By Hanlon, on September 17th, 2008 at 11:40 PM
I never thought I’d see this one outta Matthews.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ympnzk9_b8M
Matthews hits upon an extremely fundamental point, and one that Cantor’s inability to argue against is further highlighted (although Matthews needs to learn how to let people hang themselves instead of yelling at them).
What we’re watching as this campaign moves along is the Republicans saying things like “the economy is in a crisis” and “current policies have failed”, blaming a sort of generic “Washington” and never mentioning either their own party or the president. They’ve turned an about-face, first clinging to the party, to Bush, calling out “tax and spend” Democrats and touting their fiscal conservatism. Now things go ass-up and the “CEO President” gets thrown under the bus for the new guy.
Cantor’s only defense is “well the Democrats haven’t pushed any meaningful legislature”, and there’s a good reason for that: they have neither a veto-proof nor a filibuster-proof majority. Bush has used all the vetoes of his presidency shooting the Democrats down left and right, not to mention the GOP’s record-setting filibuster. The reason the Democrats can’t do anything is because every bill they aim for gets crushed in the Senate, and then vetoed if it makes it through that hump.
The Republicans have stopped arguing about party because they’re the ones who got us into this mess, and their only way of passing the buck is to point at the Democrats’ inability to change anything, which is thanks to the Republicans anyway. It’s absurd. Don’t give me this “the Democrats have been in charge since 2006″ crap.
By Hanlon, on September 17th, 2008 at 11:09 PM
 Now that we’ve got the Lehman debacle (oh yeah, there was another complete economic crisis), I’m glad someone was willing to compile a list of the biggest Chapter 11 bankruptcies to put the whole thing in perspective.
10. United Airlines
Assets: $25.2 billion
Date Filed: Dec. 9, 2002
9. Pacific Gas and Electric
Assets: $29.8 billion
Date Filed: April 6, 2001
8. Global Crossing
Assets: $30.2 billion
Date Filed: Jan. 28, 2002
7. Refco
Assets: $33.3 billion
Date Filed: Oct. 17, 2005
6. Financial Corp. of America
Assets: $33.9 billion
Date Filed: Sept. 9, 1988
5. Texaco
Assets: $35.9 billion
Date Filed: April 12, 1987
4. Conseco
Assets: $61.4 billion
Date Filed: Dec. 18, 2002
3. Enron
Assets: $63.4 billion
Date Filed: Dec. 2, 2001
2. Worldcom
Assets: $103.9 billion
Date Filed: July 21, 2002
1. Lehman Brothers
Pre-Bankruptcy Assets: $639 billion
Date Filed: Sept. 15, 2008
That’s a hefty list, and Lehman is over six times as big as the 2nd place. It’s also worth pointing out that this wasn’t a case of corporate chicanery, they actually did crumble. Oh, and it’s also worth pointing out that of the 10, eight happened during the Dubya administration, the other two were during Reagan. Damn economic conservatives, helping the economy with their conservatism!!
By Hanlon, on September 17th, 2008 at 10:59 PM
And this is the best they have.
McCain adviser Carly Fiorina “is facing criticism from some within the campaign” for her comments yesterday stating that “neither member of the Republican ticket would be capable of running a company,” CNN reports.
Said a top campaign adviser: “Carly will now disappear. Senator McCain was furious.”
“Fiorina was booked for several TV interviews over the next few days, including one on CNN. Those interviews have been canceled.”
By Hanlon, on September 17th, 2008 at 02:38 PM
This article is a contribution from friend of the Razor, Mr Texas.
 Well, time to mark a milestone! A scant 20 days after being announced as John McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin took her first impromptu question from the media. Appropriately enough, it was about the Federal bailout of AIG. Here is a snippet of her answer: “[I am] disappointed that taxpayers are called upon to bail out another one.” Oh, good. Disappointed. In who?
Well here’s who she SHOULD be disappointed in: the headliner on her ticket and the dude acting as economic advisor, Phil Gramm. In 1933 the Glass-Steagall Act established the FDIC to insure bank deposits and, here is what is important, to separate banks by their type of business. Banks receiving deposits were separated and prevented from dealing in investments and vice versa. The Act was designed to prevent conflict of interest type of situations in which banks issuing credit via lending and using credit via investing were one and the same. Similarly buying and selling of securities could become so risky as to endanger the deposits if banks engaged in both. Without Glass-Steagall, insurance underwriters heavily invested in these types of securities could also come under extreme risk. This sounds great! Yet, why did it fail to prevent the current economic woes?
Well, because Glass-Steagall was repealed in 1999 by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (Yes, 1999. This means Clinton is culpable. He was just as wrong as McCain and Gramm). That “Gramm” is, in fact, Phil Gramm, the former Texas senator turned McCain economic advisor who recently claimed we were in a “mental recession” and were a “nation of whiners.” The repeal of Glass-Steagall deregulated the financial industry such that banks could consolidate, and the walls between deposits, securities, and insurance underwriting came down. John McCain voted in favor of repealing Glass-Steagall but is now decrying deregulation! It’s time for somebody to ask him about his vote here and not give him a pass on criticizing bank regulators.
It might also be of interest that immediately after leaving the Senate, Gramm became vice chairman of an investment bank in Switzerland. Slight bias in his economic policies? You betcha.
One particularly noteworthy “nay” vote is one Joseph Biden (D-DE). Due to quite favorable regulations and taxes, Delaware is a corporate and financial haven. Over half of Fortune 500 companies are incorporated in Delaware and many of the state’s biggest employers are in the financial sector. Despite the fact deregulation stood to create quick jobs and wealth in his home state, Biden voted no to the repeal of Glass-Steagall. Talk about doing the right thing for the country in the face of short-term pressure.
The Federal takeover of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and AIG is quite scary on many counts. Hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money are being used to assume untenable risk that would have sank AIG, Fannie, and Freddie. If this were Venezuela, articles would say “Hugo Chavez nationalized his nation’s largest insurer and mortgage lenders” and we’d all be upset at this socialist nutjob. Since it’s at home, we call it a “bail out” and accept that taxpayer money will be used to prop up these corporations at great peril to the stability and value of the dollar, inflation be damned.
My point is: Republicans: You’re doing it wrong. You can’t socialize risk while privatizing profit. You can’t favor both deregulation and bail outs. Make a choice. Either you favor deregulation and let the market handle it if letting major corporations go under. This is political suicide and economic disaster. You HAVE to allow sensible regulation like Glass-Steagall if you want to avoid having to bail out corporations later at great economic cost. Them’s the breaks. Biden and Democrats made the right call. McCain and his main economic advisor made the wrong one. It certainly is a disappointment, Sarah.
By Hanlon, on September 17th, 2008 at 02:27 PM
Cindy McCain crying about The View.
“In spite of what you see … in the newspapers, and on shows like ‘The View’ — I don’t know if any of you saw ‘The View’ yesterday, they picked our bones clean — in spite of what you see, that’s not what the American people are saying and what they are believing,” Cindy said at Saturday’s 119th annual Oakland County Republican Party’s Lincoln Day Dinner, ABC News reports.
Of course it isn’t, Cindy. You’ve been lying to them. They’re believing lies.
By Hanlon, on September 17th, 2008 at 02:24 PM
 I want you all to know that a reason I take potshots at the religious isn’t because it feels good. It’s not that I consider it sport and take glee in mocking anyone. No, the reason that evangelicals scare me is that they foster a worldview that can lead to absolutely disastrous policies.
That Sarah Palin believes the Earth is 7,000 years old and claims to have seen dinosaur fossils with human footprints in them is scary. Scratch that, it’s terrifying from a general standpoint; an adult in 2008 should not harbor such misguided “knowledge”. But no, here’s the real issue:
[Valley activist Philip] Munger also asked Palin if she truly believed in the End of Days, the doomsday scenario when the Messiah will return. “She looked in my eyes and said, ‘Yes, I think I will see Jesus come back to earth in my lifetime.’”
Now let’s first remind ourselves that everyone thought Jesus was coming back during their lifetime. That’s why the “Wandering Jew” concept came around. The claim was that he’d come back within the lifetime of at least one person who saw him the first go-round. So pastors and zealots from every century between the the 1st and the 21st have been dead-set positive that the messiah was coming back.
I digress. What scares me is that this worldview is, as Sam Harris often points out, completely counterproductive to any kind of long-term policy. When you believe, in your heart, that Christ is coming back to whisk his followers to Heaven and bring about the end of times, why bother with environmentalism? Who cares if Social Security will be bankrupt by 2050? What does it matter if the United States is making enemies? By the time any of that comes around, Jesus will have already taken the true believers to paradise and we’ll all be in the midst of Armageddon. No reason to piss around with Medicare during the apocalypse.
Someone who genuinely believes in the End of Times, and that it’s coming soon, will likely not be reserved with the red button. We cannot expect someone of that mindset to think of long-term consequences when discussing nuclear war (which may explain Palin’s glib comments about Russia and Israel/Iran).
Don’t forget that part of the End of Times is that Israel is destroyed. So when Palin shrugs off talks of Israel attacking Iran with “we shouldn’t second guess them” four times, is she showing unity, or is quietly excited at the prospect, as it signifies the end of times? Does she really want Israel to remain safe, protected, and war free when the destruction thereof is a major part in getting Christ back?
This is why evangelicals scare me, folks.
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