Inside an intense White House meeting over the financial crisis on Thursday, where nearly every key player came to an agreement on the outlines of the bailout package, Sen. John McCain stuck out. The Republican candidate, according to sources with direct knowledge, sat quiet through most of the meeting, never offered specifics, and spoke only at the end to raise doubts about the rough compromise that the White House and congressional leaders were nearing.
McCain’s reluctance to jump on board the bailout agreement could throw the entire week-long negotiation into a tailspin. 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.
Add to that the latest weirdness like the Letterman debacle, Palin’s utter inability to say anything beyond the party line (after weeks of coaching) in the Couric interview (and even that badly), and all the rest (the sheer volume of distortions, missteps and what have you is mind boggling) and you have to wonder what’s next. Could the TV talking heads be right that just before the election McCain will ‘see the light’ and replace Palin with a heavyweight? Will McCain himself step aside, for the good of the country, allowing an even bigger heavyweight to run for President? In a campaign as goofy as this, I’ve reached the point where I believe anything is possible.
For all Obama’s faults, even if you disagree with his policies, wouldn’t you rather have him in the White House than the mess that McCain/Palin is daily showing they are?
Anyway, as Washington plays politics, more of our financial underpinnings crumble.
JPMorgan Chase acquired the banking assets of Washington Mutual late Thursday after the troubled thrift was seized by federal regulators, marking the biggest bank failure in the nation’s history and the latest stunning twist in the ongoing credit crisis.
Under the deal, JPMorgan Chase will acquire all the banking operations of WaMu, including $307 billion in assets and $188 billion in deposits.
I thought last week was rough for the McCain campaign…
Throw away your partisan hats for the debate tonight and watch it as real life theater. They could be talking about this one for years.
Oregon 27 USC 21
I’d strongly recommend being careful when making statements about this issue. It’s pretty murky to begin with and a lot of the stuff flying around is making it worse.
From what I heard there was an initial proposal from the Bush administration (through one of their pet Congressmen) that was a horrifying mess. Then a group of people got together from Bush’s camp and both parties and came close to putting together something that had some hope of actually making a difference. McCain then flew in and blew the crap out of it for political reasons.
Unfortunately, this is cobbled together from hints from here and there and so is actually worth less than the paper it’s printed on. This says something since, as far as I know, it hasn’t been printed. The only thing I can say for it is that it seems to be somewhere in between what both sides are saying so it’s likely to be closer to the actual situation.
What you say is mostly true, which goes to prove that politicians are in it for themselves. It also is extremely unfair that people are laid-off just so the CEO’s can reap these massive payoffs.
I’m not a class warfare type but the fact is that the rich have been sticking it to the poor since the beginning. This is also why there are revolutions, when the people have had enough and the arrogant elite are forced to face reality.
To all of those ‘Conservatives’ that are anti-regulation, this whole mess is due to the lack of regulation of the people entrusted to hold our money for us.
No regulation, no penalty for gambling our money away.
That is exactly what happened, the money was gambled away by the financial institutions. And now none of those institutions can pay back the bookies with whom they placed the bets, and since they are all bookies to each other, their ‘net worth’ (what they were owed on the books) is worthless.
So the government steps in and pays off the bookies with your money… isn’t that just dandy?
The first step is to re-regulate the financial markets heavily, so they go back to being ‘investment’ firms and not ‘gambling’ firms.
Step two… hold all of those that gambled your money away personally financially accountable, starting with CEOs, then boards of Directors. But that will be difficult because with no regulations, they didn’t do anything wrong in the eyes of the law.
No bailout without re-regulation.
This is a guy covering his butt… We all know that guy. He sits back and lets the group work something out. Then he complains about how its not great having contributed nothing, giving no leadership or direction on the matter at hand. Then when it goes forward he’s covered in either case.
It works: I was at the table and ‘worked with others’ to help this bailout succeed.
It doesn’t work: I expressed my concerns at the time and it was a compromise that at the time we all thought would work.
Come on… we all work with someone like that.
Oh and as far as this side is dirty because X on his campaign took money from Freddie or Fannie and oh… Freddie or Fannie gave Y to the other guy… Get over it..its a dead end.. Freddie and Fannie spent more than a million bucks lobbying last year (2007)… BOTH sides have gotten money or worked with lobbyists who have so that’s a dead end with each side simply pointing to the guys on the other side who got money.
#38, contempt,
It also is extremely unfair that people are laid-off just so the CEO’s can reap these massive payoffs.
Tell that to all the Compaq and HP employees that were laid off by Carly. Then ask how big her parachute was when she got canned.
BTW, Carly is not shilling for the McCain campaign.
#42 Mr. Fusion
There is no excuse especially when “any” CEO runs a company into the ground and gets rewarded for it.
#39 Regulation is unnecessary.
Consequences would work much better.
That is, personal liability for their actions.
If a CEO and board ran a company into the ground, and those individuals could have all their present and future assets attached by the shareholders, then companies would be run quite differently.
Trouble is, individuals make up a tiny portion of shareholders of most large companies, and the institutions that hold large blocks of stock protect each-others’ interests.
#44
Don’t worry, Palin/McCain will threaten them.
Of course, that will just piss them off and make them tighter.
McCain is more of what we don’t want going forward. Obama is a unknown and the rest of Congress is the biggest problem. Not who is going to be president. People are idiots to put so much imortance on who is going to be president. Congress has become so inept at setting policy it fails to even come to agreement quickly in a crisis. Frankly, they are a group that should never be involved in a crisis. They should have done something long before these risky loans were created. We simply created failure by trying to keep a economy expanding by loaning money to people who were not in a position to repay those loans. The economy needs to contract plain and simple.
#36 – Cubie
>>They could be talking about this one for years.
Yeah, but what will they be saying? “Too bad McBush couldn’t take some time off from his photo ops to attend the debate that he was 1/2 the participants at”??
McBush better get cracking if he’s going to catch that flight back to Mississippi and get his make-up on by 9pm EST.
Dave, that’s the first decent argument you’ve made on here… ever.
“I know Obama sucks, but look at the alternative.”
See how smart you sound when you abandon your own bullshit? Almost as smart as… me.
#49 – Jimmie
>>“I know Obama sucks, but look at
>>the alternative.”
I didn’t notice anybody saying that. Are there voices in your head again?
In any case, if you’re talking about Uncle Dave, I’m sure he notes your worship.
good good how did this get so fucked up in less than 8 years?
Amazing.
Everyone seems to forget that basically Congress is a nest of lawyers. Just try to find a Congressperson who wasn’t a mouthpiece back home in their constituency.
And here they are trying to make BUSINESS decisions.
Why in the hell aren’t businesspeople taking care of this financial issue? Government is, if you think about it, a service business. People pay taxes, they (should) get services provided in return. Mail delivered. Roads built. Soil protected.
Why is everyone expecting a bunch of shady criminal lawyers who only live to cover the asses of people charged with crimes to solve financial issues? I say it can’t be done properly, never mind affordably.
#17: Is it just me or is this country getting more fucked up every second?
It’s not just you. You’re right.
#52
“Everyone seems to forget that basically Congress is a nest of lawyers.”
“Why is everyone expecting a bunch of shady criminal lawyers who only live to cover the asses of people charged with crimes to solve financial issues?”
About half the country wants an atty running the country. It would be better if atty’s were banned from gov exec positions.
Do you think any or all of this is being externally (foreign) induced or manipulated?
Or, is it just our own stuidity?
Probably a little of both! I’d say.
#53 – O’Furniture
>>It would be better if atty’s were banned from
>>gov exec positions.
I might have agreed with you, O’, if we hadn’t just been through the shittiest 8 years since Ike (which is as far back as I can remember) at the hands of a non-lawyer.
If Dumbya were running against Nixon, I’d vote for Nixon. And I NEVER thought I’d say that I would vote for Nixon, under any circumstances.
#55 “I might have agreed with you, O’, if we hadn’t just been through the shittiest 8 years since Ike (which is as far back as I can remember) at the hands of a non-lawyer.”
The dems have plenty of non atty’s who could run.
#56, Cow-Paddy,
Or, we could have only Doctors in Congress. But then no one could read the bills. Besides, they would be so busy operating on everyone they wouldn’t cut the deficit.
Or we could have only telephone line repairmen. But they would be so busy listening in on other conversations. But also the Republican line repairmen would just stand around pulling each other’s wire.
Or little ole ladies? Naa, too many stink of lilac. Can you imagine the entire country being forced to wash down their Metamucil with prune juice.
Airline Pilots? They are always going to some controller for permission on what to do or where to go.
Former military leaders? Name one that did a lot of good for this country. (Washington is the exception)
Yup, I guess I’m happy with lawyers.
#57 “Or, we could have only Doctors in Congress. But then no one could read the bills.”
I never said ONLY one type of person. I said exclude ONE type.
If the bills were written in plain English (like the Constitution) you wouldn’t need atty’s except to side check.
See what Jefferson said was the consequence of having atty’s in Congress…
The best explanation of this mess I’ve seen. This will get some tempers boiling…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5tZc8oH–o
One more time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5tZc8oH–o
#55
You’re not old enough to vote are you? Do your parents know that you’re skipping school?
3rd times a charm – Funny the above link works anywhere else
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=burning+down+the+house&search_type=&aq=f
#3
This wasn’t just some heiress to the family fortune. She was personally involved in the failures.
Sworn deposition testimony puts Penny Pritzker not only on the board of the bank and its holding company, Coast, but personally leading the meeting to persuade regulators to let the bank into the subprime market.
Here’s a link to all the depositions.
http://gallery.mac.com/sissoed#100453
Funny that I know of NO one that supports the bailout whether democrat or republican. Why the hell is government not caring about what we have to say… because they don’t have to care.
Fuck it, I am going to go be a lettuce farmer in “the woods” somewhere with my camo clothes.
#61 – Hannah
>>You’re not old enough to vote are you? Do
>>your parents know that you’re skipping school?
Whoa. Strike another deadly blow for the 15-year-old girl!
#63 – Lyin’ Mike
>>Sworn deposition testimony puts Penny
>>Pritzker not only on the board of the bank
>>and its holding company, Coast, blah blah
>>blah
Sorry Lyin’ Mike. That “link” doesn’t even load.
Everything I’ve read states that she was just a figurehead, sucked into the maelstrom caused by Uncle Jay.
If you have a REAL link to the contrary (and no, I’m not accepting World Net Daily or an Ann Coulter column), let’s see it.
Otherwise, your claims will be dismissed as just more of Lyin’ Mike’s lyin’.
/the wind blows in….
one side says more federal intrusion, the other side says less federal intrusion etc etc..
the simple solution that only one or two here has pointed out is that all anybody here seems to care about is their parties agenda.
-when all that is needed is someone just has to have the balls to implement “you will be held accountable for your actions right down to the last nickel. -you screw over the public, you get stiff fines *and* 10yr+, no-parol (and no Fed country club jails either)jail terms to those who game/scam the system”
being Bubba’s bitc* on Rikers Island sounds like a fair place to server your jail term for burning the public.
done.
imo, both parties are guilty of making sure that nothing of this sort of action/law never sees the light of day.. -they all have money sticking out their hole.
we MUST HAVE unequivocal accountability across the board in our government, the banks and wall street. until that happens, anything either side proposes is just feel good fluff put out to dupe the public and pull votes and money to further “the money masters” agenda
i mean come on..the SEC found all the major bank players JPmorgan, Citigroup, BoFA…guilty of fraud in the housing repack of the auction rate securities throughout june, july and august of 2008, fining them millions and forced them to buy back the billions of fraudulent securities they foisted on the little fish.
-on top of the that, goldman sachs and morgan stanly (securities divisions) were also fined and forced to buy back the billions of crap securities they repacked and sold (several times over in some cases)
and do we hear of anyone at top of these companies being arrested and jailed?? -not that i have found..
-like fining these guys makes any difference..they just add some zero’s
in the computer for the next days trades..oh the pain.. :s
topping it all off they going to let G.sachs and morgan stanly` become banks now too?? OMFG…where is the headline stories and outrage on all this complete bull****
why still is nobody going to jail??
talk about letting the wolfs guard the hen house..
the system has been straight up gamed for a century or more… until they put hard core accountability laws for fraudulent manipulation and out right lying/scamming on books, it doesn’t make a hill of beans which
party’s glue you sniff.
when are all you left wingnut/right wingnut suckers going to get it through your brainwashed skulls that the banks own you, your thoughts and your favorite party..
step way back and look at the grand picture… stop buying into all the Us vs Them bullsh**
and *think for yourself* for a change..
just maybe, you’ll finally start to be part of the solution and not one of the millions of pawns conned/hired on to help “keep the problem” alive..
-accountability for actions. simple
(but….just see how long you live when you put the bill up on capital hill though..) :S
-s
pss, and of course, abolish The Fed and give us back our right to print our own, interest free money. -JFK was about to do that..look what happened to him.. its no easy task to be sure.