Baillout = Further Capitalist Oligarchy?
 

Certainly no one in their right mind could say that the middle class has been attacked, the wealth is continuing to shift to the hands of the super wealthy few, and that the average man or woman are working in someone else's market. As of 2004, 62.3% of business assets were owned by the wealthiest 1% of the wealth distribution. The next wealthiest 4%? They owned an additional 22.4% of the total. And here's something ever scarier: 93.7% of all bonds are held by these people.
(citation link, in pdf format: http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/f.../200613pap.pdf)

We've all been talking about the recent bailout as a part of a failure in oversight. I myself thought that too, at first. Still, the ultimate effect of this bailout will mean more tax dollars ending up in the hands of the super wealthy. The financial institutions that have collapsed and that are collapsing overstretched their capital. They ignored the amount of shareholder equity when they take on assets, which is insane.

So what should the government be doing? Sell the bank's assets and liabilities as a package, and get rid of the debt to bondholders. The current bailout will ultimately prove to be another failure in government decision making, and it will line the pockets of the unscrupulous and incompetent leaders of these industries.

Could this misstep by the government be intentional? Could they be bailing out the super wealthy intentionally, ignoring an obvious, more economically reasonable solution? I honestly can't say.

I'm left in the frustrated position I've found myself in ever since I became interested in politics: are they incompetent or corrupt?

So what do you think?

If the question is incompetent or corrupt, I'm going with incompetent.

People are just that for the most part. Incompetent. Yes, there is the cream of the crop, but they aren't really what we are talking about, and the corrupt, they are generally eventually caught if they are corrupt enough. Towing the line and such, well fine, that's not really corrupt, maybe more nepotism or "friends" than anything.

I will say that there are many good people out there, and there are many more good people out there who aren't willing to give more than they are already in sense of time and resources. As a member of a BoD, we can't get good people who are interested in running to govern the business. People rather complain that we are a corrupt board and kvetch than actually roll up their sleeves and dig in. I'm taking the same extrapolation to politics and other forms of businesses.

I think we have to be careful of "class warfare". The statistics you cite are a bit misleading. For example, General Motors has a market capitalization (shares outstanding X share price) of about $7.4 billion. The report would show the "rich" owning that. However, the pension liability of GM is $11.4 billion. Most of that is payable to blue collar workers in the form of pension payments, your report excludes that wealth.

The beast is well and truly starved now.

I realize that it makes sense that they're just incompetent. My first thought was "Reaganomics strikes again". But the truth is that there was something nefarious about the inevitable outcome of freeing up the market and drastically reducing regulation. Considering how rich some people can get off the lack of regulation via less than ethical business practices, is it really so unbelievable that this kind of thing could be intentional?
Yes, but GM is just one massive failure among many. Asset ownership is bunched at the very top of income distribution, certainly you can't argue that's not the case.

I know you're a free market capitalist, but surly you can see where there could be a problem with having a small group of individuals owning most of the wealth to an overall society.

Looking at other countries as a lead in business and wealth distribution, I don't see anything wrong. People can invest in their wealth, or they can buy adidas, escalades, and HDTVs. No, most people aren't interested in building wealth. Consumerism shows that. Savings accounts show that.

It's not the case, many pension funds are the largest owners of assets, that's why they have huge worries when shareholders decide to change where and how they invest. These funds are held by teachers, factory workers, building supervisors, doormen, actors, and other union members.

The most economically stable and successful markets are clearly in Northern Europe, and they're much more "socialist" (slightly more regulated markets and more social programs) than we are. If we're going to try and imitate those that are the most successful, shouldn't we be adopting a more European way of government and economics? Shouldn't we be investing in single-payer health care instead of buying out market failures? Shouldn't we steal Luxembourg's incredible education system model instead of insane programs like NCLB?

Statistically speaking, pensions aren't as big a chunk of investments as one might think. At that absolute most, they're maybe 10-15% of all assets. Considering how many pensions are out there, that's pretty tiny.

I'm not interested in rehashing out the particulars of healthcare or education in this thread. There are plenty we've debated them and this seems to be one I'm not going to dilute your OP with.

re: the pensions, can you verfiy that claim please. As far as I can tell it's large, here's an example of two of the largest:

Bear market bites CalPERS and CalSTRS pension funds | Money & Company | Los Angeles Times

From the OP:
62.3 + 22.4 = 84.7%, 100%-84.7% = 15.3% remaining.

Pension plans suffer huge losses - Jul. 7, 2008

Not quite sure what the total is, because if what your math reads, then we're close to quadrillion in the assets? (sorry very very bad at math)

I'm using the most recent data, available for 2004. As of 2004, there was a total of about $1.002T. I can't imagine it going up nearly 1000x in 4 years, so some of the data must be off.

CalPERS can't be 1/4 of the market.

calpers can't but there are many pension funds, and 401k, 503, all those should be lumped into there as well.

Host knows this stuff a lot better than I do.

this kind of problem explains why i keep going to the level of ideology to make sense of what's been happening.
what was the framework that enabled the conservative wing of the american political monoculture to advocate dismantling regulations, that made the opposition between "government" and "markets" seem sane, that enabled people to seriously believe that "growth" is a constant and on that basis to systematically underestimate/undervalue/undersell to themselves and others risk?
what on earth, in the face of the entire history of actually existing capitalism, enabled the conservative wing of the american political monoculture to make the claim "markets are rational" with a straight face, and even more bewildering, how was that taken seriously?

because outside this general ideological framework, none of this makes any sense.
and if you say "there are nice people out there" then you have even more reason to look for an explanation--what enabled these "nice people" to buy into the conditions of possibility for a fiasco of this magnitude?

i don't think it's a matter of "insufficient oversight"--i think this is an expression of the lunacy of the whole of neoliberalism, the whole of the worldview that's dominated the american political climate since the reagan period concerning the nature of capitalism.

the current outlines of the bailout plan are obviously flawed, and they won't be passed in the form they've been discussed since thursday night. i don't expect anything before congressional hearings scheduled for wednesday.

I've been asking this same question since freshman economics. If anyone ever gives you a straight answer, please share it with the rest of us.

Historical distance from the Great Depression perhaps. Even folks in their eighties would have only experienced it as children. I think too that 1970s libertarians & neoliberals profited from new left critiques of the postwar state.

Neoliberal dogmatists are now saying that the bailout will be like Nixon's price controls will prolong the slump, that democratic intervention (through, say, Congress imposing conditions on the bailout or regulating financial markets) will be a Bad Thing. It's something like market royalism or market transcendentalism, where other structures of power have to be parallel to the market's. If we have a transcendental market we need a transcendental Treasury, transcendental executive. It seems to imply similar attitudes toward authority.
-----Added 22/9/2008 at 05 : 43 : 47-----
If people didn't buy shit, the whole fucking thing would collapse. Morally upright capitalists with savings accounts would suffer.

Among other things, savings accounts show that real wages are low.

I'm not advocating stopping spending all together. I'm talking about spending in moderation, and buying with CASH instead of credit.

One doesn't need to buy a new car every 3 years. Many people are caught in the leasing trap. How many new TVs does one need? Consumer electronics are notorious for making one feel the need to buy and buy and buy to have the latest and greatest items.

this link take you to 2007 census information on income, poverty & health insurance--the data's linked at the top, followed by a series of interpretations.

Economist's View: New Census Data on Poverty, Income, and Health Insurance

there is a difference between structural features and statements about subjective dispositions or attitudes--the latter can operate in any number of structural configurations. this one, which has taken shape since the beginning of the bush period, show working people's incomes stagnating, poverty rates higher, the number of uninsured people up---this beneath the massaged data you get from the administration's permanent campaign machine, which a cynical fellow would call propaganda--but i am not a cynical fellow.

there is no morally upright capitalism at the structural level, but there's a potentially infinite series of bromides that function to blame the poor for being poor, as if structural conditions didn't exist. i don't think there's a moral capitalism at all, except in some candyland version.

put this in the context of the bailout, and it spells class warfare.
nothing moral about that shit.

I think I was going in circles there for a moment.

FYI, the CalPERS info:
Asset Allocation

The wealthiest 5% (w5) own 65.9% of that particular class of assets (common stocks) but a much higher percentage of non-publicly traded business assets. That explains the higher number in the business asset category.

The w5 may own a smaller part of common stocks because they're less secure. During a crash like we're seeing, the common stocks go first. After that come preferred stock holders, and then bond holders are fine because the lesser holders cushion the effect. And as you go from common stocks to bonds, the percentage of ownership in the w5 increases from about 65% up to about 93%.

Fine, i don't have any problem with that, but realise that the system as it is -- and that includes our own livliehoods -- depends on unsustainable levels of consumption. It is unsustainable environmentally, but also on its own terms. The economy has depended on consumption, and that in turn depends on consumer credit. It's insane, but that's the way it is -- or was.

If you want to move your argument beyond moralising -- bad, stupid people doing bad, stupid things -- you need to talk about how they can live differently.

The system as it became. People were not the conspicuous consumers that I've seen when I was growing up in the 70's. There aren't 10 different versions of The Usual Suspects that people seem to have to need to own each and every variation.

It is insane. So while people are worrying about how are they now going to pay for things, since their mortgage ATM ran dry, it's on them to figure out how to stop living paycheck to paycheck.

I can't do much about it. I make some popcorn and watch Suze Orman's Can I Afford this segment and laugh my ass off... stupid people.

No, they were buying pet rocks or troll dolls or AMC Pacers or lining up to see Star Wars for the 37th time. Consumerism is not a recent invention.

TV is the consumerist media par excellence. It presumes overconsumption, which means that if you really want to feel superior, you're going to have to ditch the TV.

I reject the notion that Capitalism is the problem here. The idea is synonymous with 'free market' meaning free of government intervention, and we are talking about the GOVERNMENT bailing out these corporations.

There would be no bail out under a capitalistic economy.

The really scary thing is how this bailout is being executed.

Some quotes from early drafts of the bailout:

No it isn't but the gluttonous consumer of today is new. it wasn't alive in the 70s.

Licensing and merchandising products are huge businesses, it did not exist in the 70's in this manner at all. One doesn't need to have some licensed cartoon character slapped onto their box of cereal, yogurt, burger, soda, tshirt, pencil, videogame on 4 different systems resulting in 4 different game experiences, direct to video release, books, magazines, theatrical plays, and other tie ins.

Personally, I think it's an easy trap to blame consumerism on this problem. Yes, we Americans are quite materialistic and buy too much, and pay for it with what we don't have. What's often forgotten is that consumerism is a two way street. Our consumption helps others prosper, and if we aren't consuming, somebody's not prospering. After all, who else is going to buy up their stuff?

Therefore, I think it's good for us to buy stuff. We get their products, they get our money, they use it to buy their own products and give their money to others, and eventually the money does find its way back to us and the financial circle of life continues.

The abundance of credit, however, skewers this harmonious circle. At the heart of a capitalist system is the law of supply and demand. Sellers raise the price of goods based on high demand, low supply, or they lower it based on low demand, high supply.

In the absense of credit, if an item was priced too high, a consumer would simply not purchase it, or save up intil they have the funds to make that purchase. This results in a low demand for an item, and if the demand is low enough, sellers would be forced to reduce the price to a point that it is more attractive to the buyer. With the availability of credit and the attractive lure of buying now, and paying later, a seller does not have to reduce the price of his goods. The financiers who supplied credit to the buyer pay for the item, and the buyer is now under obligation to repay to that financier.

This creates the appearance of a win/win situation for both the buyer and the seller. The buyer has an item that under the terms of finance, can repay the financier in a timely manner, while the seller now has high demand and does not have to reduce the price of his goods to compensate for what was once a low demand for his product. In other words, the availability of easy credit has altered the system to the point that many goods have now been priced too high to be purchased without the availibility of credit.

On the surface, this appears to be a win/win situation for both the buyer and the seller. The buyer gets his product with the freedom to repay the financier in a timely manner, and the seller now has high demand for his products. Products that would not sell without the assistance of a financier.

This brings us to the current state of the financial crisis. Creditors, fearful of lending money to parties who may not be in a position to pay them back, have stopped lending. This takes the freedom of purcase away from the buyers. This takes the ability of sellers to sell their products at high prices. And this is why I cannot agree with the federal government's $700B bailout.

Listening to today's testimony, if all goes well, the injection of cash into the financial markets would spur confidence in financiers to make loans to businesses and consumers and get the wheels of the economy moving. It would also give financiers the ability to put more people into more debt, which is what got us into trouble in the first place.

It's very easy to say that our voracious desire and the greed of lendors got us into this mess. It is a contributing factor, but not the root cause. Credit, and the easy availability of it is the culprit. Prices have gone up, wages have not. The end result is that there are very few items that a consumer can purchase without putting himself into debt. The question shouldn't be "why are you buying that expensive TV?" but "why is this TV so expensive that you have to put yourself in debt to purchase it?" This bailout plan does nothing to address this fundamental issue of havoc unleashed on that basic law of supply and demand by easy credit. Until we understand how the overabundance of credit has destroyed this very basic law of capitalism, this issue will never be resolved.

- Just my miseducated rantings, what do I know, I just have a phd (plain high-school diploma)

We work for them, making their products.
They give us money.
We buy their products and give them their money back.

They give us credit.
We buy their products with their money that we worked for making their products, plus we give them a little bit more.

They make some bad decisions.
We give them their money that we worked for, and more in relief, and we dont buy their products because

they have all their money.

I agree with this analogy in many ways. Another point to consider is that the government (dems and repubs, congress and the president) allowed, encouraged, enticed, and intimidated mortgage companies to give bad loans to grossly under-qualified individuals... some victims, some stupid.

When we define the "they", it gets murky when we consider the full impact of the failed sub-prime market. The domino effect on finance and cash to corporations is the immediate fallout. Do we really want to depend on another government "solution"? We may need a stop gap shoring up to prevent a total collapse, but I should expect no less than the Enron Treatment with full investigations of government and business leaders. Along with sobering reflection and resolution, heads should role... fines and prison time.

"They" really do have all of our money. Can we really trust "them" (gov and biz) to do the right thing if complicit to the core? What is the correct and equitable solution? What information are getting that we know is truthful? Who can we trust? What do we have, what are we getting?

sorry for the rambling questions... just little pissed about this whole responsibility to the people thing... or lack of

Why are you ignoring a flaw in the data you cite? Reading the report they clearly explained what they excluded and I gave an example where the ownership of a major corporation is in essence flipped to the advantage of the "working class". I also gave the benefit of using market capitalization compared to actual shareholder equity as measured in the balance sheet which is negative. Investors who "own" GM actually own nothing, a big zero.

In terms of me being a capitalist, I think the goal of everyone should be to own income producing assets. I think wealth would in fact be more evenly distributed if more people participated in capitalism. People who don't save and invest only relying on their labor, will by definition end up with nothing. Even if I agree with your premise, I disagree with your answer.

I think this is a very complete answer to your questions. It's just hard to find on NBC, CBS, or ABC.


Congrats to Obama for essentially being "present" on the issue.

Necrosis, I think this gives a clear indication that the ideology behind neo-liberalism, is not held by one party alone. The fact that Obama has economist on his team from the Chicago School of Economics is equally troubling to me.

"The conservative wing of the american political monoculture" appeared twice, and appeared to be equated to neoliberalism. Is there anyone at all who would refer to Barney Frank and Charles Schumer using these terms?

Why heck... I'm a card carrying member!

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3236/...9acd4aa4ac.jpg

Why resort to intellectualism when we can use stereotypes?

i was talking about neoliberalism as an economic ideology---the reason to write about a monoculture is because it is the shared ideology of both major parties, which fight with each other mostly over questions of tactics. i don't see much in the way of a difference between the two major parties, which is why monoculture seems appropriate.


it's a bit confusing to see this mangled by otto and necrosis in such a way as to turn it around into some "stereotype" which is about some random subjective attitude they impute to me (which is the actual center of what a stereotype is when it is applied) in order to then be able to whine about how they've been "stereotyped"---the source of this is that neither of them understood the word ideology and so both entirely misread what i posted.

it doesn't matter to me personally--i just find it kinda funny,

rb, I think this is endemic to the way discussions happen here specifically in the politics forum.

the talking past each other...

cyn--in this, the politics forum simply repeats the larger characteristics of us political life--the right has framed itself as an identity politics for a very long time, complete with a private language and a cast of persecuting phantoms--and this has nothing to do with individual conservatives, which elements they take from the rack of options, which ones they leave aside---one effect of identity politics in this mode is to encourage and even to set up talking-past as a substitute for debate.

when you react to it by saying that premise x or y is fucked up, or bizarre, or simply inadequate, the response is rarely if ever to defend the premise--instead, because this is a matter of identity and not one of framework that lets you group information about the world, what you get is this trending toward being-insulted or being-pissy---or , more often, tiresome exercises in passive-aggressive nonsense like happened here. and it happens all the time in this place because it happens all the time in the wider context becauses it is an expression of the contempt for democratic debate on the part of the folk who organize and build conservative political discourse.

because conservative discourse lumps together everything that it not itself as the Same, as an Enemy, there is little hope that most folk who operate within that language game will expend the effort to try to figure out what one might be saying or from what position they might work---but if you say as much, then you "aren't taking conservatives seriously" or your "litigating" or you're doing something else---it's all kinda weak and sad and more than a little pathetic. i would prefer that things were otherwise, because i have nothing personally against individuals who happen to be conservative, except that they cannot defend their politics. and this would be a lot more interesting and open a place if there was more symmtery in the kinds of arguments that the various political positions folk occupy allowed. and i mean it that way--it's not a strange sentence.

but such is the state of things.
this forum doesn't invent it--it's just a little fishbowl in which the bigger problems repeat themselves.
but if you want to understand something of why the collapse of the derivatives market has become the kind of crisis that it is, you might think about the rigidity of neoliberalism, particularly in its conservative american variant--the total inability to think outside a particular frame of reference because, again, it is not a frame but an identity that's at stake.

QFT!

Thanks Otto!
-----Added 25/9/2008 at 09 : 35 : 39-----
Also QFT!

The bailout has officially failed in the House.

The GOP are now being called unpatriotic, when even Dem Reps voted against it. This has reelection ramifications and Presidential ramifications.

If it were so great, why are even some Dems so against it?

By whom?

Anyone have the Yes/No chart to show how they voted. I think it would be really funny if McCain and Obama both voted for this bill.

edit: Duh just realized it was house version...

Pelosi herself.

Subsidies and bailouts are enablers to bad behavior. The bailout provisions extended way beyond Wall Street and lacked complete transparency. The calls and letters to their representatives were overwhelmingly against the current bill. The Democrats could have passed this on their own, but are claiming no fault in it's failing.

Let the spin begin.

I'd rather them suck it up like grownups and get back to work on a solution.

-----Added 29/9/2008 at 03 : 10 : 30-----
This was only in front of the House today... it would've been interesting to see their votes if it made it to the Senate.

If that's true, she's an idiot. "Unpatriotic" is language used by idiots to try and control other idiots.

at bottom, this is mostly an indication of the disintegration of the republicans around the disintegration of the neoliberal economic ideology around which the party refashioned itself since the reagan period first made this idiocy fashionable in the states amongst the rightwing set. unable to figure out how to square their obsolete worldview with a reality that will not conform to it, the republicans went all bartelby---"i'd prefer not to"--as if that is going to salvage them.

what's worse is that the bill itself was a patchwork, composed very very quickly because of the way the bush administration---also republican--chose to not deal with this as it was taking shape.

it is also a breakdown--from the right--of the bush administration's preferred governance from a state of emergency rhetoric.
tomorrow is october 1---let's hope that this does not issue into a declaration that democracy cannot be trusted to resolve problems like this and that a real state of emergency is being declared.
it's not outside the realm of possibility at this point.

The failure sits squarely with current House leadership. If Pelosi did not have the votes, she should not have called for a vote. If Pelosi did not have the votes she should not have given a partisan speech blaming Republicans. If Obama was a leader he would have been involved rather than mocking McCain for trying to get House Republicans on-board. Perhaps, Americans will wake-up to the damaging blame game being played in Washington.

the republican leadership assumed it had the votes.
it's hard to believe the spin they're putting out about pelosi's fucking speech.
if this is such a Big Deal, you'd think that this sort of nonsense wouldn't matter, wouldn't you?

i sense more petty self-interested games from the republicans, personally---but really in
politic terms, this is a shambles. there's plenty of blame to go everywhere. and there's no point in pursuing it, to my mind...


i suppose the more interesting question is what do you think can or should be done now?
what exactly is the problem that this doing is to be about?
how do you think things should proceed--putting aside the debacle that was the floor vote if you like.
or we can talk about that, because it just happened--i just dont think it's terribly substantive as a topic.
your call, comrades.

We should exhume and revive FDR.

so i take it you mean to say you have no ideas.

oops -edit- originally responded to wrong post.

Solutions:
management by crisis always leads to unintended consequences. I'd like see a more measured approach with clear benchmarks and metrics.

Send in a team of SixSigma Master Blackbelts, they'll have this mess permanently straightened out in a year or two.

-----Added 29/9/2008 at 04 : 05 : 28-----
NO!

sorry Will.

Who me? I have plenty of ideas, but I'm also just a 25 year old kid from San Jose. I've tried to get Pelosi to listen to me before, and I've found that it's like flagging down a comet. She's looking out for herself, just like every other useless ponce in government. They're looking for something that makes them look re-electable, but most of the voting public don't really understand the ins and outs of what's going on.

's fine---i think i got distracted by the image of an undead fdr.....

McCain clearly did not think this was true. House Republicans were not brought to the table early on. When McCain made this an issue he was insulted and claims made about his motives without consideration for the underlying issue.

The speech was the last straw. I was watching CSPAN as she gave the speech, even I was offended.

Then there are the details in the bill - one, being the government renegotiation of individual loan terms. This provision is the dumbest provision in legislation I have seen in awhile. It basically says if you are in default you get rewarded - hence why not have everyone go into default even people willing and able to pay their loans?

I would not have voted for the bill.

I find it interesting the differences between Republicans and Democrats. The Iraq war vote, the issue was also presented by the administration in a manner indicating an urgent need. Democrats voted in favor of the authority without giving it adequate thought and later regretted the vote. I respect the Republicans who are standing firm, if they do vote in favor of the legislation I doubt they will say later that they were forced or lied too.


Take the time to do it right or don't do it. If some firms fail so be it. The sun will rise the next day.
Panic. Never make major decision under duress. It is always better to take extra time. the administration over-sold its case. That was obvious. The economy is fundamentally strong, but no one has the courage to say it.

i just read the speech. i don't see why you'd be offended by it. it is surreal to me that the republicans are so touchy about this sort of description of the heritage they have to assume, like it or not, as a function of their support for the bush administration that they would be willing to risk exacerbating a panicky situation by voting against the bill---this quite apart from the problems i thought the bill had when i read through it this morning (over coffee---i don;t know what i was thinking--i really think i am the world's dullest human sometimes)...the way this has been pitched by most of the political class--including cowboy george--is as an unpleasant necessity. the republicans bolted. i don't see it as noble--i see it as partisan. they were collectively snippy about pelosi's speech and more interested in trying to fry her than in going along with their own party leadership.

to be clear about this, i find it funny more than anything else.
i don't have the axe to grind in it that you might think, ace.

The bi-partisan bill had WH support, support of a large number of Republican Senators and support of about a third of the House Republicans; the alternative "let the free market fix it" bill offered by the intransigent Republicans in the House was even rejected by the WH.

The bi-partisan bill stinks...everyone knows that, but most in Congress have put partisanship aside. No one will score points back home by voting for the bill. What the cadre of the most conservative House Republicans (the bunch with the "Country First" slogan) are doing is politics at its worst.

I was offended primarily by the level of dishonesty regarding the root cause of the problem.

I was offended by the injection of partisan politics by the leader of the house at a time when both parties needed to work together. A wiser leader would have left the partisan commentary for others.

When the administration laid out the problem and their recommendation they did not make it a partisan issue, Democrats did starting from the very first reaction.

Democrats in my view are in part responsible for the "panic" that is in the market. The constant drum beat of doom and gloom from the left is disturbing. My gut is telling me that they want failure so they can make further political gains. Pelosi's speech confirmed that for me, I was offended. I am tired of it.

Like I wrote earlier, perhaps the bill is not as good as it could be. I suggested that we take the needed time to get it right. I don't like people saying they had no choice. I my book either support the legislation or vote against it - don't tell me you are against it but that you are voting for it. Republicans in the House have taken a stand. Pelosi and the Democrats don't need those votes - they have the numbers to do what they think is right.

$700 billion is basically nothing in relationship to the total value of US mortgage obligations. This legislation is not necessary, it is one possible mean to address the market panic. Analogy Alert...Analogy Alert...:rolleyes: It is like our financial market is constipated, not dying, not near death, not with a serious disease, but constipated. We could take a laxitive - i.e. the bailout plan, Or, we could eat some oat meal with prunes and drink some grape juice. The laxitive may work and it may work faster, but that doesn't mean it is the only solution. Analogy over...Analogy over...:oogle:

yes/no result of the house bailout vote:

Democrats
140 (yes) 95 (no)

Republicans
65 (yes) 133 (no)

Once again the greedy self serving republicans blew it for everyone!

I can't wait to vote them ... out ... of ... control ... of the House... of... uhhhhh

... uhhhhh ...

(insert drool here)

:uhh:

A Republican President proposes a bill.
A majority of Democrats support the President.
A majority of Republicans vote against their own President.

I don't understand why anyone would blame the Democrats. Maybe if the votes were reversed. It seems like Bush did well getting the support of so many Democrats.

Although the president was for passing the bill, Is it possible that the bill was flawed or just needed more work? The combined 228 republicans and democrats who voted against it apparently thought so.

Why has this turned into a partisan blame game? It looks to me like a bipartisan majority of 228 "Americans" came together to do what they believed was right.

I am glad this was voted down but I'd like to know more of the reasoning behind the "why". I bet there are a number of different reasons.

I haven't read all the reasons yet but my satellite TV is broken and I can only get FOX News and they had McCain, Rove and others blaming the Democrats for not passing this necessary bill.

Leave it to Rove to find a way to turn actual numbers that show the Republicans voted it down into a positive.

Well, they couldn't vote for it. Their delicate sensibilities had been insulted by Nancy Pelosi.

Man... this is all over the place. Getting past who to blame?

Which of the law makers can effectively and completely articulate what the emergency is? Who of any of these leaders can tell us how the bill would cure the problem? Out of all that voted on the bill actually read it? In the amount of time from when it was released to roll-call, I seriously doubt the majority of the representatives studied and critiqued the approximately 120 pages. Why are so many upset that the bill wasn't passed today? What were the expectations? How is the problem defined and what precise and measurable course of action is out lined in these measures? This is what we should be demanding! We should expect no less.

In this minuscule point regarding a pointless piece of legislation which will be counter-productive at best, I hereby wish it to be noted that I agree with ottopilot.

;)

2 groups of Wall Street financed, wailing morons, whipped into congress to do Their Master's bidding. They didn't, only because their jackal instincts told some they'd lose their place in the skulk if they did.

well, it seems that the situation is not exactly rational--panic isn't.
there is no particularly clear explanation of the overall situation because the overall situation is not visible yet---for example, in the context of the trade in debt futures, banks had taken to accounting practices that might charitably be described as arbitrary--so there's no real sense of the amounts that are involved here, the range of institutions involved, or even really of the implications of it.

what is clear is the sequence of failures over the past 2 months, accelerating in the past couple weeks, which has created its own momentum quite apart from whatever the magnitude of the underlying problems.

what is clear is that the amount of money that the treasury/federal reserve layed out in the context of these collapses stretched that system to its limit, with the edge being reached after the aig move.

what is clear is that the bush administration has fucked things up politically to an amazing extent, and that the actions undertaken by paulsen have been surreal in their political ineptitude and content-free arrogance. (what the talking head set is pointing to as the signal of Trouble was the decision to let lehmann brothers tank. i am not sure about that myself, but that's what they're saying.)

what is clear is that the bush administration's affection for operating in an ad hoc manner in the context of an emergency didn't work for them this time. such are the consequences of the previous 7 years.

what is clear is that by thursday last, the republican study committee had begun organizing a little revolt that they staged in the photo-op with cowboy george and the presidential candidates, which may not in itself have been a bad thing, but which sent thing hurtling into the weekend with this bizarre expectation abroad that a comprehensive program would be drafted to address a situation the extent of which no-one seems to know about.

what is clear now is that this is a fucking mess.
we can demand whatever you think "we" want, but the fact is that things are devolving at a very rapid pace and it may well be that less-terrible, flexible action may have to be set into motion before everything is worked out--what i think would help is a kind of continuous process that would adapt the programs and aims as the situation stabilized away from panic and information is gathered about what is actually being taken on.

more broadly, it think it is time to set neoliberalism on fire, but that's been equally true for a while now. i'd like to have a party to celebrate the end of it, once it seems more well and truly dead.

Sadly RB it is just such times as these, times of crisis, that neo-liberalism tends to thrive. Based on that, I have to admit that I was surprised this bailout didn't go through. That said, my gut tells me the legislation didn't pass because there were too many strings attached...

I don't have enough to go on information-wise (bit of a black hole here sometimes) so all I can go on is my gut (and that can be wrong).

If the interwebs still work, i'll setup a webcam or two and we can have a transatlantic tfp+ neoliberalist death-by-clusterfuck happening.

Death to neoliberalism? Why didn't you say so...
Let's Par-tay!



... YAY!!!

A glimpse of Sarah Palin's brain.

THE HORROR.

Here's another trailer from the same film...



[/video fun threadjack]

To blame 1 party is wrong and truly just lying to the people. But what else is new?

95 DEMOCRATS voted AGAINST the passage. All they needed were 12 of those DEMS voting no to vote YES and they had it. I do not see how it was just the GOP that took the bailout down. It's a lie to even IMPLY such a thing and it is a tactic to goad and bully those DEMS who voed NO because they did not believe in the package to change their vote.

This is pathetic and another reason why I am thoroughly disgusted with the party I used to love.

You speak of Rove..... he could never pull off what Pelosi and the House DEM leadership pulled off. Blaming the other party???????? Why not look and see why it failed and change it instead of blaming people for why it failed and why even it's supporters were cringing in support of it?

Here's the OHIO Roll call o their votes: More OHIO Dems voted AGAINST it then for it...... The only 7 who voted for it are all retiring this year INCLUDING GOP House Minority leader John Boehner.

The $700 billion Wall Street bailout plan unpopular among Ohio delegation - OPENERS - Ohio Politics Blog by The Plain Dealer



http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll674.xml

Um Pan? I wasn't placing blame. In fact, I have been pretty clear in a number of threads that I am not clear on where the blame lies, or even if there is one reason.

My post was an observation that Rove is able to spin like nobody's business.

Given that it appears that the Republicans sank this deal (at least that is what I am reading here and in the international press) it is not a surprise that spin doctor Rove would be out there doing what he does best.

Sounds to me you are buying the BS that the GOP sank it.

95 DEMS voted against it. 40% of the DEMS VOTED NO All the Dems needed were 12 of those 95 to pass it..... IT'S A PIECE OF SHIT ACT AND BLAMING THE GOP IS WRONG.

Kucinich voted against it for God's sake and you can't get much farther away from GOP agreement than Kucinich and you know that. So how is this not passing just the GOP's fault????????

Spin it Nancy baby spin it.


And I'm just saying that the DEMS are spinning this one worse than Rove has spun anything in a very long time.

You can't talk about Rove spinning shit when the DEMS are trying so hard to sell us that it was the GOP that put the breaks on the bailout. IT WASN'T.

I am just pointing this out.

Something is extremely foul with the whole thing when even 40% of the DEMS are voting against this bailout Pelosi is so high on.

I'm not meaning to attack Charlatan..... but like I said it's not just Rove who is good on the spin and the fact the DEMS are trying hard to spin it as a GOP problem needs to be thoroughly exposed and shown.

THE BAILOUT SUCKS AND THEY NEED A NEW PLAN.

Let's put it this way Pan... they are both in the business of getting elected and they are going to, "Spin, Baby Spin"

I am not bathing in the 24/7 news coverage that is available in the US so I am not as up on who is spinning what as some are. My comment was more along the lines of... leave it to Rove to spin shit into gold. It's what he does best.

For my money a bailout is essential at this late date. The system needs an infusion or it will collapse. End of story.

The issue now is what form it will take. I think these sorts of details will tell you just why the current legislation failed. Unfortunately, there is too much finger pointing going on to get to the meat of why this version of the legislation failed. There is too little information for any of us to actually say whether or not we agree or disagree with the rejection.

I suspect that we won't get the full behind the scenes story of these heady days for another 20 to 30 years.

at this point, i don't particularly care which faction of the oligarchy is responsible for the particular farce that was yesterday's house vote--though i am concerned by the effects of it--as i think anyone is.

my references to neoliberalism are to the ideology that is not only the condition of possibility for this mess, but which also seems a significant obstacle to addressing it----listening to the various televised mea culpa/everybody has to live together why can't we live together moments on television, your 24/7 source of ideology, it was clear that neoliberal assumptions in various guises were being evoked to rationalize opposing the deal, which NO-ONE was arguing was great, but which most thought necessary---because the obvious obtains: this is not just a melt-down of a sector of the banking system now---it is a Problem that is affecting credit flows within and into the united states which will soon begin affecting the entirety of the debt circulation system--which is a structural component of the american economic edifice. what's driving this is panic caused by (a) the sequence of institutional failures AND (b) the inept ad hoc responses of the bush administration's treasury/federal reserve to them. what yesterday seems to me to have demonstrated is that the american system now appears to be a problem as a whole---and not just the bush administration---and the extent of that problem is a direct function of the extent to which there is a separation between that system as such and the neoliberal ideology which has been its dominant political language--and by extension its dominant way of thinking--for 30 odd years. so from a system viewpoint, it seems that the more rapid the particularity of this ideology becomes manifest within the us, the greater the possibility of a separation between the american system as such and the particular problems caused and continued by neoliberalism as an ideology WITHIN that system.

another way of looking at this: the americans (us--you know, the united states) is finding itself hoisted by it's own way of marketing neoliberalism and its correlate in globalizing capitalism as "american capitalism" or "free markets" as "american"---now the theater that's unfolding can be interpreted as that ideological formation being hoisted up a yardarm by its own petard, a variant of that old saw "live by the sword die by the sword".....

but if that's the case, then what probably has to happen is a period of ideological de-programming--which is easy enough if you think about it---people like to believe what they are told they already believe and so if you tell them they now believe something else because what they believed before resulted in both Problems such that the consequences outweighed the good, they'll come along eventually. but the proof will have to be what they see happening around them. so it's not inevitable. but people believe this neoliberal nonsense because it's been repeated at them from all sides for a long time, so deprogramming seems possible as well---but in the shorter run the pressure--tick tick tick---is now really on to fashion SOMETHING that makes the americans APPEAR coherent when the fact is that the dominant ideology prevents that from being the case.

there needs to be a package of some kind passed through congress to generate the appearance of action very very quickly. all this free market principle horseshit has to go by the boards. we'll see if the people who comprise the system have the stomach for it soon enough.

Politics is often not very pretty.

The agreement was that the both parties would take the hit for a bad, but necessary (in some form) bill..the Democrats would bring more than 60% of their members to the table and the Republicans would bring more than 40% of their members....with both understanding that some members will not be on board. The Democrats followed through, the Republicans did not

....and not because they had a last minute change of heart on the merits of the bill or that they wanted more time....but because their feelings were hurt by Pelosi's remarks on the floor of the House.

it's clear that there was a marketing problem as well.
deciding to call this whole thing a "wall street bailout" after such a long period of being subjected to class warfare freemarketeer style angered people across the political spectrum---the differences within the population that was opposed to it seem to me pretty significant, but the vote reflects the marketing gaffe.
you'd think that the bush people would have paid more attention to memes, but no.
maybe because there is no partisan interest that can be substituted for national interest, maybe because the spin-machinery is decomposed within the white house, maybe because there is no purchase for right-spin any longer (iraq anyone?), maybe because in the context of the mc-cain campaign, the univocal world of right-spin is internally divided (which i think is an interesting situation)...no matter...for a white house that has shown itself unable to distinguish politics and public relations, policy and marketing, for so long, the packaging problems with this are kinda surprising.

no matter, though: cowboy george was on tv again to remind people that the Magical Clock of Crisis is tick tick ticking.
i guess the handlers figure that'll work.
it wont.

i am not rich because i do not know what to do with my money.

rich people know what to do with money. they are rich because of it.

learn how to handle your money and you will grow rich and stay rich.

there's only really two classes: the rich and the not rich.

the middle class and the lower class are both the same. one is just less lazy and gets better jobs.

money is a joke. the whole realm of money and credit is such a cartoon. learn to play along and participate in the fiasco and you'll go far.

people who aren't rich are just the dudes at the costume party who showed up without a costume and stand in a corner crossing their arms and acting all huffy and wondering why they aren't having a good time and getting laid.

let the rich inhereit the earth.

Playing the blame game, while counterproductive, is educational here. I'll use Wiki for convenience, but I do so knowing that someone, somewhere, will say the entire post is false because they don't respect Wiki.

A timeline:

1. Jimmy Carter enacts the CRA in 1977.

The CRA mandates that each banking institution be evaluated to determine if it has met the credit needs of its entire community. That record is taken into account when the federal government considers an institution's application for deposit facilities, including mergers and acquisitions after the Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994 repealed restrictions on interstate banking.[3] However, until 1995 the Act was laxly enforced and banks only were required to advertise in local minority newspapers or sit on the boards of local community groups.


2. Bush the first attempted to regulate the process with FIRREA in 1989.


3. Bill Clinton puts increased pressure on banks to make risky loans: In early 1993 President Bill Clinton ordered new regulations for the CRA which would increase access to mortgage credit for inner city and distressed rural communities.


4. In 2001, Bush the second issued his first warnings about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

5. In 2003, Treasury Secretary Snow repeatedly warned of their reckless policies.

6. In 2005, Alan Greenspan twice accurately predicted our current scenario if Fannie and Freddie were not reined in, predicting a "crisis." Barney Frank assured us that everything was fine. Charles Schumer not only stated that GSEs were doing a great job; he wanted their lending restrictions further loosened.

7. In 2006, John McCain co-authored legislation to rein in Fannie and Freddie. The Democrats aligned against it, preventing it from even being voted on.

Now, we are being told that "The Republicans have had control of Congress for six years, and the White House for 8--this is all their fault." I would ask why, if it is so easy to control Congress, that the Democrats didn't succeed in enacting this bailout. Nancy Pelosi certainly seems to forget the history of the problem, and that so many Democrats opposedthe bailout. I believe she couldn't even get 50% of the votes from her own state, a heavily blue one. All of the Ron Paul fans should note that he also blames the CRA, in part, for our current mess.


Frankly, I find it insulting that Ms. Pelosi thinks I am stupid enough to fall for her blatant lies and partisan politics-as-usual.

I've heard the CRA argument and the facts might suggest otherwise.

...most subprime loans were made by lenders that aren’t subject to the CRA.

....something like 50% of subprime loans were made by mortgage service companies not subject to federal regulation and another 30% were made by affiliates of banks or thrifts which are not subject to routine supervision or examinations as a result of deregulation.

...given the higher degree of supervision, loans made under the CRA were made in a more responsible way than other subprime loans.
-----Added 30/9/2008 at 02 : 00 : 19-----
McCain's 2005-06 Fannie/Freddie bill? The one written for the most part by the Fannie/Freddie lobbyist who is now his campaign director and whose firm received $hundreds of thousands in lobbying fees from Fannie/Freddie?

It wasnt blocked by the Democrats...it never got out of committee in the Republican controlled Senate.

I'm still baffled that there were people who actually supported this...

one of the interpretations that you are starting to see floating about is that the defeat yesterday was a kind of "popular revolt"---which is absurd on the face of it---an article in the always-questionable "time" magazine argues that this is the case, and that it is a culmination of the undermining of credibility in the political system as a whole as a result, in significant measure of 8 long years of the bush people and another 20 of free-marketeer idiocy as the dominant lingua franca. most of us have been fucked by "globalizing capitalism"----but in america land of the free blah blah blah, there seems to be no way for this kind of dissent to register at all.

let's say that time and others in the major media who are speaking in terms of what should be a legitimation crisis for the regime as a whole are correct.

if it's true, then the best move would be for the government to resign en masse and call for new elections across the board at the earliest possible date.

Which presumably is why Republicans were attempting to increase regulation of the industry. Do you not intend to address the support voiced by Barney Frank and Charles Schumer for the disastrous policies of Fannie and Freddie?


If receiving more than $100,000 from Fannie or Freddie indicates a problem, the Democrats are going to need a new presidential candidate, because Obama falls into that category. So does Chris Dodd. And yet, one of the people circled below wants to lay the entire blame at the feet of the Republicans.

OpenSecrets | Update: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Invest in Lawmakers - Capital Eye

http://my.photodump.com/uploads/Gues....JPG?514394956



It most certainly DID get out of committee, in spite of the united (as in unanimous) opposition to it by the Democrats on the committee.

The Republicans saw such a united Democratic front on the floor that they never brought it to a vote.

Edit: I am still unable to find the "control" of the Senate which is so frequently referenced. A reference to a bill that passed over the united objection of every, or even most Democrats during that period would be helpful.

I don't think deregulation (or its opposite) is the domain of either party. Neoliberalism is an ideology, not a party.

exactly, charlatan. there are different levels of talking in this thread, as in alot of them, which work past each other. if i write "neoliberalism" i refer to an ideology that encompasses both of the right wings of the single party state that it the united states. fundamentally, i do not care about divisions between republicans and democrats because to my way of seeing things, they're minimal. i support obama in this election not because i think he's actually much different from a moderate republican, but rather because he **appears** to be different from a moderate republican, and in that appearance lay the possibility of a momentary break in the trajectory of implosion that the bush people have solidified, but which is just as much the result of reagan, bush 1 and clinton's slight opposition to the same logic--which set up the bush2 reaction (in the strongest possible sense of the term reaction, and with all forms of the word reaction in play)...i do not particularly care about whether republicans or democrats are responsible for the breakdown of such agreement as there was about the first Big Rescue Plan involving the creation of the Magical Debt Absorption Machine--but tactically speaking, it seems pretty clear that it was the right of the republican party that played the role of wedge that resulted in the breakdown of the agreement. and it is of no particular consequence to me whether you can lay a given legisilative action at the feet of nixon or carter or reagan--to my mind, they're all steps along the way to a consolidation of a debilitatingly stupid ideological monoculture.

the problem is the monoculture itself.

there is no meaningful political diversity in mainstream politics in the united states--so far as i am concerned, the american live in a soft authoritarian system that exchanges positions amongst factions of more-or-less the same idiot thing every 4 years--the quirk is that positions fight amongst themselves across the language of "democracy"--but the sad fact of the matter is that the american system is not democratic, that is was set up in opposition to democracy--the system claims for itself the term when in fact it is not oeprational in any way--the american system prefers a type of "stability" that is entirely out of phase with the speed at which the capitalist order for which it stands operates--and it is showing itself structurally and ideologically incapable of managing even the system that it set into motion.

i won't get started about the enormous exploitative joke that is "globalizing capitalism" and its idiot twin "free trade" because it'd go on too long and i'm already sure that few are reading now. but the simple fact is that the problems that the american-dominated (to this point) capitalist system is facing are a demonstration of the fact that the ideology which enabled that system to develop has been outstripped by the system itself, and that unless it can adapt, and adapt quickly, to a different world than it has allowed itself to see for the past decade, but which in the empricial world it has created in significant measure, that the united states is in a situation the result of which will be irrelevance.

obama to me represents a bump in the trajectory that otherwise--and with mc-cain--is inevitable.
personally, i would prefer the bump.
because i live here too, and so does my family, and so do alot of people whom i love, and it would be a a shame to see people that i love suffer because the system as a whole, backed with the docile consent of people who like to like what they are told they like to like in the way they are told to like it, are too mired in their own idiot investments to see that the only way out of this farce is a different one than they are used to thinking about.

i guess this does kinda piss me off.
i should learn to watch sports.

Obama's main economic advisers are from the Chicago School (the cradle of neoliberalism). I am not so sure that Obama is the man you are looking for...

like i said, comrade, he *appears* to be different.

but maybe i'm too optimistic.

if you read the whole of that last post, though, you'll probably not think that.

The Republicans were not attempting to increase regulation of the industry. The 05 bill that you keep referencing provided a bit more oversight of Freddie and Fannie but had nothing to do with re-regulating banking and investment practices that resulted from earlier deregulation.

And yes support of Fannie and Freddie was across the board.

Yep...the influence of money is also across the board. One small differences is that the Dems money is more from individuals and the Repubs more from PACs


Nope...I dont think it did....and w/o looking at the Record, it is reasonable to assume that of the opposition on the committee was from borth sides of the aisle or it would have been reported out.

But you know there was unanimous Democratic opposition on the committee, how? do you have the committee vote?

Status:
Occurred: Introduced Jan 26, 2005

Last Action: Jul 28, 2005: Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Ordered to be reported with an amendment in the nature of a substitute favorably.

S. 190 [109th]: Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005 (GovTrack.us)

i dont know where you got the idea that "the Republicans saw such a united Democratic front on the floor that they never brought it to a vote". The logic defies me. Remember, this was when the Republicans had a 55-45 majority in the Senate.

I also think, but dont know for certain, that McCain could have stuck his name on the bill as a co-sponsor after it was DOA in the Banking Committee. He was not an original sponsor.

Mr. HAGEL (for himself, Mr. SUNUNU, and Mrs. DOLE) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Afairs

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill...?bill=s109-190

It is curious that when the same bill was introduced again in 2007, McCain is not a co-sponsor. Was is because he was in "campaign" mode by that time?

Just for the record it was under the Clinton administration when Fannie and Freddie were allowed to get into the "sub-prime" market big time. Fannie and Freddie were also allowed ridiculously high leverage ratios, 2.5%. Meaning for every dollar of debt, they only needed $.025 in cash. By 2007 Fannie and Freddie accounted for $6 trillion of the total $12 trillion dollars in US market exposure. All it took was a 2.5% drop in the value of their assets for them to become technically insolvent. We have know they were insolvent a long time. The reality is that a certain percent of the loans were based on inflated appraisals or loan to value ratios 100% or higher, which means their leverage was in fact higher. Those who tried to address the issue could not, due to politics. Fannie and Freddie drove the market and lead the excess. People who suggest private sector banking deregulation is at the root cause of this mess are misinformed or are misleading.

$700 million is about 5.8% of the total US mortgage market, a drop in the bucket.

thank you.

Again... pointing fingers at either party is counter-productive. What we really need to do is address the ideology behind the thinking that deregulates and makes the market *more* laissez-faire. Neoliberalism is a scourge of *both* the Democrats and Republicans.

From where I am sitting, this looks like a play to keep the more left leaning Democrats (who are increasingly likely to win this coming election) from implementing the worst of their policies (and by worst I mean those policies that will have a negative impact on the economic system the neoliberals have brought about). There is nothing like a crisis to bring about new calls for "fiscal responsibility," "austerity," "cuts in public funding," and "privatization."

If you look back, you will see that there was a big shift in Bill Clinton's policies on the campaign trail and what he implemented a few months later once he took office. I suspect the same will occur with Obama if he wins. The leader of *any* country only has so much power. Those who control the economy are the real power brokers.

And no... it's not a conspiracy. It is an ideology. There is a big difference.

sooner or later, folk will figure out this ideology thing, i think. not yet, apparently.

So will student loans be next?

I believe they are run similar to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and I know for the past 10+ years there has been talk on how many cannot repay because wages are not enough for people to pay.

Could we see another bailout for the industry if they start looking at the losses from the student loans also?

Look, all of this crap is ENTIRELY based on a 'capitalist' system that knows, without doubt, that if its entity is in trouble it will, most likely, be bailed out in one form or another.

Markets are fine, so long as risk is REAL.

The only thing that this bailout will do is delay the inevitable meltdown, by months.

EDIT:

Oh, please, let me just add, as asides, that I've just been discussing the candidates with a Republican girl from Chicago (we got into the discussion because i unthinkingly asserted that she must be voting for Obama) who, after telling me that McCain knows what is right for America (*cough*) took another toke on the joint I passed over.

The hysterical laugher she provoked caused her to leave the bar.

The almost violent inability to accept reality that is palpable next to any US-ian i've been near in the last ten years is EXACTLY the reason why no reasonable action will be taken in the face of this crisis, there'll be no end to the culture of debt and there'll be carnage in America and the rest of the world while Pax Americana dies.

Sorry.

(I might be a tad extreme here, I've just fought off a couple of muggers - after walking through a heartbreaking market of people selling their heirlooms to pay off debts. I stopped to ask. I'm not joking.)

By the way, the joint i passed her had not been raised to my lips, nor inhailed. Just makes me sleepy.

If I recall, this was my point. I felt that Nancy Pelosi was being very counterproductive, which was no surprise. That word sums up her entire career.


I'm still confused as to whom you mean by "neoliberals." Obama? Franklin Raines?
(See video below)

Yes, I remember Bill Clinton campaigning on a middle-class tax cut, and magically converting it into a tax increase once he was elected. Considering that Obama is still promising a tax cut for 95% of Americans, nay, a tax CREDIT for some of them, it is safe to assume he is lying. Any other interpretation would mean he is not the brilliant man he is portrayed to be. Unfortunately, a great many naive twenty-somethings can't see through these lies, and they are happily anticipating their tax cuts.

The video is below. I wish they hadn't added the plea at the end, but it definitely shows why the Republicans couldn't get regulatory reform, and it shows the kind of man Obama chose for his economic advisor.

http://www.youtube.com/swf/l.swf?swf...s=1&fs=1&hl=en
-----Added 2/10/2008 at 02 : 38 : 30-----
If the board was composed entirely of Democrats, you are correct.


Another difference is that in only four years, Obama collected more money than anyone except Chris Dodd. More even than John Kerry.


The bill did made it out of the committee on July 28th 2005.

It was "reported on" (which means it passed through the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs committee) to the Senate's Republican conference chair - at the time Rick Santorum - who never placed it or moved on the agenda for a floor vote. Because they did not have the 60 votes required for cloture, he and the Republican leadership let it die.


That statement has popped up from time to time. Actually, he signed onto it after about a year of the Dems stalling it in committee. As is pointed out above, it was never DOA.

He also said the following:

Senator John McCain
5-25-2006

No...the bill was ordered to be reported out on July 28,2005...with an amendment in the nature of substitute. It was never reported out (do you see a check in the box - Reported by Committee ?)...perhaps because the Repub chair didnt like the substitute amendment....I really dont know

And the rest...about Santorum and cloture... is simply your revisionist history....since you have no idea how the vote broke out in the committee or what it might have been if it ever was brought to the floor. (unless you have source information that I am not aware of...Congressional Record?)

But it hardly matters anymore.

The Senate passeed a bailout bill last night by a 74-25 vote, with a few new sweeteners - tax cuts for business, increase in level of FDIC insurance, and some pork (including $$ for Alaskan fisheries) to get a few more Republican votes in the House.

Is the moral of the story that you need to get out more?

So living in a microcosm of an ideological echo-chamber, such as you describe, must lead to condescending intolerance and treating ideological outsiders poorly? I suspect that you could easily find yourself a scenario where your viewpoints would be found laughable.

Sorry about your getting mugged by such desperate souls. Where did this occur?

Obama and Democrats often refer to "deregulation" as the root cause of this crisis and most of our current economic problems and that this "deregulation" was driven by the current administration. It is convenient that they are never specific, because no one can honestly evaluate the claim. So, I ask here - what regulations are they talking about? What regulations were not being enforced?

so let's see if this helps reconcile in some way the parallel conversations in here:
neoliberalism encompasses both republicans and moderate democrats--you know, like the dlc and the clinton administration--moderates. i know, i know the right has expended alot of effort trying to portray these folk as "leftists" but that's mostly a distraction. meaningless except in the imaginary grid-space of conservatives. it has had functions, they're obvious if you think about them, but they bore me now. neoliberalism is that "market" oriented ideology around which a movement took shape across the 1970s that connected back (thanks to the workings of the hoover institution i think, personally) to populist conservatism of the 1920s and to hoover as a way of situating itself in opposition to fordism, to the new deal---in other words, to the last socially viable form of capitalism (you wouldn't think this was the case if you focused on the opposition to the vietnam war and civil rights movement etc.---but if you look at the bigger picture, it's true)....the conditions of possibility for the ascendance of this ideology were put into place under nixon...thatcher/reagan are the key transitional figures--the making-explicit of a much longer and internal process of implosion of the left was its opportunity,,,the systematic blurring of information and ideology its main device for dissemination--and it has been the way things are thought and operate at the level of the dominant order in the united states since the reagan period.

that means reagan, bush 1, clinton, bush2.
that means republican republican democrat republican,
that means the center democrats AND the republican administrations were responsible for this politically.
so there's no point in this petty he said/she said of locating this or that action in this or that administration since the reagan period IF you see what's coming apart here as neoliberalism itself.

seems to me that folk can't get their heads around what's happening so they pretend it's something that fits into their frame of reference---but it's the frame of reference that IS the problem and that is coming undone as we write.

another way---the dominant order consists of different factions that rotate every 4 years. the conflict over the presidency is a conflict over which patronage networks will have privileged access to resources by alliances with the political faction that runs the show. but SOMETIMES there are periods of mutation. we are entering one of them. mutation throws alot of cards in the air. neoliberalism as the naturalized ideology of the pastr 30 years is particularly ill-suited to mutation.
that is one of a hundred reasons why it is coming apart at the seams, and very quickly.