Of the top 10 states for poverty, 6 are “Right-to-Work” (union busting) states.

Of the top 10 states for hunger, 7 are “Right-to-Work” states.

That should say it all, but the fact that Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby (Alabama - ranked 6th for poverty) are arguing against good union jobs that raise wages across the industry also tells you all you need to know about the divide between the the haves and have-nots in these “Right-to-Work” states: only it’s who has representation in Congress, and who only gets lip service (or worse).

While slavery might be dead in the South, employers below the Mason-Dixon still hanker for the lost riches that abundant free labor used to provide. They drive down wages by threatening - or actually - shipping jobs overseas, and by pitting whites against minorities to insure that labor solidarity is all but impossible.

Case in point:

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R- Ala., told reporters Wednesday, “I can not imagine a real justification for a worker in Alabama who does not have any health insurance at his company to be taxed to maintain a Cadillac health care plan for somebody in Detroit.”

Sen. Sessions, when is the last time you supported a bill for universal healthcare that would help out your constituents?

And when is the last time you addressed poverty in your state?

Yes, the Big 3 have been top-heavy and unresponsive to actual market conditions for ages. But we have a chance now not only to save about 3,000,000 jobs (at a time when unemployment is at its highest in 16 years) but to demand concessions from the executives - instead of the workers - that could re-make these critical manufacturers at a time when nothing matters more than creating jobs and improving wages.

Oh, and Sen. Sessions: any bailout to the auto industry would be a loan, not a grant, so chances are your poor and hungry constituents, if they even make enough to pay taxes, won’t be out a dime. And neither will the rich, white employers who bought you that seat.

My job in Portland, Oregon depends on exported raw materials coming back into the U.S. as auto glass. The bottom line is that none of us, from the UAW members in Detriot to me to even those Honda workers in Alabama, cannot afford for the country to lose 3 million manufacturing jobs. Demand in this country for everything from hibachis to Hondas would fall so low as to drive us to the edge of a Depression that could last a decade or more (unless we decided another war was the way out).

Peace and prosperity is what Americans want now, Sen. Sessions. Instead of being part of the problem, why don’t you shut up and get to work on some solutions?

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

From CNBC, here is the Treasury’s financial crisis balance sheet, as of last Wednesday:

That’s 4,284.5 BILLION dollars, or $4.2845 TRILLION.

And not a single dollar for infrastructure repair or job creation.

Time for shrillness, anyone?

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

2 Comments

• At November 18, 2008, David Carrier wrote:

  I never thought I would see the day when the Secretary of the Treasury in a right wing Republican Administration would heed the advice of someone like Barney Frank, the only Socialist member of Congress (who has been saying this very thing for a year now):

  Fighting the Financial Crisis, One Challenge at a Time

  By HENRY M. PAULSON Jr., NYT, November 17, 2008

  The answer to the second question is that more access to lower-cost mortgage lending is the No. 1 thing we can do to slow the decline in the housing market and reduce the number of foreclosures. Together with our bank capital program, the moves we have made to stabilize and strengthen Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and through them to increase the flow of mortgage credit, will promote mortgage lending. We are also working with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the F.D.I.C. and others to reduce preventable foreclosures.

• At November 19, 2008, missy wrote:

  Actually Barney Frank is a Democrat. Bernie Sanders (Senator from VT) is a Socialist.

See, Ed, I was right:

The real problem is on the demand side of the economy.

Consumers won’t or can’t borrow because they’re at the end of their ropes. Their incomes are dropping (one of the most sobering statistics in Friday’s jobs report was the continued erosion of real median earnings), they’re deeply in debt, and they’re afraid of losing their jobs.

Introductory economic courses explain that aggregate demand is made up of four things, expressed as C+I+G+exports. C is consumers. Consumers are cutting back on everything other than necessities. Because their spending accounts for 70 percent of the nation’s economic activity and is the flywheel for the rest of the economy, the precipitous drop in consumer spending is causing the rest of the economy to shut down.

I is investment. Absent consumer spending, businesses are not going to invest.

Exports won’t help much because the of the rest of the world is sliding into deep recession, too. (And as foreigners — as well as Americans — put their savings in dollars for safe keeping, the value of the dollar will likely continue to rise relative to other currencies. That, in turn, makes everything we might sell to the rest of the world more expensive.)

That leaves G, which, of course, is government. Government is the spender of last resort. Government spending lifted America out of the Great Depression. It may be the only instrument we have for lifting America out of the Mini Depression. Even Fed Chair Ben Bernanke is now calling for a sizable government stimulus. He knows that monetary policy won’t work if there’s inadequate demand.

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

Ed Schultz said today that governors and state legislatures should do what they can to prop up the auto makers to give consumers an incentive to buy cars. He was suggested a tax credit for buying a car made in the U.S.

In the first place, Ed, most states are looking at budget deficits right now - the last thing they need is a revenue killer. A tax credit that would be sufficient to tempt a consumer today would have to be so large that it would overwhelm any ability of sales tax, tag and title fees to make up for it.

And in the second place, who has the money - or credit - available to buy a car today? Adult Americans are holding an average of about $50,000 of debt a piece, and with unemployment at a generational high and more added to the rolls every week, who are going to buy these cars, Ed?

We have to start smaller, truly with Main Street, as annoying as that term has become. Maybe in a year or two or three we’ll work our way up to $25,000 durable goods, but right now we just have to give consumers enough breathing room to buy groceries and clothes for their kids again.

UPDATE:

Retail Sales Collapse in October

The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for October, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $363.7 billion, a decrease of 2.8 percent from the previous month and 4.1 percent below October 2007. Total sales for the August through October 2008 period were down 1.3 percent from the same period a year ago.

Retail trade sales were down 3.1 percent from September 2008 and were 5.0 percent below last year.

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

5 Comments

• At November 13, 2008, John wrote:

  Yea, I turned Ed Schultz off today which I do every so often because I can only take so much of his BS.

  The way I see it, the car companies are in trouble mostly because:

  1. Poor trade policies, ie NAFTA causing outsourcing and erosion of competitiveness.

  2. Lack of single payer, universal health care making the cost to hire US employees non-competitive as compared to other countries.

  Once again, our government's failure to regulate and enact good regulatory policies is coming back to bite us.

  We may have to bail out the automakers but the root causes must be addressed or they will just keep bleeding us dry due to not having a sound business model.

  All the money in the world will not fix an unprofitable business model.

  A bean counter once told me when I asked why a certain company was losing money, "They are selling dollars for 80 cents." That is quite simply what the automakers are doing. And if they keep selling dollars for 80 cents, one bailout is just going to lead to another and another.

• At November 14, 2008, Pat Campbell wrote:

  Yes, first start with ourselves (Work on a debt reduction/elimination program. Dave Ramsey's book Total Money Makeover is great.).

  Work also on mainstreet (no speculation with tax money on Vancouver's waterfront is a good start). Elect officials who try to inact economically sound policies or urge those who don't to do so.

• At November 14, 2008, missy wrote:

  Re: the car companies and their unprofitability... Does anyone know why they could make the EV-1 go 40 miles on a charge 15 years ago, and now they're bragging about the Volt coming out in 2010 and how they're still working on the 40-mile batteries to make it possible? I understand it's a sedan (not a compact), but haven't they had 15 years to upgrade their battery technology?

  I guess shit happens when you spend 15 years selling gas hog SUVs to the exclusion of everything else.

• At November 15, 2008, Chad Lupkes wrote:

  What I think we need our states to do is to focus their resources on infrastructure, specifically energy production, distribution and conservation. Especially here in Washington State, we need Olympia to contract for the construction of Wind, Solar, Geothermal and Tidal power stations, giving people jobs. The Sound Transit Proposition passing in the Puget Sound also helps, but that's pretty localized. The new state Treasurer should review the buyout of Puget Sound Energy, and force some infrastructure development projects as part of the deal.

• At November 15, 2008, admin wrote:

  I think I fixed the commenting not posting issue. Thanks for letting me know it was messed up.

  John

The $700 Billion Dollar Man gave a report on the progress of the “TARP” program this morning, and unsurprisingly the benefits are all going to the banks, while the individuals who are in debt to those same banks get bupkis. If you’ve ever seen the movie House of Games (or even The Sting), you’ll have a good roadmap to Paulson’s signature moves.

Start with that time-honored con, the Bait and Switch:

We asked for $700 billion to purchase troubled assets from financial institutions. At the time, we believed that would be the most effective means of getting credit flowing again.

During the two weeks that Congress considered the legislation, market conditions worsened considerably. It was clear to me by the time the bill was signed on October 3rd that we needed to act quickly and forcefully, and that purchasing troubled assets - our initial focus - would take time to implement and would not be sufficient given the severity of the problem… I determined that the most timely, effective step to improve credit market conditions was to strengthen bank balance sheets quickly through direct purchases of equity in banks.

Next, make the beneficiaries (in truth, your partners-in-crime) seem like a tough sell; this is a variant on the con-man’s trust-aversion gambit:

As we planned a capital purchase plan to support the overall financial system by strengthening balance sheets of a broad array of healthy banks, the terms had to be designed to encourage broad participation, balanced to ensure appropriate taxpayer protection and not impede the flow of private capital.

Then, hype your success at getting these hard-sells to participate in the program, without letting the mark ever sense that it was easy:

By October 26th we had $115 billion out the door to eight large institutions. In Washington that is a land-speed record from announcing a program to getting funds out the door. We now have approved dozens of additional applications, …[but] it will take time to complete legal contracts and execute investments in the significant number of institutions who meet the eligibility requirements and are approved…

Keep the pressure on to make sure no one gets the troublesome idea of clapping eyes on what you’re doing:

During times like these with a slowing economy and some deterioration in credit conditions, even the healthiest banks tend to become more risk-averse and restrain lending, and regulators’ actions have reinforced this lending restraint in the past. With a stronger capital base, our banks will be more confident and better positioned to play their necessary role to support economic activity.

Mix up news of your successes with mentions of probable failures to make your mark think throwing good money after bad is all part of the program, and that we’re on the right track:

First and foremost, because the system remains fragile, we must continue to stand ready to prevent systemic failures. That is the basis for Monday’s action to purchase preferred shares in AIG. The stability of our system remains the highest priority.

…The injection of up to $250 billion of capital into individual banks, the FDIC’s temporary guarantee of bank debt and the Federal Reserve’s multiple liquidity facilities for banks, money funds and commercial paper issuers have all significantly enhanced liquidity and helped improve market conditions.

While your mark is absorbing this avalanche of information, throw out another “must do” project that the mark would have never approved at the beginning, and push him over the brink and into the mindset that he’s put too much up already to stop now:

Second, the important markets for securitizing credit outside of the banking system also need support. Approximately 40 percent of U.S. consumer credit is provided through securitization of credit card receivables, auto loans and student loans and similar products. This market, which is vital for lending and growth, has for all practical purposes ground to a halt. Addressing these two priorities will have powerful impacts on the overall financial system, the strength of our financial institutions and the availability of consumer credit.

(Here you also neglect to tell the mark the obvious, that the U.S. consumers’ capacity to service all of the nation’s consumer debt has long since exceeded its limit.)

Finally, explain why it’s strictly necessary to help all of your associates, but never the mark’s associates or friends:

Over these past weeks we have continued to examine the relative benefits of purchasing illiquid mortgage-related assets. Our assessment at this time is that this is not the most effective way to use TARP funds, but we will continue to examine whether targeted forms of asset purchase can play a useful role, relative to other potential uses of TARP resources, in helping to strengthen our financial system and support lending.

Our only hope is that Obama, being from Chicago, has seen this con game run before, and will shut it down - that is, if Congress manages to get through its lame duck session without approving the release of the final $350 billion. (Bush’s release of the second $100 billion is a given at this point; he’s got nothing to lose, and his and Cheney’s buddies in the banking sector have everything to gain.)

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

Here’s a riddle for you:

What can expand market share for cable, internet and satellite TV providers without costing them a dime while reducing the information (including emergency broadcasts) available to lower income and rural folks, increase our trade deficit, and potentially move emergency services from standard free radio communication to purchasing their radio services from one of the telecoms?

Why, the switch to digital TV, of course!

Starting Feb. 18, 2009, millions of televisions in American households will go black unless they’re outfitted to receive all-digital broadcasts.
…
The 2009 deadline will not affect the vast majority of Americans who already subscribe to cable or satellite TV. But households relying on an antenna to receive “over-the-air” analog broadcasts must acquire a digital tuner to continue receiving TV shows.

…[A] 1997 law stipulated that analog television would have be cut off on Dec. 31, 2006, or when 85 percent of households are capable of receiving digital signals, whichever arrived sooner. A slice of that spectrum would be handed over to police, fire, ambulance and other public safety responders who rely on the analog spectrum to communicate.
…
FCC rules require[d] all television sets and other TV receivers on the market to contain digital tuners by March 1, 2007.

In short, only those who continue to rely solely on over-the-air broadcast stations should have to make adjustments. Short of buying a new digital-ready television, they can opt for a digital-to-analog converter box, which manufacturers estimate will cost about $50 by 2009.

According to Nielsen, “In all, one in five U.S. households are either partially or completely unready for the government-mandated switch to digital programming that will occur on February 17, 2009.”

We aren’t one of those families - we got our converter box, and now receive an even crappier picture than we did with our old analog rabbit ears. And oftentimes, we get no signal at all. Most nights we can’t watch NBC (though we can in the morning - ?!?), and during a recent windstorm we were down to 2 or 3 channels, with both the local PBS and the HD PBS stations offline.

I’m not a big teevee watcher anymore - I watch a total of maybe 6 hours a month, max. That’s due, in part, to the fact that we don’t have cable: I’m sure if I could watch The Deadliest Catch, Mythbusters and Cash Cab regularly, I would.

But even with the very little I watch, I haven’t seen a program yet that at some point didn’t either (1) go black; (2) become pixilated beyond recognition; or, (3) lose its audio/video synchronization.

So, back to my original riddle.

Since digital t.v. signals are weak as shit, leaving even some t.v. sets in Manhattan black when the signal is emanating from the top of the goddamn Empire State Building, this is going to be either an absolute windfall for the cable and satellite companies, or millions of Americans are going to turn to the internet for their teevee wants and needs, marking a bonanza of upgraded services for the telecoms.

And millions of Americans who, especially now, cannot afford to upgrade from rabbit ears to cable or to a new, digitally-receptive t.v., are just going to be shit out of luck.

And as for those emergency responders? Well, instead of getting a piece of the broadcast spectrum formally allocated to free analog television, Congress has decided to auction off that spectrum for broadband wireless, and give emergency services $1 billion for equipment, instead. And since they don’t have the extra free spectrum to work with, it won’t just be the electronics companies providing the hard assets for those services, but the telecoms are bound to get a piece of the action, too, because they’ve got the spectrum to resell. That’s good, long-term service income - not just a one-time purchase.

So, once again Congress and BushCo have offered up the safety and commonwealth of the people to the highest bidder.

Not a surprise, but for a country so addicted to passive visual stimuli, February 17, 2009 is going to be a rude awakening, indeed.

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

1 Comments

• At October 29, 2008, John wrote:

  Not that I want anyone to watch more TV, but you can get limited basic cable from Comcast for $13 and change a month. It includes the Discovery channel, 2 PBS channels and a bunch of other garbage. It has more TV programming than I could or would ever want to watch.

  And if you buy a $50 TV capture card for your computer, you can easily pre-program recording your shows to a hard drive and watch them at your leisure while zapping through the commercials.

  I haven't watched a TV commercial for 6 or 7 years now. So much for their business model.

On the day that the first of the bailout dollars are to be disbursed, we learn this:

Oct. 27 (Bloomberg) — Five straight quarters of losses and a 70 percent slide in its stock this year haven’t stopped Merrill Lynch & Co. from allocating about $6.7 billion to pay bonuses.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley, both still on track for profitable years, have set aside about $13 billion for bonuses after three quarters, down 28 percent from a year ago. Even some employees at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., which declared the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history last month, will get the same bonus they received a year ago.
…
Goldman, the biggest and most profitable Wall Street firm until it opted to become a bank holding company last month, has set aside about $6.85 billion for bonuses, or an average of $210,300 for each employee, down 32 percent from $339,400 a year ago. Morgan Stanley, the second-biggest securities firm until it also converted to a bank, has $6.44 billion for bonuses, or $138,700 per person, down 20 percent from last year.

Unsurprisingly, banks lobbied hard during the consideration of the bailout bill to keep restrictions on bonuses out of any bailout plan.

At the same time as the bonuses are being totaled up:

Goldman Sachs plans to cut about 3,200 people, or 10 percent of its employees, a person familiar with the matter said last week…

More job reductions are likely, especially at Merrill and Lehman. About 10,000 Merrill employees may lose their jobs, estimates Richard Bove, an analyst at Ladenburg Thalmann & Co. Options Group, a financial services recruitment and consulting firm in New York, estimates that global banking job cuts could reach 200,000, with as many as 50,000 in New York.
…
Barclays Plc, which is acquiring Lehman’s North American investment banking and capital markets businesses, will cut about 3,000 jobs…

Hedge funds, which have poached top traders from securities firms in the past, may cut as many as 10,000 jobs this year after their biggest losses in more than 20 years, estimates Options Group.

Meanwhile, the banks are using the bailouts for more than just bonuses:

PNC Financial Services Group was approved to receive $US7.7 billion in return for company stock. At the same time, PNC said it was acquiring National City Corp for $US5.58 billion.

Milton Friedman socialism: the taxpayers foot the bill - and the unemployment benefits - while the banks widen their market share and reduce competition, and their top executives profit.

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

1 Comments

• At October 27, 2008, John wrote:

  So much for your executive pay oversight in the "socialism for the rich" bailout bill, eh Representative Baird?

I just got my Fidelity IRA statement and don’t have the guts to open it.

So far this morning, the Dow has fallen almost 360, with many wondering if it will lose 1,100 before 2pm triggering a suspension of trading.

Something has to be done to quell fears of a national/international recession bordering on depression. Yes, emotion is driving the market, but their are big, bad fundamentals behind those fears.

There are $18 billion in ready-to-go infrastructure projects in this country: projects that have been through design and engineering and land acquisition, but are simply awaiting funding.

Analysts estimate that for every $1 billion invested in transportation projects, approximately 35 thousand jobs are created.

That’s 630,000 jobs. That could begin to put a dent in the 2.2 million jobs lost in the last 12 months, including the 3,300 positions that Hank Paulson’s own Goldman Sachs announced it would be eliminating today.

Every dollar invested in infrastructure turns over in the community an average of 8 times - that’s a lot of people stimulating the economy.

Bernanke, Bush & Paulson: you were so good at spending money to buy off phantasms of lost value. Why don’t you give us something concrete for a change, something that will help this country move forward and get people back to work?

Get off your asses, you selfish sons of bitches.

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

GORDON SMITH GROWS HIS PEAS IN HUMAN SHIT

Seems that Smith has been using impounded sewage on his property to irrigate his soon-to-be-frozen peas and carrots, which violates the EPA’s proscription against using human waste to fertilize crops meant for human consumption.

I guess he’s freezing all those peas and carrots to keep them nice and fresh for the livestock. Either that, or he’s a typical corner-cutting, law-breaking Republican.

Buh-bye, Gordo…

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

From the greed and short-sightedness of the banks to the insanity of free trade policies to the shrinking of the middle class and the fundamental financial ignorance of the average U.S. consumer:

That says it all.

h/t hilzoy

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

Forbes editorial writer William Anderson struggles mightily to wake up from his nightmare of market failures and bank suicides-by-greed, and worst of all, Paul Krugman’s Nobel Prize in Economics, but he just can’t click his heels fast enough:

Today’s announcement that Paul Krugman won the Nobel Prize in economics, although not earth shattering, indicates that outright political partisanship is not a deterrent to winning. This is not as tragic a moment in western civilization as the sacking of Constantinople in 1453 or the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, but it suffices as one of those sad moments we will regret over time. [WWWWAAAHHHHHHH!]
…
Paul Krugman is an unabashed liberal, and there is no crime in an economist having such persuasions. For that matter, many economists have a bit of that streak, too. Furthermore, many of us are in agreement that some of the economic policies of the Bush administration have been bad, if not downright disastrous.
…
In Krugman’s world, ideological right-wingers took a meat axe to the carefully planned, stable New Deal economic structures of finance, telecommunications, transportation and manufacturing and created an unstable mess in which greed overruled good sense. Going even farther, Krugman has called for a reinstatement of the New Deal or at least another set of legislative initiatives like the New Deal.
…
As for the current economic turmoil in financial markets, Krugman offers outright socialism as the cure but also continues to peddle the snake oil that the Bush administration is beholden to free-market ideology.

…Krugman believes the problem is that the Bush administration is not socialist enough, which makes it ideologically “free market.” If Obama is elected and Krugman receives a high position in his administration, we shall see if Krugman becomes the first commissar who makes socialism work. I’ll be betting against him.

Poor William Anderson. It must be terrible to be among the elite few - like Alan Greenspan - who see the Objectivist truth: that Milton Friedman’s capitalist utopia has only failed to emerge victorious under yet another Republican president because, like all of his predecessors, George W. Bush lacked the courage of his convictions and refused to stand up to the socialist Republican majority in Congress during the first six years of his presidency to free the markets and let them run their genius course.

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

STOCKHOLM (AFP) — US economist Paul Krugman, a prolific New York Times columnist and fierce critic of Washington’s economic policies, won the Nobel Economics Prize on Monday, the Nobel jury said.

Krugman, 55, a Princeton University professor, has formulated a new trade analysis theory which determines the effects of free trade and globalisation, as well as the driving forces behind worldwide urbanisation, the citation said.

Speaking to Swedish public television immediately after the prize announcement, Krugman said the award “obviously will seriously warp my next few days.”

“I hope that two weeks from now, I’m back to being pretty much the same person I was before,” he said, adding: “I’m a great believer in continuing to do work. I hope it doesn’t change things too much.”

…[B]y awarding Krugman, a critic of unfettered free-market policies who has focused heavily on globalisation and the developing world, the jury has indeed decided to confront major, civilisation-changing issues.

In his New York Times columns, Krugman has stood out as a harsh critic of the Bush administration’s free-market policies.

He was also adamantly opposed to the initial wording of US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s 700-billion-dollar financial sector bailout plan — which he described as “financial Russian roulette”, although he conceded that a rescue was needed.

Suck.On.That., Thomas Friedman.

I can haz Treasury Secretary?

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

Or is he just stupid?

From economist Dean Baker:

It is not that anything about the current economic situation can plausibly lead to ten years of double-digit unemployment. However, we are seeing views expressed by otherwise serious people that could in fact give us the sort of prolonged stagnation that we saw in the Great Depression.

Advocating spending cuts and/or tax increases in the wake of the downturn that we are now seeing make about as much sense for the economy as nuking Silicon Valley. If the advocates of such nuttiness get their way, then a Great Depression type downturn may be on the agenda.

McCain in last week’s debate:

I believe that we have to eliminate the earmarks. And sometimes those projects, not — not the overhead projector that Senator Obama asked for, but some of them that are really good projects, will have — will have to be eliminated, as well.

And they’ll have to undergo the same scrutiny that all projects should in competition with others.

So we’re going to have to tell the American people that spending is going to have to be cut in America. And I recommend a spending freeze that — except for defense, Veterans Affairs, and some other vital programs, we’ll just have to have across-the-board freeze.

Yeah, when unemployment goes through the roof and the economy is on the skids, pull more money out of it. That’ll help.

But, you ask, with a trillion dollar deficit and $11 trillion national debt, how can we ever afford to pay for reinvestment in our infrastructure and the creation of new industries and jobs, as we’ll need to to rebuild the U.S. economy?

Peter DeFazio has the right idea with his Rebuild America Tax: put a 10% surtax on all income of more than $1,000,000 for couples and $500,000 for individuals. This would allow the folks who’ve made the most out of the Bush tax cuts to give back to their country in its time of need. We could even sunset the surtax after a decade, giving it a nice symmetry with the Bush tax cuts’ planned expiration (unless McCain gets his way and makes them permanent, as he insanely still wants to do - he really doesn’t know anything about economics, does he?)

Anyway, ten years should be just enough time to get the economy back on its feet - or it would be, if we get at least two terms under a strong Democratic president with workable majorities in the House and Senate.

And while we’re building this new economy of ours, what a great opportunity to look at all parts of it anew: health care, banking and securities regulation, corporate personhood and responsibility.

Just as it’s taken the worst economic disaster in 80 years to get this country to, just maybe, look beyond race in a Presidential election, perhaps now is the moment for real progressive change.

That’s the kind of change we can believe in. Right, Senator Obama?

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

Further proof (if you need any more) that this is all about helping the banks maintain profitability, not solvency.

At your expense.

We need a New Deal bill, not this Contract on America crap. Start with the struggling homeowner, worker, and taxpayer, and money from the 365,000,000 of us will start flowing back into the economy: into banks, stores and the federal treasury.

This bailout is just one last bank heist spree before the GOP hits the road and takes up positions on the very boards and banks they are funneling our money to now.

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

1 Comments

• At September 30, 2008, John wrote:

  Here is the PDF of the bill that failed yesterday but will be passed in large part imo by Friday.

  Should be called the Bush Crime Family Theft Act of 2008.

My inlaws were very careful with their money during their working years; they did all the right things. And they have lived very comfortably since L.’s retirement about 8 years ago. They have been lucky enough to be able to live off the interest on their investments, at least until last year, when they dipped into principal for the first time thanks to the Bush market.

And yesterday, according to my M.I.L., they “lost more money than most people have.”

Again, they are lucky enough to have that principal if they need it; but they are both healthy 70-year-olds: they are active, they travel, and they are up to heroic feats of framing and drywalling whenever one of their grown kids finishes a basement or remodels a bathroom. They need this money to last at least another ten years, and their wish to live off the interest so their grandkids could go to college on the principal may be dead.

This is the direct result of Bush’s deregulation frenzy, sure. But the tipping point was Henry Paulson’s hair-on-fire, we’re-all-gonna-die demand for $700 billion with no strings attached last week.

Obviously, Paulson had at least a month to pull this thing together, and time enough during the past two weeks to be followed around by the 60 Minutes camera crew; he seemed perfectly calm. But he has ginned up such a frenzy, and driven down the confidence of the market so far, that even if his initial plan was the last greedy money grab of the Bush Administration rather than a true emergency, he has turned it in to one.

Remember always: BushCo is not incompetent. They do these things on purpose.

And I will not forgive them for making my inlaws miserable and fearful for their kids’ and their grandkids’ jobs and futures at a time when they should be reaping the rewards of a lifetime of enormously hard work.

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver