September 2008
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“In this election cycle, the 140 House Democrats who voted for the bailout bill...”
– Among Bailout Supporters, Wall St. Donations Ran High
(FIRE = finance, insurance and real estate)
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“Right now, Mr. Bloomberg is barred by law from seeking re-election. But he will...”
– Bloomberg Called Ready to Announce Third-Term Bid Wow.
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Re-election chances heavily correlated with vote...
fivethirtyeight:
Among 38 incumbent congressmen in races rated as “toss-up” or “lean” by Swing State Project, just 8 voted for the bailout as opposed to 30 against…
By comparison, the vote among congressmen who don’t have as much to worry about was essentially even: 197 for, 198 against.
…Matt Glassman passed along the fact that, among 26 congressmen...
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“If we don’t pass it, we shouldn’t be a Congress.”
– Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, the senior Republican on the Budget Committee and the lead Senate Republican negotiator of the bill, Bailout Plan in Hand, House Braces for Tough Vote
Did I get this right?
wiesen:
Step 1: Bad shit happens.
Step 2: Treasury, White House, Fed and Congress start working on (and get close to) a plan.
Step 3: John McCain “suspends his campaign” and descends on Washington.
Step 4: Plan falls apart.
Step 5: McCain claims credit for bringing a coalition together to support the plan.
Step 6: Plan is defeated in the house by McCain’s party.
LEADERSHIP
This looks...
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Today was the 17th biggest percentage drop in the... →
For comparison purposes, to set the new record in percentage drop the Dow would have had to drop 2,718 today. That’s a big number.
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“I assume Pelosi calls a new vote; but if it fails, then what? I guess write a...”
– Paul Krugman
House to Wall Street: Drop dead →
Great reference.
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Final Vote Results for Roll Call 674 →
This might be working only intermittently.
The House of Representatives website is down.
Submit your most clever rule for the Presidential... →
zachklein:
Best rules will be pooled and published before the debate starts at 9pm ET.
(If you want to watch the rules come in, you can see the raw spreadsheet here)
If either candidate suspends the debate, finish your beer.
I really wish there was “American/English names” option in Google Maps.
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“the banking system is now converging towards a more heavily regulated “utilities...”
– Mohamed El-Erian, Co-CEO Pimco
FT.com / Home UK / UK - Financial system learns to adapt to cruel necessity
(via fred-wilson) (via mikehudack)
This actually sounds like a good thing to me. Utilities generally suck because they have such little incentive to spend. The cable companies didn’t...
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“In the largest bank failure in U.S. history, Washington Mutual Inc. succumbed...”
– John Letzing, MarketWatch
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Dodd says White House meeting was a disaster
Marketwatch:
Sen. Chris Dodd, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, said Thursday that bipartisan meeting with President Bush at the White House on the mortgage rescue plan was nothing short of a disaster. In an interview on the CNN cable news network, Dodd described a meeting in which Democrats were blindsided by a new core mortgage proposal from House Republicans, with the tacit...
WatchPalin Talks Russia With Katie Couric
Palin: our next door neighbors are foreign countries. They’re in the state that I am the executive of.
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“The Federal Reserve chairman and senior economic officials of the Bush...”
– Ron Suskind, The Crisis Last Time. How quickly we forget.
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A Systemic Solution to a Systemic Crisis: Do It... →
Summaries of seven experts’ proposals at RGE.
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“If I didn’t think the government was going to act, I would not be doing...”
– Warren Buffett: CNBC INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT & VIDEO: Warren Buffett Explains His $5B Goldman Investment
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McCain Campaign hires ghostwriters to send fake... →
(via cbeth)
I hope soon “Rovian” (and later “rovian”) becomes a common English word which means, roughly,
1) a plan in which truth is unimportant and often intentionally obscured in order to influence public opinion through the use of psychological warfare; or
2) a person engaged in such a plan
This is similar to, but distinct from, conspiracy because it may not be...
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“Writing about anything other than the bailout seems a bit ‘Otherwise, Mrs....”
– Erin Griffith
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Dan Primack:
This Friday’s presidential debate is about foreign policy, but it is almost certain that economic policy will also be discussed. Were I moderator Jim Lehrer, I’d ask the following question first: Who would be three of your top three choices for Treasury Secretary, and why?
Hank Paulson fought hard for his plan yesterday, and passage of anything similar would easily make...
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Why Paulson is Wrong
Luigi Zingales:
The major players in the financial sector do not like it. It is much more appealing for the financial industry to be bailed out at taxpayers’ expense than to bear their share of pain. Forcing a debt-for-equity swap or a debt forgiveness would be no greater a violation of private property rights than a massive bailout, but it faces much stronger political opposition. The appeal of...
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“In any case, the response to all of those problems finally caused Ben Bernanke...”
– Bill Fleckenstein: Whatever we do, it will be wrong
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“Debbie and I held his hand while we watched the game, and he was heartbroken. ...”
– Jan Wild, Roger Clemens’ mother-in-law, quoted in the NY Post. He was watching the game on a battery operated TV in Houston. The Yankees didn’t mention Joe Torre either.
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Bloomberg Orders $1.5 Billion in Cuts →
As expected, NYC is cutting services ($500 million this year and $1 billion next). Except for five agencies, it’s an across-the-board 2.5% cut starting now and a 5.0% cut for the next fiscal year, starting July. For example, that’s a $94.7 million cut in police funding and a $185.4 million cut for the Dept. of Education this year. This is in addition to the potential 7% increase in...
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The Wrong Emergency
Roger Lowenstein:
In 1932, at the height of the Great Depression, the government created the Reconstruction Finance Corp. to make loans to banks, railroads and others. President Hoover asked for $2 billion—equivalent in today’s money to $30 billion—and spent just under that amount in the RFC’s first year. The country then was in the midst of an economic catastrophe....
WatchIt’s Raining McCain
If you’re so happy about it, what’s with the umbrellas?
Looks like the mother of all short squeezes is over.
“Where once more-marginal applicants would simply have been denied credit,...”
– Alan Greenspan, April 2005, quote in “Greenspan’s sins return to haunt us”
I think Greenspan is the most overrated figure in American history.
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“Mr. Paulson said that he was concerned that imposing limits on the compensation...”
– Democrats Begin to Set Own Bailout Terms
Seriously?
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A Hail Mary Pass, but No Receiver in the End Zone →
An excellent overview of what the Treasury Department and others did this week including allowing Lehman to fail, saving AIG, banning short sales, insuring money market funds and planning for a new RTC… and what questions remain.
It is a weird tribute to the scale of this crisis that Mr. Paulson felt he had no choice but to rush this proposal out, because as the day progressed it became...
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Did you know that China has over $900 billion of... →
(via azspot)
Very interesting, well written. The balance of power has already shifted.
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Amy Silverman: As a working mom with a child with... →
Palin is shamelessly using her personal life to sell her candidacy in a way that’s reminiscent of just one other politician I can think of — and that’s John McCain. But at least in McCain’s case, he’s his own pawn, vis-à-vis his POW story. Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper, and Trig are their mother’s pawns.
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“Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition,...”
– John McCain expresses a desire to apply the same brilliant regulatory strategies to the American health care system that’s been used on the American banking system in recent years. (via cajunboy)
I only wish there was video…
The differences in the Bush, McCain and Obama...
All three spoke on 9/19/08 about the economic crisis.
The Bush speech:
The McCain speech:
The Obama speech:
It’s worth reading the speeches. There’s more in common between the Bush and Obama speeches than the Bush and McCain speeches, despite how it appears above. The word “confidence” is key in the Bush speech and Obama makes a similar point. The McCain...
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“While we still regard short-selling as a legitimate investment technique in...”
– Hector Sants, chief executive of Britain’s Financial Services Authority - Britain bans short-selling of financial stocks
Yeah, this will help.
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“Wall Street is essential to the regional economy. It accounts for almost a...”
– A Regional Crisis
Prepare for higher property taxes and/or cuts in services across the country but especially near NYC. Also, higher tolls in NJ.
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“Three-month Libor in U.S. dollars jumped 19 basis points to 3.0625% - the...”
– Libor jump, TED spread show extent of credit crisis - MarketWatch
In other news, 3-month T-bills are yielding 0.07%, the lowest ever. Who has a carry trade?
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“Gold prices exploded Wednesday—posting the biggest one-day gain ever in dollar...”
– Gold prices post biggest 1-day gain ever (via mikehudack)
Finally. I wouldn’t be surprised by $2,000 an ounce a couple years from now. 