leverage, bubble burst, money supply tightened, fiscal conservatives kept government spending low enough to prevent a turnaround until WWII.

Won't we be OK as long as we avoid McCain who has pledged to veto all spending bills? Didn't we learn our lesson from the last depression? Well, maybe not about deregulation of financial markets, but surely now we have...haven't we?

While I admire some economists sometimes street smarts can be enough to make a good decision. Consider: (1) George W. Bush is a man who has cried "Wolf" when there was no wolf on more than one occasion and has lost the trust of around 70 percent of the people, most of whom are normally kind of slow at "getting it." (2) Said GWB sent his financial agents - Paulson, Bernanke and Cox - to Congress with a plan to keep Wall Street from collapsing and the world from going into another Great Depression. (3) Said agents presented their hired enablers in Congress - Senator Dodd, Barney Frank and their committee members - with a three-page manifesto to turn over the keys of the Treasury to Secretary Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, one of the Wall Street operators that helped create this mess. No questions. No oversight. (4) Without considering alternate opinions, said enablers basically agreed to sign this three-page blank check with minor tweaking. (5) Oops. A sizable portion of the people finally got their heads out and noticed the emperors were naked and shouted loudly enough to get the attention of a majority of representatives in the House, many of whom don't normally pay attention to the people. They voted down this bill. (6) Back to the drawing board and the same draftsmen who gave us this crummy bill that was rejected and we get a revision that adds a few crumbs to the people and another reminder the world markets will collapse, you won't get anything out of your ATM machine, mom-and-pop shops by the thousands will collapse, and widows and children will be kicked out onto the streets if this bill doesn't go through immediately. (7) The bill goes to the House where lots of strong-arming will be going on. No time for logic or rational debate. Just plain, vicious hardball. (8) The House votes ... What will happen then?

Harry: "Obama is a corporatist and a militarist whose differences with McCain on most issues important to progressives are NIL."

yes yes yes!

I like your points Harry, but I would disagree that the difference between Obama and McCain are NIL (although in the overall scheme of things the differences are small). I'll hold my breath and vote for Obama because he is far less likely to veto the good stuff that progessives in the house will send him.

I'm in the camp of let's takeover the Democratic party from the ground up like the wingnuts did the Republican party.

I'll also be one to criticize Obama for this vote. He's being advised by some of the same people who were advising Clinton at the time that financial regulations were repealed.

A shorter story:

A stupid and evil man gained control of the throne through trickery. He immediately set out to loot the treasure of the people by scaring them with imaginary dangers, and then paying his friends to "save" the homeland.

Just before his terrible reign was to end, he created one more emergency that allowed even quicker looting possible. The people knew their leader should not be trusted, but, as usual, their fear prevented them from taking action. Soon all the people of the land paid rent to China or Saudi Arabia.

Harry: "Obama is a corporatist and a militarist whose differences with McCain on most issues important to progressives are NIL."

As much as I agree with Harry, there is one difference. Nobody is questioning Obama's emotional stability. They are both full of BS, but I don't believe Obama's first thought about resolving a crisis will be to unleash the troops. He might get around to that eventually if his backers in the war armaments corporations need some business. The dumb idea he shares with McCain about increasing military forces in Afghanistan supports the plausibility of that theory.

Here is another interesting viewpoint from Just Foreign Policy:

Wall Street Bailout Threatens World's Poor: Who Wins and Who Loses?

On Monday the House voted down the Bush Administration's request that Congress authorize $700 billion for purchasing Wall Street's "toxic assets" linked to the collapse of the housing bubble, after being deluged by phone calls and emails in opposition. The Senate approved basically the same package Wednesday, and the House may vote again Friday.

Largely missing from debate has been the impact of this plan on U.S. government spending on human needs in the next Administration. What will be the toll exacted on human needs for all Americans in the next budget, and who will win and lose in the latest bailout plan? And there has been almost no mention at all of the impact on our global commitments to help eradicate poverty, reduce illiteracy, address easily preventable disease, provide food and shelter to the world's neediest at home and abroad.

Can you ask Congress to consider the cost to the world, as well as to the United States, of enacting the Bush Administration's plan, and to consider alternatives?

http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/involved/globalbailout.html

Last week, world leaders met at the United Nations. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is asking for the world's wealthy countries to contribute $72 billion per year to help the world meet the modest UN goal of reducing extreme poverty. [1] According to the advocacy group Health Gap, the US share of this would be about 1/3, or $24 billion, based on the US share of the donor countries' wealth. Over the four years of the next Administration, that would be about $100 billion. As Inter Press Service reported, delegates to the UN meeting expressed concern that donor country commitments to reducing global poverty would now be even weaker than before.

If the Bush Administration's Wall Street bailout is enacted, we will be told that there is no money for additional spending on human needs, nationally and globally, in the next Administration - regardless of whether this is true. Already, in the first Presidential debate, moderator Jim Lehrer pressed the candidates to say what priorities they were going to give up, in light of the expected Wall Street bailout.

There are alternatives to the Bush Administration's plan that would cost the US taxpayers less, have greater chance of addressing problems in the credit market, and not politically threaten the next Administration's ability to increase spending on human needs. Congress should consider these alternatives before approving the Bush Administration's plan.

Representative Peter DeFazio has introduced a plan which would strengthen regulations to bolster the banking sector. The plan is based on a proposal made by William Isaac, head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation under the Reagan Administration. Isaac notes that in the 1980s Congress enacted a program which shored up the capital of banks to give them more time to resolve their problems, and the FDIC resolved a $100 billion insolvency in savings banks for a total cost of less than $2 billion.

Please ask Congress to consider the cost to the world, as well as to the United States, of enacting the Bush Administration's plan, and to consider alternatives.

http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/involved/globalbailout.html

Ok, I did not take the time to read all of the posts here because there are a lot of them. But, I did read a lot of them so I am sorry if I repeat what someone else already said.

I just want to say that I am an average american citizen that is a stay at home mom that takes care of her two boys. While her hard working husband and the father of ther two boys goes to work.

I would like to know who is going to bail my family and the rest of the american citizens? If I am understanding this correctly. Wall street is going to be bailed out because they made risky loans and changed the interest rate and then the people could not pay back the loan. Well, I did not make any mistakes like that in my life and I am finding it harder and harder to make my bills.

We dont have cable or brand new cars. We did not go on vacation last summer because we could not afford it. We dont have a lot of extras in life. If Wall street can get bailed out because of their mistakes and we did not make them can we get bailed out?

I think that if they just paid the mortgages for the american citizens to the mortgage companies then the american citizens would benefit and the compaines would benefit. Or they can just send a check out to each adult american citizen. They can pay off their own mortgage and/or credit cards or cars. That way the average citizen would benefit directly.

I also think that the CEOs should have their pays cut down to less then a million a year because they are not doing thier jobs if the companies are in trouble. The new guy at WaMu worked for only 3 weeks and look at what he was paid. 19 million dollars. I will take the job for one week and take a third of that. Heck, I would do it for 1 million. I could make a huge difference in my life and a lot of other people with the same million.

One more thing, Did it really make a difference to raise the amount insured in a bank account? How many people have 100,000 let alone 250,000 in their bank account. I am happy if I have any money in my account at the end of the month for about 6 figures. If I had that kind of money I would not need help or wonder if I am going to pay my bills this month on time.

In closing I just think that they need to stop helping the rich and start helping the working american citizens directly.

Jack, Republicans have been pissing on our backs and telling us it's raining gold since Ronald Reagan (or maybe before). They called it trickle down economics and it has never worked the way they claimed it would. I don't want to float my boat in the rising tide of Republican effluent anymore.

Instead of taking $700 billion from the poor and middle class and giving it to the tippy top of the economy why don't we give that money to the poor and middle class through a massive investment in clean energy and other green infrastructure like rail and so on? And I'm not talking about giving the money to GE to build Nuclear Power plants. I'm thinking small local projects like solar cells on every roof (saves the cost of transmission and uses wasted space). Well, small at one end. GE can be one of the winners producing solar panels and such at the other for all I care.

Let's invest in R&D, education, cleaning up the environment and making cities more livable. We could do a lot of good with $700 billion. If we use it to buy toxic assets it will be gone in a few months and the fiscal conservatives will be able to say there is no money left for economic stimulus.

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.

Thomas Jefferson 1802

Check your fact, paul g.

The euro has fallen to its weakest in more than a year against the US dollar

And, yes, there is a problem with the economy. The question is, what to do about it.

Good choice of verbiage, conscious and complete: "their fathers conquered".

As I wrote, we agree there is a problem with the economy. Jack Roberts and paul g. seem to favor doing something, anything. I disagree.

Can a Bailout Succeed? By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

(7) The bill goes to the House where lots of strong-arming will be going on. No time for logic or rational debate. Just plain, vicious hardball.

Bush, Congressional leaders lobby for bailout bill. No surprise about the likes of Steny Hoyer, but this is disappointing: "Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., a liberal opponent, is also reconsidering his vote, but is "not on board yet," Lucia Graves, his spokeswoman, said on Thursday. Blumenauer wants to see a mechanism to pay for the bailout and more help for homeowners staring at foreclosure." Contact

Dave Odell: Thanks for the praise, but the points are pure Nader, what he put out before Obama or McCain were willing to address the issue even as poorly as they have.

However, you're wrong if you believe I said, "...the difference between Obama and McCain are NIL."

I said, "Obama is a corporatist and a militarist whose differences with McCain on most issues important to progressives are NIL.

Here is a short list of issues that are important to me that Obama and McCain oppose:

1. Significantly cutting the bloated, wasteful military budget.

2. Bringing all corporate and military personnel home from Iraq.

3. Ending the military conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

4. No to nuclear power.

5. Even-handed treatment of Palestinians and Israelis.

6. Impeachment of Bush and Cheney.

7. Adopt single payer national health insurance. (I could go on and on.)

Read Adolph Reed's analysis:

"So the question is: how are we to break this cycle to be able to try to build the movement we need to do anything more than staunch the bleeding? Consider as well that the staunching looks less and less meaningful to the growing population that gets defined as on the wrong side of the triage line and that each iteration of the losing game further shrinks the ranks of the relatively secure economically, drives more and more people to the margins, and shifts the thinkable terms of political debate, as well as the electorate's center of gravity, more and more to the right." (Adolph Reed, Jr., Where Obamaism Seems to be Going)

<hr/>

Bill Bodden: I enjoyed your bailout historical reenactment. But I disagree that "Nobody is questioning Obama's emotional stability." His foreign policy is insane. The fact that he is less insane than McCain does not impress me. I feel the same about Biden-Palin; either one of them is a disaster.

<hr/>

paul g: I'm with Tom C on this. Being pissed off at Wall Street CEO's has nothing to do with rationally determining a strategy instead of jumping into something we hardly understand. Nomi Prins says, "The only real way to stabilize the financial industry is to take it apart, quantify and separate its risks, and begin again" (As Wall Street Collapses, Will Washington Get a Clue?). Throwing money at the problem is the DP stereotype.

I agree with your short list Harry. And I mischaracterized your statement about the differences between Obama and McCain. Sorry. But are you advocating voting for someone other than Obama for president?

I believe I'm as troubled as you are with how far the Democratic Party has shifted to the right, but there is hope for progressives to infiltrate don't you think? I have lost hope for a third party to rise up. I think that is a much longer shot than a takeover.

But I disagree that "Nobody is questioning Obama's emotional stability." His foreign policy is insane. The fact that he is less insane than McCain does not impress me.

I agree the foreign policy that Obama has adopted from his promoters is insane, but I'm not inclined to apply the insanity plea to Obama and let him get away with it. I believe he knows perfectly well what he is doing and is just as cynical in this regard as when he threw the Rev. Wright and his former concern for the Palestinians under the bus for his own political benefit.

I feel the same about Biden-Palin; either one of them is a disaster.

Ditto

Dave: I'm 62 years old and I've heard all my life that progressives were going to take over the DP. That's the "long shot", especially at this time in history when, right, left or center, an uprising is a genuine possibility.

Naomi Klein says people are gaining resistance to the "shock capitalism" tactics that we're witnessing. Former Bush Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill says "...the $700 billion Paulson plan is 'crazy' with potentially 'awful' consequences for the economy" (From Democracy to Crazy-ocracy...And Back Again?). Paul Craig Roberts (Can-A-Bailout-Succeed) says, "A failed bailout is the worst possible outcome. The chance of failure rises if the US government tries to turn bad private debt into good public debt without regard to the expansion of the public debt", in other words, without regard to increasing our already insane level of military spending, as Obama and McCain want to do, instead of significantly cutting it, as Nader (Political Issues that Matter for 2008) wants to do.

If you don't like Nader, support some other candidate who represents your interests. Obama and McCain do not.

Jack Roberts wrote:

The bottom line is that this is eminently affordable...

You know, Jack, we spend 3/4 of a trillion dollars here and 3/4 of a trillion dollars there, and pretty soon it adds up to real money.

Jack Roberts, paul g., et al fail to address the key point in the Paul Craig Roberts piece I reference above as well as in Eric Janszen's piece in Harper's that I referenced in an earlier thread. This is the point: the credit crunch is a symptom of the market's inability to cope with the extreme over-valuation of real estate that has become the dominant force in our economy, and the credit situation cannot be righted without dealing with that over-valuation, which is in the range of $10-12 trillion.

Roberts writes:

University of Maryland economist Herman E. Daly points out that the current crisis is really one of the “overgrowth of financial assets relative to growth of real wealth.” Daly believes that “financial assets have grown by a large multiple of the real economy” and that “paper exchanging for paper is now 20 times greater than exchanges of paper for real commodities.” Exploding debt liens have simply outgrown the wealth.

The problem, in other words, cannot be bailed out. Historically, debt that cannot be redeemed has been repealed by inflation. The same inflation that wipes out debt will wipe out savings.

A failed bailout is the worst possible outcome. The chance of failure rises if the US government tries to turn bad private debt into good public debt without regard to the expansion of the public debt.

Unless supporters of a bailout of bad paper address this issue, their words are no more than blather.

Chris L said, "You're right that he says voting for Obama isn't the answer. But he also says voting for Nader or anyone else isn't either."

I don't subscribe to everything Reed says in his article, most obviously his attitude toward voting for Nader. However, his primary thesis is devoted to the subject of "Where Obamaism Seems to be Going", and he is really pissed off at Obama and those of his supporters who make "less evil" arguments in favor of supporting him:

"What makes the Dems every four years 'better' is always something that the hacks and yuppies are likely to imagine getting if they win, and their disgusting moralizing about the imperative to vote for their 'lesser evil'...means 'I may get what's important for me, but you have to recognize that what you need is naïve or impractical' -- is all about bullying the rest of us into believing we have an obligation to vote for what's good for them."

Although I also felt the sting of Reed's criticisms, it is worth repeating that he supported Nader in 2000, as many of the Nader detractors on BO have also admitted to. And it's difficult to argue that Obama's rightward lurches are less than those of Gore's or Kerry's, which is why Reed argues that each election cycle is "...moving the boundaries of thinkable liberalism that much farther to the right."

You are misleading in your claim that, "As for differences on issues the matter to progressives being nil, you make a circular argument, since by definition in the way you argue, to disagree with you makes one 'not a progressive.'" I never have said that "to disagree with me is not to be a progressive", even if you have inferred that. I disagree with Nader, Chomsky, Zinn, etc. about some things, but I do not conclude that they therefore are not progressive. Obama's performance on those issues that fall under the rubric of corporatism and militarism, including his woeful response to the bailout, have nothing to do with progressivism, however.

Furthermore, I disagree with your interpretation of Obama's health care plan. Like McCain's, his proposals would negatively affect health care outcomes, and your former provider, David Himmelstein, agrees with me.

I agree with you about EFCA, and I have never said that there are NO differences between McBama, just that the differences will not help to prevent the destruction of our economy and our environment that we are witnessing, nor will it reduce the suffering that we are causing to countless people around the world through our militarism. Like the bailout, Obama's other policies at best will slow down the devolution toward chaos and pain, not stop it.

Finally, I once again call your attention to the fact that we can chew gum and shoot moose at the same time. My support for Nader and his issues in no way makes me opposed to movement building, just as Reed's support for Nader did not signal that he was opposed to movement building in 2000.

Those who are paying attention will realize that the events of the past week make coalition building between fair-minded conservatives and progressives much more likely. (Ron Paul is calling for voters to reject the duopoly and vote for a third party candidate.) I also attended the Jobs for Justice demonstration a few days ago, and I was disappointed in our failure to join with those to our right, who are just as pissed off as we are (I hope you're pissed off). David Sirota's analysis of uprising is cogent, and we should be ready to take advantage of it.

Chris: You're having trouble reading again. Here's what I said: "Obama is a corporatist and a militarist whose differences with McCain on most issues important to progressives are NIL."

I also corrected Dave O'Dell about his misreading of the same remark. The rest of your argument is one which you've made several times to me, and I just disagree with you. For a time, you seemed to be coming around to a reasonable position on the disturbing right-wing campaign of Obama, but now you've returned to your regressive former stance. Too bad.

<h2>What about "most issues" do you guys not understand? You're making yourselves look foolish.</h2>