Blog Watch
September 24th, 2008
This guy (”Vinny”) has a lot of interesting stuff to say. For example, this post on corporations and the free market.
We’ll have to keep an eye on that blog, and maybe add it to the blogroll.
Cut And Run
September 24th, 2008
Maybe just the cynic in me, but it sure looks like McCain’s afraid of Obama right now:
Republican John McCain said Wednesday he is directing his staff to work with Democrat Barack Obama’s campaign and the presidential debate commission to delay Friday’s debate because of the economic crisis.
In a statement, McCain said he will stop campaigning after addressing former President Clinton’s Global Initiative session on Thursday and return to Washington to focus on the nation’s financial problems.
McCain said he wants President Bush to convene a leadership meeting in Washington that would include him and Obama.
It will be fun to watch the McCain camp try to spin this as some sort of principled move. Seems more to me like a tacit acknowledgment that McCain wants no part of a debate with Obama when the economy is going to be topic #1 on everyone’s mind.
Categories: Economics, News & Current Events, Politics | 17 Comments
Generals Betray Us? Oh, Really . . .?
September 24th, 2008
The Wall Street Journal Online is running a startling article by a MacKubin Thomas Owens, a professor at the Naval War College, arguing explicitly that the military command heirarchy actively opposed Bush administration doctrine in Iraq, particularly “the surge”, and deliberately worked to undermine the policy. Quoting Bob Woodward’s new book on the Iraq invasion, it states:
According to Mr. Woodward’s account, the uniformed military not only opposed the surge, insisting that their advice be followed; it then subsequently worked to undermine the president once he decided on another strategy.
In one respect, the actions taken by military opponents of the surge, e.g. “foot-dragging,” “slow-rolling” and selective leaking are, unfortunately, all-too-characteristic of U.S. civil-military relations during the last decade and a half. But the picture Mr. Woodward draws is far more troubling. Even after the policy had been laid down, the bulk of the senior U.S. military leadership — the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, the rest of the Joint Chiefs, and Gen. Abizaid’s successor, Adm. William Fallon, actively worked against the implementation of the president’s policy.
If Mr. Woodward’s account is true, it means that not since Gen. McClellan attempted to sabotage Lincoln’s war policy in 1862 has the leadership of the U.S. military so blatantly attempted to undermine a president in the pursuit of his constitutional authority.
“Undermine the president”? “Worked against the implementation of the president’s policy”? “Sabotage“!? The article doesn’t quite bring itself to say so, but its unavoidable implication is that the US military command was disloyal to the point of mutiny, and deliberately flouted its constitutional responsibility - that the senior uniformed officers of the military deliberately violated their oaths to uphold the Constitution. Its general call for firmer civilian control of the military would seem to be a very weak response to a situation that, if these charges are to be taken literally, would have to demand widespread, high-level courts-martial (if the rule of law means anything in the military these days, which the history if the Iraq invasion suggests it does not).
Categories: Culture, General, Iraq, Media, News & Current Events, Politics | 1 Comment
Why Does the Bailout Start At the Top?
September 24th, 2008
I would really, really like someone to answer that question for me before we go giving Wall Street what it wants. The problem is that largely unregulated financial institutions used sometimes shady deals to sell people mortgage products that they probably could not afford. Other largely unregulated financial institutions then sliced and iced those mortgages into financial products that were then sold almost like stocks or other securities. Now, those unaffordable mortgage products are collapsing in value so the people who own pieces of them no longer know how much those pieces are worth. Since they no long know how much those pieces are worth, they no longer have a good sense of what their balance sheets look like and no one has any idea what those pieces should be bought and sold for. And that means that a large chunk of financial capital has such an uncertain value that its value might as well be zero, so there is an understandable reluctance to use those pieces as collateral or to deal with the financial institutions that have large stakes in those mortgage pieces. And that has lead to what the Fed is calling a credit crisis.
But if that is the case, then giving banks money is not going to solve this problem, is it? At the end of the day, the mortgage pieces are still essentially worthless — only now they will be owned by the Feds instead of by the banks, sticking the taxpayers with all the risks. Why not do something to shore up the value of the mortgage pieces? A lot of people could afford to stay in their houses if they were in more affordable mortgage products –fixed as opposed to adjustable, rates closer to prime rather than sub-prime — so why not start with them? Why not allow credit worthy people in these expensive mortgage products to have those mortgages adjusted to something they can afford. The housing bust winds to a close, most of the mortgage pieces the financial industries own become worth something and the only banks to fail are those that gambled with the most unstable, least deserving mortgages. And it probably doesn’t cost 700 billion dollars.
Now, perhaps there are good reasons for not doing this. I doubt that as the Democrats are trying to insert a proposal that would allow bankruptcy judges to do something similar to what I propose, ( the Republicans oppose it, of course, but this is already allowed for commercial properties and for people with more than one home ), but I am perfectly willing to be convinced otherwise. But it is a telling marker of just how far right our economic policy has lurched that no one in government or the Wall Street press even feels compelled to explain why helping the bankers is a better solution than helping the homeowners whose declining home values and foreclosures are at the root of the problem.
Categories: General | 9 Comments
