McCain and his too-tight Depends

McCain's Depends were a little too tight on Friday night.  As a result, Grandpa Cranky-Pants was a little too angry overall.  

Of course he had a lot to be angry about.  His ploy on Wednesday to "suspend" his campaign was  sub-prime bullshit, and he stepped in the pile of it.  His surrogates and political ads stayed on TV.  None of his campaign offices were closed. And he gave a speech at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York and met with Bono (Bono - the celebrity).  

He HAD to pull this stunt to say, "Hey look at the shiny thing over here.  Don't look at Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Couric.  Don't read about my campaign manager being on the payroll of Freddie Mac. Don't look at the polls that have me dropping like a stone. Look at me, I'm being a Maverick!"   

Instead of staying in D.C. until a bailout agreement was hammed out, McCranky's advisors said he had no choice but to show up at the debate.  So, he was pissed and left to direct his anger at Russia, Iran and all the other foreign bad guys -- and, of course, Obama. I loved his snide remarks about how Obama didn't "understand" how foreign policy works.  I only wish Obama would have been more aggressive in his answers.   Unfortunately, Obama now has to walk this fine line between responding and not looking like a scary, black man that might frighten Joe and Jane Six-pack out there in Peoria.

In the end, the polls picked up on how angry McSame was and seemed to agree that Obama was the winner of the debate.  Can America be wising up?  

Let's not get crazy here.

Congress is screwing us

Just read that Nancy Pelosi said a deal is near on the bailout.  

Of course it is.  The Senators and Congressmen/women are saving their own arses.  

According to Bloomberg.com, 56 members of Congress had stakes in AIG, Lehman, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac or Bear Sterns.  (Their source is the Center for Responsive Politics.) 

Some of the big names:  Pelosi, in her most recent financial disclosure form, reported that her husband owned between $250,000 and $500,000 of AIG stock.  John Kerry's wife Teresa Heinz had more than $2-million of AIG stock at the end of 2007 where shares were worth $58.30.  And these are Democrats.

Rep. Robin Hayes, a South Carolina Republican, had Congress' biggest AIG stake.  His stock was worth between $2.8 million and $11.5  million.  

They've been yanking our chain all week just to make it look good for them.   

So bend over and take it like a man, woman, sheep, whatever.

“We did this to protect the taxpayer” and other funny stuff.

As I listen to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, along with Bush, Bernake and various senators and congressmen talk about the financial crisis on TV, I am struck by how they all use the same terms, as if they have a list of talking points:

It’s “toxic debt” and a plan needs to be passed “quick and clean.” And, “It is necessary to act and act now, or face catastrophe.” And my personal favorite from Paulson: “We did this to protect the taxpayer.”

I really had to laugh over that last one. Because if you believe this “plan” is going to protect anyone except the Wall Street titans and the government that works for them, then I have some sub-prime B.S. I’d like to sell you, too.

Don’t know about you but I get a queasy feeling when the Bush Admin. pushes hard to sell something on the Sunday morning talk shows. You remember: Saddam has weapons of mass destruction, and let’s hope the smoking gun doesn’t come in the form of a mushroom cloud. Or how about this one: The U.S. government doesn’t torture. (We just send people off to those countries that do.)

Barney Frank (Dem. From Mass.) added more flavor on CBS’ Face the Nation: "What they told us was the contagion here and the depression in the market was such that you were going to see a shutdown of the lending businesses not just on Wall Street but for all Americans."

A shut down of credit? In America?! That is major pants-pooping material!

The other thing I find frightening about this Brazilian-dollar bail out is that apparently the “assets” will be managed by the very people who got us into this mess in the first place.

Writing in his column at Salon.com, Glenn Greenwald calls what is happening a crime. He brings up some profound points:

“What is more intrinsically corrupt than allowing people to engage in high-reward/no-risk capitalism -- where they reap tens of millions of dollars and more every year while their reckless gambles are paying off, only to then have the Government shift their losses to the citizenry at large once their schemes collapse? We've retroactively created a win-only system where the wealthiest corporations and their shareholders are free to gamble for as long as they win and then force others who have no upside to pay for their losses. 

 Watching Wall St. erupt with an orgy of celebration on Friday after it became clear the Government (i.e., you) would pay for their disaster was literally nauseating, as the very people who wreaked this havoc are now being rewarded. 

More amazingly, they're free to walk away without having to disgorge their gains; at worst, they're just ‘forced’ to walk away without any further stake in the gamble. How can these bailouts not at least be categorically conditioned on the disgorgement of ill-gotten gains from those who are responsible? … Why should those who so fantastically profited from these schemes they couldn't support walk away with their gains?

This is ‘redistribution of wealth’ and ‘government takeover of industry’ on the grandest scale imaginable -- the buzz-phrases that have been thrown around for decades to represent all that is evil and bad in the world. That's all this is; it's not an "investment" by the Government in any real sense but just a magical transfer of losses away from those who are responsible for these losses to those who aren't.” 

Funny stuff, huh?

The Mattress is Our Friend

Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Mother of God! Close the money market, and start stuffing the mattress.

Just read in the NY Times that in some of the money market accounts like the Reserve Primary Fund (the very people who invented the MMF) one dollar is now only worth .97. In Wall Street lingo, this fund "broke the buck," which never happens in what is supposed to be a safe place to put your money. The fund has stopped all withdrawals for seven days. And you thought it was your money.

Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, AIG, Fannie & Freddie, WaMu and soon to be Morgan Stanley -- all road kill on the freeway of the free market. In this year of firsts, we have just witnessed another chapter for the history books: Basically this Republican government has nationalized our economy. They out-Roosevelted Roosevelt. It's socialism for the wealthy, and the free market for the rest of us. I hope I can get a piece of this bailout action for my upside down mortgage, car loan and credit card. Where do I sign up?

Can you believe it? All those brokers and traders at the aforementioned firms were watching the value of their companies crash before their very eyes, squirming in the starch of their shirts, when some guy walks in and says the nine most welcomed words in the English language:

I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.

(If you know that famous Ronald Reagan quote from the 1980s, you will appreciate the irony.)

And what of the media and our Prez candidates? How are they handling these "what the hell just happened to my 401k" moments? CNBC and the dear, old print media are actually doing a great job of staying on top of developments and explaining things the best they can. Problem is, no one really knows what or how bad this is. Yet, in the middle of this economic crisis -- probably the worst since the 1930s -- the broadcast and cable media is still obsessed with the polls between Obama and McCain. Go figure.

As for the candidates, McSame wants to fire the chairman of the Security and Exchange Commission, except that -- oops -- a president doesn't have the power to do that. Presidents nominate and the Senate confirms the SEC chair. As a commissioner of an independent regulatory commission, this person (Chris Cox) cannot be removed by the president.

McPain said he opposed a federal bail out of AIG a couple of days ago (economy's fundamentals were "strong," he said); then he changed his mind after the government change its mind. So he was against it before he was for it. Joe Biden called Johnny Mc's ideas The Bridge to Nowhere. tee hee.

We will await Obama's "new ideas" on how to fix this mess on Friday in Florida. Obama has a real opportunity here to steal the show and crush McSame. Let's hope he steps up to the plate.

Meanwhile Sarah McPalin can still see Russia from her house, and it's looking better everyday.

One of the blogs I read today asked if capitalism was dead now. A week ago, who thought we would actually pause to think about that? The answer is probably "no" but still, don't buy any stocks right now -- unless it's in a mattress company.

The Conventions - brought to you by...

Feelings about the conventions: to me both felt like one big awful infomercial-propaganda show brought to you by (insert corporate name here). Thankfully, our long national nightmare-mini-series of DNC and RNC is over, and the blow-hard pundits can return to their respective corporate media posts where everyone talks and no one listens.

Don't know if you listen to Amy Goodman of Democracy Now (the only real journalism left in this country except for Bill Moyers), but besides being arrested at the RNC (Amy, you're my hero), she did a behind-the-scenes report on who the corporate sponsors were and who had the fancy sky boxes and parties. Apparently AT&T was one of the largest sponsors at both conventions. Maybe they had a "Thanks for the Immunity" party for their part in spying on the American people illegally. Journalist Matt Cooper (formerly of Time) in his blog at portfolio.com even goes so far as to call it the Corporate Conventions and said so many corporations were represented at the DNC and RNC that you'd think you were at a Chamber of Commerce meeting.

Also: Captain Morgan's Rum mascot was there as the official "pourer" at both conventions. Captain Morgan, by the way, is putting the party back into politics. And if he doesn't, Larry Craig will.

As for Sara Palin (aka, Caribou Barbie), what a pathetic display of cynicism by McCain and his dark master, Karl Rove. Apparently Rove convinced McCain he must pander to the right wing of the Repubs (aka, the shiite Baptists) to get them to turn out for him in this election. So McCain abides by Satan Rove's desires and picks an anti-choice, anti-gay, gun-toting, Baby Jesus-loving Pentecostal. It's the right wing's same, old, tired agenda. I call it the 4 Gs: Guns, God, Gays and Gynecology.

Stay tuned. The party's just getting started.