Today seems like the calm before the storm.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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If the bank bailout plan is as bad as some say, it’s going to be a real barn-burner next week.
And by the way, let me just say I was glad to pay my taxes Thursday. Unlike some fishwrap writers, I did so with a glad heart because it’s part of my duty as a citizen, just as voting is.
I may not have a direct stake in how it’s spent, but that’s neither here nor there.
Break-in at the cheesesteak joint:
that’s awesome!
I have the same “calm before the storm feeling.” I know that, as soon as the details over the plan to stabilize the banks emerges, there is going to be a ton of criticism from every side. Yet, I don’t notice anyone actually proposing solutions ahead of time. It’s like no one wants to act like an adult and be proactive.
Well, I have plenty of ideas, but things aren’t bad enough yet for them to get any traction. That, and no one from the administration has asked for my opinion. 😉
Formally nationalizing the banking system would be a good start. Next, I’d impose a tax that would essentially seize the assets of the top 2% of the population that have been sucking up all the wealth for the last few decades and use it, among other things, to forgive the bulk of the direct mortgage debt.
Naturally, even if the public was desperate enough to contemplate actual socialism, it’d still be impossible to get anything done without placing the bulk of the GOP members of Congress under house arrest. Fortunately, their participation in the last eight years of war crimes and major constitutional violations should make that easier than would otherwise be the case.
Yeah, yeah, I know. But I’ve got to keep a happy thought to get through the day.
Not sure what would be the point proposing solutions. To whom should we propose them, each other? Who else is going to listen, let alone do anything about it?
It seems to me that proposing solutions for the financial crisis will have about the same effect as pointing out that Iraq didn’t have WMD’s, and Saddam and bin Laden were enemies. What THAT got us was shock and awe and much worse to follow.
I had that feeling a week and a half ago, like life was getting too good and something bad was going to come down. We paid off one of our two credit cards in full and that was the jinx. It seems Nature abhors a debit vacuum and presented me with a broken tooth. I have to get a root canal, a post and a crown and was stunned to learn that all this is going to cost over $2000! For one friggin’ tooth!
Forget the artistry that goes into making a crown look like a tooth. I’m thinking a tooth-sized gold plug would be cheaper but I could be wrong at current rates. I’m also thinking about finding the nearest dental school… Oddly, it doesn’t hurt so I have time to comparison shop. I hate people with insurance who don’t even pay attention to what shit costs. We are ALL being ripped off!
If there is a dental school within a decent distance you could probably get it taken care of at a lower rate. The work is done by students, but is very closelysupervised and they should have the very latest technology. Look into it.
For what it’s worth I just had a major dental bill totally unexpectedly, and I have relatively good insurance. Very annoying.
too many irons in the fire?
Unless that one day is to throw Geithner under the bus and redo this entire plan, it’s not going to matter.
Thanks for linking to Al Giordano’s brilliant analysis which I had not seen before.
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/end-activism-and-renaissance-organizing
Expressing that point of view keeps getting my account at OpenLeft mysteriously disabled, with no explanation.
unfortunately, hits the nail on the head:
Snip.
I’m not seeing much “change”. Not yet anyway.
Somehow the most well-known person on the planet lost control of the economic message to someone named Eric Cantor.
So I hate to disagree with as penetrating an analyst as Maureen Dowd, the woman who invented the term “Breck Girl” and “Obambi”, but my impression was that Eric Cantor’s side lost in the House.
with her analysis, I think her prose is pretty damn good too.
I’m not a big fan of utterly superficial, right wing propagandists, but others have different tastes.
Do you expect Obama to wave his magic wand to make it go away?
I expect him to start acting like he’s the President of the United States of America.
I expect him to show some leadership and stop triangulating.
You’re not seeing much change, and I’ll bet you haven’t even taken a good look at foreign policy yet. The talk over there hasn’t even really changed all that much. It’s every bit as scary and angering as ever.
I have something at work tomorrow that I am truly dreading. Calm before the storm is right.
Here’s a post as to why Bredesen of Tennessee would be a horrible choice for HHS:
From Skeptical Brotha:
Phil Bredesen, Corporate Pedophile
http://skepticalbrotha.wordpress.com/2009/02/07/phil-bredesen-corporate-pedophile/
I feel you, BooMan. It’s pretty worrisome.
I guess I’ve known for a while that things will get worse before they get better, but it bothers me how little this seems to be understood at large.
The two questions I’ve been mulling over for the last month or so are:
-How many jobs will we lose by the end of July?
and
-What does the Dow Jones bottom out at?
Any thoughts?
Well, at the rate we’re going, half a million lost jobs a month, by Labor Day or so we’ll be looking at another 3.5 million jobs gone, doubling the number lost so far.
Who knows if the Dow will be at 4,000 or 10,000. At this point it’s all phantom money anyway. America’s insolvent.
I have had enough of the Republicans; complaining about spending, when they supported W’s trillion dollar war in Iraq. I think President needs narrow the choice down on the stimulus plan to the following:
1)Do you want a tax cut or a job.
2)is a tax cut going to feed your family if your out of work.
3)is a tax cut going to pay your light bill, gas bill or help you make a mortgage payment.
4)The Republicans want to give a tax cut to the same persons who gambled, mortgaged, and cheated on our economic soundness. But are leaving the American taxpayer to pay for their loss.
5)A stimulus bill will put America back to work.
It does seem like Wile. E. Coyote has been treading air off a cliff face for far too long.
Others have suggested repeatedly that it goes back to his absent father, and while I think that’s part of it, I think it’s also possible that a more positive encounter with social change potentials in early adulthood could have substantially compensated for that childhood experience, at least in the realm of his political attitude, orientation, and philosophy. It’s the combination of the two that I think we have to reckon with. Obama has, quite simply, no life model of what it means to really win. And that is a really big problem if you’re the leader of a political party, particularly if you’re President.
This is really “NRO Corner” levels of rhetorical bombast.
Wow, new lows in armchair psychology there…“…quite simply, no life model of what it means to really win.”
Except for, you know, being the first African-American man to win election to the presidency of the United States. Or any of his achievements prior to that.
What an idiot.
I woulda told that to Paul himself, but I’ve been banned from OpenLeft today, possibly for explaining that Truman got his ass handed to him by Congress and presided over the establishment of the suppression of the labor movement via the Taft-Hartley act so that calling on Obama to talk tough like Truman is pretty fucking stupid.
Oh, the nerve of you, knowing your history…facts are such bothersome things!
you gotta be kidding me. He goes from the Senate to the PRESIDENCY IN 4 YEARS….and doesn’t know about winning?
huh??
I find it insulting. But then again, consider the place it comes from. On many subjects, the OpenLeft crew does yeoman work. When it comes to the President, however, they revert to wingnuttery to get by.
I think the solution to the present crisis isn’t going to come from mainstream economists. It’s going to be something radical and way out of the box, dreamed up by some hippie who is still reading the Mother Earth News. This situation can’t be solved with conventional thinking.