Sarah Silverman on the show today

give president Obama a honeymoon?

will run on the right sidebar of IPR through Election Day.

The candidates included are all of those who will appear (or in the case of Ted Weill, still have a chance to appear) on the ballot in more than one state. The one exception is Ron Paul, who will be on a few state ballots but who is not an active candidate for the presidency.

With 358 votes cast, Charles Jay (24%) has a slim lead over Bob Barr (22%), and there is a tight race for third between Chuck Baldwin (12%), John McCain (11%), and Ralph Nader (11%). Barack Obama (8%) leads Cynthia McKinney (3%), Alan Keyes (1%), and Brian Moore (1%). Roger Calero, Gloria La Riva, and Tom Stevens have each recieved one vote; Gene Amondson and Ted Weill have so far received no votes. Three percent will not vote, and two percent plan to vote for another candidate.

http://www.economist.com/vote2008/

http://www.canivote.org

>>How long should progressive radio...give president Obama a honeymoon?

about 15 minutes...we need to keep him in line, make him remember the people who laid down all those $20 donations are still watching.

I think this is the big difference between how the right and left treat our candidates...Bush has gotten a 7 1/2 year honeymoon from the right. They don't care about anything he actually does in office, all they care about is he is `their boy'...

The left aren't that way. We expect our candidates to prove themselves every day.

The right is like a woman who goes sleeps with their date on the first date, marries him the next weekend, despite the fact he's beaten her up several times already. They gladly suffer his abuse because `he loves me.'

the left on the other hand, is more like a woman who has dated the same guy for years but won't let him get to first base...we accept a trip to Cancun from him but can't help flirting with the cute waiter...we still have our eye out for someone better.

Sarah Siverman!?!

what a great get!

She's the `poor man's Janeane Garofola'!

I bet Sarah would be ever-so pleased by such a flattering comparison! ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40qTXlNJj9s

Give the Jew Girl Toys

Everyone sing along!!!

I hate to say it Santa
But you're acting like a dick
You should give presents to everyone whose good
and not just to your personal clique
If you bring me a toy to open Christmas morning
I'll let you be my boyfriend
All bearded, fat, and horny (Oh yea)
What does Jesus have to do with you?
You've got as much to do with Jesus as you do with Scooby Doo
What do you have to do with Jesus?
You have as much to do with him as you do your mother's penis (Oh yea)
So I don't think he's the son of God
I think he was still a nice boy
If you ask yourself, "What would Jesus do?"
He'd say give the jew girl toys (give the jew girl toys)
Don't be a douche
What would Jesus do?
He'd say, "give the jew girl toys"
(Claus , laus ..
Is that German ? )
santa claus.. SANTA KLAUS !!
You made a list and I checked it twice
and there is nobody named Silverman, or Mascowitz, or Weisz
You have a list
Well Schindler did too
Liam Neeson played him
Tim Allen played you !
Give the jew girl toys
Don't be a douche
What would Jesus do?
He'd say, "give the jew girl toys"

That'll make the Iraq war funding and the wall street bailout looks like chump change.....

I guess seven houses isn't good enough..... he wants to own millions of homes.....

But where's he gonna get the cash? Same way 99.99% of all home buyers get it: A loan. And who's going to be giving/guaranteeing the loan? It has to come from somewhere out of the loop, otherwise we wouldn't be in this mess.

Basically McCain wants to sell our homes to China.... How can Republicans possibly support McCain? He wants to authorize the takeover of millions of American homes to COMMUNISTS!!!!

Another example of the results of Keating Economics!

Dissecting the GOP's new "minorities and Clinton caused the credit crisis" theory
Chris in Paris · 10/08/2008 01:01:00 PM ET · Link
Make a comment · reddit · FARK · Digg It! · Stumble It!

As we listen to blowhards such as Richard Fuld from Lehman or the former AIG CEOs testify in Washington, there's also an active push by the Republicans to blame today's crisis not on the hotshots from Wall Street who made hundreds of millions, but on Clinton (as they always do) and naturally, poor minorities. What else should we expect from those who set in place this Wild West, unregulated system that allowed people like O'Neal, Prince and Mozilo to walk away with wads of cash despite selling trash? There is no doubt there are plenty of people on all sides of this problem who deserve blame, but to promote the theory that it's all the fault of Clinton and the poor is too much. Larry Kudlow floated this half-baked idea a few months ago but now that the credit crisis is getting worse, they're all piling on to move the blame away from themselves. It's beyond sickening.

Here's a small piece of a well done Newsweek article on why the GOP story is false but read the whole thing. We will all be hearing more of Republican nasty lie in the days to come as they launch their racist attack against Democrats and the poor.

The thesis is laid out almost daily on The Wall Street Journal editorial page and in the National Review. Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer provides an excellent example, writing that "much of this crisis was brought upon us by the good intentions of good people." He continues: "For decades, starting with Jimmy Carter's Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, there has been bipartisan agreement to use government power to expand homeownership to people who had been shut out for economic reasons or, sometimes, because of racial and ethnic discrimination. What could be a more worthy cause? But it led to tremendous pressure on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—which in turn pressured banks and other lenders—to extend mortgages to people who were borrowing over their heads. That's called subprime lending. It lies at the root of our current calamity." The subtext: if only Congress didn't force banks to lend money to poor minorities, the Dow would be well on its way to 36,000. Or, as Fox Business Channel's Neil Cavuto put it: "I don't remember a clarion call that said: Fannie and Freddie are a disaster. Loaning to minorities and risky folks is a disaster."

These arguments are generally made by people who read the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, and ignore the rest of the paper—economic know-nothings whose opinions are informed mostly by ideology and, occasionally, by prejudice. Let's be honest. Fannie and Freddie, which didn't make subprime loans but did buy subprime loans made by others, were part of the problem. Poor congressional oversight was part of the problem. Banks that sought to meet CRA requirements by indiscriminately doling out loans to minorities may have been part of the problem. But none of these issues is the cause of the problem. Not by a long shot. From the beginning, subprime has been a symptom, not a cause. And the notion that the Community Reinvestment Act is somehow responsible for poor lending decisions is absurd.

Click on the link and read the rest. You can't make this
stuff up.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/162789

the chat is working great on the video feed!

when you get there, you'll be assigned a user name which you can change by clicking the `edit nic' button.

I want Sarah to do a rap version of give a jew girl toys. Marc and/or Sam could supply the beat.

you know, by making those syncopated farty noises into the mic.

>>Let's be honest. Fannie and Freddie, which didn't make subprime loans but did buy subprime loans made by others, were part of the problem

I'm thinking they should investigate the companies who originally approved the loans. they need to be looking for how many of the loans they approved eventually defaulted.

When they find companies that approved larger than normal default rate (whatever that would be, 2 or 3 percent? I honestly do not know) they should prosecute, fine and/or seize assets.

any sales of these companies, and the sale of stock etc., should be frozen before the investigation is announced.

and he said something about he and his fellow prisoners...and he wasn't talking about the Hanoi Hilton...anyone else hear it?

Indigenous People's Day
next Monday.

In the summer of 1990, 350 Native Americans, representatives from all over the hemisphere, met in Quito, Ecuador, at the first Intercontinental Gathering of Indigenous People in the Americas, to mobilize against the quincentennial celebration of Columbus Day. The following summer, in Davis, California, more than a hundred Native Americans gathered for a follow-up meeting to the Quito conference. They declared October 12, 1992, International Day of Solidarity with Indigenous People. The largest ecumenical body in the United States, the National Council of Churches, called on Christians to refrain from celebrating the Columbus quincentennial, saying, "What represented newness of freedom, hope, and opportunity for some was the occasion for oppression, degradation and genocide for others."

Bartolome de las Casas
A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies
[1542]
It was upon these gentle lambs, imbued by the Creator with all the qualities we have mentioned, that from the very first day they clapped eyes on them the Spanish fell like ravening wolves upon the fold, or like tigers and savage lions who have not eaten meat for days. The pattern established at the outset has remained unchanged to this day, and the Spaniards still do nothing save tear the natives to shreds, murder them and inflict upon them untold misery, suffering and distress, tormenting, harrying and persecuting them mercilessly. We shall in due course describe some of the many ingenious methods of torture they have invented and refined for this purpose, but one can get some idea of the effectiveness of their methods from the figures alone. When the Spanish first journeyed there, the indigenous population of the island of Hispaniola stood at some three million; today only two hundred survive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9AsdjUzrAA&feature=related

Show Time!!!

Conservative writer David Brooks: Sarah Palin "represents a fatal cancer to the Republican party"
· 10/08/2008 02:40:00 PM ET · Link

Hold that metaphor!

[Sarah Palin] represents a fatal cancer to the republican party. When I first started in journalism, I worked at the National Review for Bill Buckley. And Buckley famously said he'd rather be ruled by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the Harvard faculty. But he didn't think those were the only two options. He thought it was important to have people on the conservative side who celebrated ideas, who celebrated learning. And his whole life was based on that, and that was also true for a lot of the other conservatives in the Reagan era. Reagan had an immense faith in the power of ideas. But there has been a counter, more populist tradition, which is not only to scorn liberal ideas but to scorn ideas entirely. And I'm afraid that Sarah Palin has those prejudices. I think President Bush has those prejudices.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/08/david-brooks-sarah-palin_n_1330...

?

~`~`~`~`~`~
Jamesbennett

worked for me.

What is Obama's Ceiling?

Further gains are going to be difficult to come by, which means that his polls are more likely to go down than to continue going up. (Indeed, our model assumes that the race will tighten some).
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/

how do you get to the stream?

http://www.mogulus.com/mvsLive

Happe Talk

(watching today's show) I think I'm having `Jew overload'... ;)

McLiar reveals plan:
Concentration Camps U.S.A.

http://www.jedreport.com/2008/10/mccain-loses-it-calls-american.html

for Sarah Silverman!

Happe Talk

talking about his plans. On CNN Sanchez has a split screen up once in awhile with responses about Paulson on a twitter account.

Some funny responses!

Like "I don't trust him he's a Bush buddy!

it may not be running...

imo

Happe Talk

is doing on CNN. I like to read the instant responses coming in.

People are really scared what will happen with this financial meltdown.

fuck the video

>>anyone having trouble with chat at mogulus?

I have no trouble at http://www.maronvseder.com/

thanks sam...marc.....sarah....

At least I can get the audio
Submitted by gulfstreamtoo on Wed, 10/08/2008 - 3:41pm.
fuck the video

And you need the newest upgrade to Flashplayer to get the video.

Other than that, I can't help with your video problem.

I'll try upgrading, even though I think I'm current...

Happe Talk

fun to hear --

sam acted as if he didn't know who you were or was he faking it? chubbs from the blog, more famous than sam (almost)

Do you really have Sarah's song as a ring tone?

.

I was on the show!

I will gloat for the rest of the day, cuz...well...I'm better than you!

I will give you braver though

gloat away;)
*****

Fuimus!

Your A Star ! :)

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

McCain-Palin Camp All Over The Map On Ayers
After flogging the Ayers theme for a few days, Palin didn't mention Ayers in her speech at an event (pictured) today. But this morning, the McCain camp blasted out a statement from an apparent victim of the Weathermen. So maybe the candidates are taking Ayers off the table, but the candidates' own campaign isn't?

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/palin_drops_refe...

Happe Talk

nucking futs.

Obviously Intentional
Seems like almost every day now there's a McCain-Palin rally where the campaign has the candidates introduced by someone who hits on "Barack Hussein Obama". Just happened again in Bethlehem, PA. After the fifth or sixth time you pretty much know on the orders of the campaign. It is obviously with tacit approval (to believe anything else is to be a dupe at this point); and quite probably on the campaign's specific instructions.

Given the regularity of the cries of "treason" and "terrorist" and the like, and the frequency with which the screamers seem in oddly convenient proximity to the mics, we should probably be considering the possibly that these folks are campaign plants. It happens all the time. It's just that usually they don't scream out accusations of capital crimes.

Late Update: A thought. At what point do they start burning Obama in effigy at the Palin rallies?

--Josh Marshall

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/politics/McCain_and_Palin_in_Bethlehe...

Happe Talk

>>Do you really have Sarah's song as a ring tone?

no...I said that cuz I was afraid they'd dump the call.

>>sam acted as if he didn't know who you were or was he faking it?

I was too busy talking to listen to those guys, but I thought when Sam greated me with a big, "Chubby!!!" (oh, god...not in that way...) that he recognized me. I called majority report a couple times and met him at the book signing in seattle. so I figgered he remembered me.

Debate theme:

http://www.imeem.com/platinumje4/music/3sOQujpz/zorak_im_gonna_to_kick_y...

be forewarned, it will play right away

>>Your A Star ! :)

I have my good days...

about the ringtone bit...I thought as long as I was wasting their time I might as well throw in as much potentially funny stuff as possible.

http://www.wispolitics.com/1006/081008_WISC_TV_Poll.pdf

Congress
Oct 8 CNN Democrats 52%, Republicans 47%GA-SEN
Oct 8 Rasmussen Chambliss (R) 50%, Martin (D) 44%WI-Pres
Oct 8 Res. 2000 Obama (D) 51%, McCain (R) 41%Pres '08
Oct 8 Gallup Obama (D) 52%, McCain (R) 41%PA-Pres
Oct 8 Muhlenberg PA Obama (D) 50%, McCain (R) 38%Pres '08
Oct 8 ARG Obama (D) 49%, McCain (R) 45%

any Nevadans out there? check out the powerpoint presentation on the home page:

www.nv2020.com

but you are certainly MORE....

Good job.. :)

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

>>but you are certainly MORE....

bigger is better, no?

One day after she told a Tennessee newspaper Obama is running the "dirtiest campaign in American history," Mrs. McCain criticized the Illinois senator for voting against a bill to fund troops in Iraq, a regular line of attack from her husband’s campaign.

“I would suggest Senator Obama change shoes with me for just one day."
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/08/cindy-mccain-goes-on-the...

thanks, two-party system!

One candidate wants to give away hundreds of billions of your tax dollars for a new social program that rewards people for purchasing bigger homes than they could afford.

The other one is a Democrat.

For the Republicans among you who are so despondent you’d just as soon live in a state of oblivious denial, we direct you to the “Everything’s Awesome” blog.

Democrats, well, you’re probably confused. “Which is our guy again? The one who is offering hundreds of billions of dollars in new social program giveaways or the other one who is offering hundreds of billions of dollars in new social program giveaways?…”

This seems as good a time as any to explore the many third-party alternatives:

This market was a roller coaster today.

It seems like right after Paulson spoke, the market tanked again. It was up +175 and now it's -189

NV in the hizzouse

Back to McCain...last night he said he was was on a nuke sub...when was that? since when do flighter planes take off from submarines?

or was he just a visitor?

--Submitted by Chubby Bubba on Wed, 10/08/2008 - 3:53pm.

I was on the show!--

On The Day McCain Campaign Was "Suspended," He Ran Over 1,300 Ads
By Greg Sargent - October 8, 2008, 3:36PM
The last thing you need is yet more proof that the McCain campaign "suspension" was a big ruse, but this is a pretty funny postscript.

Buried in that Wisconsin Advertising Project report I mentioned below is this shining gold nugget:

On September 24, his campaign aired 2,447 ads and on Sept. 25, it aired 1,304 ads. From September 26-28, McCain aired 302, 670, and 852 ads respectively. On September 29, the campaign returned to previous advertising levels, airing 2,687 ads."
McCain suspended his campaign on the afternoon of Sept. 24th, and attended the debate on the 26th. On Sept. 25th -- the only full day of the suspension -- McCain's campaign ran a grand total of 1,304 ads. That's roughly half the campaign's ordinary level of advertising -- still a very heavy level.

To be fair, the numbers do show the McCain team did make an effort to pull ads down. But as the head of the Ad project told The Swamp blog, "It's not clear how hard they tried."

More to the point, whether the campaign tried or not, in the real world, McCain's suspension just didn't end up being the heroic act of self-sacrifice he claimed it to be.

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/on_day_mccain_ca...

after her utters 'prisoners'. Her face sez 'u old fucker, u r killing me!!'

I called in at the very end. last of the 3 calls.

that way they knew they would end on a high note... ;)

I'm rewatching the show so I can see their expressions on my call.

plus, you miss a minute or two of the show because of the delay.

>>Her face sez 'u old fucker, u r killing me!!'

I bet McCain secretly feels the same way about Sarah.

http://www.colbertnation.com/home

there are 2 links to`watch the full show'.

the bit is about 2/3rd into the show.

Attacks On Christians In Iraqi City Raise Concern

By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD - An Iraqi archbishop expressed concern Wednesday over what he called a "campaign of killings and deportations" against Christians in the northern city of Mosul after police reported seven Christians killed in separate attacks this month.
ADVERTISEMENT

A female suicide bomber also blew herself up near government offices in Baqouba, northeast of the capital, killing 11 people, Iraqi officials said.

The violence in both cities occurred despite U.S.-Iraqi operations launched over the summer aimed at routing al-Qaida in Iraq and other insurgents from remaining strongholds north of the capital.

Iraqi police in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, have reported finding the bullet-riddled bodies of seven Christians in separate attacks so far in October, the latest a day laborer found on Wednesday.

The others included a clothing store owner, a teenager, two other day laborers, a pharmacy employee and a handicapped man who owns a spare parts store, police said. Iraqis have their religions listed on government-issued ID cards.

"We are worried about the campaign of killings and deportations against the Christian citizens in Mosul," Chaldean Archbishop Louis Sako said in a statement.

CONTINUES HERE:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081008/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq;_ylt=AoTHtWSN...

-

Debate Moves Undecided Voters
Democracy Corps had a focus group of undecided voters in Nevada watch last night's debate:

"Unlike the first debate, when Democracy Corps research showed half the voters remaining undecided and the two candidates splitting the other half, the vote following the second debate showed a decisive shift toward Senator Obama. This debate was a clear victory for Obama who made major gains not just in the vote but also on personal favorability and key attributes like 'has what it takes to be President,' which ultimately drove undecided voters into his column."

http://www.democracycorps.com/focus/2008/10/second-presidential-debate-u...

In addition, Fox News and CNN focus groups of uncommitted voters also said Obama won.

___

.♡. - .☮.

Mason-Dixon: Obama Ahead in Florida
Sen. Barack Obama leads Sen. John McCain by two-points in Florida, 48% to 46%, according to a new Mason-Dixon poll.

Said pollster Brad Coker: "The key to Florida remains the Tampa Bay region, where Obama currently holds a 48%-44% advantage. The other regions of the state fall into their generally predictable patterns, with Obama holding a wide 61%-33% lead in Southeast Florida and McCain running ahead in North Florida (58%-37%), Central Florida (51%-43%) and Southwest Florida (55%-40%)."

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/081007_Florida_Mason-Dix...

i think whats most telling is that the coordinated rate cuts failed to impact the market for more than a half hour. think of it as pulling the trigger on an empty gun as the monster is getting closer and closer and then you finally throw the gun at the monster...

some traders are suggesting that we are only half way towards a bottom somewhere between 6000 and 8000. what you can expect to see are short lived rallies followed by roller coaster plunges. the big money is running for the exits while they still have money and are using every trick in the book to drive the market in a way that they can profit.

the ban on shorting the financials ends at midnight tonight so tomorrow will be interesting.

you don't think it had anything to do with mcbush saying he was cutting the hell out of medicare to pay for other stuff.

Intrade Market Odds O 75.5 M 24.4

Probably one of those times he had to bail out of his plane over water when he was flying too low..

Crank might know Chubbs..
His Dad was in The Navy..
I know they sometimes transport people around by subs..
I doubt if he was on one for long..
But,I'm not really sure..

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

since these are 100 unit contracts where a unit = 0.10 that means that for 2.40 you can buy a contract that will pay 10.00 if mcbush wins or for 7.50 you can buy a contract that will pay 10.00 if obama wins, right?

so right now mcbush is 1:3 and obama is 3:1

whats intriguing about the site is that volume for either contract is about the same. i would think it would be biased towards the more likely winner.

i'll bet it was part of academy training although nuclear was pretty rare that long ago.

>>His Dad was in The Navy..

My dad was in the Navy...and I don't know...

besides, Crank's Dad was stationed on the Merrimac...that's sort of like a submarine...but not quite atomic powered.

Maybe the tranferred McCain to a submarine after one of his crashes?

did the figure there'd be no way for him to cash another plane at 300 fathoms?

I bet McCain toured an atomic sub while part of congress.

there's a difference between a `3 hour tour' and being stationed on one.

ok, maybe not the best comparison, Gilligan's Island and all...

Dear MoveOn member,

With only 33 days to go before the election, we've got to inform the public—and especially the women Sarah Palin panders to—about where she really stands.

And the truth is, on women's health issues, she's way out of the mainstream. When she was mayor of Wasilla, women who were raped literally had to pay up to $1200 out of their own pockets for the exams used to prosecute their attackers.

The folks at Planned Parenthood Action Fund have put together a very strong ad that lays out these facts in a clear, emotional way. The ad's been tested by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, a polling firm. It's very persuasive—one of the most effective ads of 2008.

But Planned Parenthood Action Fund needs help getting it in front of as many folks as possible. Can you help by chipping in $20? You can watch the ad and chip in here:

https://pol.moveon.org/donate/pp.html?id=14176-2636901-Q6pJkKx&t=4

The ad doesn't just focus on Palin. It also reminds voters that John McCain's record on women's health issues is troubling, too: He voted AGAINST the Violence Against Women Act.

The polling showed that when people watched it, their opinions of John McCain shifted dramatically. In the test, people were polled before and after they'd been exposed to the ad. After seeing it, they were a whopping 16 percentage points more likely to feel like McCain had poor judgment and 7 percentage points more likely to think he wasn't sensitive to the views of women.

Here's what a few people in the poll said about McCain after seeing the ad:
"He is against helping women with these awful unsolicited traumas and then leaves them with bills..."

"He doesn't share my same values and it is wrong to charge rape victims for exams."

"The fact that he has so little compassion for a woman who has been raped that he would make her pay for her exam and not allow her to have an abortion if needed."
As you can see, this ad really affects people who see it. And it provides critical information about important health issues facing women and their families.

Please chip in to help Planned Parenthood Action Fund get it on the air:

https://pol.moveon.org/donate/pp.html?id=14176-2636901-Q6pJkKx&t=5

Thanks for all you do.

–Nita, Karin, Marika, Laura and the rest of the team

I have to find that article again.

What do you think will happen, Dan?

fact check on last night's debate.

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/factchecking_debate_no_2.html

John McCain's New Mortgage Plan Is Worse than I Had Imagined Possibly, Even Given What I Know About John McCain
Douglas Holtz-Eakin says, this morning:

[W]e would in fact be taking the negative equity position and putting it on the taxpayers books instead of putting it on the private lenders books or the homeowners books. We think the balance of risk has shifted to the point where this is the way to go...

What does this mean? It means that John McCain wants to give $100 billion of taxpayers' money to America's worst-behaving mortgage financiers.

Let's back up. For the past month the debate about how to deal with the collapse of the debt-trading portion of America's financial markets has been between two plans: the Paulson plan and the Elmendorf plan:

The Paulson Plan: Have the government buy up distressed securities at market value, thus reducing the supply of high-yield debt securities that the private sector must hold. When you reduce the supply of anything you raise its price. Hence the Paulson plan's $700 billion purchases will push the prices of risky debt securities up, and so companies will then be able to sell their bonds again and so hire more workers, and depression will be averted.

The Elmendorf Plan: Have the government directly invest in and take an equity stake in troubled banks, thus reassuring their depositors and creditors that they are sound. The banks will then be able to profit by buying up distressed securities--hence raising their prices--and by directly lending to companies that will then be able to hire more workers, and depression will be averted.

The argument for the Paulson plan was that the Elmendorf plan was socialism.

The argument for the Elmendorf plan was that it held the promise of doing a much better job of preventing depression, for each dollar committed to the Paulson plan reduces the gap between the demand and supply of distressed securities by only $1, while each dollar invested in a bank is then leveraged 8-to-1 as bank creditors and depositors are then willing to keep more money in the bank and so reduces the gap between the demand and supply of distressed securities by $8. Eight times as much bang for each federal buck, and the Elmendorf plan ensured that the taxpayers were protected to a greater extent: we did not just have the socialization of loss after the privatization of gain, we had the socialization of any gains that might occur if banks' equity values ever recovered.

More here:

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2008/10/john-mccains-ne.html

BETHLEHEM, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - White House hopeful John McCain pitched a $300 billion plan to help struggling homeowners on Wednesday, as he sought to dent a lead Barack Obama has built over his handling of economic issues.

===

i guess being a maverick means you can make up stuff on the fly and not get called on it.

Moral hazard

My colleague Victoria McGrane, late of our Capitol Hill bureau, emails with the most lucid explanation I've seen of what McCain did last night. The crucial shift from a recent congressional housing bill to McCain's more dramatic plan, she writes, was a move away from concern about moral hazard:

Details provided to reporters by senior adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin Wednesday morning make one thing clear: Taxpayers would directly pick up the tab for the difference in cost between a homeowner’s old, too-expensive mortgage and the cheaper one provided by the government.

This is something that congressional lawmakers, led by House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) specifically avoided when they crafted their own landmark housing bill, which became law July 31 and took effect Oct. 1.

Congress’ bill – which Holtz-Eakin says provides at least part of the authority McCain would need to carry out his plan – provided a $300 billion program to help distressed borrowers refinance into cheaper Federal Housing Authority mortgages. But to participate, lenders and mortgage investors would have to reduce the mortgage principal, thus taking a loss on the loan.

Lawmakers argued that the “haircut” would protect taxpayers and mitigate against so-called “moral hazard” that government intervention would encourage lenders to believe they’ll always be rescued from their bad business decisions. To make sure homeowners didn’t get off scott free either, the law requires them to share any future profits from the resale of their homes with the government.

“Clearly we face the trade off that we would in fact be taking the negative equity position and putting it on the taxpayers books instead of putting it on the private lenders books or the homeowners books,” Holtz-Eakin told Politico. “We think the balance of risk has shifted to the point where this is the way to go.”

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1008/Moral_hazard.html

Nonsense in Nashville

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/factchecking_debate_no_2.html

Summary

• McCain and Obama debated for the second time, in Nashville. We noted some misleading statements and mangled facts:

• McCain proposed to write down the amount owed by over-mortgaged homeowners and claimed the idea as his own: “It’s my proposal, it's not Sen. Obama's proposal, it's not President Bush's proposal.” But the idea isn’t new. Obama had endorsed something similar two weeks earlier, and authority for the treasury secretary to grant such relief was included in the recently passed $700 billion financial rescue package.

• Both candidates oversimplified the causes of the financial crisis. McCain blamed it on Democrats who resisted tighter regulation of federal mortgage agencies. Obama blamed it on financial deregulation backed by Republicans. We find both are right, with plenty of blame left over for others, from home buyers to the chairman of the Federal Reserve.

• Obama said his health care plan would lower insurance premiums by up to $2,500 a year. Experts we’ve consulted see little evidence such savings would materialize.

• McCain misstated his own health care plan, saying he’d give a $5,000 tax credit to “every American” His plan actually would provide only $2,500 per individual, or $5,000 for couples and families. He also misstated Obama’s health care plan, claiming it would levy fines on “small businesses” that fail to provide health insurance. Actually, Obama’s plan exempts “small businesses.”

• McCain lamented that the U.S. was forced to “withdraw in humiliation” from Somalia in 1994, but he failed to note that he once proposed to cut off funding for troops to force a faster withdrawal.

• Obama said, “I favor nuclear power.” That’s a stronger statement than we've heard him make before. As recently as last December, he said, “I am not a nuclear energy proponent.”
  McCain claimed “1.3 million people in America make their living off eBay.” Actually, only 724,000 persons in the U.S. have income from eBay, and only some of them rely on it as their primary source.

For full details, and additional quibbles, please read our Analysis section.

Naomi Klein visited Uncle Miltie Friedman's alma mater, U. of Chicago, recently, to argue against them naming a new institute after Uncle Miltie's dumb ass.

----

Wall St. Crisis Should Be for Neoliberalism What Fall of Berlin Wall Was for Communism

by Naomi Klein

... So, what I want to argue here is that, among other things, the economic chaos that we’re seeing right now on Wall Street and on Main Street and in Washington stems from many factors, of course, but among them are the ideas of Milton Friedman and many of his colleagues and students from this school. Ideas have consequences.

More than that, what we are seeing with the crash on Wall Street, I believe, should be for Friedmanism what the fall of the Berlin Wall was for authoritarian communism: an indictment of ideology. It cannot simply be written off as corruption or greed, because what we have been living, since Reagan, is a policy of liberating the forces of greed to discard the idea of the government as regulator, of protecting citizens and consumers from the detrimental impact of greed, ideas that, of course, gained great currency after the market crash of 1929, but that really what we have been living is a liberation movement, indeed the most successful liberation movement of our time, which is the movement by capital to liberate itself from all constraints on its accumulation.

So, as we say that this ideology is failing, I beg to differ. I actually believe it has been enormously successful, enormously successful, just not on the terms that we learn about in University of Chicago textbooks, that I don’t think the project actually has been the development of the world and the elimination of poverty. I think this has been a class war waged by the rich against the poor, and I think that they won. And I think the poor are fighting back. This should be an indictment of an ideology. Ideas have consequences ...

_________________

An indictment of an ideology, indeed.

Not partial to the term "neoliberalism" in the title, though.

Much prefer "free-market fundamentalism". Think it far better denotes the naive fanatical rapacious bullying at work, to say nothing of the imperious unquestioning article-of-faith devotionalism of its adherents.

Holtz-Eakin's description may be the true one (it's the only way this makes sense as a financial rescue package rather than a homeowner bailout), but it flatly contradicts the description on McCain's website, which says "For those that cannot make payments, mortgages must be re-structured to put losses on the books and put homeowners in manageable mortgages. Lenders in these cases must recognize the loss that they’ve already suffered."

Now, given that the plan presented on McCain's website is utterly incoherent and probably illegal, I'm willing to give Holtz-Eakin the benefit of the doubt. But we have a right to know whether McCain's website or his economic adviser is lying.

Posted by: Ginger Yellow | October 08, 2008 at 10:35 AM

Back in Black - Negative Advertising

Lewis Black doesn't hate either candidate yet, hopefully their advertisements can change all that.

The significance of McCain's mortgage plan
Posted by Justin Fox | Comments (6) | Permalink | Trackbacks (0) | Email This
John McCain's announcement during the debate Tuesday night that he wants the government to spend $300 billion buying up mortgages and rewriting the terms was something of a landmark in the national discussion over what to do about our financial mess.

Yeah, it was a half-baked proposal that made no acknowledgement of the fact that Barney Frank and Chris Dodd have already gotten a similar if far-less-bold and far less expensive plan enacted into law (without much help from either McCain or Obama, who missed both the April 10 the July 26 Senate votes on the bill). As the LA Times reports:

According to the outline of McCain's newest proposal, the federal government would pay borrowers and lenders in full, regardless of how wise or fair the original transaction was. Lenders would be able to remove the bad mortgages from their balance sheets, and borrowers would be able to refinance into government-guaranteed loans. Mortgage holders would have to prove they lived in the home and had good credit at the time of the original loan. ...

By contrast, the housing bill passed by Congress over the summer, and which went into effect Oct. 1, required lenders to take a loss by writing down the principal on troubled mortgages to 85% of the house's current value. Borrowers with adequate incomes and credit records would then qualify for refinanced mortgages from new lenders.

Government funds were used only to help finance mortgage insurance for the new loans; cost estimate for taxpayers was roughly $20 billion.

But I'll be generous and take McCain's debate gambit as a sign that there's now clear bipartisan agreement that bigger, bolder actions still need to be taken to right the country's financial ship. Which isn't enough in itself to solve our problems, but strikes me as better than the absence of such an agreement.

http://time-blog.com/curious_capitalist/2008/10/the_significance_of_mcca...

its hard to say. the easy one is to say the financials will fall like a rock as individuals come back in and drive the prices down. on the other hand, even with the ban, financials have managed to drop just fine on their own. all that happened is that you couldn't profit from the decline.

another theory is that individuals will rush in and take short positions and get caught in a short squeeze. what happens is that somebody comes in and bids up the price. if you are short you try and buy before you lose too much money. this bids the price higher and pretty soon you got a stampede. thats when the original buyer sales what they bought and walks away....

so, really, its anybodys guess.

It's really the dullest presidential campaign season since 2000, which was the dullest since 1984. They are boring us to death.

"Obama had to be the dullest black man to be suitable for president."

-Bill Maher.

www.sigzone.blogspot.com

If this has been posted already, I apologize for the repeat. Time is limited here at the li'bry.

Having lived in Alaska for several months now, I can assure you that Alaskans don't talk the way Sarah Palin talks. Palin's Midwestern twang is some weird amalgam of June Cleaver and Francis McDormand's Nor'Dakota cop in the Cohen Bros. Fargo, "don'cha know"?

It's a miracle we can't get an "eh?" outta her.

Well, ain't it inneresting to discover (twere for me, anyway) that -- "I'm shocked! Shocked!" -- Sarah W. Palin's folksy accent is as fake as the Connecticut Yankee in Jr. Codpiece's Court? Check out these video clips 'n judge for yourself.

(I really enjoy how Sarah W. forgets herself in the middle of one of the interviews but then lays it on thick toward the end to make up for the folksy shortfall.)

Undecideds

As Stoller suggests, undecided voters are a uniquely weird breed distinct from voters who simply might change their mind at some point. Polls change and the people who switch from one candidate to another aren't undecided, they're just people who have changed their choice for whatever reason. People who wear their undecidedness on their sleeves at this late stage in the campaign are weird, as is the focus on them. These aren't the people that should be ruling our political discourse.

-Atrios 12:15

http://openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=8928

>>It's a miracle we can't get an "eh?" outta her.

I think all that folksiness is fake.

I mean, how many people with degrees in broadcast journalism drop the g's off of all the words ending with `ing'?

they should teach this stuff, even in Idaho...

Ralph Nader in the news
October 8th, 2008 · written by Ross Levin · No Comments

Tonight, independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader will be appearing on the O’Reily Factor. His appearance will be at 8:25 PM EST. He also appeared on CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer today at 5 PM.

John Roberts interviewed Nader.

--Both candidates oversimplified the causes of the financial crisis. McCain blamed it on Democrats who resisted tighter regulation of federal mortgage agencies. Obama blamed it on financial deregulation backed by Republicans. We find both are right, with plenty of blame left over for others, from home buyers to the chairman of the Federal Reserve.--

both are wrong. this was created by greenspan lowering rates to 1% for 1 yr. at the same time pension funds changed their charters to invest in hedge funds. hedge funds suddenly had 100's of billions of $$'s to invest and nothing was a good investment. the only thing people were putting money into was real estate. so hedge funds entered the mortgage biz.

Submitted by Chubby Bubba on Wed, 10/08/2008 - 6:10pm.

>>It's a miracle we can't get an "eh?" outta her.

I think all that folksiness is fake.

I mean, how many people with degrees in broadcast journalism drop the g's off of all the words ending with `ing'?

they should teach this stuff, even in Idaho...

__________________

Agreed.

Full disclosure time: This may shock 'n astonish ever'one, but my frequent skinny-dips into down-home folksiness 'n bad grammar is fake, too.

My excuse? Unconstrained am I by the soul-destroying limitations of running for office, 'n I'm also vain enough to own that I'm better at it than she is.

must be a 'thing' going around internet-brain-wise.

Obama: McCain's mortgage plan costly, unworkable By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 17 minutes ago

Democrat Barack Obama's campaign criticized John McCain's mortgage bailout plan Wednesday, saying it would cause the government to lose money by paying too much for bad loans.

McCain's proposal to spend $300 billion in federal funds to buy distressed mortgages was a highlight of Tuesday's presidential debate, and it seemed to catch Obama off guard. At first, Obama's campaign said he had made similar proposals and there was nothing new in McCain's remarks.

But after McCain aides offered more details Wednesday, Obama's campaign shifted gears.

The plan would cause the government "to massively overpay for mortgages in a plan that would guarantee taxpayers lose money, and put them at risk of losing even more if home values don't recover," Obama economic adviser Jason Furman said in a statement. "The biggest beneficiaries of this plan will be the same financial institutions that got us into this mess, some of whom even committed fraud."

The statement did not detail why the plan would fail. Some mortgage officials, however, say the great majority of bad loans are owned by large pools of investors who would sell them only at prices much higher than their current worth.

If McCain's plan would have the government pay all or most of the difference between a home loan's original value and its renegotiated lower value, as these officials understood it to do, it could prove costly.

McCain's proposal would devote nearly half the $700 billion from the recent financial rescue package to buying troubled mortgages directly, rather than indirectly aiding the nation's financial markets.

Speaking to several thousand people in Indianapolis on Wednesday, Obama criticized McCain's health care and economic positions, but did not mention the new mortgage proposal.

Obama urged Americans not to panic over the faltering economy, saying "there are better days ahead" — especially if he is elected president. He acknowledged public anxiety over the financial crisis in starker terms than usual.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081008/ap_on_el_pr/obama_5&printer=1;_ylt=A...

made the library ladies laugh...that's a good day in my book.. :)

Greenspan had alot to do with this financial meltdown, but it was more than just him. It started way back in the 70's actually and maybe even sooner than that.

Greespan just took advantage of the system and created bubbles. The groundwork for him to do his dirtywork was already there.

is on MSNBC now. He's talking about McCain's mortgage program.

The guy from CNBC said it would cost 3-4 trillion dollars for McCain's program.

I'm not liking her much anymore.

it...That was something from my friend...</