BUSHZOMBIE

I am disappointedly enthusiastic about the healthcare bill. While this statement may seem like a contradiction, it’s not. Sure, like everyone else I have heard negatives about the bill. I heard something about it not having a public option. Insurance companies are going to get richer. Old people might pay as much as 3 times more for insurance. But this is not my disappointment. I really wanted to see HB676 enacted. This made the most sense. But alas, it didn’t happen either. This was not my disappointment. The Republicans are ranting minute by minute about what a terrible bill this is, but I’m not listening to what they have to say. I am not disappointed in them either.

My disappointment is about what poor winners the liberals are. I’m a liberal, and I would love to complain about the bill. But I can’t. Every liberal I know is doing my complaining for me. I suppose the reason I’m a liberal is because I’m rather idealistic. I think crazy thoughts. For example, I don’t think that poor people should forgo cancer treatment because they cannot afford it. I actually think insurance companies should be responsible for treating people when they agreed to do so. But even though I am idealistic with silly thoughts, occasionally, as a liberal, I would like to think I can see a bigger picture. That brings me to my point.

This entire healthcare debate is a high stakes life and death game that will change the future of America. It doesn’t matter if you like this point or not. It’s the truth.

Liberals should embrace ideas for improvement, but lose the negativity. Whimpering about the senate healthcare legislation will result in a losing end game. Sorry, there is no tomorrow. This happens now or it doesn’t happen. With assured losses in the house and senate in 2010, the Calvary will not be here before the massacre is complete.

A failed bill equals no reform for decades. Furthermore, it means devastating losses in the midterms. Why do you think the Republicans hate this legislation so much? You didn’t actually think they cared about a bad bill did you?

If the bill would have passed on the senate with 65 or 70 votes, then I would feel differently. Then I would say there was room for improvement. It didn’t pass with 65 or 70 votes. It passed with 60 votes. Without procedural tricks, this bill would have failed had it been all that liberals wanted.

So let’s put a positive spin on this. There is more than one way to win a baseball game: with many singles or a few home runs. The bill provides more coverage to those who would never have it. It will reduce bankruptcies. It places restrictions on insurance firms. It’s not perfect and not the final game for healthcare reform. But it will only be an assured loss if forfeited.

Chanting “Kill the Bill” is not just detrimental to healthcare reform. This is a recipe for political destruction. This is the best way to ensure that Democrats enjoy another Jimmy Carter style loss in 2012 and a 1994 style loss in congress. I am sitting here right now listening to Newt Gingrich spew his rhetorical nonsense. The conservatives smell blood in the water and why wouldn’t they? The liberals are slashing their own wrists.

Attention liberals – listen up.

Assuming the House of Representatives can ignore the screams trying to scuttle the legislation, the healthcare bill will pass. And when it does, it will be a huge win for Democrats. Most importantly, this is the pendulum stopping and beginning to swing back the other direction.

I am sorry that the senate didn’t hit the healthcare ball out of the political ballpark. But healthcare is on first base and Barack Obama is up to bat. We have a long way to go, but we haven’t lost, yet. And for that, I hope you can understand my enthusiasm.

This is an issue for the NON Zombies.

Zombies – listen up — go to your room!

There now, isn’t that better.

Yes, Bush may be gone, but the Zombies live on. OMG they are completely nuts!

The latest in a series of crazed outrages proves my point about why it’s useless to have dialog with the right wing. Because NOW, Obama is “AFTER YOUR CHILDREN AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! IN SCHOOL NO LESS!!!!! HE’S TAKING OVER THEIR BRAINS!!!! HE IS INDOCTRONATING THEM!!!!!! AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!! WE’RE ALL DOOMED!”

The wacko nonsense coming from the right is just bizarre.

So you must put this in perspective. The right wingnuts believe what they believe and there is nothing you can do about it. They are complete Zombies. This is pathological, not poignant thought. They have no idea about any of the issues, the real economic impacts, the true cost to our country or even the real motives behind ANY of the participants, whether it’s the right wing or the left wing. For them, it’s paranoia, hysteria, anxiety and despair.

Why are they acting this way? The left wrings their hands in their lefty way, thinking it’s their duty to understand.

This act of discussion is detrimental. The question is not worth asking and to be honest, it gives them a tinge of credibility.

BUT WHY? The cerebral left STILL asks… 

Let me put it this way: It’s PATHOLOGICAL.

You must remember that for the right, there are two kinds of people, the ones stirring the pot and the ones that are eating turd soup. For the Zombies, which is 90% of the right, they have no ability to control their thought. They CANNOT change their thinking because it isn’t theirs. It’s the crap that their leaders ladled into their heads. They are programmed — hard wired, STUCK in their way of thinking. It may be turd soup to you and me, but for the Zombies it’s good because they are told it’s good.

So stop thinking you can “talk to” or “make sense of” the antics of the right wingnuts.

Or, to put it another way, think of wingnuts the same way you would consider a rabid dog. There’s a good reason you don’t see dogs with Rabies at clicker/obedience training.

And that same reason is why Obama needs to give up on the right wing.

Because they are batcrap crazy.

How did this insurance thing happen, anyway? It doesn’t deliver one ounce of health care.

So how did 45 or 50 million people end up without insurance?

The answer and the solution are complex, yet are based on something very simple: Supply and Demand. The insurance problem is all about weak demand for labor. How weak is demand for labor? There are now 6 job seekers for every job opening.

I remember when most American companies supplied their workers with health insurance. There were a number of reasons for this, but mainly it was a matter of demand. Companies couldn’t attract workers if they didn’t offer some kind of benefit package. The corporations also received tax incentives to do this, as they do now. What has broken is the demand for labor. And the reason for this breakage is the direct result of supply side thinkers. I recommend reading Ravi Batra if you wish to learn more about this. And unfortunately, Obama has some real supply side tendencies — although nothing compared to the conservatives.

What does this have to do with healthcare?

Everything!

We have now lost more jobs during this “economic cycle” than all the jobs created since 2001.
http://www.epi.org/publications/entry/jobs_picture_20090702/

I could go on for 50 or 60 pages, but suffice it to say that the issue with healthcare, the 47 to 50 million uninsured are a symptom of this economic crisis.

Now for a treat… This sums it up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKv6RcXa2UI

ATTENTION, POLITICIANS: You cannot fix the economy by acting like conservatives. It will not work (or haven’t you been paying attention).

No money to the DCCC until I see the result of the voting.

As for the DSCC, dido.

Back to the economy.

Without a vibrant economy, meaning a resurgence of a manufacturing base, we will continue to see dwindling health insurance offered by corporations. This means we must have a public option because we are paying for it anyway.

The problem with healthcare is a symptom of economic conditions. Conservative Democrats are misguided if they believe they will retain their seats by re-enforcing the policies that put us here in the first place. This conservative economic thinking is sinking our country fast. It’s time to do what works and quit embracing the current brand of conservatism.

If you’re interested in what it is like to live inside the mind of a Republican, you can achieve this in one of two ways:

1. Put your head in a 55 gallon drum and have your neighbor beat the shit out of it with a baseball bat, or ….

2. Listen to the dingbat conserve-bots on Sunday morning.

In fact, regardless of which method you use the outcome will be identical.

This week I listened to Lynn Cheney et. al. on This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Lynn is like her father in many ways: A Sociopathic-schizophrenic–delusional-extroverted-lesbian. Oh wait, I’m not sure Dick is a lesbian. But one thing is for sure: Lynne Cheney is the man in her family because she has biggest balls I have ever seen. She continued to dream about the Republicans coming back from their walk in the desert, i.e. that Dick is just discussing how ‘safe’ everyone is in recent weeks, reminding us of how ‘Obama’ is making us ‘unsafe’. And the people out there in the U.S. will come back to the Rebpulican party when they realize how wonderful things are and how safe everything is, and why Obama is bad, and Dick is a shining light… Oh brother. I upchucked at least three times.

What drivel!

Here are the facts:

Bush and Cheney cut the funding for terrorists when they took office. They ignored warnings that led to the deaths of 3,000 Americans. Now it seems that in 2002 that what REALLY happened was that Bush and Cheney tortured people so extract confessions so they would have a link between Iraq and 911.

I listened to the The McLaughlin Group too. The Republicans there, Pat and Monica (gag) say the same thing, except they use the economy as their bate to the American people. Let me summarize: The American economy will have a double dip recession due to spending and this will mean Obama is OUT.

The truth is that Obama didn’t do any of this and he not simply has to try to slowly unravel the disaster called “Bush and Cheney” foreign relations, the collapse of our economy and the stupid asses that are too f)#($& dumb to realize they’ve been screwed by these bastards.

I find conservatism amazing. Basically it’s like emotional Judo, to use people’s own stupidity against them to make them even dumber.
Here’s the next fact for darling Lynn, John, Pat and Monica, the super hypocrites: Cheney and Bush better hope the atheists are right. Because there ain’t no road that will take these SOBs from earth to heaven.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, from 1997 to 2007, 235 thousand automobile bodies and parts were off-shored as our trade deficit ballooned to 32.2 billion dollars. However, the profits flowed into American corporate coffers even as the dollars flowed into the hands of foreign workers. Even those days are past us now as Chrysler is taken over by Fiat, a foreign auto manufacturer. While it is true this arraignment will keep some American jobs, Robert Scott from the Economic Policy Institute concludes that 900,000 jobs will be lost through this type of bankruptcy. The result will be tax payers subsidizing unemployed American workers while a foreign country reaps the benefits. Manufacturing profits will flow to non U.S. corporations along with lost jobs and America’s prosperity.

• In March, the BLS recorded the largest increase in unemployment since 1983, 663,000 lost jobs.
• Since 2006, the employee to population ration as declined 3.5% to 59.9%, the steepest decline since the great depression.
• Long term unemployment, people unemployed for 6 months or more rose to 24.2% and there are now about 4 workers for every job opening.
• And now GM is announcing even more plant closings due to slow demand.

Since we embarked on Supply Side Economics and Milton Friedman style free market policies in the 1980s, we have seen our economy and country decline. U.S. equity from the end of World War II through the 70s began to erode and disappear in the last 8 years. We have even squandered a trillion dollars from the Social Security Trust Fund to fuel the fires of declining demand for labor and foreign wars. And some say retirees who have paid into this fund will just have to live with their losses. That is the “free market” after all. That is the new mantra from our corporate brethren; that Americans will have to learn their new place.

In 1975, a blue collar worker could support a family of 4 on a single salary, yet today demand for labor has reached a point where 2 or 3 full time workers are needed to support the same living standard. In reality, even that standard is not the same.

• How can a mother or father read a book to a child after working 80 hours? Over the past decade, Americans have worked more hours than any country in the industrialized world, even Japan.
• How can a parent explain to a child what a healthy dinner looks like if that same parent is so exhausted they cannot cook dinner even for themselves?
• How can we espouse family values when parents work 2 or 3 jobs?
• And now that there are no jobs, how can a parent teach working values when they cannot even find a job or pay their own bills.

And what have we as Americas gained?

• For the majority: cheap, low quality, chemically laced consumer goods purchased using a credit card because we have no money.
• For a few, less than 1/10^th of 1%, the gains of these policies are wealth beyond imagination; untaxed and ill gained.

Why would we expect a healthy society when 99.9% of Americans and American jobs are put last?

Several weeks ago I overheard a conversation from a manager at a financial institution. The firm’s goal is to have 90% of jobs off-shored by this summer. The same firm is inundated with foreigners on H1B Visas. Yet the same firm could not exist without American demand for their product. It is Americans that keep this company in business.

How can we survive as a nation if our leaders allow corporate profits to strip Americans of a living wage? This kind of behavior must be punished if we are to maintain a moral and free people, because morality is based, in part, on the ability to make acceptable living choices. The difference between a foreign worker lay-off and an American worker lay-off is this:

• A foreign worker can return to their country.

• An American worker is already home.

Imported high tech workers directly compete with jobs in the U.S. and this is not slated to change until 2010. Why should I tell my children to go to college? It is not difficult to educate an American worker. Take a scrap of paper from the drawer and write this phrase: “Welcome to Wal-Mart”. Then tell the graduate “congratulations, you are now part of the American work force.”  

Most Americans are not economists. They do not understand what has happened to their lives. They only feel the pain.  They do not understand “free trade” is another word for poverty. And why would they understand? They are told each and every day that global trade is beneficial and cannot be stopped.

This is a lie.

The global market has turned American workers into a commodity, like pork bellies, Yellow Corn Number #2 or a barrel of oil. The rule of supply and demand is simple, unambiguous and unarguable. If supply for any product increases, the price for that same product decreases. For workers, that product is called, “A Wage.” As long as Americans are forced to compete globally with workers who have subsidized healthcare or slave labor, America’s labor value will be weak.

To put it another way, until we place tariffs on goods imported into the United States, we will continue to operate as a third world country, where raw materials flow off shore to be processed and profits flow into the hands of a few powerful people. I continue to hear each day that we must compete in the global marketplace. My question is simple: Why? I cannot seem to get a good answer. Are our leaders saying that Americans cannot produce goods? Certainly this is becoming the case as our education system degrades with our roads and bridges, but it is not true quite yet.

Our economy will never recover unless we put American workers and manufacturing in first place over greedy corporations and paid off politicians. How far does America have to sink before we get this change?  We cannot wait another minute. Our future depends on putting America on a level playing field.

I was very amused at the “Tea Bagging” parties. It is truly like watching an episode of the 3 stooges.

However, there is a serious issue here about the “spending” problem.

Over the last 8 years, the Republicans ran this country into the ditch and looted it of every red cent. All I heard from the right wing was how “Deficits” don’t matter. It was okay that Bush literally burned through a trillion dollars of the Social Security Trust Fund leaving IOUs and saying, “See Social Security is Broke!” The supply side whack-o-bots took loans from China to pay for unnecessary tax cuts. The economic foundation of the United States be damned, all that mattered was people making $1,000,000 per year in adjusted gross income were awarded an 11.2% tax cut, paid with loans from foreign countries, while Joe Plumber got a 2.5% tax break. (Of course Joe isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, so he won’t notice).

And now it’s time to pay the bill, except the country is in shambles. The “Tea Baggers” want to ignore the fact that 8 years of conservatism brought party girls, whisky and wars. Now that we need to repair the roof, it’s time to STOP spending?

The conservatives blew money in Iraq — not on equipment or veterans, but on waste. Example: 360 tons of $100 dollar bills in C130 planes (12B). The loot dropped to contractors, Iraqi thugs and Backwater mercenaries. Billions lost. Subsidies to billionaires, corporate welfare run amuck, no controls, no regulation, 6, 7, 8 trillion dollars burned, and an iron fist control of Congress and the Executive.

They doubled the deficit and achieved nothing except making the super rich, super stupendously rich. Of course the super stupendously rich hoard money offshore, contributing to America’s collapse while NOT PAYING TAXES. Why should they pay taxes? Because it is America that made them rich, not the other way around. The rich owe their country for use of the electrical grid, clean running water, the legal system, police, fire, military, local government, roads, and so on. Money taken from America and Americans without paying their fair share. In other words, stealing.

The conservatives took a surplus and turned it into the worst deficit since the LAST Republican administration held office.

The Republicans have destroyed the country and now they are pissing and complaining that we’re trying to dig our way out of a ditch. The shallow, lying, hypocritical, pitch of the right wing is like finger nails on a chalk board. One has to ask the question, “It is ignorance, brainwashing or are they just shills?”

I will concede, there were Democratic co-conspirators. But as America figures out that it has been duped, the tide will turn even for the conservative Democrats.

Amusingly, my right wing friends now agree with ME. They may hate Obama, indeed, but they hate the Republicans way more. How funny is THAT!!! The right wing has been twiddled down to a mob of un-credible, whiney, losers who have wiped out most of their constituents by screwing them. I find it ironic, one of my Bush supporting, Obama hating, Palin Loving, NO-Bama co-workers can’t argue with me at work any longer. She was laid off due to budget cuts.

In the past, the super rich conservatives have retained power over the con-servo-bots by stealing elections, bribing them with our own stolen tax dollars and buying the media while pointing fingers the other way.

Those days are past. There’s no money left to steal. Like a farmer who eats his breeding stock, the “farm” called the U.S. economy has been ravaged by greed, greed, greed, and finally, more greed. Can there be any apologists left? Oh yeah, stage right come the “Tea Baggers”.

With their backs against one another, dead horses lying about, Custer yelling charge, arrows flying, dead soldiers and thousands of Indians surrounding them… the remaining right wing fighters have a final last “Tea Bagging” plan to win the battle.

Let’s review what a “Tea Bagger” actually is (Urban Dictionary, since street slang has not been adopted by Websters) :

And so like Custer, the “tea baggers” go down for the last time, looking like the clueless fools they are.

Oh sure, there will be those who say, “TERRIBLE! Lies, innuendo, unproven, your comments are OVER THE TOP! Show me the proof. Where is it? I want the PROOOOOOOF!!!!! It was the DEMOCRATS! It’s the LIBERALS! They ruined the country, they did it! IT WAS THEM!”

To those people I simple say, look around. Just take a look at 8 years of unbridled conservatism. The cons had the House of Representatives since 1994. The cons have had a majority in the Senate much of that time, holding a majority during most of the Bush years. The conservatives held the Executive branch. They appointed their people to the Judicial, and really, our nation has been on a conservative tilt since Ronald Regan took office. Yes, 28 years of supply side, voodoo conservatism has crippled our nation.

Want proof?

Look around.

The conservatives have ruled this country, and the more power they had, the worse things got. Blaming our ills on liberalism no longer passes the laugh test, and neither does “tea bagging”. Conservatives may have forgotten, people in America do have eyes and ears. While many Americans may be ignornat because of our conservative educational system, they can feel pangs of hunger when they can’t afford food and they can feel the rain hitting the top of their head while they live on the streets, unable to pay their mortgage.

To the remaining conservatives I say: “Good luck, and may your tea bagging go as well in the future as it did on April 15th, whatever meaning it happened to be.”

If they weren’t so dangerous, I would fall down laughing at the new crop of con-servo-bots. 

In Bush’s waning days, he has achieved a unique title: The lowest approval rating of any president – ever. Many may think that this is his badge to wear, that George is now getting exactly what he deserves for driving our country into the ditch, leaving us with a second great depression, placing us into a war of choice and giving our commons away to foreign interests.

I think George is getting a bad rap.

Why? You might ask. After all, Bush has destroyed our nation, jeopardized our future and quite possibly, played the fiddle while a nation burned to the ground.

But the question I ask is much different. I do not ask whether he destroyed our country, for that is not the question. Did Bush deliver the desires of his constituency, the conservative movement? On this point, Bush was practically flawless.

1. On Economics – Grade of B+

Bush has been in favor and delivered Lessee faire, free market economics – supply side economics. Regulations were either cut or ignored. He bragged of home ownership in his 2004 presidential race based on loosening regulations. Bush delivered a tax cut of more than 11% to those making more than $1 million per year, and shifted the tax burden to the middle class (who received about a 2.5% decrease in taxes), using borrowed dollars.

Supply side, tax cuts are the mantra of the conservatism.

2. On the Environment – Grade of A

Bush has deregulated many dozens of federal agencies, by either making them inept or de-funding them. From the USDA to the Environmental Protection Agency, they have been either stripped or rendered useless. Removing, stifling and repealing government regulation is the mantra of the conservative movement.

3. On Education – Grade of A

Bush has implemented unfunded, unworkable mandates that have rendered the education systems ineffective. No Child Left Behind has enabled private enterprise to drain off education dollars for testing, delivering those dollars to corporations. He has effectively destroyed public education, which is the mantra of the conservatives.

4. On Foreign Policy – Grade of A

George has delivered a foreign policy that directly aligns with the Project for a New American Century. In this scenario, America exerts her overwhelming military might to achieve desired policy through the world. On this point, Bush has delivered exactly what the conservatives have demanded. Bush has delivered two wars, and not brought the perpetrators to justice. This has allowed a nationalistic fervor to continue occupying and expanding America’s military might, the ability to spy on its citizens and also allowed a transfer of wealth to businesses that enrich themselves: Again, the mantra of the conservative movement.

5. On Religion, Abortion and Reproductive Rights: B-

Bush has effectively blended Government and Religion. He has brought religious leaders into the Whitehouse and allowed them to dictate policy, from increasing the power of the FCC to censor to eliminating funding for stem cell research on the basis of religious policy. He has created the Department of Faith Based Initiative, and has created stringent regulations to disallow birth control throughout the world except in cases when it aligns with his religious dogma. He has not delivered a repeal of Roe vs. Wade, thus the lower rating of B-.

In almost every way Bush has delivered exactly what his constituents wanted. He has given America conservatism, in all its unfettered glory.

It is not Bush who has betrayed America. Conservatism has delivered its true value: To shift wealth and power into the hands of a very few.

Now that America lies in tatters, do not blame Bush. For he was only the messenger.

Congrats to all the fools who supported the RNC and Bush. For we have given America to the enemy. Look at it this way: The Saudis killed 3500 Americans, so we went to a country that was uninvolved and gave all our money to the people who killed us. Yup, America has been destroyed from within. And now, 60 days before the end of the administration, as Bush pardons everyone, America is left in ruins. We handed a gun to a convicted murderer in jail and now we’re shocked at the bullet in our chest.

But look at it this way: This is just the free market economic equivalent of watching a lion sink its teeth into a gazelle on the African planes, with a few differences: 1) The lion is the corporatist politicians and firms that have run our country for the last 8 years and , 2) The gazelle is YOU (assuming you’re an average American).

How could this happen? People like Alan Greenspan and Milton Friedman talked us into believing we should TRUST multinational corporations to unfettered free trade and the rules of unregulated markets. Who were the masters? The RNC and Bush. They count, YOU don’t. And in an unregulated, free world, YOUR death is irrelevant. The world belongs to the greedy and rich (that is NOT you, in case you were wondering).

The unprecedented pledge of funds includes $3.18 trillion already tapped by financial institutions in the biggest response to an economic emergency since the New Deal of the 1930s, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The commitment dwarfs the plan approved by lawmakers, the Treasury Department’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. Federal Reserve lending last week was 1,900 times the weekly average for the three years before the crisis.  

When Congress approved the TARP on Oct. 3, Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson acknowledged the need for transparency and oversight. Now, as regulators commit far more money while refusing to disclose loan recipients or reveal the collateral they are taking in return, some Congress members are calling for the Fed to be reined in.  

“Whether it’s lending or spending, it’s tax dollars that are going out the window and we end up holding collateral we don’t know anything about,” said Congressman Scott Garrett, a New Jersey Republican who serves on the House Financial Services Committee. “The time has come that we consider what sort of limitations we should be placing on the Fed so that authority returns to elected officials as opposed to appointed ones.”  

Too Big to Fail  

Bloomberg News tabulated data from the Fed, Treasury and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and interviewed regulatory officials, economists and academic researchers to gauge the full extent of the government’s rescue effort.  

The bailout includes a Fed program to buy as much as $2.4 trillion in short-term notes, called commercial paper, that companies use to pay bills, begun Oct. 27, and $1.4 trillion from the FDIC to guarantee bank-to-bank loans, started Oct. 14.  

William Poole, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of

Citigroup received $306 billion of government guarantees for troubled mortgages and toxic assets. The Treasury Department also will inject $20 billion into the bank after its stock fell 60 percent last week.  

“No question there is some credit risk there,”

The Dow Jones Industrial Average through Friday is down 38 percent since the beginning of the year and 43 percent from its peak on Oct. 9, 2007. The S&P 500 fell 45 percent from the beginning of the year through Friday and 49 percent from its peak on Oct. 9, 2007. The Nikkei 225 Index has fallen 46 percent from the beginning of the year through Friday and 57 percent from its most recent peak of 18,261.98 on July 9, 2007. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is down 78 percent, to $53.31, on Friday from its peak of $247.92 on Oct. 31, 2007, and 75 percent this year.  

Regulators hope the rescue will contain the damage and keep banks providing the credit that is the lifeblood of the

The money that’s been pledged is equivalent to $24,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. It’s nine times what the U.S. has spent so far on wars in Iraq and

‘Worst Crisis’  

The 1979

‘That’s Counterproductive’  

“Some have asked us to reveal the names of the banks that are borrowing, how much they are borrowing, what collateral they are posting,” Bernanke said Nov. 18 to the House Financial Services Committee. “We think that’s counterproductive.”  

The Fed should account for the collateral it takes in exchange for loans to banks, said Paul Kasriel, chief economist at Chicago-based Northern Trust Corp. and a former research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of

The failure of a second securities firm, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., in September, led to the creation of the Commercial Paper Funding Facility and the Money Market Investor Funding Facility, or MMIFF. The two programs, which have pledged $2.3 trillion, are designed to restore calm in the money markets, which deal in certificates of deposit, commercial paper and Treasury bills.  

Lehman Failure  

“Money markets seized up after Lehman failed,” said Neal Soss, chief economist at Credit Suisse Group in

Most of the federal guarantees reduce interest rates on loans to banks and securities firms, which would create a subsidy of at least $6.6 billion annually for the financial industry, according to data compiled by Bloomberg comparing rates charged by the Fed against market interest currently paid by banks.  

Not included in the calculation of pledged funds is an FDIC proposal to prevent foreclosures by guaranteeing modifications on $444 billion in mortgages at an expected cost of $24.4 billion to be paid from the TARP, according to FDIC spokesman David Barr. The Treasury Department hasn’t approved the program.  

Bernanke and Paulson, former chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs, have also promised as much as $200 billion to shore up nationalized mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, a pledge that hasn’t been allocated to any agency. The FDIC arranged for $139 billion in loan guarantees for General Electric Co.’s finance unit.  

Automakers Struggle  

The tally doesn’t include money to General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC. <<<— LOL Obama has said he favors financial assistance to keep them from collapse.  

Paulson told the House Financial Services Committee Nov. 18 that the $250 billion already allocated to banks through the TARP is an investment, not an expenditure.  

“I think it would be extraordinarily unusual if the government did not get that money back and more,” Paulson said.  

In his Nov. 18 testimony, Bernanke told the House Financial Services Committee that the central bank wouldn’t lose money.  

“We take collateral, we haircut it, it is a short-term loan, it is very safe, we have never lost a penny in these various lending programs,” he said.  

A haircut refers to the practice of lending less money than the collateral’s current market value.  

Requiring the Fed to disclose loan recipients might set off panic, said David Tobin, principal of New York-based loan-sale consultants and investment bank Mission Capital Advisors LLC.  

‘Mark to Market’  

“If you mark to market today, the banking system is bankrupt,” Tobin said. “So what do you do? You try to keep it going as best you can.”  

“Mark to market” means adjusting the value of an asset, such as a mortgage-backed security, to reflect current prices.  

Some of the bailout assistance could come from tax breaks in the future. The Treasury Department changed the tax code on Sept. 30 to allow banks to expand the deductions on the losses banks they were buying, according to Robert Willens, a former Lehman Brothers tax and accounting analyst who teaches at

The regulation was changed to make it easier for healthy banks to buy troubled ones, said Treasury Department spokesman Andrew DeSouza.  

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank said he was angry that banks used the money for acquisitions.  

“The only purpose for this money is to lend,” said Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat. “It’s not for dividends, it’s not for purchases of new banks, it’s not for bonuses. There better be a showing of increased lending roughly in the amount of the capital infusions” or Congress may not approve the second half of the TARP money.  

To contact the reporters on this story: Mark Pittman in New York at mpittman@bloomberg.net; Bob Ivry in

Last Updated: November 24, 2008 13:26 EST

Attention all Zombies…

I think I know who YOU, the zombies are voting for… John McCain.

How do I know this? Because I have seen Joe the Plumber and he is nothing. Yet the zombies continue to bow at his feet, loving his every move, believing he is a country singer.

• The truth about Joe. Joe is:
• A plumber (Not)
• Earns $250,000 per year (Not)
• Has his own business (Not)
• Represents middle America (Not)
• Wasn’t a plant by the McCain — that is he’s a “real guy” (Not)
• Is a fraud!! (True)

Why is the right wing delusional about this? I can’t figure it out. This guy is a fake, a complete fraud. He is a nothing. Joe and the right wing misrepresented what Obama said with the “share the wealth” statement. On the other hand, look at Palin. After being found guilty of ethics viloations, she thanked the commission for finding her innocent. Ted Stevens said yesterday that he has “not been convicted of anything.”

WTF?

I am starting to feel like I’m in some kind of version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Yes, with each passing day I am more and more convinced that the Right Wing is really just a bunch of zombies. Or maybe, as the sane people keep jumping off the Republican ship, the only people left are insane. Or maybe the zombie bloodline is being purified. In any case, I am glad to see Obama will be the next president. Because it is obvious that the right cannot fix anything.

They can’t even figure out how to see reality.

First, listen to Steve Forbes on Obama’s Tax Plan

I had to laugh at his silly rhetoric.

Often you will hear well meaning, but mentally stunted, right wingers try to explain why “taxes” are bad and “incentives” are good. It is sad that Forbes is not mentally stunted, but depends on the stunted mentality of the right wing to get his lies across.

He discussed “incentives” in this speech. If you want to read a story of incentives and communism, I suggest Animal Farm, where we learn why communalism doesn’t work, or more accurately, totalitarianism and authoritarianism doesn’t work. But that’s not really what Forbes or I’m talking about here.

Forbes says that “taxes” are the price of success, the price you pay for taking risk. Shame on him for shoveling crap at the masses – he is simply wrong.

Taxes are the price you pay for taking resources from our country and the community.

Let me say that again in a different way …

As a person who has a life and family in this country, I have a house, phone, car, etc. And I work and store equity in the form of currency as I add value to goods and services. That’s right, my work adds value to products and services and I can exchange my stored up value for other goods and services through currency.

In order to live the way I want, I must pay for things like food, housing and a phone. I cannot go out and steal them, and I cannot make my own car with iron ore from the ground and an iron processing plant in my backyard. Also, I cannot make my own roads, grow my own cows in the backyard, etc. I also need fire and police protection.

Taxes pay to replace the resources I remove from the community — they represent my share of the commons. And once a person has earned an amount that provides value (equity) above the amount necessary to live an average lifestyle, then that person is receiving an unequal share of benefit and thus is responsible for paying more.

How much more should this person pay?

This is a simple questions to answer: The amount necessary to pay the bills. Just like your household, you must pay for what you use.

The right wingers say, “Why should I have to pay more just because I make more?” And the answer is, “You pay more because you’re taking more.”

“Oh,” they say, “That will make people not work.”

Get over it.

In our country, if you don’t work and you’re not born into wealth, your life is pretty rotten. There is an incentive for working. So the idea that Steve Forbes will suddenly go on welfare, shut down his businesses, start eating out of a soup kitchen and live under a bridge in a box is pretty lame. I know for sure that if Steve Forbes was taxed at the Eisenhower rate of 91% over 3.2 million per year, he would continue to think and act pretty much the way he does now. And then he would be paying for more of what he is taking from America, her labor, her laws, her resources, her roads, her court system, etc. And middle America would have more, and would spend more, and in turn Forbes would be much wealthier.

The truth is simple: Companies should be taxed on profits, and taxed heavily to create incentives for them to re-invest in their company. If you re-capitalize, the money isn’t taxed. This creates stable companies for the future, but cuts down on short term windfall profits to people like Forbes. The FTC should prevent over consolidation of corporations in our country to keep businesses competitive and innovative (large, monopolistic, multinational corporations, do not innovate – they work toward maximizing profits by being non-innovative and prevent competition).

So, this is what I say to Forbes: To create the strongest economy, we must protect U.S. businesses and U.S. workers. Tariffs were once the mainstay of revenue in this country and I recommend that they should be re-employed again. Simply put, we all know that a country that trades against its own factories cannot survive when the rest of the world community is protecting their own industry (as they do). This is a simple truth. Don’t believe me? Try selling a U.S. made car in Japan or Korea and see how that works out.

It is much like running a farm: A good farmer has to have good animal husbandry. A farmer knows that reaping short term profits by selling seed corn and butchering the diary cows will lead to economic disaster. Likewise, failing to support a strong middle class, where a 50 hour week can support a family of 4 in a middle class lifestyle is the same as selling the seed corn and killing the dairy cow. A good farmer knows that rotating crops, developing good soil, and caring for his livestock will cost him in the short run, but lead to profits and a stable business.

This is how America worked from the mid 30’s to the mid 70’s when Regan unbalanced the equation. And we have been paying for it ever since.

Can’t Steve Forbes see this truth?

Of course he can. He is simply a greedy, rich, liar who cares little for our country or its people. He cares mainly about Steve Forbes. He could care less about good economic husbandry. It’s not his farm, after all. Who cares if it gets driven into the ground?

Unlike the Bush Zombies, he understands the facts, but dupes the zombies that listen to him. Thus I have much more respect for the Zombies than I do for Steve Forbes.