Eric: Make things "work" or "worse"? I'd be thrilled if they said the former.

If Palin does not perform disastrously, a lot of people will be disappointed. The stars of a freak show are supposed to inspire awe and a kind of disgust.

Don't let your audience down, Sara!

Interesting that McCain hasn't let go of Iowa, which is pretty much in Obama's column. He should be in states like Florida or Virginia where he has an actual chance.

Why oh why won't Bill Clinton just STFU and disappear until after the election?

Just forgive some damn debt! To do so would cost taxpayers nothing and can be done overnight. Why does know one talk about proven methods that actually WORK!?!?!?

Luigi Zingales, economist:
"Since we do not have time for a Chapter 11 and we do not want to bail out all the
creditors, the lesser evil is to do what judges do in contentious and overextended
bankruptcy processes: to cram down a restructuring plan on creditors, where part of the
debt is forgiven in exchange for some equity or some warrants. And there is a precedent
for such a bold move. During the Great Depression, many debt contracts were indexed to
gold. So when the dollar convertibility into gold was suspended, the value of that debt
soared, threatening the survival of many institutions. The Roosevelt Administration
declared the clause invalid, de facto forcing debt forgiveness. Furthermore, the Supreme
Court maintained this decision. My colleague and current Fed Governor Randall Koszner
studied this episode and showed that not only stock prices, but bond prices as well,
soared after the Supreme Court upheld the decision. How is that possible? As corporate
finance experts have been saying for the last thirty years, there are real costs from having
too much debt and too little equity in the capital structure, and a reduction in the face
value of debt can benefit not only the equityholders, but also the debtholders.....Do we want to live in a system where profits are private, but losses are
socialized? Where taxpayer money is used to prop up failed firms? Or do we want to live
in a system where people are held responsible for their decisions, where imprudent
behavior is penalized and prudent behavior rewarded? For somebody like me who
believes strongly in the free market system, the most serious risk of the current situation
is that the interest of few financiers will undermine the fundamental workings of the
capitalist system. The time has come to save capitalism from the capitalists."

http://faculty.chicagogsb.edu/luigi.zingales/Why_Paulson_is_wrong.pdf

Indeed.

Paulson shoud consider buying $700 B in Obama Intrade contracts. At least we'd get some return on our investment!

Is this bailout-killing the only thing Newt has up his sleeve or is he up to something larger and more artful?

Did anyone happen to notice Palin's new gaffe during yesterday's McCain/Palin tandem interview with Couric? In describing the person in Philly who questioned her about Pakistan, Palin referred to him as a voter and a "constituent". Am I crazy? I thought she was governor of Alaska, not Pennsylvania.

It goes without saying that I am a partisan democrat, so I am hardly the world's foremost expert on how a swing voter will respond to an ad, but I would not be at all surprised if that RNC spot up top does not backfire badly. It never mentions a specific new tax or a specific new debt or a specific new expense (and incidentally, since when are voters against spending?). Given that there are no numbers, they are expecting voters to react badly against "taxes" or "spending" in the abstract, and I am not sure that an abstraction will seem nearly as scary to them as the very real meltdown that is occuring (in real time) on the Republicans' watch and at the Republicans' instigation. If anything, this ad could simply serve to make folks more nervous about the economy (the which always makes them more inclined to swing democratic) without actually doing anything to undercut the democrats perceived superiority on economic issues.

I kinda hope that the RNC is pouring a lot of money into this particular ad, because it looks like a very helpful assist to our forwards slamming the puck into the GOP's own net.

Look at the buy and sell prices on Intrade. Obama's are very close to the mark.

But the "buy" for mcShame is "lower" than the current number... and of course the "sell" even lower than that.

I'm not a gambler in the slightest. But it seems to me something is propping up mcShame's current number... if you can buy for less than that. So something must be pulling down.... while being propped up... just like his candidacy.