Political Punch

"Congress is now working on regulating the $60 to over $100 trillion CDS market."

That sounds like an impossible task. I've heard the CDSs were designed not to leave behind a trail that could be followed in addition to being a system designed to thwart understanding by the average person. They've also been co-mingled with other paper to an international extent. They should be outlawed, rather than regulated which seems futile.

"Congress failed to act from 2001 to 2008 after the Enron failure."

What do you call Sarbanes-Oxley? That little bit of knee jerk political grandstanding has been a major hit to the IT profession and lead to the off shoring outsourcing to tens of thousands of jobs.

Its interesting to reflect that the Madoff fraud was only possible because there was a regulatory apparatus. If you are an insider of the regulators, like the Fannie Mae and Madoff donations, then you assume an air of legitimacy that you couldnt have absent regulation, and thus are able to fool people.

"No longer can we allow Wall Street wrongdoers to slip through regulatory cracks." Yes it is time to do the job that Greenspan, Rubin, Larry Summers, and mostly Republicans fought against in the 1990s through Bush's 8 yrs.

They destroyed the reputation of Ms Born, Chairman of the CFTC in the mid to late1990s because she wanted to regulate "credit default swaps" (CDSs) that could have prevented a major portion of the current financial mess. It would also have prevented the $4.00 gas.

Everyone believed Greenspan was infallible.

After receiving money from Enron and investment banks, Senate Banking Chairman Repub. Phil Gramm, nation of whiners, pulled a slick move to get it through Congress.

Congress is now working on regulating the $60 to over $100 trillion CDS market.

Congress failed to act from 2001 to 2008 after the Enron failure.

Summers should make a public apology to Ms Born. Obama might consider her for his economic team.

Why don't you all stop whinning. Saying crap like "His pre-perestroika Soviet-style bla-bla" is not getting us anywhere. He is at least attempting to do something. He had nothing to do with this mess getting started, leave all that blame to the goof who holds office right now. I can not wait for 12 more days when he will be out of office and someone with competence can step in and do something.

A democracy will continue to exist up until the voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority will always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship.”

"the Chinese will no longer finance our debt."

China bats last . . .

"Hope certainly seems to have flown out the window."

But atleast the obamabots still have change! change! change!

This is all with out meaning.

The drudgereport.com has an article where the Chinese will no longer finance our debt.

The game is over.

Hope certainly seems to have flown out the window.

The way our politics are, nobody running for or in office has ever suffered from being too dire about the economy. Or the state of the nation in general.

Anything he does from now until when he goes back to the Chicago slums that he descended from, had better be in America's best interest. If he doesn't act in our best interest he will be looking at impeachment, like the last democrat clown president.

"His pre-perestrokia Soviet style bla-bla"

oops, typing error: "His pre-perestroika Soviet-style bla-bla"

"pretty disappointed when he doesn't personally deliver them a new pair of shoes like he promised."

When a few dozen truckloads of shoes come His way, what then?

"He has to give the appearance of trying something."

Saying a lot of nothing may pass for "the appearance" of trying something to His followers in the corporate propaganda machine, but the fact that the price of groceries has doubled is a SIGNIFICANT matter to ... the poor.

After "stop the drama, vote Obama", it's kind of a rhetorical assault on the electorate that He now decrees "dramatic action" -- hahaha -- and names his pre-perestrokia Soviet style bla-bla by a phrase His pablum-producers apparently designed hoping it would be confused with AARP (American Association of Retired Persons).

Someone said it best yesterday about barry's absurd statements regarding the economy. It's like going up to your teacher and saying
"hey, I am only gonna be able to do 'C' work, but I, uh, really do deserve an 'A'".

All of those unemployed people who took the time to get off their couches, set down their welfare-bought beers, to go out and vote for barry O are going to be pretty disappointed when he doesn't personally deliver them a new pair of shoes like he promised.

"At this point, the government can't sit back and say, "let the strong survive and the weak die"."

Unless He intends to "reform" Medicare and Social Security to the standard that was intended for Social Security when it was developed -- that everyone would pay in, and those who had no other retirement would draw it -- that's exactly what He DOES mean.

Given the Clinton approach to National Health and "welfare reform" -- a lot of self-promoting publicity and designed-to-go-nowhere top-down blabla, followed by turning over public health AND dispossessed single mothers to the corporate-profit machine, we might as well start the revolution NOW.

All this, and escalation in Afghanistan, too? Lord knows THAT's "the American Dream" ...

The Jesse Jacksons better get this guy out of there, while they still can, or get ready for the Gazafication of the cities.

It doesn't matter politically if Obama's plan works or not. He has to give the appearance of trying something. It's politics. At this point, the government can't sit back and say, "let the strong survive and the weak die". If $1 trillion+ tax dollars eventually turn out to be money down the drain, we'll just crank up the presses. This whole story can be interpreted as, "we must be percieved as taking action, even if it doesn't work". POLITICS!

"Our economy could fall $1 trillion short of its full capacity, which translates into more than $12,000 in lost income for a family of four. "

He just said yesterday that he was going to have trillion dollar deficits for the next several years. So he is proposing spending 3 trillion to save 1 trillion?

"That’s why we’ll invest in priorities like energy and education; health care and a new infrastructure that are necessary to keep us strong and competitive in the 21st century. "

Education is not a short term stimulus. Health care is not a short term stimulus. It would be nice if he would build 20 new nuclear reactors but thats not going to happen in 2009 either.

"Mr. Obama will try to argue that this stimulus plan will be different than previous spending proposals.

"I understand that some might be skeptical of this plan," he will say. "Our government has already spent a good deal of money, but we haven’t yet seen that translate into more jobs or higher incomes or renewed confidence in our economy....Instead of politicians doling out money behind a veil of secrecy, decisions about where we invest will be made transparently, and informed by independent experts wherever possible."

If you were grading a student who turned in this paper you'd have to give it a C. Is he really saying that what was wrong on the past stimulus was that there wasnt enough transparency? The middle class largely used the stimulus checks to pay down debt, end of story. No amount of 'transparency' is going to change that.

He still hasnt told is what is different and what will be dont in 2009.

"investors, and businesses from the reckless greed and risk-taking that must never endanger our prosperity again."

oh boy. I guess someone slept through econ 101.

jpt quotes The CHANGEling:
"Instead of politicians doling out money behind a veil of secrecy, decisions about where we invest will be made transparently, and informed by independent experts wherever possible."

"Independent experts"?? Hahaha: nobody the ruling junta of crooks accepts as an "expert" IS "independent".

"It is not just another public works program."

Oh: not "just" some Rooseveltian piece of fluff ... what a RELIEF.

Amid the meaningless blabla quoted above, The CHANGEling yesterday ALSO managed to signal "reform" of Social Security and Medicare ... as -- don't laugh! -- "a central part" of his effort to control federal spending.

When the Clintons embarked on "welfare reform", it didn't work out so well for the black masses and poor whites ... and effectively orphaned the children of the poor, with predictable cultural results.

Some savior. Told you so.

Meanwhile, "Gaza" is brewing in ... Oakland, over the police execution -- recorded by bystanders' cell phones --

i like obama,s style he tells teh truth and asks for all americans to work together,also he doesnt look down on the working class and the poor like bush and all republicans do. makes me feel like part of america again. bush made me feel like a low life nobody, he treats the middle class like servants or slaves for him and his rich buddies.