Links and Minifeatures 2008 09 26 Friday

Neighborhoods of La Mesa: Eastridge

I have seen several articles today claiming that McCain's suspension of his campaign is behind his gain in the polls. I disagree. I think that Obama's bounce last week happened because when a crisis happens, people tend to blame the party in the White House. Once enough information got out about the fact that John McCain and President Bush both tried to fix this problem (or at least radically reduce the size) several years ago before it got so bad, and that the Democrats (including Barack Obama) blocked those efforts, voters came back to McCain.

Whatever the attribution, McCain is now showing ahead in the polls again. I think the only poll that counts is on November 4th, but this is guardedly a good sign.

Malfeasance Smackdown: Jim Johnson versus Rick Davis

Via Jawa Report, this three minute video

Pay close attention to the Barney Frank quotes. They're all golden for Republicans, but his "The Sky is falling" quote in particular, reflects upon today. The Democrats have been so intent upon painting President Bush's stewardship of the economy as failing, that they have persuaded a lot of suckers that the overall economy is in rotten shape by sheer repetition of the allegation. Ladies and gentlemen, this made the whole thing much worse than it otherwise would have been. We originally had a liquidity crisis in the financial markets. Due to the Democrats and their minions in the media perpetuating the idea of the sky falling, things have become much worse due to the lack of consumer confidence exacerbating the real problems. If Barack Obama is elected President, it will be poetic justice that he will have to deal with the crisis that was at least fifty or sixty percent a purely political and media creation in order to get him elected President.

Friday morning: Now Barney Frank is whining that some Republicans don't want to save the country from the consequences of Barney Frank and Chris Dodd: Frank blames House GOP for breakdown of deal

Rep. Barney Frank said leading Democrats on Capitol Hill were shocked by the level of divisiveness that surfaced at a White House meeting Thursday, not long after key congressional players of both parties declared they'd achieved the broad outlines of an agreement on a bill implementing the administration's proposed $700 billion bailout plan.

No wonder they were shocked. It has to do with fiscal discipline, and being responsible for the consequences of your actions, two things that are anathema to him and Chris Dodd. Spending public money to rescue firms that didn't want to stop poor lending programs because they were making so much money (at least on paper at the time). Spending public money to firms who didn't do due diligence because they were "too big to fail." For some of them, tt may also have a component of being unwilling to rescue some of the Democratic Party's most reliable political donors.

I understand their reluctance. There's a part of me that wants to flush these criminally irresponsible firms down the toilet of history, where they can join RCA, Enron, and other disasters. Not so long ago they were singing a different tune to regulators in arguing for a lack of intervention, so there is also a good amount of evidence on the side of, "You made this bed. Now lie in it." But the price to the rest of us would be significantly higher even than the $700 Billion price tag (roughly 5% of one year's GDP). So I am, however reluctantly, willing to pass a bailout program. But I want to see the bailout cost those firms something significant, to the benefit of the public purse that's bailing them out. Which is only fair, because those are the terms they loan money on. Something like Convertible Preferred Stock, with a good payout rate (maybe a bit below corporate bond rates today, but not much) and a strike price for conversion something like the value of those firms at their low point before talk of a bailout commenced. They are, after all, asking the taxpayer to bail them out of a mess they should have known better than to get into in the first place. I also want to look for efficient, leveraged ways to perform said rescue, that might benefit the smaller folks like their mortgage clients who, unlike the corporate executives in the company, are not going to be fine personally. These executives may be in danger of having to get a different job, a middle class lifestyle, and being second-homeless. The people they sold these instruments to are in danger of losing everything, as in completely homeless.

Yesterday, I made one such suggestion that would highly leverage the taxpayer's dollars.

I wrote this: The Last Time I'm Going to Write About Blame for the Housing Market Mess over a year ago when bankers were trying to scapegoat brokers politically, and using said scapegoating to push through legislation disadvantaging brokers (which passed). Other than the fact that it has since become apparent exactly how closely tied Senator Dodd, Congressman Frank, and other powerful Democrats (including notably, Barack Obama) were to the causes of the problems, my opinion is unchanged. If these people were Republicans, the mass media would be crying for impeachment.

The exclusionary rule: You cannot do both this and that.

You cannot both have your cake and eat it too.

You cannot both spend a dollar and still have it.

You cannot both be an admirer of the first amendment and like Barack Obama's campaigning

David Bernstein of Volokh Conspiracy thinks it's our patriotic duty to publicize the commercial. Barack Obama is threatening the licenses of television stations that accept this advertisement:

More here on the first amendment issue.

Another exclusionary rule:

You can try to prevent a financial meltdown or you can teach Wall Street a lesson, but you can't do both at the same time.

Unfortunately, he's right.

But I want to know why the proposed deal is giving more money to ACORN

It doesn't get any more surreal than this

"This is a plea to President Bush ... please get your party in line (and ask) Sen. McCain to leave town and not throw fire on these flames, and maybe we can get something done," said Sen. Charles Schumer, the New York Democrat who chairs the congressional Joint Economic Committee.

Said the man who killed IndyMac Bank by publishing a sensationalist letter and started this whole thing snowballing, about a man who tried to fix the problem before it got to anything like this magnitude.

Seriously, he just broke my irony meter.

I think the real translation is, "We Democrats have decided how we are going to rescue our campaign contributors on Wall Street, and we don't want anybody with different motivations proposing any different plans."

The fact that McCain and the Republicans want a different plan may be the reason behind this little item of news: The debate is on; McCain agrees to participate

Republican John McCain agreed to attend the first presidential debate Friday night even though Congress doesn't have a bailout deal, reversing an earlier decision to delay the event until Washington had taken action to address the crisis.

And down towards the bottom, we read:

McCain's campaign said the meeting "devolved into a contentious shouting match" and implied Obama was at fault - on a day when McCain said he was putting politics aside to focus on the nation's financial problems.

Democrats differed, saying the refusal of McCain and other Republicans to support the plan worked out by congressional negotiators was creating a road block.

Question: If McCain has what he sees as a better plan, what's the best platform to get the most exposure for it as quickly as possible, and pitch it to as many voters as possible?

You have until 8:00 Central Time tonight to come up with something better than this

Michael Barone further illuminates the political scene and one alternate plan

Hot Air notes that "Friends of Angelo" who got special loans from Countrywide at well below market rates have been subpoena'd by a grand jury.

Biden gets four Pinocchios for lie

This ten minute video may change your vote

It does let the Republicans off too easy, but it clearly shows the roots of the problem and where the political blockades that prevented fixing it came from.

The Secret of How the Titanic Sank

Note: solid ice is much harder and more dangerous than steel in the form of other ships.