Reuters:

After allocating $20 billion to a Federal Reserve consumer lending facility announced on Tuesday, the Treasury has just $20 billion to spend before it must return to Congress for permission to access a second $350 billion in the program.

So, maybe it's time for a midcourse correction. Let's review. They're using our money, taxpayer money. How have things worked out so far? Any lessons learned? Read more…

Bailout America with Medicare for All

The biggest difference between US and foreign auto production is that only US automakers are saddled with the burden of paying the health care costs of current workers and retirees. Read more…

MSNBC's Brzezinski falsely asserted "the average Big Three automaker union worker's compensation is $73/hour" Read more…

Black Agenda Report

Should the auto industry get a Wall Street style blank check bailout? Or is this the ideal time to make US auto and other industrial jobs globally competitive by enacting the kind of single payer health care system every other wealthy industrial nation on the planet uses?

As I have said before, it is not a coincidence that the chief sponsor of single payer represents Detroit.

Powerline Proves Universal Health Care Makes GM and Chrysler Profitable

The chart to the left shows the losses and profits per car of some major car companies. John over at Powerline uses it to argue that there should be no bailout, because the Big 3 are so unprofitable it's just pointless. Let's do some simple math. Take a look at GM's loss per car, about $700. What is GM's cost per car for health care? $1,500. What happens if you add $1,500? A profit. Of $800/car. Read more…

Remember Neel Kashkari*, the Goldman Sachs "creative class" gofer who's running the trillion dollar bailout for Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson's golfing buddies at the big banks?

Here's what Neel Cash-and-Carry had to say about process at his bailout press conference just over a week ago:

Consistent with Congress' intent, we are committed to transparency and oversight in all aspects of the program ...

That was then. This is now. So how's that "transparency" thing working out?

Via the excellent Bailout Sleuth:

Outsourcing the bailout to contractors is really a beautiful racket, isn't it? Read more…

Well it seems Citigroup has decided that even with the help of F.D.I.C. that it just did not want to take on even part of the bad loans/debt Wachovia had from its' earlier mergers. According to the NYTimes , Wells Fargo gets to have it all and create a $1.42 Trillion company stretching coast to coast.
Citigroup wants to sue Wells Fargo for $60 Billion for interfering, but may not be able to because: Read more…

And Senate Wednesday. House contact info and Senate contact info. Phone them. Fax them. Use FaxZero and you can send 2 free ones every day. Faxes take up space in offices. Use them. Push back hard, and do it now.

The New York City Central Labor Council held an Emergency Mobilization Press Conference today at noon in front of the NY Stock Exchange. We packed Wall Street with the usual verve.

Unions to Congress: A Blank Check is a Bad Idea.

Photos? Have I got photos?!

Update: NYCCLC press release below... Read more…

Hillary Clinton:
[W]e must address the skyrocketing rates of mortgage defaults and foreclosures that have buffeted the economy and ignited the credit crisis. Two million homeowners carry mortgages worth more than their homes. They hold $3 trillion in mortgage debt. Nearly three million adjustable-rate mortgages are scheduled for a rate increase in the next two years. Another wave of foreclosures looms.

But wait -- it isn't here yet. And it need not come at all, if we approach this crisis with some sense. Look at the facts NPR found: Read more…

Steven Benen has the main points up.

Krugman appears to be at least somewhat impressed.

Chris Bowers at Open Left has the link to the PDF forty page document, plus some analysis that suggests Dodd's version carries some poison pills of it's own that Bush and Paulson will have a hard to impossible time swallowing. To which I say, great, no bailout, then.

A friend tells me that Barney Frank's House version is the better of the two, but I don't have any links on what it contains. Read more…

Seeing as how Lambert seems intent on stealing all my post ideas today, I'll post this in case like me, you don't often go to HuffPo. It's worth noting that Larissa used to live in Russia, and knows from Coup. Beyond all the bullshit, she speaks plain truth.

As I see it now, we have but two options and I have long alluded to hoping against hope that one of these options would not be the only one left to a peaceful people. The first and frankly most preferable option is for Congress to immediately begin impeachment proceedings against the members of this latest Business Plot.

No time needs to be wasted on hearings as we already now have in writing, formally as presented to Congress, the intentions of this administration to nullify Congressional powers permanently, to alter Judicial powers permanently, and to openly steal public funds using as blackmail the total collapse of the US economy if these powers are not handed over. You do see how this is blackmail, do you not? You do see how this is a manufactured crisis precisely designed to be used as blackmail, do you not?

The other option, the one I have long prayed we would never need to even consider, is a total revolution. But, If Congress won't act in its own self-defense, in the defense of democracy, in defense of us - the people who have elected them to protect us from this very danger - then what is left for us to do? I don't want to see it come down to this, but I fear that it will. Put your party politics aside right now. We are in a crisis so dangerous that should these people succeed in their coup, your party affiliation will no longer matter, your American flag will be a nice collectible item of something that once was, and your version of God will be worshiped in secrecy because your freedoms will be owned by the few.

You are no longer Republicans, Democrats, or any shade of voter. You do not live in a swing state or a solid colored state. You are simply this: an American. That is the only side that matters. So call your members of Congress and demand, no, declare that unless they do their duty to the Constitution and to us, we will move to the streets - not because we want to, but because our founding fathers demanded this duty of each and every citizen in the face of such a domestic enemy. Demand - as is your right - that this bill be voted against and demand - as is your right - that the people plotting this treachery be held to account. We are either a nation of laws or we are no longer a democracy. Pick a side, because there won't be another time, another moment, another chance to be a patriot.

What's interesting is that she got more than one threat from wingnuts to turn her in to DHS or some shit just for writing a blog post. Expect more of that in future.