One Utah

It’s been an awful eight years. As Bush presided over the biggest loss of jobs since Herbert Hoover, the right-wingers told us never mind, the markets are doing fine. As the gap between rich and poor widened, they said it’s OK, the wealth will trickle down.
Via Think Progress, here’s Bushonomics in a nutshell. [...]

I’ve been trying to get a handle on today’s events. Based on what I’m reading, I think most people are a bit in shock.
Here’s what happened:
The bailout failed to pass the House.
The Dow crashed 777.68 points.
I don’t think anyone really has any idea what to do now.
House Republicans had a crazy ass plan (TM) [...]

What the Democrats should have done: Told President Bush to wait until after Election Day, and then taken the time to write progressive legislation aimed not at bailing out Wall Street billionaires, but at restoring the financial regulatory system that the Republicans wrecked, and helping out their victims.
What the Democrats did: Went along with demands [...]

David Sirota:
1. BAILOUT’S INHERENT FISCAL INSANITY COULD MAKE PROBLEM WORSE
2. EXPERTS ON BOTH THE LEFT AND RIGHT SAY THIS BAILOUT COULD MAKE THINGS WORSE
3. THERE ARE CLEARLY BETTER AND SAFER ALTERNATIVES
4. ANY INCUMBENT VOTING FOR THIS PUTS THEMSELVES AT RISK OF BEING THROWN OUT OF OFFICE
5. CORRUPTION AND SLEAZE IS SWIRLING AROUND THESE BAILOUTS - [...]

Leadership may not have the votes to pass it.
Dennis Kucinich:
“I will tell you right now I don’t know if they have votes,” said Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio). “If the votes were there, this would be on the floor. The votes aren’t there.”[Snip]
“There is an attempt to create a fake partisan dichotomy here. This is not [...]

Over at MSNBC, there is a nice synopsis of the Bailout deal - it goes through each section and summarizes what it means.
A couple sections jumped out at me, but of course the devil is in the details and this is a long, complex bill trying to unravel a complex, ill defined problem that has [...]

Well, not in reality. He won it in McCain World, where this morning McCain campaign manager Rick Davis declared: “McCain won the debate– hands down.” Of course, the actual real-world presidential debate doesn’t take place until tonight.
The subject of the first debate between Senators Obama and McCain will be U.S. foreign policy. [...]

Yesterday, at the insistence of Senator John McCain, there was a White House meeting about the Wall Street Bailout (aka Save the Billionaires Fund). According to witnesses, McCain sat silently through nearly the entire meeting until…

Towards the end, McCain finally spoke up, mentioning a counter-proposal that had been offered by some conservative House Republicans, [...]

Irrational fear of terrorist attacks has been replaced with real fear. From a CBS interview with a Republican economic expert and apprentice witch-hunter:
Katie Couric: If this doesn’t pass, do you think there’s a risk of another Great Depression?
Sarah Palin: Unfortunately, that is the road that America may find itself on. Not necessarily this, [...]

From his blog:
1. The government (i.e. taxpayers) gets an equity stake in every Wall Street financial company proportional to the amount of bad debt that company shoves onto the public. So when and if Wall Street shares rise, taxpayers are rewarded for accepting so much risk.
2. Wall Street executives and directors of Wall Street [...]

There’s no bull like Wall Street bull…
It’s already being called “a financial PATRIOT Act,” and “cash for trash.” Read it and weep: Text of Draft Proposal for Bailout Plan.
It puts the power of the purse in the hands of the executive instead of the legislative branch. The dollar amount is not [...]

Originally published on OneUtah June 2007.
Morris Berman, a distinguished professor and writer is known as an innovative cultural historian and social critic. His most recent book, Dark Ages America, is not pretty. I first saw him on C-Span book TV. It was interesting because even among the predictably liberal sympathetic crowd in attendance, some got [...]