Listen Up, Dems

Bill Clinton's Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, tells us in two and a half minutes exactly how to proceed from here:



A word to the wise is sufficient. If the wise have any balls.


Honk to Grandmere Mimi at Wounded Bird.

The Reluctant Superpower

Street scene in Ingolstadt, Bavaria

I never studied economics (though I wish I had), so the current state of the world's finances flickers across the screen of my mental vision like some increasingly uncomfortable phantasmagoria in a Fellini film, incomprehensible and ever more bizarre.  Probably I could understand more if I buckled down to study the matter; but I just don't want to.  Even if I did truly comprehend all the causes and effects of this historical crisis, there is absolutely nothing I could do with that knowledge to help anyone; and the low, parlous state of my own finances away out here on the prairie is too uncomfortable already to bear the weight of much thought.

Like most ordinary folks, I realize that I am but a tiny cog in an enormous wheel, and just have to endure whatever the movers and shakers of the world decide to do, or not do.  Still, from an historical point of view, it seems rather ironic that Germany - a nation I have no particular affinity or antipathy for, though in truth I am not much attracted to sausage, sauerkraut, and gutteral vowels - that having been put to utter ruin within living memory, it has now miraculously, so it seems, rebounded so much as to hold the fate of the world within its hands. 

Why is that, exactly, when other European countries who also were laid waste by the war, and rebuilt with generous American help, are barely able to pay their light bill, so to speak?  This interesting article in the Telegraph points to an answer, though how true it is, I can't say; but here's an excerpt for you to mull over:

Ingolstadt gives an excellent impression, aside from all the kebab houses and cars, of still being trapped in some much-earlier historical period. It is also one of the reasons that southern Germany remains such a powerful motor for Europe’s economy – indeed, Europe’s last great hope. And it is the behaviour and attitude of people like those living in Ingolstadt which will have a profound impact on how the current crisis plays out. . . . The German people value their local towns, worry about their neighbours’ views, relish the rules and are rewarded accordingly by a social and economic system that really does work. . . .

The devastated, occupied and shamed West Germany of 1945 rebuilt itself from a smaller version of the same principles as before – hundreds of towns, each producing something exceptional. And it turned out that this new German prosperity was also intimately linked with the successful export of things which foreigners liked, the ensuing money allowing Germans themselves to buy things. This successful pattern, a sort of conveyor belt of investment, ideas, things and consumers, continues to the present day. But instead of just being a source of happiness to many of its fortunate inhabitants, it must suddenly bear the brunt of a global disaster.

Since the end of the Cold War, Germany has given two gifts to the world. The first was the decision to pour many billions of Deutschmarks into the somewhat patchy rebuilding of old East Germany. The second was to be the principal begetter of the euro – what was meant to be the final act to wind up the legacy of the Second World War. In a grand restatement of the principles that had cemented the original Treaty of Rome, Europeans who shared a currency would have so much in common that they could not dream of fighting each other. Some of the applicants to join the euro seemed a little odd or dodgy, but the Germans would ignore this because there was a higher, almost mystical issue at stake.

It is perhaps the fundamental question now facing Europe: what will the people wandering along Ingolstadt’s principal shopping streets think about what has happened? Germany’s attempts to dominate Europe militarily ended in utter moral and physical disaster. Germany’s more recent attempt to dominate Europe through the benign means of hard work, constructive engagement and backing the euro appeared to be a brilliant success. The unique form of provincialism that lies at the heart of Germany somehow resulted in the belief that the rest of the world shared its values – work all week at Audi, spend the weekend in riotous drinking and arguments about the relative merits of long-haul holiday destinations, and mix this with occasional marital infidelity and spiritual crisis. It simply could not encompass the idea that Greece or Italy would use access to the euro knowingly and contemptuously to pour that work ethic down the plughole. . . .

By chance, the President's weekly video address today from Indonesia, where he is making trade agreements, touches on a related idea:

These agreements will help us reach my goal of doubling American exports by 2014 – a goal we’re on pace to meet. And they’re powerful examples of how we can rebuild an economy that’s focused on what our country has always done best – making and selling products all over the world that are stamped with three proud words: “Made In America.”

This is important, because over the last decade, we became a country that relied too much on what we bought and consumed. We racked up a lot of debt, but we didn’t create many jobs at all.

If we want an economy that’s built to last and built to compete, we have to change that. We have to restore America’s manufacturing might, which is what helped us build the largest middle-class in history. That’s why we chose to pull the auto industry back from the brink, saving hundreds of thousands of jobs in the process. And that’s why we’re investing in the next generation of high-tech, American manufacturing.

Which sounds good. But what do I know. And as a matter of historical fact, we had the world's biggest and finest industrial plant already in place when the Great Depression happened, but that wasn't enough to prevent calamity.

Afloat

This week's New Yorker cover by Christoph Niemann:

The President Surrenders

That's the title of Paul Krugman's column today in the NYT.  The clincher:

Make no mistake about it, what we’re witnessing here is a catastrophe on multiple levels.

It is, of course, a political catastrophe for Democrats, who just a few weeks ago seemed to have Republicans on the run over their plan to dismantle Medicare; now Mr. Obama has thrown all that away. And the damage isn’t over: there will be more choke points where Republicans can threaten to create a crisis unless the president surrenders, and they can now act with the confident expectation that he will.

In the long run, however, Democrats won’t be the only losers. What Republicans have just gotten away with calls our whole system of government into question. After all, how can American democracy work if whichever party is most prepared to be ruthless, to threaten the nation’s economic security, gets to dictate policy? And the answer is, maybe it can’t.

Obama: "A Dangerous Game"

With only a week left before the U. S. Government defaults on its financial obligations, the President addressed the nation tonight and urged citizens to take action:

Unfortunately, for the past several weeks, Republican House members have essentially said that the only way they’ll vote to prevent America’s first-ever default is if the rest of us agree to their deep, spending cuts-only approach.

If that happens, and we default, we would not have enough money to pay all of our bills -– bills that include monthly Social Security checks, veterans’ benefits, and the government contracts we’ve signed with thousands of businesses.

For the first time in history, our country’s AAA credit rating would be downgraded, leaving investors around the world to wonder whether the United States is still a good bet. Interest rates would skyrocket on credit cards, on mortgages and on car loans, which amounts to a huge tax hike on the American people. We would risk sparking a deep economic crisis -– this one caused almost entirely by Washington. . . .

Now, I realize that a lot of the new members of Congress and I don’t see eye-to-eye on many issues. But we were each elected by some of the same Americans for some of the same reasons. Yes, many want government to start living within its means. And many are fed up with a system in which the deck seems stacked against middle-class Americans in favor of the wealthiest few. But do you know what people are fed up with most of all?

They’re fed up with a town where compromise has become a dirty word. They work all day long, many of them scraping by, just to put food on the table. And when these Americans come home at night, bone-tired, and turn on the news, all they see is the same partisan three-ring circus here in Washington. They see leaders who can’t seem to come together and do what it takes to make life just a little bit better for ordinary Americans. They’re offended by that. And they should be.

The American people may have voted for divided government, but they didn’t vote for a dysfunctional government. So I’m asking you all to make your voice heard. If you want a balanced approach to reducing the deficit, let your member of Congress know. If you believe we can solve this problem through compromise, send that message.

You can contact all of your elected officials in Washington via USA.gov, and your Head Trucker hopes you will - while you can still pay the electric bill.


Update, 10 p.m. - Response to the President's message seems to be overwhelming Congressional servers.  I was able to get an email through to my representative, but no luck so far with my senators.

Keep trying, guys.  Or are you just going to lie there and let the teabagger fucktards keep gang-banging you?

Presidential Grade: B+?

President Obama, in a "Christmas at the White House" special with Oprah, gave himself a B+ on his first year in office:

Obama: Good solid B-plus. I think that we have inherited the biggest set of challenges of any president since Frankiln Delano Roosevelt. We stabilized the economy, prevented the possibilities of a great depression, or a significant financial meltdown. The economy is growing again, we are on our way out of Iraq, I think we've got the best possible plan for Afghanistan, we have reset our image around the world, we have achieved an international consensus around the need for Iran and North Korea to disable their nuclear weapons, and I think that we're gonna pass the most significant piece of social legislation since social security and that's health insurance for every American.

Oprah: So B-plus--what could you have done better?

Obama: Well, B-plus because of the things that are undone. Health care is not yet signed. If I get health care passed, we tip into A-minus.

What grade would you give him, guys?

BTW - Michelle looked fabulous in purple and pearls.  She just keeps getting more beautiful all the time, I think; and she seems more comfortable in her role as First Lady now.  Here's the First Couple talking about approval ratings, family traditions, and chimney arrangements for Santa's White House visit:

Pigged Out!

Maureen Dowd in the New York Times:

The entertainment Web site TMZ broke the story Tuesday that Northern Trust of Chicago, which got $1.5 billion in bailout money and then laid off 450 workers, flew hundreds of clients and employees to Los Angeles last week and treated them to four days of posh hotel rooms, salmon and filet mignon dinners, music concerts, a PGA golf tournament at the Riviera Country Club with Mercedes shuttle rides and Tiffany swag bags.

“A rep from the PGA told us Northern Trust wrote one big, fat check in order to sponsor the event,” TMZ reported.

Northern No Trust had a lavish dinner at the Ritz Carlton on Wednesday with a concert by Chicago (at a $100,000 fee); rented a private hangar at the Santa Monica Airport on Thursday for another big dinner with a gig by Earth, Wind & Fire, and closed down the House of Blues on Sunset Strip on Saturday (at a cost of $50,000) for a dinner and serenade by Sheryl Crow. . . .

It asserted that it earned an operating net income of $641 million last year and acted as though it did Americans a favor by taking federal cash.

I would ask Northern No Trust: If you’re totally solvent, why are you taking my tax dollars? If you’re not totally solvent, why are you giving my tax dollars to Sheryl Crow?

Coming in a moment when skeptical and angry Americans watched A.I.G., Citigroup, General Motors and Chrysler — firms that had already been given a federal steroid injection — get back in line for more billions, the golf scandal was just one more sign that the bailed-out rich are different from you and me: their appetites are unquenchable and their culture is uneducable.

President Obama served them notice on Tuesday night in his Congressional address, saying: “This time, C.E.O.’s won’t be able to use taxpayer money to pad their paychecks or buy fancy drapes or disappear on a private jet. Those days are over.”

But will they notice?

What I say: Why is no one marching in the streets over this ginormous waste of your money and mine? Why is there no Join the Impact kind of grassroots movement to protest and fight this outrageous abuse, this gaming the system by the obscenely rich corporations and individuals? Why is no one raising a ruckus over this bullshit?

People out in California have been shutting down hotels and restaurants because somebody gave a hundred bucks, or maybe a thousand, to pro-Prop 8. I say, that's stupid.

THIS is much more worthy of protests and demonstrations - but where the hell is everybody, hmm?

Obama Tells It Like It Is

In case anybody's been wondering - which I very highly doubt - here are my views on the current economic crisis: I don't know squat about it, not really.

Neither does 99.9994% of the rest of the world. It's too big, too complicated, too abstract for me to get my mind around, like quantum physics or why Miley Cyrus has a bigger annual income than half the countries of the world.

All I know is what I read in the papers, and I 'spect that goes for you too. I had a few business courses in college, but found out that wasn't my thing. Never had a class in economics, wish I had. So all I can do - all any of us can really do - is trust that the people we elected to run the big shebang get it right. And I think that Obama will do the best that anyone can do with all this. Not merely because he's a Democrat, but because he seems sincerely committed to getting the best advice, the best people, and the best minds to work on it, and not simply to gain a political advantage for himself, but because it needs to be done.

By the time you get past 50, like me, you're a fool if you haven't learned to size people up at least to the degree of knowing when they are truthing or bullshitting. I believe he's telling the truth; that doesn't mean he's infallible by any means, no man is. But at least with a leader who is honest and dealing with the actual reality of things, we can have hope for a good outcome in the long run.

I got a kick out of this fired-up speech he gave yesterday to House Democrats in Williamsburg, think you will too.

And here's the President's weekly video address on the same subject (text here):

Update: When I say I believe Obama is telling the truth, I mean on the whole and in the main. Like every other politician, he is sometimes guilty of elision: glossing over the small details, giving the gist of something but not the whole entire truth.

As, for example, when I noted several times during the campaign he would say something like "I passed this-and-such legislation"; well, no single legislator does any such thing. Legislation is passed by a vote of the full body. But presumably he and his opponents, who all used the same phraseology, meant that as shorthand for "I worked really hard to encourage my fellow legislators to pass this bill."

I have no doubt that when he talks about the economy, the stimulus, the war, or any of a number of other topics, he's often leaving out the fine print, as every politician does. Go read up on Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR if you don't believe me. "All we have to fear is fear itself"; not literally true - but true in a metaphorical way that makes the bare enumeration of details beside the point.

Now most of the time that may be harmless, though of course sometimes the devil is in the details. But my point is, I do believe Obama comes pretty near the mark of speaking the truth most of the time; certainly much, much more than his predecessor ever did. Obama's neither perfect nor inerrant; but he's a helluva lot better than what we had. I believe he really intends to do all he can, from the noblest motives, to run this country in the best interests of ordinary people and to restore constitutional government; and I have faith that Change will in the long run be a great and wonderful thing for us all.

Business 101

From 1994. Click to enlarge.

(Honk to FranIAm)

Porn Needs Gov't Prod

Your Head Trucker's idea of a real stimulus package.

Yeehaw, get along there little dogies!

That's what pornmakers Larry Flynt and Joe Francis are asking from Congress, saying they should get a piece too when the government is bailing out the financial industry and auto industry. They say 5 billion is needed to rescue the porn business, which has gone limp fast.

Porn DVD sales are down 22 percent. According to Flynt, “People are too depressed to be sexually active,” Flynt said in a news release. “This is very unhealthy as a nation. Americans can do without cars and such, but they cannot do without sex.”

Damn. If the porn industry goes under, what would we do? Guess people would have to make their own.

Well, I'm patriotic, be glad to do my part and stick up for the American way of life. Where can I go to volunteer?

Today's Quote: Reboot America

From Thomas L. Friedman's column in the New York Times today:

For all these reasons, our present crisis is not just a financial meltdown crying out for a cash injection. We are in much deeper trouble. In fact, we as a country have become General Motors — as a result of our national drift. Look in the mirror: G.M. is us.

That’s why we don’t just need a bailout. We need a reboot. We need a build out. We need a buildup. We need a national makeover. That is why the next few months are among the most important in U.S. history. Because of the financial crisis, Barack Obama has the bipartisan support to spend $1 trillion in stimulus. But we must make certain that every bailout dollar, which we’re borrowing from our kids’ future, is spent wisely.

It has to go into training teachers, educating scientists and engineers, paying for research and building the most productivity-enhancing infrastructure — without building white elephants. Generally, I’d like to see fewer government dollars shoveled out and more creative tax incentives to stimulate the private sector to catalyze new industries and new markets. If we allow this money to be spent on pork, it will be the end of us.

America still has the right stuff to thrive. We still have the most creative, diverse, innovative culture and open society — in a world where the ability to imagine and generate new ideas with speed and to implement them through global collaboration is the most important competitive advantage. China may have great airports, but last week it went back to censoring The New York Times and other Western news sites. Censorship restricts your people’s imaginations. That’s really, really dumb. And that’s why for all our missteps, the 21st century is still up for grabs.

John Kennedy led us on a journey to discover the moon. Obama needs to lead us on a journey to rediscover, rebuild and reinvent our own backyard.

Your Head Trucker would just add, we need a reboot socially, religiously, and politically too. It's time. Change has come to America.

Today's Quote: An End to the Voodoo?

From Bob Herbert's column in the New York Times, on the appointment of Hilda Solis to be Obama's Secretary of Labor:

From Ronald Reagan’s voodoo economics to Henry Paulson’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, we’ve put the mighty resources of the national government overwhelmingly on the side of those who were already rich and powerful.

Ordinary workers have suffered. It took years to get a lousy little boost in the minimum wage for the working poor. Attempts to expand health insurance coverage were fought almost to a standstill. Guaranteed pensions vanished. And the maniacs who set fire to the economy with their incendiary financial instruments (yet another form of voodoo) were hot to privatize Social Security.

As Andy Stern, president of the huge Service Employees International Union, told me on Friday: “We’ve had a 25-year experience with market-worshipping, deregulating, privatizing, trickle-down policies, and it has ended us up with the greatest economy on earth staggering, and with the greatest amount of inequality since the Great Depression.”

The contempt for workers over this long period has hardly been hidden. Until Mr. Bush was forced by circumstances to tap the TARP program for the auto industry loans (small potatoes compared with the gargantuan Wall Street bailouts), the administration had gone out of its way to keep the program’s hundreds of billions of dollars reserved for the elites of the financial services industry and their associates. . . .

Leo Gerard, president of the steelworkers union, summed up the government’s attitude nicely when he said: “Washington will bail out those who shower before work, but not those who shower afterwards.”

Working people have been treated like enemies, a class to be preyed upon. Labor unions were ferociously attacked. Jobs were shipped overseas by the millions. People were hired as temps or consultants so benefits could be denied.

All of this may finally be changing. It remains to be seen how strong a voice Ms. Solis will have in the Obama administration, but she is pro-worker to her core, a politician who actually knows what it’s like to walk a picket line.

Afternoon Drive: Suspicious Minds

Well, I reckon the country can breathe a little easier this weekend:

* Palin didn't make a complete fool of herself in the debate last night; well, nobody's perfect. For her family's sake, I'm glad she was able to make a respectable-enough performance. Though of course she amply showed once again that her party is unfit to govern.

* Obama's lead over McCain in all the national polls continues to grow.

* And the House passed the bailout bill by a good margin; so the next Depression hasn't started. Yet.

It's a gorgeous fall afternoon here in Texas, 75 and sunny. Guess we can all kick back now, enjoy a cold one, and rock on into the weekend with Dwight Yoakam's guitar-string-busting live rendition of "Suspicious Minds," offered here in the spirit of bipartisan unity that's been talked about so much this week.

Crank it up and have a good one, y'all.

What's your problem, John?

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday:

Last night's bipartisan harmony capped a day of public unity. At an Obama rally in La Crosse, Wis., and a McCain event in Independence, Mo., the two candidates struck remarkably similar tones, speaking of the crisis as a time for unity and national purpose -- and a call for far more fiscal discipline in the future.

"The constant partisan rancor that stops us from solving these problems in Washington isn't a cause, it's a symptom. It's what happens when people go to Washington to work for themselves and not you," McCain said at the Truman Library. . . .

McCain even released an advertisement that decries partisanship in both parties, never mentions Obama and lifts one of his opponent's signature lines: "We're the United States of America."

"What a week," McCain says, speaking into the camera. "Democrats blamed Republicans. Republicans blamed Democrats. We're the United States of America. It shouldn't take a crisis to pull us together."

Yet later that same day, while both candidates were in the Senate during the vote on the economic rescue plan:

On the Senate floor, Obama crossed the well to the Republican side to reach his hand out to McCain and mouth, "Good to see you." McCain looked up briefly from his conversation with Sens. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) and Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) to give his rival a curt handshake.

The San Francisco Chronicle also reported on the incident:

McCain did not arrive in time for the debate and, when he entered the chamber, walked past Obama without acknowledging him. Several minutes later, Obama strode to where McCain was talking with his friend Joe Lieberman, independent-Conn., and held out his hand in greeting. McCain gave a curt, frigid shake back and instantly looked away. In the clubby world of the Senate, it was an unmistakable rebuff.

What gives with the pissy, prissy attitude, huh John? Where is that coming from? After all that fine, howdy-doody talk in front of the crowds and cameras about bipartisan harmony . . . .

Right. I get the picture.

Oh and McCain is not the only one peeing in the soup; the same WSJ article also noted:

The Republican National Committee came the closest to actually blaming Obama for the crisis, with an ad intoning: "Wall Street squanders our money, and Washington is forced to bail them out with, you guessed it, our money. Can it get any worse? Under Barack Obama's plan, the government would spend a trillion dollars more, even after the bailout."

That partisan ill will was evident in the Senate chamber. Obama entered at the tail end of a speech by Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), who then left the chamber. Democratic senators filed in, to listen, then mob the candidate with handshakes, hugs and good wishes. Only one Republican, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, sat on the other side of the aisle.

Guess teh gayz are off the hook for the financial crisis after all: pretty soon the Republican choir will be singing a full-throated SATB chorus of It's all Obama's fault!

Just wait and see, kids. And don't believe all the happy talk you hear about bipartisan unity: just BS for the masses. The Republicans know their party is about to lose big time at the polls, and they are going to be very, very sore losers, you betcha.

It's ALL the fault of teh gayz!

Of course. Haven't you been warned already? Gay rights = end of the world. Queer love = destruction of the planet. It's so simple, really.

Of course, WE have been destroying the family for years and it must be nearly beat down to nothing at this point, because now WE are working night and day to destroy the economy, too. Seriously. As witness this statement from anti-gay Liberty Counsel:

Washington Mutual became an active supporter of the homosexual agenda. But today, it is no more. Corporate America has learned the hard way that anti-family policies are bankrupt in more ways than one. . . .

Google executives should be searching for ways to make the internet more usable rather than promoting a radical redefinition of marriage. Companies that promoted anti-family policies have learned the hard way that such policies are bankrupt. K-Mart learned its lesson several years ago. Washington Mutual and Wachovia, both of which actively promoted the homosexual agenda, have come to realize that anti-family policies will bankrupt the bottom line.

Um, or maybe WE aren't destroying the economy: God's doing it to punish all our queer-loving friends and kin. The head of the anti-gay Christian Civic League of Maine, campaigning to abolish domestic partnerships and forbid equal marriage in that state, has this flash straight off the wire from his hotline to heaven:

We are all rightly concerned about the nation's financial situation today. Our crisis is a symptom, not the cause.

Ruth Graham told her husband Billy years ago that God would have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah if He doesn't judge America. They were reflecting on a list of sinful conditions existing in our nation in the 1960s. Things have only deteriorated since then.

I am not saying I know whether this financial crisis is God's judgment or not. It is not for me to know that definitively. Graham's observations are instructive, however.

So now you know. Queers are behind every bleeping disaster known to man, physical, financial, and otherwise. Which is exactly why your ancestors in the Middle Ages burned them at the stake every chance they could; gee, don't you wish those happy days were here again? Oh, when will the poor misguided masses wake up and see what's happening?!

As Joe.My.God. puts it so adroitly:

Katrina, earthquakes, forest fires, Wall Street. Tremble before our mighty power!

MWUHAHAHA!

P.S.--As a kid growing up in the segregated South, I remember vividly how the grown-ups (including my own dear family, I'm sorry to say) laid the blame for all kinds of ills on the "n*ggers" and vehemently predicted every sort of calamity to follow if they got civil rights. How'd they get off the hook, hmmm? Answer: Straight white ignoramuses are even more scared of sex than they are of race. Funny how that works, isn't it?

P.P.S.--Come to think of it, the Jews got blamed for everything bad that ever happened too. Next in line after the gayz is all them illegal aliens (read: non-Anglos), ya know. Hmmm. Notice a bit of a pattern going on here?

Republicans admit: no Pelosi effect

Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.) fesses up about his party's vote yesterday:

Socrates was right

The New York Times provides quotes from leading members of the House of Representatives before yesterday's failed bailout vote; nearly all of them, from both parties, urged their colleagues to pass the measure. Even the President tried to prevail upon the members of his party to support the bill, but without success. But Bush is shooting blanks now.

As things fell out, 67 percent of House Republicans voted it down; and even more startlingly, to my mind, 40 percent of Democrats followed suit. Nobody seems to be talking about that figure much in the MSM; but what the hell goes on here? How can the Dems not support this crucial emergency legislation, which I heard one solon yesterday compare to a tourniquet applied to stop the patient from bleeding to death?

It would seem that on the right and on the left, representatives and their constituents are deeply opposed to "bailing out" Wall Street fat cats, and they should be; however, that's not the point here. The point is to keep the entire economy from tanking right here and now; and those who fail to do so will suffer condign ignomy in days to come, if people's jobs, savings, and retirement funds are wiped out.

I found this statement, by Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.), from the article linked above to be highly revealing (emphasis mine):

This will be the most difficult decision I make in my 16 years in this body. And I have decided that the cost of not acting outweighs the cost of acting. ... None of us in this body have any really good judgment or insight into what happens if we fail to pass this bill. It could mean companies going out of business. We've been told it would. It could mean more bank failures. Probably will. It will mean impairment of our parents and grandparents' pensions. I'm not willing to put that bullet in the revolver and spin it. I'm not willing to take that gamble. I'm not willing to pull that trigger. Because I am not willing to subject the American people to the worst-case scenario. I don't have a crystal ball. And that is one reason that I'll be voting yes. Because I am unwilling, I will take the political risk, but I will not take a risk on the American people and their future.

I applaud Rep. Bachus for doing the right thing based on what he knows at this time. But how appaling to realize--and I've read and heard similar statements from other legislators in the last few days--that our elected representatives in Congress, the vast majority, really have no better understanding of the whole big economic picture than I do. Which is not saying much.

Now the circumstances of my life have never required a knowledge of macroeconomics; but how shameful is the ignorance of those who are elected (and who frequently campaign on such talk) to ensure that the national economy is well-run and well-regulated for the common good.

Well, here we can see clearly that politics is an empty show, smoke and mirrors, full of sound and fury--but much of the time merely a show, not substance. But hasn't it always been so?

As Socrates said in the Apology:

I went to one who had the reputation of wisdom, and observed him, his name I need not mention; he was a politician . . . , and the result was as follows: When I began to talk with him, I could not help thinking that he was not really wise, although he was thought wise by many, and still wiser by himself; . . . . So I left him, saying to myself, as I went away: . . . although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is, for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows; I neither know nor think that I know. In this latter particular, then, I seem to have slightly the advantage of him.

Listening to the pols blather on during this crisis, I know just how ol' Soc felt.

Republican Betrayal

The news that the House of Representatives failed to pass the so-called bailout bill today came as a real shock to me and, I don't doubt, to many other Americans. It just took my breath away.

It was sunk by those Republicans to whom "the free market" is for all practical purposes synonomous with "the will of God." No socialism in America, oh no! We'll watch the whole country crash and burn first, before we betray our oh-so-sacred principles!

In fact, they have betrayed the country, exactly as their Republican grandfathers did in 1929 and the years following: standing firm on their free-market faith while all around them the country sank deeper and deeper into economic misery. And when Roosevelt finally got into office in 1933, they fought his every move tooth and nail, crying socialism all the way.

But as my little grandmother used to say, a sweet, humble soul to whom economics would have been as mysterious as astrophysics, "If it hadn't been for Roosevelt, we'd have all perished to death."

Which gets right to the heart of the matter: pure, unrestrained greed is lethal to the economy and the nation; Roosevelt saved the people from the excesses of the free market, and for that he was beloved by many millions who suffered economic cruelty at the hands of the self-righteous, and highly self-interested, Republican capitalists.

I'm no economist, but I know enough to say that you can't have a completely free or a completely regulated market; a happy medium must be found for the greatest good of the greatest number. The New Deal, it seems to me, was by and large that happy medium until the jackbooted Republicans of the Reagan-Bush-Bush era trampled it underfoot and made the world safe for avarice.

It was chilling to watch the televised press conferences today in the aftermath of the House debacle, with an inset displaying the Dow sinking lower and lower by the minute: down 777 points by close of business. I watched it sink a hundred points with my own eyes, in only 15 minutes of viewing.

Of course, the renegade Republicans who 86'd today's bill are the same who have gone along so blithely with Bush's imperial decrees and power grabs in the past; today they suddenly found the testicular fortitude to defy the President, not to mention the leaders of their own party. But stupidly, they have taken the wrong stand at the wrong time.

Of course, they tried to blame it on the Democrats, and Nancy Pelosi's "partisan" speech before the vote; but good ol' Barney Frank had a brilliant riposte to that.

McCain is also claiming that he charged up to Washington last week and rewrote the first version of the bill and protected the taxpayers, yada yada yada; or at least that's the slick impression his statements and those of his supporters make: rewriting history so soon. The fact is, House Dems and Repubs had a compromise bill already agreed on, and the votes lined up, before he got to Washington; his presence at the White House conference last Thursday emboldened the renegades to drop a bomb on the compromise.

So here we are. I realize that all may yet be well, though with the Jewish holidays, no bill will be passed before next weekend in the best case. But if this country really has slipped off a precipice today, I do hope history records that McCain and the pure-T-free-market Republicans are the ones who gave it the last shove into the darkness.

Bush is the new Hoover. The New York Times editorializes on today's events:

After nearly eight years of voting in virtual lock step with President Bush on everything from tax cuts to torture, House Republicans decided on Monday to break ranks on the survival of the nation’s financial system.

The rejected bailout bill that was on the floor after a weekend of hard negotiating was objectionable in many ways, but it was a Republican-generated bill and was improved from the administration’s original version. Sixty percent of House Democrats voted for the bill, enough to easily pass the measure if the Republicans had not decided to put on their display of pique and disarray.

The question now is whether the stock-market plunge that followed the House’s failure to lead — and a renewed credit freeze — will be enough to get the 133 Republicans who voted against the measure to change their minds. And, more important, whether the damage that the no vote has inflicted is readily reversible.

Republican no votes were rooted less in analysis or principle than in political posturing and ideological rigidity. The House minority leader, John Boehner, conceded as much: “While we were able to move the bill drastically to the right, it wasn’t good enough for our members.”

It’s not clear what would be good enough for the Republicans since there was very little talk of substance on Monday after the bill died on the floor of the House. Instead, the Republicans tried to blame a speech before the vote by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who connected the current crisis to the fiscal and economic mismanagement of the Bush years. It may not have been the perfect moment to say that, but it was true.

Republicans were also upset that serial bailouts represent a rejection of free-market principles. They do. That’s because the free market in finance, unregulated and unsupervised, has failed. And, in its failure, it is inflicting greater damage on an already weak economy.

No amount of amendments to the bailout package will change the administration’s disastrous economic record or erase the manifest failure of the Republicans’ free-markets-above-all ideology.

Fasten your seat belt. I've a feeling it's going to be a bumpy ride.

The United States of France

Les Deux Magots, Paris

A Time magazine article this week makes the case, satirically, that we are all now French, whether we like it or not, as a result of the "nationalization" of the American economy.

Mmmm . . . okay. The United States of France. Sounds good to me. A 35-hour workweek. Six weeks of paid vacation time a year. Free healthcare for everyone. Magnificent art, great museums, son et lumiere shows. Clean subways. High-speed trains in all directions. Green energy. Outdoor cafes. Wonderful food, fresh-baked baguettes, 246 cheeses, and all that lovely wine. Even at lunch. Hell, maybe even breakfast. Oh and don't forget the croissants . . .

Ooh la la, baby, bring it on. C'est la vie for me!

Of course, I'm speaking with tongue in cheek. France is French, and we are us; even if Congress enacted the French Constitution tomorrow and imported Nicolas Sarkozy on the next jet to Washington, this country could never be just like that one.

And I hear tell you just cain't get no good barbecue over there no how.

But while the Time article's underlying point is a serious one, and unfavorable to the idea of becoming more like France in economic and political matters--well I say, there are worse things.

Like another Great Depression. Or a fascist, theocratic dictatorship.

I just might be humming the Marseillaise on the way to the voting booth, come November.

Aux armes enfants de la patrie, le jour de gloire est arrive . . .

Financial do's and don'ts right now

Good advice for us little people from CBS financial consultant Ray Martin on savings, investments, and retirement in these scary times:

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