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now entirely--Pelosi will change the plan to be more and more like that alternative plan they had.

i was happy to see that some Democrats voted against it.

I was outside doing yardwork and just came back in.

What happened?!

after they realized it wasn't going to pass. And yes Lambert, they are pushing the "Fear, Panic, Doom" buttons hard ( NBC that is.) Oh and as a nice touch they interrupted the "Martha Stewart Show" to warn everyone of the end of the USA.
"Our country right or wrong. When right, to be kept right; when wrong, to be put right."
Carl Schurz - U.S. Senator 1/17/1872

Roubini has pointed this out. The market fell after AIG was bailed out and it's been falling even as Washington was promising $700 billion. Why? Because the proposed plan won't work. Investors know it. The only people pretending it will work are those with their hand out (either for the bail out of campaign cash).

The system is close to crashing, but the solution being offered isn't a solution. That's the problem. I understand that there are real problems out there and, under the right conditions (HOLC, equity stake) and at the right price (non-leveraged), I could support an intervention that would have a chance of working. The problem is that the proposal does not set the right conditions, is too expensive, and is not likely to work. It's got nothing going for it except post-partisanship. And it's the Democrats unwillingness to be partisan and reign in the GOP that got us here. Or did I miss Chris Dodd and Barney Frank jumping up and down every damned day for the last two years screaming about the on-coming financial crisis if we don't do something NOW!

But we won the first round of FISA, too. Then the Dems brought it back. So we need to keep up the pressure.

And since so many of our elected officials seem to care more for corporations than for me, they can quit asking me for money. I'll give to individual Dems, but it will be a very long time before I give to the party again, certainly not while the current yahoos (or is it YHOOs) are in charge. I had sworn off this year, but I'm extending it indefinitely. And I encourage others to do the same. They've made it very clear that they don't want or need us, they have JP Morgan to keep them warm at night.

Your services are needed in Washington.

Seriously, if they let someone with demonstrated accuracy on this stuff take the lead they might be surprised how agreeable us pesky citizens are.

Blount is speaking. Paraphrase: We have to put partisanship aside, respect the Jewish holidays. We were rushing things, and we're going to reach back out to the dems and see if we can be part of the solution - we're not the majority.

Someone else calling it a failure of Speaker Pelosi. Failure to lead, failure to listen, most unproductive year in Congress.

Making the dems look realllllly bad here. Effing repubs pulled the football away again.

Lovely.

Isn't that what we're using to bludgeon Obama holdouts into voting for him? Its a shameful tactic when used against what we think is right, isn't? Why reciprocate then?

of the vote? D/R.

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Failure of Pelosi's leadership. The dems tried to hurry this. Must work to pass a bill that will help the country. They're the majority; we're not. The dems have to bring a bill to the table in a bipartisan way.

Looks like the repubs pulled the fottball away again.

*sigh*

then went right back to repubs bashing the dems.

... then the market was going to crash anyhow.

I mean, isn't that the underlying logic here?

[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/bu...

and they all closed way before the vote happened today.

FTSE, DAX, CAC--all down 4-5%

Who would have predicted et cetera.

Actually, I must credit the good Doctor Black with calling his shot on that one.

Gee, it's almost like they planned to leave the Dems holding the bag, isn't it? Not that Nancy "We are leaders. They are advocates" weren't all to ready to reach for it.

[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

once again greed will prevail and there will be a massive buy just before 4:00 p.m. But that's an easy prediction, greed is so predictable.

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if anyone's interested.

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll674.xml

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is a metaphor that doesn't apply only to the Village.

[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll674.xml

it was the right link, elixir---i think....

Here's the Congressional Budget Office's thoughts on the bailout bill.

http://cboblog.cbo.gov/?p=173

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of Main Street. Um, that concern sure wasn't evident in this bill, was it?

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Service unavailable.

some think there is no crisis. If that's the outcome after a few days, he'll be happy to have been wrong, but he doesn't think that's the case. The administration needs to coordinate with the repubs to get a bill passed.

Their feeling were hurt, so they hurt the country? "Give me those 12 names and I'll go talk uncharacteristically nicely to them."

*laughter*

And I managed to snag a couple of excellent $12 suits for the holiday at Goodwill while I was out, so I'm momentarily happy.

I'm sure our "Democratic" "leadership" will ruin that mood soon enough - but like Barney Frank, I'd be happy to have been wrong.

[Nance? Things have been pretty fkd up here on the street where I live for awhile now. Take the price of food, for example. But thank you for noticing.]

i used to think highly of him, but not anymore.

A persuasive argument is being made that the Executive already has the tools needed to begin to address the current market difficulties. Bush, Cox and Paulson should get about their business and do what they already have the authority to do, while the Congress takes a breath and starts to sort things out and come up with a more measured plan.

Good news, incredibly stupid handing over of a humongous blank check to idiots will apparently not happen.

Bad news, the sausage factory is cranking up and the pursuit of a solution is in danger of be driven by aggregations of narrow interests which may not be in the overall best interests of the American people. Pressure on each individual representative will be required for some long time to come or the “solution” will turn into a pork barrel feast.

This link worked for me.

Maybe everyone who calls their Democratic Congresscritter could ask that question.
Over and over again.
I want them to get sick of hearing it to the point whwere they throw in the towel and say, "Fine! Have your Deman Hillary back. Are you happy now?! Just go away and leave me alone."
Then there will be much rejoicing and dancing in the streets and Hillary will be flown from Michigan to take up the thankless task of trying to straighten this mess out.
No good deed going unpunished, the Democrats will despise her even more. But we won't care. Champagne corks will pop and we will party, party, party! At last, a grown up will be in charge.
Come together at The Confluence

What does this mean?:

"As the U.S. government worked overtime to shore up its financial system, cracks started to show in the world financial sector as two European banks were nationalized over the weekend.

In the biggest European bank bailout since the credit crisis began, three governments jumped in to rescue Belgian-Dutch bank Fortis. The Belgian, Dutch and Luxembourg governments took a 49 percent stake in Fortis with an 11.2 billion euro ($16.4 billion) injection.

Meanwhile, the U.K. nationalized troubled mortgage lender Bradford & Bingley. After weekend talks failed to yield a buyer, the U.K. Treasury said it would take over B&B's 50-billion pound ($90.12 billion) mortgage portfolio and sell its deposits and branches to Spanish bank Santander.

Shares in French bank Dexia tumbled more than 20 percent on a newspaper report that it might launch an emergency capital increase."

Apple shares fell too.

http://www.nytimes.com/ref/washington/RO...

"To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide earnings assistance and tax relief to members of the uniformed services, volunteer firefighters, and Peace Corps volunteers, and for other purposes"

Again, huh?

at Calculated Risk by Mr. Holiday.

He explains what that's about.

this so nobody would know where to look. That's the best guestimate I have.

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I suspect we have a ways to go but it would be an interesting exercise to track it.

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Via Stellaaa at Talk Left:

AMY GOODMAN: Congressman Kucinich, can you explain how it is that the Democrats are in charge, yet the Democrats back down on their demand to give bankruptcy judges authority to alter the terms of mortgages for homeowners facing foreclosure, that Democrats also failed in their attempt to steer a portion of any government profits from the package to affordable housing programs?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, I mean, those are two of the most glaring deficiencies in this bill. And I would maintain there was never any intention to—you know, well, many members of Congress had the intention of helping people who were in foreclosure. You know, this—Wall Street doesn’t want to do that. Wall Street wants to grab whatever change they can and equity that’s left in these properties. So—

AMY GOODMAN: Right, but the Democrats are in charge of this.

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Right. You know, I’ll tell you something that we were told in our caucus. We were told that our presidential candidate, when the negotiations started at the White House, said that he didn’t want this in this bill. Now, that’s what we were told.

AMY GOODMAN: You were told that Barack Obama did not want this in the bill?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: That he didn’t want the bankruptcy provisions in the bill. Now, you know, that’s what we were told. And I don’t understand why he would say that, if he did say that. And I think that there is a—the fact that we didn’t put bankruptcy provisions in, that actually we removed any hope for judges to do any loan modifications or any forbearance. There’s no moratorium on mortgage foreclosures in here. So, who’s getting—who’s really getting helped by this bill? This is a bailout, pure and simple, of Wall Street interests who have been involved in speculation.

And I don’t, for the life of me, understand why this is going to do anything to address the underlying problems in the economy, which actually had to do with the recklessness. This is what the president of the Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas said, that—and, you know, I might have the actual quote here. Listen to this quote: he said, “The seizures and convulsions we’ve experienced in the debt and equity markets have been the consequences of a sustained orgy of excess and reckless behavior, not a too tight monetary policy.” This is the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank president, Richard Fisher.

So, you know, we’re getting stampeded here to vote for something that doesn’t help homeowners, that doesn’t do anything about foreclosures, that doesn’t help those people who have been in bankruptcy and are looking for a way out. As a matter of fact, it made sure they can’t get out. So, who’s this for? It’s for speculators. It’s to play a game that provides some temporary help in the market, and, you know, you might see an uptick today if this passes the House. On the other hand, if it doesn’t, we need to be ready to find a way for Wall Street to address its problems without having to tap the increasingly diminishing resources of the federal taxpayers.

Wonder if Dennis regrets sending his folks over to Obama in the Iowa caucuses.

Never been a big Kucinich fan even if I agree with him on a lot of issues, but he speaks for me here:

AMY GOODMAN: It sounds like it was mainly the House Republicans who balked, who revolted on Friday. Yet, you and a number of your colleagues are joining them. Do you believe this will pass today?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: It’s going to be a very close vote. And I don’t see this as a partisan issue, by the way. I mean, in a way, the debate that tries to make it a partisan issue is a diversion. This is really whether or not people will side with Main Street in a struggle with Wall Street, because, you know, this is not about left or right. This is about up or down, and it’s about the color green.

And frankly, Wall Street is—has put itself on a trajectory with now we have almost a quadrillion—half a quadrillion dollars of derivatives that are out there, floating out there. People have said that if this is intended to be a fix, it’s a joke, on one hand. On the other hand, who’s paying for it? Why are we rushing this? I don’t—you know, and everything about this, I think, is unacceptable.

And, he supports HOLC! Not that as a political matter Dennis' support is all that important. I do wish he'd have mentioned there's a HOLC bill in the Senate since I'm pretty sure Clinton introduced it.