For some of us the issues are what is really important, for the Republicans, it seems they like the security of having someone they like, someone who looks like Herman Munster a comfortable nice old man. a war hero who has an edge to him. 

Who would I prefer to have a beer with McCain or Obama?  Even though I used to watch the Munsters when younger and liked Hermen Munster, I would prefer to have a beer with Obama, because substance and intelligence would be important to me in most conversations, how about the economey.  Republicans would prefer having a beer with McCain, because then the conversation would shift to their comfort zone, sex maybe sports and who is going to pay for the beer me, Cindy or one of his lobbyists.

Re: By Dr. Knowitall, PhD, PhD, September 15 at 6:22 am
•  “WTF is wrong with Obama?  He should be helping the republican sheeple to understand the direct link between neocon bungling of the gov. and the economy.  He had a hot iron moment and didn’t take it.  Maybe there’s something about political expediency that I don’t understand.  If there is, I’d really appreciate someone enlightening me so I can get beyond this, too. “

Dr Knowitall, I swear I wish I could answer this question. WTF IS WRONG WITH HIM??? You KNOW he knows better!!! How could he let this (and there have been others) hot iron moment go unused?

I don’t know what to say, except that I don’t think this is about ‘political expediency’. If HE thinks it is, then maybe he needs a little heart to heart from a ‘mother figure.” Now I’m not quite old enough to be his mother. (only 6 ½ years older). BUT…I could certainly play the part, and very, very, well. Just give me about 10 minutes with him, and I promise he’ll straighten up.

I can’t tell you here on this public forum, exactly what I would say to him. But I’ll tell you this much…10 minutes would make him a changed man. Trust me.

By peacenik1, September 15 at 4:21 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Harvard academic and former International Monetary Fund chief economist Kenneth Rogoff states in an article published in the German newspaper Der Speigel today that “I wouldn’t be surprised if, at the end of the day, we see the US taxpayer out $1 TRILLION.”

___________________________

Numbers have become abstractions.  Sometimes context is useful.  In “Thieves in High Places,” Jim Hightower accomplished context by converting single dollars into seconds.  “Western civilization has not been around for a trillion seconds.  One trillion seconds is 31,688 years.  A trillion seconds ago, Neanderthals stalked the earth.”

Keep in mind that Rogoff’s $1 trillion estimate was limited to the current financial meltdown on Wall Street.  This has been piled atop what Nobel Prize winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz estimates is a $3 trillion price tag for the war in Iraq, and the Bush regime’s 2008 military budget of $600 billion excluding the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, and an already existing national debt of $10 trillion.

But John McCain said today that “the fundamentals of the U.S. economy are sound.”  Odd, he apparently doesn’t realize that Herbert Hoover said the same thing in 1931.

The reality is that our situation may be more precarious than it had been at the outset of the Great Depression, for back then we had not outsourced our manufacturing base, created an out-of-control military-industrial complex that produces only parasitic products that have no value in the marketplace and were not faced with today’s crushing national debt.

They (Republican Party) had begun to consider
the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs.

We know now that Government by organized money
is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.”

- Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1936, quoted in
The FDR Years © 1995 by William Leuchtenburg

Yes, Jackpine Savage… B of A bailed out Country Wide and now Merrill ...

Maybe the thinking here is, people are starting to object to all the bail outs, so if they can have a few take overs, then when the take over bank gets in trouble with bad paper, it makes it more acceptable to bail out the take over bank, which in effect bails out all of them…so a few people get fired in the process…no biggie..

So they won’t let B of A..fail…

Many years ago when I was in Grad School I worked for B of A as a collector.. They would finance, just about anyone, including lots of illegals for truck loans…usually the truck loans were for some sort of gardening, landscape or construction business…sounds reasonble so far…

Payments were’nt too high, until said illegals couldn’t find insurance for their trucks, which was acceptable to B of A… this of course forced B of A, much to their dismay, to add their own insurance on the loan to the tune of $1,200 to $1,500 hundred a month + existing payment, then of course when the illegals couldn’t pay they would repo and re sell the truck…. all perfectily legal… couldn’t stand it and quit after a month.

My manager was sad because he wanted me to be on the company soft ball team.

Bottome line is, the Neo Con’s will take care of their own…. no matter what happens.

@ Folktruther
I would love to know how to do that, man. I feel as if I try to figure that out every freakin day.

And I totally get what you are saying, and I agree more than I think you can know through my random spurts of keystroke outrage and/or positivity on a stupid message board.

I think we are all coming to grips with long term hopes, fears and answers here.
The reality exists that whatever happens, we each have personal choices to make in how we handle it. At the end of the day, regardless of what our government is, we can choose to let it get us down, or we can get creative and use it to buoy us to finding new stages of enlightenment within ourselves.

Personally I made the choice 2 years ago to ditch the corporate rat race and be part of my own business with my husband. I made family and friends my top priority rather than salary and things. And it was REALLY hard to adjust to at first, but we’re scraping by for the time being. And we have actually had some really great times and great laughs through the struggle that has been this economy. But that was my first step toward my own enlightenment, and I believe in the notion of leading by example.

And this is something I think people in the Obama camp think he is doing. And before you go off on a lemming diatribe, stop to recognize that perception is reality. It doesn’t make him a messiah. But I don’t think it is unrealistic to assume that for some it holds a mirror up for them to gauge their own behaviors and make some changes. I’ve noticed it in several people I have spoken to. And isn’t that worth something? Isn’t that something we could build on? 

I think I just get so tired of analyzing things and people and situations that my pragmatic mind screams ENOUGH. WE NEED SOME SOLUTIONS.

And the only realistic solution I can see to grasp for right now is to stop the blatant neocon train of hate and world domination, and hope it gives the progressives - both “lite” as it were and hardcore - a tiny window of opportunity to start moving toward a new age of secular humanism, and a global outreach that can only get more plausible as technology makes the world smaller. 

Wow, that’s some great weed.  AHAHAHAH just kiddin.

Spiritual Ideology, how about “Abject Horror”

I think this works too (it had better!)

Cranberry,

It may have to do with liking or relating to someone verses selecting someone for capabilities. Some people go to their doctor because they like them, I go to my doctor because even though he has no personality but is good at what he does. It is a matter of choice, well there is that word again.

Seems many people are into Herman Munster and Mistress Congeniality, only because they feel they relate to them. Issues, common sense and reason have little to do with it. 

For me I have trouble with the lies and how they become truths.

wish I knew, you are with the majority of progressives.  You agree with my comments but you feel that Obama-Biden is our only hope, the precise contrary of my thesis.  The tradition and emotional truth of the US progressive heritage is too strong to break over mere reason.  I am not complaigning or criticizing, merely stating what is true, and why hisstorical change is so difficult.

It is not enough to change your mind, WishIknew, it is necessary to transform your soul.  Reason must be allied with spiritual ideology strong enough to yank you, and all of us, out of our accustomed intellectual and behavior ruts.  Spritual ideologies are necessary to enforce morality applied to GROUPINGS of people rather than to individuals. 

Secular humanism of the Western tradition is dying.  It is not strong enough to combat the delusive, brutal and childhish spiritual ideology of the right.  What is needed historically is a SPRITUAL HUMANISM that can mobilize the Amerian people, and people of the world, against oppressive power.

It is assumed that spiritual ideologies must be irrational. This isn’t true.  Religions have been hijacked by power systems historically to legitimate oppressive class-based power.  The historical problem that we are confronted with now, because of globalization and world problems, is to develop and legitimate a spiritual ideology that can unite the people of the world, making world opionion a more effective force in restricting criminal behavior of polities and transnational corporations.

I charge you, WishIknew, with the task of creating such an ideology.

When the jobs in the manufacturing sector disappear to the countries with the lowest standards of living because the mindless pursuit of eternally increasing profit demands it, they joyfully called it Arbitrage, and raised it to the status of a Sacrament on the Corporate altar. When the victims of these economic policies default on their financial obligations, they snicker, look pompously askance and talk about the ‘irresponsibility’ of ‘certain classes’ of people; even though they’ve gutted and hamstringed the middle and working classes in the country whose political and economic protection and stability they’ve taken advantage of. When they were allowed to count the liabilities of uncollected loans as assets, and further borrow against it, so their speculation could be made to produce an immediate benefit that they could personally reap while placing the liability on their depositors they called it ‘modern banking practice’; but Ambrose Bierce’s ghost walks the Treasury building moaning “Ponziii…Ponziii”.
When the Fed is allowed to produce an index of inflation that discounts food, fuel, housing, and medical costs…unemployment determined only by a narrowing ability to collect unemployment ‘benefits’ -not the actual number of people who would take advantage of a worthwhile, livable job…and this is not treated as an item of humor, people are just not paying attention. When the federal government can accrue debt without constraint, which will have to be paid out of the backs of the remaining working people in this country, for the benefit of corporate entities, who either don’t pay taxes, or only pay a token percentage of their profits in exchange for a long (and very profitable) suck at the public teat. Just taking the 7 trillion cost of Li’l George’s War in Iraq, adding the 7 trillion buyout of the bogus paper floated by Wall Street, Freddy, and Fanny,and not even counting the existing debt which We, the taxpaying public, pay interest on (to profit the Federal Reserve Bank, a private, moneymaking corporation). At the rate of $200 Million/day; assuming we could earmark this amount for the exclusive service of this debt, the people of this country and their descendants are on the hook for the next 200 years.

@ folktruther
aaagggghhhh as much as it hurts, i think you’ve nailed the reality of our economic situation.
the point that keeps sticking in my mind though is the voters.
there is a perception right now - right or wrong - that people are making a difference in this election, and we have to capitalize on that fact.
i HAVE to believe that even with obama and biden “playing the game”, a mccain presidency will shut this voter perception down for good. and ultimately that will be the biggest win for the neocons, because a helpless and apathetic public is exactly what the neocons need, and a mccain presidency will truly be the final nail on that coffin.

this is why we have to elect obama and biden - it is our only chance.
and we have to hope for the best in terms of keeping the voters interested - and paying attention, because all the people who have given to obama’s grassroots organization ARE paying attention now.

i may seem idealistic here, but look at our history and what people have been able to accomplish in the face of adversity. times have changed, but people haven’t. and people can only get pushed so far before they have no choice but to fight back. our country doesn’t have a history of anything but fighting back.

“How Much More” - “What Does It Take” - All Meaningless Now…
by This Old Hippie Because We All Deserve What We All Have Allowed.

How many times, and in how many ways, can one ask any of the “WTF” type of questions…  Before they lose their meaning, their justified impact?  I think we all know now.

We all redundantly stated, proved, and shouted that the impossible was becoming all of our realities, that our nation was, (and still is,) being eaten away from within, and that ‘enhanced’ corporatist robber-barons have taken-over our government - lock, stock, and barrel.

Historically unprecedented transfer of wealth, recently quite blatantly.
.001% now control 1/5 of the Total World’s Wealth.
Replacement of the entire Federal Regulatory structure with corporatist sycophants.
Creation of a legalization of “Free Speech Zones.”
Creation of a legalization of the torture of human beings.
The ending of Habeas Corpus protections.
Close to 50 million citizens without any healthcare protection.
56 million more citizens without access to any primary care physicians.
But corporate taxes were cut to the health corporations, as they are making record profits.
Energy corporations also experiencing record profits, but again their taxes were cut.
As our gas/energy prices also climbed to record levels, with no end in sight.
And not only were their taxes cut, their record profits were “protected.”
Global warming weather events increasing - at an increasing rate.
A legalization of preemptive war instituted, proven to only profit the profiteers.
Unprecedented amount of civilians killed.
Unprecedented numbers of troops committing suicide.
Unprecedented numbers of troops coming home with unprecedented wounds, and problems.
But yet the “Support the Troops” GOP reps in congress, vote to cut funding to them.
761 American bases, and growing, around the planet.
Out of a $2.65 trillion national budget, 1.449 trillion (54%) goes to the military.
And almost all of that going to the military-industrial-corporations.
Unprecedented economic breakdown and bankruptcies filed, and increasing.
And Did I mention?  The “MSM” proven to be complicit with the corporatists’ agenda.

But yet the top 1% are doing just great, actually their “economy” is improving.

And “we all” just kept allowing it get worse and worse and worse. . .

I think we all know now, that it just might be too late to say - - -
WTF, or what does it take, or how much more, or wake-up before it’s too late…

Please forgive me for not adding anything meaningful or intelligent to the discussion here, and pardon my vulgarity, but this Luskin guy is one ginormous douchebag.

Couple this a**hole with Phil Gramm, et al advising an economically-ignorant McCain through a potential presidency and I am going to need some serious drugs to sleep at night.

Dr. Know asks, what is wrong with Obama? He should be showing the people the relation between neocon policy and the enconomy.

Obama does not do so because his candidacy, Obama-Bien, is itself the Dem counterpart to the Gop neocons: Obaden are the Dem neolibs.  Obaden is not part of the solution, they are part of the problem.

McCain says change is coming, Obaden offers change you can believe in.  As in obvious now, there will be no policy change.  Whoever wins will serve the third term of Bush. The Bushites have successfully locked in their policies implemented by the power faction of the ruling class.

The militarist-Zionist cabal of the ruling class has captured both party leaderships and plan to escalate US wars abroad, as both candidates proclaim.  Since there will be no money for reforms, and the debt crisis will continue, this requires a police state at home. 

Obama-Biden has voted already for the lawless spying on the American people, gave tacit concent to the attack on journalists and protesters at the RNC, and will consent to the current policy of turning the FBI more formally into a secret police.

The population does not realize the debt problem because the American power system lies to them in numbers as well as words.  As Jackpine stated, food and gas are excluded from the inflation index where the numbers are cooked to decrease payouts to social security and pensions. 

What is numbered as economic growth is actually inflation.  Real US growth is neglibible, which is why the American power structure has adopted a military policy.  The US unregulated and uncorrodinated economic system cannot compete globally economically, though its corporations can for their own profits.

The neocon-neolib policy is to dstroy the regulatory-welfare aspect of government while increasing the repressive and corporate aspect.  The American powerful are openly contemptuous of the American people.  The Dems are now helping to destroy the New Deal reforms.

This economic-military irrationality conditions cultural irrationality. US leaders publcially espouse childish religious delusions and publically denounce scientific truths and ideology, such as evolution. the right espouse religous irrationality and this is drifting left to the political irrationality of progressives.

Capitalist and Zionist interests and values ally with this religious and political delusion, which allows them to be totally irresponsible in the short term.  They ignore global warming, the drift toward nuclear war, and the longer term interests of the class inequality of the economic system.  So Aipac features at its major conference Rev Hagee who preached that Hitler was doing God’s work in creating the holocaust.

Obama just wants to be president and to promote his political career, so he MUST go along to win the election, since the ruling class controls most of the money, media and electoral expertise.  As the House of Reps say, those who go along get along, and he might win.  But he cannot change the basic power configuration when he is supported by those powers that benefit most from it. 

The hope that he is purveying is delusive hope.
The electoral system now does not promote democracy, it prevents it.  By getting people involved in a kind of sports contest where both candidacies promote the same policies.

  The rich have gained control of both parties and the obsolete American political system, by its “checks and balances’, produces gridlock for progressive policies.  The only forces that can manipulate it successfully are the lobbiests of the rich.

I know that this is depressing.  But, as I think Farenheit said previously, we have to acknowledge the truth about reality if we are going to make our way into a better future.  And no matter who is elected, our near future is grim.

Luskin’s “growth is steady” propaganda ignores a few tiny details.  The benefits of that growth are not evenly disbursed.  The gap between rich and poor is the greatest it has been since 1928.  For the first time since the Great Depression, a majority of Americans are experiencing negative savings.  We have experienced the largest number of home foreclosures and bank failures since the Great Depression, and, unfortunately, with the national debt at its highest level ever, the ability of the government to bail out even rich investors has greatly diminished—as attested to by the refusal to bail out Lehman and this at a time when most of our mfg. base has been outsourced.

As Paul Krugman observed in today’s NY Times:

“...the old world of banking, in which institutions…accepted deposits and lent the money out to long-term clients, has largely vanished, replaced by what is widely called the ‘shadow banking system’....most of the business of finance is carried out through complex deals arranged by ‘non-depository’ institutions like the late, lamented Bear Stearns….

“The new system was supposed to do a better job of spreading and reducing risk.  But…that risk wasn’t so much reduced as hidden; all too many investors had no idea how exposed they were.

“And…the system has been experiencing postmodern bank runs.  These don’t look like old-fashion version; with few exceptions, we’re not talking about mobs of distraught depositors pounding on closed bank doors.  Instead, we’re talking about frantic phone calls and mouse clicks, as financial players pull credit lines and try to unwind counterparty risk.  But the economic effects—a freezing up of credit, a downward spiral in asset values—are the same as those of the great bank runs of the 1930s.”

G Anderson, I know B o A bailed out Merril-Lynch.

They got the money by gouging credit card holders with 29% interest.

This morning (Mon.) the stock market response to the Lehman debacle is to drop 300+ pts. in the first hr. of trading.

McCain’s response:  “The economy is fundamentally strong and this is a failure and we promise never to let this happen again.”

Obama, in his response, never mentioned the word “Republican” or the Bush adminstration of the last 8 years. 

WTF is wrong with Obama?  He should be helping the republican sheeple to understand the direct link between neocon bungling of the gov. and the economy.  He had a hot iron moment and didn’t take it. 

Maybe there’s something about political expediency that I don’t understand.  If there is, I’d really appreciate someone enlightening me so I can get beyond this, too.

Put your money on the window business, now they have to break them to jump out of them.

Maybe it is time to reinvent a new, new deal?

@ Donald Luskin;

Excuse me Mr. economic/economy whore for McCain:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
But I’ll take the word of the Winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics, Joseph E. Stiglitz of Columbia University, long before I’ll give you credit for any fucking thing!  Especially when your an adviser for a REPUBLICAN!!!!  HELLO!!!!  This has been an 8 year death march to hell, thank you very much!

G. Anderson,

Yes, BoA recently bought Countrywide.  That means that now BoA has a whole bunch of bad mortgage debt riding on the savings accounts of millions of Americans.  That BoA is a commercial bank is the reason that they have the cash to make these purchases.  Unfortunately, it puts a whole lot of depositors in the path of a financial tsunami.  So far, propping up the house of cards has worked to some degree.  But with more and more assets and liabilities now centralized with BoA, the risk factors increase exponentially.

And even in the best case scenario, we’ll come out of this one only one or two banks basically running the show.

The American people are stuck in a lose, lose, lose situation.

@ jackpine savage;

“And the actually rich were never greatly pinched by the Depression anyhow.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That is correct.  My parents did very well through the GD; not because they were rich, but because their parents (my grandparents) were well employed.  One was a civil servant for NYC and the other (my fathers mother) had a coat check at the Waldorf Astoria.  After school my father was tutored by Oscar of the Waldorf.  I grew up eating very delicious meals cooked by my father.  The next GD will be much the same.  The “nouveau riche” will probably go down but the “truly rich” will notice nothing.  A few may even try to help.

Where’s the money?

For the last 8 years the banks have been selling bad loans. There were probably also lots of bank fraud, bundled with those derivatives sold overseas.

Then there was moving all those jobs off shore, highly profitable, yes but that doesn’t generate much tax revenue for the government does it?

And now all those same Geniuses, who were responsible for this mess have engineered a wall street rescue plan. Good luck America

Didn’t bank America just bail out country wide?

As I’ve said before this is just the beginning, next there will be monumental credit card defaults, along with the mortgage defaults, followed by Auto, and small business. You can bet that the public won’t be bailed out.. Only 3 more years to go until we hit bottom.

Not a good idea to close all your factories while you send your military off to war…

I would agree that the Great Depression comparisons are not valid, but only because the world is significantly different than during the Depression.  But it should also be noted that the official way to count is a lot different too.  Furthermore, the “everything’s fine” crowd likes to use government numbers that at least half of economists call bogus.

You tell me, should food and fuel be counted towards inflation?  They’re not, in the government’s mind.

It should also be noted that a lot of people kept saying that there was nothing to worry about right up to the GD.  And the actually rich were never greatly pinched by the Depression anyhow.

McCain has just cemented his lack of economic intelligence (maybe across the board?).  He lacks the simple intelligence to know how dangerous he is.  I’m posting a link with an hour and a half talk by Joseph Stiglitz that is a must listen.  Previously I had asked a question on another thread here on TD, regarding the ultimate impact of this failing economy with subsequent bailouts on us, the “people” of the U.S.  Stiglitz answers my question with clarity.  Bye, bye health care and ultimately many other social benefits from our government; including, the possibility of S.S. benefits going south.  We’re bankrupt!  Anyway: Please listen; it’s the best economic lesson I’ve heard.

The three trillion dollar war
Joseph E. Stiglitz on the true cost of the Iraq War

http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=2300&updaterx=2008-09-15+02:57:11

Dateline Dragnet 1967- dumb dumb dumb dumb…dumb dumb dumb dumb…DUMB! Lehman goes bankrupt. Merrill Lynch sold like a cheap hooker in a back alley. Wall Street wobbly? Wall Street scared “credit less!” Can’t seem to buy a ‘buyer’. Wow, go figure. Will be worlds of interesting to see how the Dow closes this fine Monday. Black Monday September 15, 2008 and remember, today is the full moon. Will Alan Greenspan come out of retirement and “save” the American financial system? Will George Bush come out of hiding only to declare a “national fiscal emergency” and ‘surge’ martial law? Is Dick ‘shotgun’ Cheney still duck hunting somewhere in Alaska? Stay tuned kids, today’s market adventures could be really interesting.

Didn’t McCain tell us the economy wasn’t his thing?