My sister and brother-in-law, who've been lifelong right-wing Republicans, are trying to find hospitalization insurance for my brother-in-law. He's about sixty, a lifelong smoker and drinker and is losing feeling in his extremities. They kept voting for the politicians that dismantled every part of our social welfare system. Do they understand? Probably not. They'll probably go down thinking that somehow the illegal aliens took their hospitalization.

It's the seriousness of this crisis that led me to support a plan that I don't like, because I don't like to play political games with people's savings and jobs.  

We face extreme danger. Unless there is immediate intervention on every front by all the major powers acting in concert, we risk a disintegration of global finance within days. Nobody will be spared, unless they own gold bars.


Well, "You can't vote for war and disown the results"

And if I screw up, they can bail me out. But at least I would be "juicing" the credit markets.

Who could have predicted that throwing free money at the people who screwed the pooch to begin with wouldn't have worked?  

John Mccain Called his wife WHAT??

Citigroup Sues Wachovia, Wells Fargo Over Takeover (Update2) :

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aGFtOPHaJke8&refer=home

'vini, vidi, excreti' - Joe the Plumber

the gov has just thrown a minimum of $700bn at the banks, not to mention the billions they continue to make available through the credit window ...or whatever the hell it's called...and they still won't lend anyone anything, including themselves.

the market's not buying it and they're voting with their feet and the stampeding to the exits.

according to bloomberg, deflation is becoming the elephant in the room:

As Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and his global colleagues fight the worst financial crisis since the 1930s, one danger is looming larger by the day: deflation.

With asset markets tumbling, commodity prices plunging the most in 50 years and banks keeping a tighter grip on credit, the ingredients for a sustained period of falling prices are coalescing. While inflation is still a concern for many policy makers only months after oil and food prices peaked, the risk is their patchwork of rescue and stimulus packages will fail, and prices will start to fall throughout the broader economy.

...

Prices are already falling in parts of the world economy. Home values dropped more than 10 percent in the U.K. and in the U.S. in the past year. Oil, copper and corn drove commodities toward their biggest weekly decline since at least 1956 on Oct. 3, with the Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index of 19 raw materials tumbling 10.4 percent. The Baltic Dry Index, a measure of commodity shipping costs, has dropped 75 percent since May.

...

In the U.S., prices manufacturers paid for materials last month plunged the most since at least 1948, with the Institute for Supply Management's index dropping 23.5 points to 53.5 points.

so it costs less to buy raw materials, shipping costs have dropped 75% in 4 months...given that one would expect to some relief in pricing, especially in the commodities end.

add to that the price of oil falling to a 10 month low...

Light, sweet crude for November delivery fell $6.07 to settle at $87.81 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The price of crude has not been this low since Dec. 10, 2007 when the front-month contract settled at $87.86 a barrel.

Oil has fallen 40% since the July contract peaked at $147.27 a barrel on July 11.

the oil drum

which has opec's panties bunching up under their djellabas.

since every price increase was followed by an immediate increase at the pump for the last 10 months, it's interesting to note that gas is still over $3.65gal here, when the 40% reduction would seem to indicate that it ought to be closer to $2.50, especially given the election is 4 weeks out.

l guess it's NEW RULES time...or more simply, there are NO RULES.

as jim kunstler said back on 22 sept:

...the Thursday night Washington photo op when Treasury Secretary Paulson and Fed Chief Bernanke emerged from a huddle with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and just about every other legislative eminentissimo in an attempt to reassure the nation that its financial system had not turned into something like unto a truckload of stinking dead carp. I don't know about you, but I got two distinct vibes from the faces in that particular tableau: 1.) abject fear, and 2.) a total lack of conviction that they knew what they were doing.

l especially agree with point #2.

and BTW, wall street "only" lost 370 today...look for it to continue down...8000 looks achievable.

the revolution will not be televised...