Great post. You are laying it all out so clearly, 1,2,3. Love the 42 country study reference, exactly right.

I thought all those GOPers who voted yes for the bail-out were for the free market. I guess they're against nationalizing everything, except their own debt? (and the debt of their wealthy contributers?)

And yeah, insanity=listening to voters. Publicly elected representatives representing their voters=insanity.

Charlie Rose last night. He was on with Floyd Norris, who said the banks were holding the economy hostage to force a bailout. Video not yet available.

It was a beautiful moment--being called irrational by one of the centrist (?) Village MCMers. Just great.

Many of the MCMers/Villagers have swallowed whole the Paulson/Bernanke dire warnings that the economic world will collapse without Paulson being able to thrown $7Billion at the banksters.

Of course, he would never use the word "bankster."

has been 'seriously considered' (Rep. Lloyd Dogget's phrase) by the Dem leaders. Have you heard Nancy, Harry, Chris, Barney, or Barack mention HOLC or talk about anything other than how to dress up the current disaster? I sure haven't. Everybody keeps saying there is a problem and the people at the center of this offer only one solution. Now, good journalists will look around to see if there are other solutions, but we don't have many of those. So we have people screaming there's a problem and only one proposed solution, which has been rejected.

Of course, I don't view it as a coincidence that none of the people at the center of this have mentioned HOLC (not even as something to be done in the future, from what I can tell). They are all happy with a dressed up giveaway.

based on something I read somewhere on the web....

Love it! Paulson and his Merry Banksters Doing the Hanky Panky!

What is hanky panky?

Answer
Trickery - double dealing. Also, more recently, sexual shenanigans

Origin
This is one of those nonsense terms that was just made up as having an attractive alliteration or rhyme, like 'the mutt's nuts' etc. The words themselves have no inherent meaning.

The term is first recorded in the first edition of 'Punch, or the London Charivari', Vol 1, Sept, 1841:

"Only a little hanky-panky, my lud. The people likes it; they loves to be cheated before their faces. One, two, three-presto-begone. I'll show your ludship as pretty a trick of putting a piece of money in your eye and taking it out of your elbow, as you ever beheld."

The second meaning has been with us since the middle of the 20th century, as here from George Bernhard Shaw's Geneva, 1939:

She: No hanky panky. I am respectable; and I mean to keep respectable.
He: I pledge you my word that my intentions are completely honorable. (My emphasis)

From Wiki Answers:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_hanky_...

-- "The Federal Reserve will pump an additional $630 billion into the global financial system, flooding banks with cash to alleviate the worst banking crisis since the Great Depression.

The Fed increased its existing currency swaps with foreign central banks by $330 billion to $620 billion to make more dollars available worldwide. The Term Auction Facility, the Fed’s emergency loan program, will expand by $300 billion to $450 billion. The European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan are among the participating authorities.

The Fed’s expansion of liquidity, the biggest since credit markets seized up last year, came hours before the U.S. House of Representatives rejected a $700 billion bailout for the financial industry. ..." -- http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/09/29...

interesting. Goes to my theory that this bill will not solve the problem and they know it.

This nation's so-called leadership is rotting, and the response to this manufactured crisis shines a light on this decay. If Congress doesn't say no to this latest Bush administration attempt to rob this nation blind, then they are through for years and maybe even decades, to come. I don't think people get it. It won't matter which party or candidate wins the presidency or keeps or wins control of Congress if this gets through. The crisis here really doesn't have anything to do about the financial market, and everything to do about a crisis in leadership. If we say yes to this, we'll have finally sold our soul part-and-parcel to fear. This isn't about money, this is about breaking the American spirit once and for all.