The Cassandra of the Glass-Steagall Act:

The footage of him speaking on the Senate floor has become something of a cult flick for the particularly wonky progressive. The date was November 4, 1999. Senator Byron Dorgan, in a patterned red tie, sharp dark suit and hair with slightly more color than it has today, was captured only by the cameras of CSPAN2.

"I want to sound a warning call today about this legislation," he declared, swaying ever so slightly right, then left, occasionally punching the air in front of him with a slightly closed fist. "I think this legislation is just fundamentally terrible."

The legislation was the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act (alternatively known as Gramm Leach Bliley), which allowed banks to merge with insurance companies and investment houses. And Dorgan was, at the time, on a proverbial island with his concerns. Only eight senators would vote against the measure -- lionized by its proponents, including senior staff in the Clinton administration and many now staffing President Obama, as the most important breakthrough in the worlds of finance and politics in decades.

"It was more like a tidal wave in 1999," the North Dakota Democrat recalled of that vote in an interview with the Huffington Post. "You've seen the roll call. We didn't really have to deal with push back because they had such a strong, strong body of support for what they call modernization that the vote was never in doubt... The title of the bill was 'The Financial Modernization Act.' And so if you don't want to modernize, I guess you're considered hopelessly old fashioned."

Ten years later, Dorgan has been vindicated. His warning that banks would become "too big to fail" has proven basically true in the wake of the current financial crisis. He seems eerily prescient for claiming then that Congress would "look back ten years time and say we should not have done this." But he wasn't entirely alone. Sens. Barbara Boxer, Barbara Mikulski, Richard Shelby, Tom Harkin and Richard Bryan also cast nay votes.

As did Sen. Russ Feingold, who, in a statement from his office, recalled that "Gramm-Leach-Bliley was just one of several bad policies that helped lead to the credit market crisis and the severe recession it helped cause."

The late Sen. Paul Wellstone also opposed the bill, warning at the time that Congress was "about to repeal the economic stabilizer without putting any comparable safeguard in its place."

Outside government, doomsday-ing over the repeal of Glass-Steagall seemed far more palatable a position to take. Edward Kane, a finance professor at Boston College, warned that "nobody will be able to discipline a Citigroup" once the legislation passed, because the banks would be too big and the issues too complex.

Read much more at Huffington Post.

CONTINUE READING...

Jim Cramer on The Daily Show

I almost feel sorry for him, but there is no such thing as bad publicity. Cynically I can't help feeling like, as cathartic as it's been for us, the guy got massive exposure out of this.

But I'm still glad Jon nailed him...

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 1

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Pt. 2

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Pt. 3

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

More video at The Daily Show on Comedy Central.

CONTINUE READING...

Reboot!

Hey, look-ee! After telling us yesterday that he would not have any more proposals this week unless developments call for some, turns out McCain DOES have a plan to share with us. Drum roll if you please.....

In a plan in which most of the benefits would go to older voters, Mr. McCain proposed that people 59 and up who withdraw money from IRAs or 401(k) retirement plans in 2009 and 2010 pay a tax rate of 10 percent on the money rather than their higher normal rates. That part of the plan would cost $36 billion, based on the McCain campaign's internal estimates.

In addition, Mr. McCain proposed a reduction in the tax on long-term capital gains to 7.5 percent from 15 percent in 2009 and 2010 at an estimated cost of $10 billion; an acceleration in the tax write-off for stock losses, allowing Americans to deduct $15,000 in losses a year for the tax years 2008 and 2009 (current rules allow deductions up to $3,000 in losses); a suspension on the tax on unemployment insurance benefits in 2008 and 2009; and a government guarantee on 100 percent of all savings accounts for six months.

I especially loved this part of the McCain speech, which unveiled the plan in Blue Bell, PA.

Mr. McCain sharply criticized Mr. Obama for his fiscal policies and said repeatedly that his rival, who has pledged tax cuts for 95 percent of American families, would in fact raise taxes.

"He is an eloquent speaker, but even he can't turn a record of supporting higher taxes into a credible promise to cut taxes," Mr. McCain said. "What he promises today is the opposite of what he has done his entire career. Perhaps never in history have the American people been asked to risk so much based on so little."

Oh. As opposed to you, Mr. Consistency, who just voted for the regulations you've been trying to dismantle, lo, these many years. We can trust you to do what you say you would because you're the guy who "suspended" his campaign til the financial crisis was fixed, then "unsuspended" it, even though clearly, things are not "fixed" now. The guy who said he wouldn't resort to smear tactics, then did. The guy whose campaign people said he'd have an economic plan yesterday, then said you "would not have any more proposals this week unless developments call for some," and then announced your new plan the next day. You even lied to David Letterman. Oh yeah. YOU'RE reliable. We can take a risk on you.

Obama's people come back with their retort, which is much more on point than mine above, I grant you: "John McCain's latest gambit is a day late and 101 million middle-class families short. McCain's plan would spend $300 billion to bailout the same irresponsible Wall Street banks that got us into this mess without doing anything to help jumpstart job growth for America's middle class. His plan continues to provide no tax relief at all to 101 million hardworking families, including 97 percent of senior citizens, and it does nothing to cut taxes for small businesses or give them access to credit. Senator McCain also shows how little he understands the economy by offering lower capital gains rates in a year in which people don't have an awful lot of capital gains. His trickle-down, ideological recipes won't strengthen our economy and grow our middle-class, but Barack Obama's pro-jobs, pro-family economic policies will," said Obama-Biden campaign spokesman Bill Burton.

In spite of all, though, McCain's campaign continues to put a bright face on a bleak poll-number situation. McCain's people continue to hope that their boy can pull off the same kind of "come-from-behind" magic that Ronald Reagan did in 1980, but at WaPo, they point out that in the weeks leading up to the election, Carter actually did not maintain a large lead over Reagan and didn't have the kind of momentum we're seeing for Obama. "A post-election summary of polls by then-CBS News pollster Warren Mitofsky shows that at no point over the final two weeks did Carter have a lead bigger than three percentage points.

CONTINUE READING...

Foundations of Modern Capitalism

I guess Europeans are as quick to move as Americans are-- they finally got around to a statement. From today's London Times: "At a summit in Paris, the 15 countries using the euro pledged that no bank will be allowed to fail. The European accord follows Saturday's announcement by the Group of Seven industrialised countries of an "action plan" to thaw frozen credit markets. The two moves may be the prelude to a wider international gathering of world leaders. George W Bush has suggested he may convene such a meeting later this week where the very foundations of modern capitalism may be reassessed." George Bush... where have I heard that name.... Who is that again?

Paul Krugman, the Cassandra of the Financial World: "Last month, when the U.S. Treasury Department allowed Lehman Brothers to fail, I wrote that Henry Paulson, the Treasury secretary, was playing financial Russian roulette. Sure enough, there was a bullet in that chamber: Lehman's failure caused the world financial crisis, already severe, to get much, much worse. The consequences of Lehman's fall were apparent within days, yet key policy players have largely wasted the past four weeks. Now they've reached a moment of truth: They'd better do something soon — in fact, they'd better announce a coordinated rescue plan this weekend — or the world economy may well experience its worst slump since the Great Depression."

Reuters has more on the global financial crisis, as it gets bigger than just the G7 countries...for obsessive crisis-monitors like me. A handy collection of international articles on who's going down. Apparently, if you're a poor country to start with, it's like being a poor person watching this crisis. "African economies have so far been only indirectly hit by global market turmoil but tighter credit markets may impact funding for projects, even profitable ones, the International Monetary Fund said on Friday."

And on domestic shores, GM and Chrysler appear to be in negotiations for a merger! "A merger would be a historic event, with two of the most iconic names in American industry coming together to survive in an increasingly difficult environment. Both have roots dating back decades in Detroit and, with Ford, long dominated the auto industry — until Japanese and other foreign car makers began making inroads into the American market...General Motors' stock has fallen from more than $43 a share last year to less than $5, and it is burning through its cash hoard at a rapid rate. Chrysler, as a private company, no longer needs to report its finances."

By the way, during the debate, McCain claimed that he too had written a letter warning of the dangers of a Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac housing market meltdown, "I'd like you to see the letter that a group of senators and I wrote warning exactly of this crisis. Senator Obama's name was not on that letter." ProPublica asks, um.... which letter was that? T'would be interesting if the McCain campaign could provide us the letter.

CONTINUE READING...

Presidential Character

"If you will think about what you ought to do for other people, your character will take care of itself. Character is a by-product, and any man who devotes himself to its cultivation in his own case will become a selfish prig."

--Woodrow Wilson

The qualities of a great man are "vision, integrity, courage, understanding, the power of articulation, and profundity of character."

--Dwight D. Eisenhower

The Kindness of Strangers

I thought it interesting that, for a man who really had seen and done so much, in Eisenhower's quote above, he doesn't mention "experience" or even "wisdom." And the Woodrow Wilson quote makes the perfect lead-in to this NICE story, which I include because these days, I find myself a little beaten down by the negative turn in the campaigns.

Several bloggers are carrying this little item, which first appeared in the Norwegian daily newspaper Verdens Gang or VG. (You can get a rough idea from the Google Translator here.) It sounds a bit like the all those all-too-heartwarming email forwards, but VG is a well-known newspaper with a circulation of 1 -1.5 million throughout Norway.

Anyway, here's the story: It seems that back in 1988, then newlywed 31-year old Mary Andersen was in the Miami airport, on her way to joining her husband in Norway. She had all of her prized possessions in two suitcases, but because they were overweight, the airline representative told her she would have to pay $103 in luggage surcharges. Mary unfortunately had no money, and her husband had travelled on ahead of her, so she had no one to call. I was completely desperate and tried to think through which of the things I could do without. But the bags were filled with my most prized possessions, "says Mary.

"As tears streamed down her face, she heard a 'kind and friendly voice' behind her saying, 'That's okay, I'll pay for her.' Mary turned around to see a tall man whom she had never seen before.

"She was thrilled to be able to bring both her suitcases to Norway and assured the stranger that he would get his money back. The man wrote his name and address on a piece of paper which he gave to Mary. She thanked him repeatedly. When she finally walked off towards the security checkpoint, he waved goodbye to her.

The name on the piece of paper was "Barack Obama."

A grateful Andersen paid him back the day she got to Norway. Years later, Andersen heard Obama was thinking about running for president and Mary's parents decided to write to Obama supporting him and to thank him for helping their daughter 18 years earlier.

Obama replied in a letter to Mary's parents dated May 4th, 2006 and stamped 'United States Senate, Washington DC':

'I want to thank you for the lovely things you wrote about me and for reminding me of what happened at Miami airport. I'm happy I could help back then, and I'm delighted to hear that your daughter is happy in Norway. Please send her my best wishes. Sincerely,

Barack Obama,
United States senator'.

Mary says that when her friends and associates talk about the election, especially when race relations is the heated subject, she relates the story of the kind man who helped out a stranger-in-need over twenty years ago, years before he had even thought about running for higher office.

In the PBS website for their 1996 TV special on what constitutes Presidential Character, they cite a quote from Dear Abby, "The best index to a person's character is (a) how he treats people who can't do him any good, and (b) how he treats people who can't fight back."

==================================
And now, the news
Dear me, the Dow is down AGAIN today. 800 points. Perhaps we're still gripped by an Olympic fever, because we're just all about setting new records these days. The DJIA dipped below 10,000, which apparently hasn't happened since October 22, 2004. Hmmmm, just before the LAST presidential election. My Fellow Americans, does suffering through a presidential campaign depress you?

But I guess we're not the only ones. World markets are coming along for the ride too. You know, this whole "failed bailout" thing kinda puts a fresh perspective on the Germanically snarky article, "The End of Arrogance," which Betty sent me from Der Spiegel, "The Americans are now paying the price for their pride. Gone are the days when the US could go into debt with abandon, without considering who would end up footing the bill. And gone are the days when it could impose its economic rules of engagement on the rest of the world, rules that emphasized profit above all else -- without ever considering that such returns cannot be achieved by doing business in a respectable way." Oh, wait, what's this in the Wall Street Journal? "In tandem with its surprise move to protect deposits, the government of Germany, Europe's largest economy, arranged a bailout for Hypo Real Estate Holding AG, a giant property lender that came close to collapsing after private lenders pulled out of an earlier €35 billion ($48.2 billion) aid plan last week."

$48.2 billion? Pshaw. Hey, Angela Merkel, take that-- we still LEAD, even in Global Thermonuclear Economic Flameouts after ridiculously high-priced bailout plans! Yeah.

If you've got time, play around with the Google chart for the Dow. Via the links on the top of the chart, you can "Zoom" and show how much the Dow has grown since 1970, or just examine how much it's fallen in the last month.

Folks, take some cash--not all of it, just some-- and break it into small bills. Place those bills under your mattress. (Okay, maybe not literally under your mattress.) But you get my point. I have a lot of faith in the resiliency of the world economy, but I also know that there are places in this world with nice people who have woken up one morning to discover that they have no access to cash, and no way of getting access, and therefore no way of eating. I'm just sayin'. Also.

And not only that, it's going to be a cold winter. I get nasty chills just thinking about this report from the AP that thousands of Americans have had their power shut off because they couldn't afford to pay their utility bills. "Shut-offs have been running 17 percent higher than last year among customers of New York state's major utilities, and 22 percent higher in economically hard-hit Michigan. They are up in all or part of dozens of other states, including Pennsylvania, Florida and California, according to an Associated Press check of regulators and energy companies." And here comes winter. My God, this is turning into a Dickens novel

Sidebar: Did we just strike inside Pakistan? Just like John McCain said we should never do??? From WaPo "The attack is apparently the latest in an escalating U.S. campaign of strikes originating across the border in Afghanistan and aimed at al-Qaeda and Taliban targets in the rugged tribal lands of Pakistan. The attacks have generated a substantial backlash in Pakistan, where insurgents have used the strikes as a tool for rallying public opposition to U.S. anti-terrorism efforts."

Pre-Debate Mood

Refresh my memory, folks, was it like this in the last election in 2004? I don't remember having quite this much energy about the candidates before...Even Roger Ebert is voicing political opinions: "I do not like you, John McCain. My feeling has nothing to do with issues. It has to do with common courtesy. During the debate, you refused to look Barack Obama in the eye. Indeed, you refused to look at him at all. Even when the two of you shook hands at the start, you used your eyes only to locate his hand, and then gazed past him as you shook it." (Thanks Mary Ann for the link!)

Rolling Stone comes out with a devastating portrayal of "the real John McCain."

"In its broad strokes, McCain's life story is oddly similar to that of the current occupant of the White House. John Sidney McCain III and George Walker Bush both represent the third generation of American dynasties. Both were born into positions of privilege against which they rebelled into mediocrity. Both developed an uncanny social intelligence that allowed them to skate by with a minimum of mental exertion. Both struggled with booze and loutish behavior. At each step, with the aid of their fathers' powerful friends, both failed upward. And both shed their skins as Episcopalian members of the Washington elite to build political careers as self-styled, ranch-inhabiting Westerners who pray to Jesus in their wives' evangelical churches. In one vital respect, however, the comparison is deeply unfair to the current president: George W. Bush was a much better pilot."

Politico reports that the Obama campaign is ready to roll on the attack (Did I not bring up McCain's history as a member of the notorious Keating Five and his "Bahama Mama" vacations weeks ago? Just checking.) : "Pushing back against what it calls McCain's "guilt-by-association" tactics, the Obama campaign is e-mailing millions of supporters a link to a website, KeatingEconomics.com, which will have a 13-minute documentary on the scandal beginning at noon Eastern time on Monday. The overnight e-mails urge recipients to pass the link on to friends." Here's the movie on YouTube.com, but visit the site too, for some interesting archives of articles about McCain's unethical involvement with Charles Keating and Lincoln Savings and Loan.

Hey, at least when Obama attacks, it's about something completely relevant to the ECONOMIC CRISIS AT HAND! It's not about radicals from the 1960s who have nothing to do with how the world is falling to small bits these days. By the way, do take a moment to check out John Wilson's comprehensive "Thirty Lies Refuted about Obama and Ayers."

And more in the negativity report: in an interview with Bill Kristol for his column in the NY Times, Palin unveils her latest attack --on Obama's connection to Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Kristol asks her "if Ayers is a legitimate issue, what about Reverend Wright? She didn't hesitate:

"To tell you the truth, Bill, I don't know why that association isn't discussed more, because those were appalling things that that pastor had said about our great country, and to have sat in the pews for 20 years and listened to that — with, I don't know, a sense of condoning it, I guess, because he didn't get up and leave — to me, that does say something about character. But, you know, I guess that would be a John McCain call on whether he wants to bring that up."

Which I think is *just RICH* coming from the woman who was once a member of the Pentecostal Wasilla Assembly of God, led by a pastor, Ed Kalnins, who "has also preached that critics of President Bush will be banished to hell; questioned whether people who voted for Sen. John Kerry in 2004 would be accepted to heaven; charged that the 9/11 terrorist attacks and war in Iraq were part of a war 'contending for your faith;' and said that Jesus 'operated from that position of war mode.'" Palin is on YouTube, addressing the WAG (I love using the acronym), and talking about how thrilled she is to have gotten a "laying on of hands" from the Pastor Thomas Muthee, an African evangelist and WITCH-HUNTER (???), who in his own words, wages "spiritual warfare." She's also immortalized on YouTube (I love YouTube) asking members of the Pentecostal church to pray for an oil pipeline, "I think God's will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that," she said. Palin's CURRENT church is the Wasilla Bible Church, which recently promoted attendance at a conference to "Pray Away the Gay."

(Do you think Jesus is up there someplace saying, "Stop asking me for stupid things like oil pipelines and 'pray away the gay'-- what about asking for BROTHERLY LOVE AND WORLD PEACE??")

And aw, geez, Palin was actually just here in San Francisco. (What? WHAT did she think she could accomplish in San Francisco? Oh, right.. praying away the gay... I got it.) Whilst here, she bestowed an extra- special Palin Gaffe-awe upon our fair city. '"They are also building schools for the Afghan children so that there is hope and opportunity in our neighboring country of Afghanistan,' she told several hundred supporters at a fundraising event in San Francisco."

Um...question in the back? Can you see Afghanistan from Alaska too? Well,doggone it, they keep on moving those little country-thingies on the map-ey-whatsits.

Oh, wait! It's all coming clear to me! OBVIOUSLY, when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in the 1970s, they had to go through Alaska! Look where it is!
PLUS, Afghanistan...is just south of Alaska...where they want to put the TransAfghanistan pipeline... that everyone prayed for in church! It all makes sense now!

Wow. Gosh. Gee-whillickers. THIS is why Sarah Palin is such an expert in Russia/Oil relations also!

==============================

But seriously, folks. Today's topic is:

The Fog of Deregulation

I'm struck these days by all the talk from McCain on more regulating (but less government? He and Palin should really try to align their world-views on this...). Maybe John McCain doesn't remember, maybe it's the Alzheimers? But he's actually been a FAN of deregulation--like, um, all of his life? Oh, until last month.

Here are a few key highlights from Johnny Mac's Wonderful World of Deregulation:

• 

  1980's- as noted above and on the new website KeatingEconomics.com, McCain was a key figure in deregulating the savings and loan industry. McCain parlayed it into highly profitable graft for himself. In the Keating Five scandal which followed the collapse of the savings and loan industry, McCain was reprimanded for his role in asking Federal regulators to back off closing down Charles Keating's Lincoln Savings and Loan.
  
• In early 1995, after Republicans had taken control of Congress, Mr. McCain promoted a moratorium on federal regulations of all kinds. He was quoted as saying that excessive regulations were "destroying the American family, the American dream" and voters "want these regulations stopped." The moratorium measure was unsuccessful.
• In 1996, one of McCain's chief responsibilities on the Commerce Committee was overseeing the Telecommunications Act of 1996. "The act removed or set conditions for the removal of the walls that had separated different parts of telecommunications. Its sponsors claimed that the act would encourage competition in the telephone, cable, and broadcast industries and lead to lower prices for consumers.... It has encouraged a spate of gigantic mergers. SBC Communications and Bell Atlantic, having gobbled up their competitors, now control two-thirds of local telephone lines. AT&T and TCI own 60 percent of cable lines. Cable rates, which were deregulated, have gone up 23 percent since 1996, three times faster than inflation. Hourly rates for phone users have declined, but access charges and other fees have skyrocketed. While large businesses are paying less for phone service, most consumers are paying more—about $2 billion more annually than three years ago." Ultimately, McCain was one of only five senators to oppose a comprehensive telecommunications act, but only, he says, because it did not go far enough in deregulating the industry.
• In 1999, McCain voted for the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which essentially repealed the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act's prohibition on bank holding companies from owning other financial firms. The deregulation bill loosened restrictions on the activities of banks, brokerage houses, and insurance companies. McCain had joined with other Republicans to push through landmark legislation sponsored by then-Sen. Phil Gramm (Tex.), who is now an economic adviser to his campaign. "The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act aimed to make the country's financial institutions competitive by removing the Depression-era walls between banking, investment and insurance companies. That bill allowed AIG to participate in the gold rush of a rapidly expanding global banking and investment market. But the legislation also helped pave the way for companies such as AIG and Lehman Brothers to become behemoths laden with bad loans and investments. McCain now condemns the executives at those companies for pursuing the ambitions that the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act made possible, saying that 'in an endless quest for easy money, they dreamed up investment schemes that they themselves don't even understand.'"

• 

  McCain's economic guru, Phil Gramm, slipped the "Enron Loophole"--which exempts most over-the-counter energy trades and trading on electronic energy commodity markets from government regulation-- into legislation in the year 2000. This deregulatory loophole was used by that infamous company to game the electricity markets so egregiously that it led to Enron's own collapse. Since then, McCain has blocked every effort to close the loophole which is now being used by energy traders to game gasoline prices.
• In 2002 he did vote for some regulatory reforms in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which was introduced after the accounting scandals involving Enron and other major firms and which passed the Senate without opposition. In 2007, he told a group of bloggers on a conference call that he regretted his vote in favor of Sarbanes-Oxley, which strengthened financial reporting requirements for publicly held companies but which has been the subject of complaints from businesses.
  
• In Sept, 2002, McCain introduced Senate Bill 2863. Consumer Broadband Deregulation Act of 2002, intended to deregulate the broadband Internet market. Most residential broadband Internet users currently connect over cable systems, but the local phone companies dominate the business market. The bill was intended to increase the power of the Baby Bells to offer their services to American homes. Federal regulations then prevented this from happening until the Baby Bells opened their own historical local calling areas to competitors. "The potential for government interference with market forces is not limited to federal regulation. State and local governments are also capable of obstructing the deployment of broadband," said McCain during the introduction of his measure, The McCain measure also called for a study within two years to determine whether state regulation is necessary to protect consumers, as well as a study on the government's role in facilitating wireless broadband. It did not pass.
  
• In 2008, McCain expressed approval of the results of financial deregulation by pointing to it as a model for health care policy, writing: "Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation."

It makes no difference whether a good man has defrauded a bad man, or a bad man defrauded a good man, or whether a good or bad man has committed adultery: the law can look only to the amount of damage done.

--Aristotle
******************************************

News from SurveyUSA, which reports that in new polls, Obama is not only leading handily in Virginia (13 electoral votes) 53%-43%, he's stomping McCain. "McCain no longer leads in any region of the state. In Northeastern VA, which includes the DC suburbs, Obama leads by 24 points. In Central Virginia, home of the Confederate White House, the Museum of the Confederacy and Appomattox, Obama today leads by 8. In Southeastern Virginia, Obama leads by 11. In the Shenandoah, where John McCain led by 24 points one month ago, Obama and McCain today tie." Dude, you just blew my mind. I guess Jim Webb was right. Scots-Irish Populism works all the way, even in Appalachia.
The Ballot Ballet
Clock is ticking...Only 29 days to the election, people!

For new registrations, time has already run out in many states (Today was the deadline for Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, DC, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia). RockTheVote's list of voter registration deadlines. Here are some upcoming dates--forward this on to your friends in the appropriate states (swing states in bold).

• Tuesday, Oct 7: Illinois, New Mexico
• Wednesday, Oct 8: Missouri
• Friday, Oct 10: New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma
  
• Saturday, Oct 11: Delaware
  
• Tuesday, Oct 14: Maryland, New Jersey, Oregon
  
• Wednesday, Oct 15: Massachusetts, West Virginia, Wisconsin

Shenanigan Watch

I've already passed this on to many of you, but here it is again: news today that hundreds of thousands of people in the United States who filed registration applications but were not put on the voter rolls because of actual or alleged defects in their applications. Electoral-vote.com notes that "Unbeknownst to them, thousands of people have been purged from the voter rolls. Project Vote lists the names and addresses of purged voters in Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas (so far). If you live in one of these states, check the list TODAY to see if you have been purged and also check for friends, relatives, and neighbors." If you find yourself or someone you know on one of these lists, they may be able to protest being removed from the rolls.

CHECK THE VOTER REGISTRATION LISTS TODAY and check for your friends!!

Some of you may be wondering, is there really any reason to worry? I've got my ID, so no one can turn me away, can they? But thanks to Leslie (sending word via Lisa) who compiles this sobering list of reminders:

• From USA Today: "Five years after passage of a federal law to create electronic registration databases to deter voter fraud, the new technology is posing hurdles that could disenfranchise thousands of legal voters, a USA TODAY examination finds.From Florida to Washington, voters have been challenged because names or numbers on their registration forms did not exactly match other government databases, such as Social Security and motor vehicle agencies. 'We know that eligible people have been thrown off the rolls,' says Justin Levitt, a lawyer with the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law."
• From the Nation: As reported in the Michigan Messenger, Republicans intended to use foreclosure lists to challenge voters at the polls. In a conference call with reporters, Mark Brewer, chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party, said that the McCain campaign "wants to add insult to injury by denying those residents their right to vote." Bob Bauer, general counsel for the Obama campaign, called the GOP plan "a new and especially repellent version of caging." (Caging is a technique used to challenge voters by taking a list of addresses, mailing letters to them marked "do not forward" and then claiming that those voters whose letters were returned no longer live at the addresses at which they are registered and thus are ineligible to vote.)
• From Demos: "In 2000, thousands of legal voters were purged from Florida's voter rolls. One list sent to Florida officials erroneously included the names of 8,000 Florida residents who had committed misdemeanors -- not felonies -- in Texas. In 2004, despite Florida's sizable Hispanic population, the state's purge list contained only 61 Hispanic surnames, and also mistakenly included thousands who had had their voting rights restored. After these and other errors were publicized, the state withdrew its felon purge list. But under Florida law, county election officials may still purge voters based on their own, locally generated lists."

I'd also like to remind people that there's more than one way to rig an election. No one paid much attention to this item that appeared in Wired a year ago, but we might want to notice, when those Ohio results start coming in: Researchers commissioned by the Ohio Secretary of State's Office "found that a voter or poll worker with a Palm Pilot and no more than a minute's access to a voting machine could surreptitiously re-calibrate the touch-screen so that it would prevent voters from voting for specific candidates or cause the machine to secretly record a voter's vote for a different candidate than the one the voter chose. Access to the screen calibration function requires no password, and the attacker's actions, the researchers say, would be indistinguishable from the normal behavior of a voter in front of a machine or of a pollworker starting up a machine in the morning." (Full report here in PDF format)

Yep, this is me, the absolute paranoic who sees conspiracy theories around every corner. But just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get us.

=============================

If you're voting absentee, you may have to get your ballot in weeks before the Nov 4th Election date. Declare Yourself has links to each state's voter information page where you can find out how to get your absentee ballot.

Also, in many states, you may vote EARLY, before Nov 4, to avoid the long lines. Reed College has compiled lists of which states offer early voting/absentee balloting options.

And remember, tomorrow TUESDAY October 7, 2008 at 9pm EDT, 6pm (PDT), is the next Presidential Debate, from Belmont University's Curb Event Center in Nashville, Tennessee, moderated by Tom Brokaw, special correspondent for NBC News. This debate will have a town-hall meeting format.

CONTINUE READING...

Suspended Animation

"A population weakened and exhausted by battling against so many obstacles -- whose needs are never satisfied and desires never fulfilled -- is vulnerable to manipulation and regimentation. The struggle for survival is, above all, an exercise that is hugely time-consuming, absorbing and debilitating. If you create these ''anti-conditions,'' your rule is guaranteed for a hundred years."

"Do not be misled by the fact that you are at liberty and relatively free; that for the moment you are not under lock and key: you have simply been granted a reprieve."
--Ryszard Kapuscinski

Hi, my bank was seized last night. Wow! I'm like, part of history--part of the biggest saving and loan failure of all time! Good thing I had like, what $10 in savings? D'ya think that's covered by the FDIC? Or do I have to call Mr. JP Morgan Chase? Aw, crud, am I going to have to set up a whole new Online Banking ID and password? Maybe we shouldn't care. I can make my own bread and my own butter. Eric can make his own beer. We know a guy with chickens and sheep. Maybe we can just go off the grid and trade in wampum and feathers for our needs. Note to self: Look for bead necklace and earrings....

More of Katie interviewing Sarah Palin. I know six-year olds who could string together more coherent explanations. This is painful, people, PAINFUL, I tell you...hurts...eyes...to...watch...

COURIC: You've cited Alaska's proximity to Russia as part of your foreign policy experience. What did you mean by that?

PALIN: That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and on our other side, the land-- boundary that we have with-- Canada. It-- it's funny that a comment like that was-- kind of made to-- cari-- I don't know, you know? Reporters--

COURIC: Mock?

PALIN: Yeah, mocked, I guess that's the word, yeah.

COURIC: Explain to me why that enhances your foreign policy credentials.

PALIN: Well, it certainly does because our-- our next door neighbors are foreign countries. They're in the state that I am the executive of. And there in Russia--

COURIC: Have you ever been involved with any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?

PALIN: We have trade missions back and forth. We-- we do-- it's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where-- where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is-- from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to-- to our state.

Umm, Governor Palin? Pardon me? I'm...I'm not a rich woman, Lord knows. And I'm not you're biggest fan, shall we say. But in the name of mercy and sweetness and light, I would like to BUY you a CLUE. Seriously. Because watching you presenting yourself in this thoroughly moronic and cringe-inducing manner is giving me high blood pressure.

Here's the special irony of this situation. Apparently-- and I just learned all this today-- Alaska's governors DO often enjoy more contact with Russian officials because Anchorage is the base for the Northern Forum, an organization representing leaders and sub-leadership from countries around the Arctic Circle including Russia, Finland, Iceland and Canada, Japan, China and South Korea.

The Seattle Times reports: "Yet under Palin, the state government — without consultation — reduced its annual financial support to the Northern Forum to $15,000 from $75,000, according to Priscilla Wohl, the group's executive director. That forced the forum's Anchorage office to go without pay for two months. Palin — unlike the previous administrations of Gov. Frank Murkowski and Gov. Tony Knowles — also stopped sending representatives to Northern Forum's annual meetings, including one last year for regional governors held in the heart of Russia's oil territory." Great. Twenty years of glasnost down the drain. Plus, she doesn't even have the brains to mention that this organization exists when the Russia question comes up.

Baby steps. Baby steps. Today Palin worked her way up to answering FOUR whole questions from the press.

Meanwhile, her cohort, old Johnny-Come-Lately raced back to Washington so he could ruin BOTH Democrats' and fellow Republicans' work. "Sen. Chris Dodd, after leaving the White House, suggested on CNN that the tenuous process could be derailed by what he viewed as McCain's political motives. "What happened here, basically, if you want an honest appraisal of the thing, we have been spending a lot of time and I am tired. I have spent almost seven straight days at this in trying to come out with a workout plan for our economy a rescue plan," said Dodd. "What this looked like to me was a rescue plan for John McCain for two hours and took us away from the work we are trying to do today. Serious people trying to do serious work to come up with an answer."

After the meeting at the White House, Barack Obama had this to say: "what we shouldn't do is to try to get everything done in this package. What we should be doing is following the clear principles, that taxpayers are protected, that we have oversight, that taxpayers are going to get their money back, and that the housing crisis is going to be dealt with as well." Wow. He doesn't sound like he's...insane.

Republicans are running wild: "One GOP lawmaker, referring to his defiant colleagues, asked rhetorically: 'For the sake of the altar of the free market system, do you accept a Great Depression?' But if the party was looking for leadership, it did not find it in its presidential nominee. 'Bush is no diplomat,' said a Democratic staffer, 'but he's Cardinal freaking Richelieu compared to McCain. McCain couldn't negotiate an agreement on dinner among a family of four without making a big drama with himself at the heroic center of it. And then they'd all just leave to make themselves a sandwich.' Feel the love? Remind me again why ANYONE is listening to Mr. Keating Five? Anyway, what I'm taking away from this is: McCain RE-E-EALLY doesn't want to do this debate, does he?

By the way, a correction from yesterday. I noticed that I referred to Chris Dodd as a Republican. He is of course, the Democrat from Connecticut and Chair of the Senate Banking Committee.

Oh, and note to John "I'm such a Big Deal" McCain? Letterman is not done with you yet. On Thursday night, Dave said he felt like a "patriot" to let McCain off his commitment to deal with the economy and "now I'm feeling like an ugly date...That's what I feel like, I feel like an ugly date," he said. "I feel used. I feel cheap. I feel sullied."

Over on Leno, Wanda Sykes goes OFF on Sarah Palin. "They say, 'Oh, she's meeting with the world leaders.' But there's no reporters. I'm like, is she meeting with the world leaders, or did you take her to the Epcot Center? Let her drink around the world? You know, because I've done that. Maybe I should be Secretary of State..."

Campbell Brown, I Love You: In an open rant, she says to Paulson, "Seriously, what were you thinking?"

More Multimedia Alerts: This season's Fahrenheit 9/11? Oliver Stone's W., Based on a True Story will open on October 17. Here's the official site with a trailer. Frankly, I think I'm still too close to all of this, because while intellectually I recognize that it's funny, I'm still crying. No, no, it's okay, I'll be alright. I'll be better when Obama wins in November. It won't hurt so much next January when I see Obama's right hand in the air taking the oath of office. And when he finally sits down in that Oval Office (after it's fumigated, of course), I might be able to watch the trailer without tears of impotent rage streaming down my nose.

Betty pointed me at this excellent analysis of the overarching "story board" for this election from Michael Cohen: "After back-to-back election cycles in which Democratic nominees seemed unable to maintain a compelling narrative for their campaign, Mr. Obama has shown a level of message discipline that is striking."

As I said to Betty, it's struck me that the Republicans, who are usually so GOOD at this narrative stuff, just couldn't hit pay dirt this time. Whereas the narrative Obama chose to frame McCain ("Sure, Gramps is a nice guy and all, but...you know...a little [twirls finger in air] whoo-hoo....") has fit perfectly at every turn and with every looney-bin maneuver McCain has thrown out there.

$700 Billion-ish
This lovely little jaw-dropper comes from Forbes: "In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy. 'It's not based on any particular data point,' a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. 'We just wanted to choose a really large number.'" Really? REALLY? For the Love of God, IS THERE NO ONE COMPETENT LEFT AROUND HERE?

Krugman weighs in on the Paulson plan and the alternative that McCain basically blew up: "So the grown-up thing is to do something to rescue the financial system. The big question is, are there any grown-ups around — and will they be able to take charge?"

I'm trying to hold onto my Temple of Positivity and ignore the Gallup Daily Tracking poll that puts McNuts and Obama at a tie. I get it. It's a four-day average and some of Obama's best days have "rolled" off the average. It still irks me.

The Lobster Quadrille
Debate prep continues for Friday at 6pm PDT, 8pm Miss. time, 9pm EDT. Last word was that Obama says he'll be there on Friday, and if McCain is a no-show, he'll do a one-on-one with Lehrer or make it into a town-hall.
See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance!
They are waiting on the shingle—will you come and join the dance?
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?
"Of course," the Mock Turtle said: "advance twice, set to partners—"

"—change lobsters, and retire in same order," continued the Gryphon.

"Then, you know," the Mock Turtle went on, "you throw the—"

"The lobsters!" shouted the Gryphon, with a bound into the air.

"—as far out to sea as you can—"

"Swim after them!" screamed the Gryphon.

"Turn a somersault in the sea!" cried the Mock Turtle, capering wildly about.

"Change lobsters again!" yelled the Gryphon at the top of its voice.

Will you join the dance?

(UPDATE: LobsterFace is in.) Like you thought he wouldn't show up for free TV time.

39 days to the election. Reminder again that, for many states, if you would like to join the dance, you must register well in advance of the elections. RockTheVote's list of voter registration deadlines. And if you're voting absentee, Declare Yourself has links to each state's voter information page where you can find out how to get your absentee ballot. Feel free to harass your friends in the swing states, and do let me know if you know someone who'd like to be appended to, not suspended from, my ranting list!

Okay. Gotta go get my $10.

CONTINUE READING...

Cash Only Edition

Okay, I'm almost through three days' worth of Wall Street Journals, and I am only blindly inching my way toward understanding what "credit default swaps" are and why they're ravaging the market. You'll have to pardon me here as I have been obsessing for the last few days with trying to figure out what the HECK is going on here. I find myself actually admiring the poetical moments in the Wall Street Journal like this one: "More than 200 years after it was born at the base of a buttonwood tree, Wall Street as we have known it is ceasing to exist."

Subprime mortgages? Derivatives trade? Credit default swaps? Seems important. Everyone keeps mentioning them. Especially when I come across this line in the WSJ about this shadowy market: "The market for credit default swaps is immense, trading against $62 trillion of debt." Trillion. TRRRILLLLL-ion. Excuse me? And no one's regulating this trade?

Even worse, no one seems to knows what the heck these CDSs really are, not even the folks who cooked them up. "The massive credit-default-swap market became so complex that in some cases firms lost track of their stakes. AIG, for example, pleaded for capital from several private equity firms over the Sept. 13-14 weekend. After scouring the insurer's financials, the firms balked at a deal, concluding that even AIG management didn't know where all the skeletons were buried, according to a person familiar with the situation."

Peter Newcomb of Vanity Fair comes closest to explaining it in an almost understandable way.

"Let's say you own and operate and a small lending company called Good Loans. In January, Good Loans extends a $1,000 line of credit to Greasy Eats, a popular neighborhood diner. By the end of March, you notice that the parking lot at Greasy Eats has been a lot less crowded than it used to be. You also realize the diner has maxed out its credit line.

As the owner of Good Loans, you're not feeling so great anymore about your loan to Greasy Eats. In May, you persuade a local investment boutique, Got Yer Back Brothers, to buy the Greasy Eats loan for $900. So while you lose $100 in the transaction, you free yourself of a potential headache. Meanwhile, Got Yer Back has taken on $1,000 in shaky credit for a $100 fee, and the dubious prospect of getting paid back in full with interest.

Now repeat that process again and again, but this time on a much grander scale—to the tune of $45 trillion. That's how much some analysts are estimating is parked (off the balance sheet, of course) in the credit swaps market. Even if only 10% of these swaps default, trillions of dollars will have to be written down.

As this article in the New York Times describes it, "Used judiciously, derivatives can limit the damage from financial miscues and uncertainty, greasing the wheels of commerce. Used unwisely—when greed and the urge to gamble with borrowed money overtake sensible risk-taking—derivatives can become Wall Street's version of nitroglycerin."

I'll leave you all to unpack the idea, relate it to subprime mortgages and decide how screwed we are. And if you're feeling as lost as I am, don't worry, the subprime in-and-outs are so ridiculously byzantine that even Alan Greenspan had trouble figuring it all out. Back in 2005, he was asked by Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., why he only raised concerns over Fannie/Freddie's home mortgage securitization packages relatively recently even though those portfolios grew throughout much of the 1990s. Greenspan conceded it had taken him some time to understand the company's complicated structures, and the risks to the companies and the nation's financial systems posed by the concentration of mortgages in their holdings. "It's taken me quite a good bit of time to disentangle the complex structure," he said. "I didn't fully understand when I first looked at them.It's only fairly recently that it finally became clear to me," he added. "It was a revelation in certain respects."

Anyway, the question of the day now is, who are YOU going to Prom with? Morgan Stanley got The Call from Wachovia. Meanwhile, Washington Mutual (whose shares have cliff-dived 94% this year!) remains a wallflower. (I wonder if we should find a new bank?) And what of Goldman Sachs? Apparently everyone is nervously wringing their handkerchiefs.

The New York Times' Dave Leonhardt puts this bailout in the perspective using the lens of the Chrysler auto industry bailout of 1979-- how did that play and how has Chrysler fared since? "The Chrysler bailout may have saved the company, but it did nothing, after all, to stop Detroit's long, sad decline."

Obama's official release on Monday said what I'm certainly suspecting, that the current crisis is related to deregulation. "Eight years of policies that have shredded consumer protections, loosened oversight and regulation, and encouraged outsized bonuses to CEOs while ignoring middle-class Americans have brought us to the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression."

Call it "talky" and "unsexy" if you like, but I LOVE Obama's new ad.It has, as Wonkette notes, actual words and thoughts! (By the way, I was curious as to what languages Obama speaks, and uncovered this one I missed, a Spanish language ad he recorded in May. BTW, he doesn't speak Spanish-- other than English he speaks Indonesian.)

Meanwhile, an editorial from the Liberal Bias rag, (aka the New York Times), has a few none-too-kind words about McCain's perspective on the current financial crisis." As for Wall Street, Mr. McCain blamed the meltdown on 'unbridled corruption and greed.' He called for a commission to find out what happened and propose solutions. His diagnosis and his cure are misguided. The crisis on Wall Street is fundamentally a failure to do the things that temper, detect and punish corruption and greed. It was a failure to police the markets, to enforce rules, to heed and sound warnings and expose questionable products and practices."

McCain is still jostling with the fallout from his "from the gut" assessments earlier this week. Remember my comment about his pat statements opposing an AIG bailout with taxpayer dollars? Now the Caucus reports that "Senator John McCain acknowledging that a failure to intervene on the insurance titan's behalf would have jeopardized retirement incomes, savings and perhaps would have led to further turmoil." And apparently I wasn't the only one steamed by his glib superficial approach.Says Huff Po's Rachel Sklar, "McCain's answer yesterday on AIG was not an accident. Put bluntly, I can't see any evidence that he knew what he was talking about; nor any evidence that he wanted to try. This is a blatant moment, on tape, under urgent questioning from the media at a moment of crisis, and not only was his lack of preparation apparent but his attitude spoke volumes."

So congratulations. If you've made it this far in my Rant, you've probably spent more time learning about the world of derivative trading than John McCain has.

For Pete's sake, in yesterday's editorial page, even the Wall Street Journal took McCain to task with a cringe-inducing (even for me) jab at his ignorance (sadly not available online): "It sounds like this week's version of a McCain presidency would be more about restructuring private financial markets he doesn't understand, than fixing the Washington he knows." Ouch.

In the "Read-this-One Dept.": More conservatives are landing on the side of "McCain has lost his marbles." I know that the world has run mad when I'm agreeing with the likes of Pat Buchanan, George Will and Conservative NYTimes columnist David Brooks who observes, quite rightly, "Conservatives stood against radical egalitarianism and the destruction of rigorous standards. They stood up for classical education, hard-earned knowledge, experience and prudence. Wisdom was acquired through immersion in the best that has been thought and said....Surely the response to the current crisis of authority is not to throw away standards of experience and prudence, but to select leaders who have those qualities but not the smug condescension that has so marked the reaction to the Palin nomination in the first place."

Gosh I always thought I was Liberal, but perhaps I'm actually Conservative.

Even Elizabeth Drew, who wrote the pro-Johnny Mac book Citizen McCain in 2002, is now weighing in with her piece on Politico "How John McCain Lost Me." "McCain's recent conduct of his campaign – his willingness to lie repeatedly (including in his acceptance speech) and to play Russian roulette with the vice-presidency, in order to fulfill his long-held ambition – has reinforced my earlier, and growing, sense that John McCain is not a principled man. In fact, it's not clear who he is."

Next week, Katie Couric of CBS is slated to interview Sarah Palin (airing Monday Sept 29 on the evening news). Could there be any hope that she'll actually ask all the questions that would be considered "too sexist" for a male journalist to ask?

BTW, seems like the Governor's daughter has had her shot-gun wedding, quietly, and if her Facebook entry is to be believed, she is now Bristol Palin-Johnston. (What? No copters from Us magazine hovering overhead to deliver us aerial snaps of the ceremony?)

We haven't seen a lot of reporting on what Joe's been up to, but Andrew Sullivan points out that he's been serving up some barn-burners. Joe goes off on what the Republicans don't talk about. "The silence on jobs, on healthcare, on the environment was deafening...Do any of you recall either candidate of the Republican ticket utter the phrase 'middle class'?... What do you talk about when you have nothing to say? What do you talk about when you cannot explain the last eight years of failure? You talk about the other guy."

So that' it for today. I'll head back to policy comparisons tomorrow --I just couldn't make my brain do any more after the credit default swap---zzzzzzttt...pffft. [Lights out]

A reminder that although they raised $66 million last month (!!), Obama's campaign says their goal is to have 50,000 new donors by Friday at midnight.

CONTINUE READING...