Xntrk, I assume you were as bummed out as I was by Obama’s performance on the economy last night.  As I see it, he blew two attempts to revive that audacity that built his base in the first place.  The more drastic was the way he fumbled around on the question of where he would cut the budget.  He basically rehashed his highest priorities for spending, thereby leaving any assumptions about low-priority stuff getting cut as implicit.  Standing in front of McCain, he had the perfect opportunity to get there first on getting the bloat out of the Defense budget (allowing McCain to play that card) by seeing to the needs of the armed forces and not worrying so much about pie-in-the-sky Beltway-Bandit research ventures or an unmanageable system of contractors.  He also missed out on a key talking point “hot off the presses” (the “press” in this case being the Web site for THE NATION).  Joseph Stiglitz (as in THE THREE TRILLION DOLLAR WAR) pointed out that there are FOUR major problems in the current economic crisis.  Paulson’s “solution” only deals with one.  This overlooks the question as to whether solving that one problem will make the other three worse, which also raises the question that, if you cannot solve all four at once (which is a realistic assumption), where IS the best place to start.

http://therehearsalstudio.blogspot.com/2008/09/another-input-source-for-congressional.html

The economic crisis should have given Obama a hand full of trump cards.  Instead, all we got was Michael Cohen at THE NEW YORK TIMES saying he “acquitted” himself well.

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/

Obama has the capacity to go back to Washington, while the deliberations are taking place, and not make a fool of himself the way McCain did.  Having blown his opportunity during the debate, he needs to show us his worth in the trenches.

Well Louise, I think I can do most of this stuff, EXCEPT for the repig rallies. Nope. I’m not that desperate…YET.

Now of course if I get to be, then I won’t be too proud to do that, but lately, I don’t trust myself around repugs. It’s like my 84 year old dad said several months ago when I suggested they might consider visiting some old family friends in DC..He told me he was afraid if he got anywhere near the White House, they’d put him in jail, or shoot him down like a dog in the street. Then, (he says) “Who would look after your mother?” He’s got a point.

So, I’m staying away from the republicans. Not willing to go to jail. If anything changes though, I’ll let you know.

Meantime, I’m grateful too, that you’ve got that back yard space for a garden. I lost mine years ago. (along with the house that was sharing the ground space). After that, I had to switch to container gardening. Now I don’t even have a place for the containers.

But, Purplewolf had a very successful garden this year, so she’s sending me a care package.

You take care as well. Glad you’re back on line. (I know about the computer fry-ups).

cyrena,

Thanks for your kind words, and thoughts. Trust me, had I known BOTH my computors would decide to fry the same week ... before they did, I would have let you know.

“Many were skeptical that the criminal creeps in the White House could actually bankrupt the entire United States of America in a mere 8 years, and yet here we are, staring into the abyss of that “Mission
Accomplished” right now. And deliberately lying the American people into a counterproductive and illegal two trillion dollar war was just another day’s treason for those occupants.” 
The Pen .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Of course they had a jump start. All one needs do is listen to the repub message. They think government is the problem. Or at least that’s what they claim. Since we all know our government is supposed to be “by for and of the people” I guess that means the repubs actually think we the people are the problem. In light of their behavior, that makes perfect sense. In reality, they hate us.

Reagans wish is finally accomplished. Only his “too much government” has turned into a corporate/government marriage. The one Ike warned us about. Unfortunately Reagan, like almost every repub president we’ve had since Ike, had no vision. So of course he couldn’t understand the inevitable outcome of his policies.

Personally, I hate the idea of bailing out corporate America. If there is a better way to restore the dollar, I’m all for it. But we are where we are and the one thing I know for sure is handing the mess to unrestrained and unregulated private enterprize will fail utterly. We all know that. We all have the perfect example of Bush/Cheney policy these past eight years.

Bailing out corporate America with taxpayer dollars wont create fascism. The horror of government altering or eliminating the regulations that kept corporate America at bay, and inviting them in to run things ... as in Haliburton, or Blackwater. That is fascism and that’s been around for quite a while now.

On a lighter note. Thank goodness for those freebees at those conferences and rally’s eh? I noticed last time I went to the supermarket the line at the free samples was growing. And attendence at churches that have a coffee clatch after service is up. I’ve also gotten pretty good at getting one of those goodies the coach hands out to the kids at the end of a game. And make it to every wedding and shower I can. Free food! Yum! Almost forgot. Sometimes an open house has refreshments. Oh! And repub rally’s! They always have free food. That’s the only way they can get anyone to show up. Just snatch the food and leave.

And I’m planting winter potatoes and cabbage and onions where I use to have a back lawn. But then I’m one of the lucky ones that has a back yard!

Re:Louise, September 25 at 9:10 pm

Whew!! Louise…Thank God you’re back! I’d been worried about you. If you’d posted anytime since threatening to die in the street in lieu of possibly being taken to a Wal-Mart, I missed it. Seems like that’s the last post I’ve read from you, so I’ve just been beside myself. (check in when you’re gonna be away – these are SUCH perilous times)

Anyway. You’re back, and not a moment too soon, because this is the stuff we needed to know, and I’ve been missing a few dots in the connections.

Like this:

“The petro-dollar that sort of runs the world is rapidly dropping in value. The money we all need to keep our lives and businesses running is dissapearing, and if we don’t do something to restore confidence in the dollar soon ... we will have a full blown depression!
And of course it hasn’t helped that nobody saw this coming, or even understands whats happening now! With the possible exception of Bush and all those other folks close to the administration who have known for some time it was coming.
So how come they waited so long to drop the bombshell on the public? Personally I think they were hoping to run it out until after the election. But I could be wrong.”

If I hear one more mainstreammedia guy ask, how come we didn’t see this coming? I think I shall scream!”

~~
I’ve already screamed, because of COURSE we saw it coming! If even I knew it had so much to do with the petro dollar, then there are plenty of experts out there that knew it as well. There is NO DOUBT IN MY MIND that the Dick Bush people knew damn well this would happen, and were just hoping that they could hold on until after the election.

Then again, I’m not so sure that this hasn’t been even more excellently planned to THROW the election, and finish off The Coup. This outrageously unconstitutional language giving unprecedented powers to the Treasurer just does me right in. As another poster has already mentioned, even Hitler didn’t go this far.

Still, I’ve pretty much figured out,  (without knowing all of the ins and outs) what you say here:

•  “..Without credit, banks and businesses fold. Without money there is no credit. And that’s when Wall Street panics and the Market crashes. So believe it or not, the crashing Market doesn’t cause the depression ... the collapsing source of money, ergo credit and loans does.”

Without the money out there and available, we crash. (At least we the little people do). I’ve just had a coke and potato chips for dinner. How disgusting is that? Wouldn’t have even had that if I hadn’t crashed a late conference.

I agree a federal bailout seems, well unseemly. But consider the alternative. Washington Mutual was just seazed. Things like that don’t happen unless the bank is unable to cover their costs. And since Wamu unloaded their mortgage devision some time ago there’s something else in play here. And that something else is the underlying problem we are all going to get hit with almost immediately.

Note I didn’t say the underlying problem was the cause of the problem. Rather it’s a major contributor to the reality of what causes a depression anyway. And that would be the complete loss of value in the monitary unit.

So while mortgage and real estate BROKERS ran the housing market into an overpriced and unsustainable bubble. And while the Investment banks and the market BROKERS bundled those bad mortgages to be sold on Wall Street as though they actually had growth value. And while a lot of corrupt and greedy corporations and investment BROKERS took advantage of the REPUBLICANS passion for deregulation and made ALL of that possible. We had an administration working overtime to run the government into unsustainable debt which in turn began the downword spiral of the complete devaluation of the dollar.

Add an unwinable war, or two [or five] and the cost of those misadventures. An administration that came into office with just one goal in mind ... to eliminate the Constitution and gain absolute control. Coupled with the driving determination to control all the worlds oil and gas ... and that by the way was not for any better reason than to prevent loss of control of the worlds oil and gas markets by losing the control exercised with the petro dollar ... [the REAL reason Iran is a threat] and you have the perfect storm we are all about to drown in.

The petro-dollar that sort of runs the world is rapidly dropping in value. The money we all need to keep our lives and businesses running is dissapearing, and if we don’t do something to restore confidence in the dollar soon ... we will have a full blown depression!

And of course it hasn’t helped that nobody saw this coming, or even understands whats happening now! With the possible exception of Bush and all those other folks close to the administration who have known for some time it was coming.

So how come they waited so long to drop the bombshell on the public? Personally I think they were hoping to run it out until after the election. But I could be wrong.

If I hear one more mainstreammedia guy ask, how come we didn’t see this coming? I think I shall scream!

Without credit, banks and businesses fold. Without money there is no credit. And that’s when Wall Street panics and the Market crashes. So believe it or not, the crashing Market doesn’t cause the depression ... the collapsing source of money, ergo credit and loans does.

Now we see the true depth of dishonesty and duplicity [and perhaps blatant STUPIDITY] rampant in the republican party ... and we cant blame Bush for this one. McCain flys into town and de-rails what appeared this morning to be a done deal. His appearance fortified the resolve of the few republicans who didn’t want to do this and the whole thing fell apart.

Some leader eh?

And what is the alternative solution the majority of those republicans want to put forth?

Hand the whole problem to corporate America!
And the Insurance Industry!
And more deregulation of course ... duh ...

This is one of those instances when we DON’T want the guys who made the mess cleaning it up!

We just want to run them out of town!

So now the Republican’s have a new plan, the idea is to allow the free market to work.

They would give tax breaks to those who invest in failures protecting the tax payers money.

This way they won’t have to help tax payers who have bad mortgages, and they won’t have to Cap bonuses.

And the rich get tax breaks.

McCain will love this one, he can continue Grandstanding on it for the next couple of weeks.

And since he sabotaged the rescue plan he can have a good excuse to cancel the debate.

DEMOCRATS ABANDON WORKING CLASS AS FAST AS PAULSON ORDERS THEM TO… REPUBLICANS MOVE IN TO OCCUPY THE AVAILABLE SPACE IN TIME FOR THE ELECTION (hey they already have a vp candidate whose husband is a union member)... DEMOCRATS SCREAM THAT THEY’RE MAD AS HELL BUT THEY’RE GOING TO TAKE IT… OBAMA TRIES OUT NEW FACIAL EXPRESSIONS AS McCAIN ATTACKS HIM FROM THE LEFT ON BAILOUT…

David Letterman: “This is beginning to smell!”

This was after McCain stood up Letterman claiming he had to rush back to Washington, when, in fact, he was rushing to get made up to be on Katie Couric, in the same building.

Letterman, as a comedian who had been “heckled” by McCain did what every comedian MUST do to a heckler: Slice and dice him without pity or mercy until the guy is nothing but a puddle of messy p*ss on the floor.

Inherit the Wind,

We’re in agreement here again. Especially here..

“...It’s a shitty plan, even with the Dem changes.  Besides, it doesn’t matter WHAT they sign beyond the home-town voters.  Why? Because that shithead in the White House will just write a “signing statement” to say it means whatever the f*** he wants it to mean—and that means EXACTLY the original proposal Paulsen sent….”

~~~~
Yep…the signing statements. He’s used them in place of vetoes that could be overridden. Fuckers!!
I swear they piss me off enough to sprout steam out of my ears!!

Meantime, what’s up with these Republicans that are now worried about the free market interests? THEY damn sure aren’t worried about getting caught in any ‘crisis’. Like you said, they can go home and say they voted against ‘big government’ while all the while voting FOR the continued armed robbery and a legislation that lets them keep all of the proceeds of the thefts. THEY have nothing to lose if there is no bailout, and especially one that takes their free shit away.

Meantime, I’ve missed the spin that actually trys to put the blame on the Dems, and it’s just as well. Not sure I could take it.

No wait. That’s not true. I HAVE read some posters here, wanting to put at least SOME of the blame on the dems. That’s just too unbelievable.

Guess who decided to weigh in on both the lack of progress and the total disregard for Main Street?

http://therehearsalstudio.blogspot.com/2008/09/is-this-work-of-spoiler.html

This is un (blanking) believable.

I am at a loss for words.

And Nancy Pelosi said there wouldn’t be a deal unless the rank-and-file Republicans get on board! Good, Nancy! (finally).

Why the HELL should Democrats take on the GOP’s President’s plan just so the GOPers can vote “NO” and go home and tell their voters “I voted against big government spending the Democrats wanted.”?

She’s said “This ain’t goin’ nowhere unless you all put YOUR sorry asses on the line first!”

Good! Now let her not back off an inch on that.

It’s a shitty plan, even with the Dem changes.  Besides, it doesn’t matter WHAT they sign beyond the home-town voters.  Why? Because that shithead in the White House will just write a “signing statement” to say it means whatever the f*** he wants it to mean—and that means EXACTLY the original proposal Paulsen sent.

No, there are only two ways out:
1) The GOPers won’t come on board so the legislation dies.  At least blame will fall where it belongs—on the Republicans.  Have you seen the INCREDIBLE and quite amazing spin machine they have going that’s actually putting the blame on THE DEMOCRATS????  And this bullshit is working.  So it’s up to Pelosi to make sure NO legislation goes anywhere without lots and lots of Republican votes.

2) They write TOTALLY unacceptable legislation (like it says “no signing statement can have any force”) and Bush vetoes it and they override his veto (because all the GOPers are on board).