livestock, lipstick, and liquidity: politics thread

by **jerseyhoya** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 12:14:21

dajafi wrote:edit: You can't say Paulson doesn't have a sense of humor either. From today's NYT story, arguing against restrictions in the bill on executive compensation:

But Mr. Paulson said that he was concerned that imposing limits on the compensation of executives could discourage companies from participating in the program.

If something passes that doesn't limit executive compensation, I would be shocked considering who is in control of Congress plus the fact that elections are 6 weeks away are weighing on everyone's minds. We also might as well not hold elections if that does happen cause we'll be rightly killed for it.

by **TenuredVulture** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 12:19:11

jeff2sf wrote:
TenuredVulture wrote:Another thing to keep in mind--lots (though by no means all) of these wall street types are pretty close to evil. They most certainly cannot be trusted to do what is best.

That's definitely an over-generalization. I wouldn't let them run the show, but I also think that Paulson is seeing beyond simply dollars and cents (God knows he has plenty).

Well, I said lots, perhaps I should have said some. For now, I consider Paulson one of the good guys.

by **Philly the Kid** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 13:05:21

The real McCain

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEtZlR3zp4c][/youtube]

by **dajafi** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 13:17:02

McCain says: golden parachutes for she, but not for thee...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrGyODKMtB4[/youtube]

In a larger sense, I think it's telling that McCain has left his all-time best piece of bipartisan reformer cred--campaign finance reform--way in the back of the closet. Much of the story of this economic crisis is tied up in CFR: the way contributions greased the bipartisan deregulation craze through the late '90s and into this decade, the fact that politicians still craving the sweet sweet green might let these guys off the hook again to keep it coming.

I guess he's still afraid of upsetting his new friends on the right.

by **dajafi** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 13:30:20

Probably no chance this breaks through the noise, but Obama has a new government ethics and transparency proposal out today:

-- create a new agency to identify and track corporate welfare recipients, he'll give the Office of Government Ethics officers (4,000) in total more authority and the agency the ability to make binding regulations. Note: the OGE will become the clearinghouse for all public records about ethics in the executive branch.
-- eliminate "ideological performance goals
--work to increase the president's authority to change or eliminate programs entirely; he "will also experiment with giving government managers the ability to work with their teams to establish goals and to give bonuses when those goals are met."
-- reduce layers middle management in Washington
-- strengthen whistleblower protection laws
-- cut federal spending on contractors by 10 percent, which would say, in his view, $40 billion.
-- end the use of no-bid contracts and forbid the granting of federal contracts for tax delinquent companies

It would be nice to see the two candidates try to one-up each other on this sort of thing, rather than the usual campaign-trail vacuousness.

by **TheDude24** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 13:44:26

McCain/Palin are politicking in my town today. There will be mass throngs of GOPs smack in the middle of my usual walking route home from work. Speech time is rush hour, so I hear. They're selling tickets, so the whole area will probably be gated off, with any protesters just outside the gates. They must prefer to preach to the choir, since tickets are only available at the local GOP offices.

by **Philly the Kid** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 14:11:39

dajafi wrote:McCain says: golden parachutes for she, but not for thee...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrGyODKMtB4[/youtube]

In a larger sense, I think it's telling that McCain has left his all-time best piece of bipartisan reformer cred--campaign finance reform--way in the back of the closet. Much of the story of this economic crisis is tied up in CFR: the way contributions greased the bipartisan deregulation craze through the late '90s and into this decade, the fact that politicians still craving the sweet sweet green might let these guys off the hook again to keep it coming.

I guess he's still afraid of upsetting his new friends on the right.

He flat out didn't answer the question. She exposed him, and he just hid-out in the decorum.

by **jerseyhoya** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 14:43:53

Oil up $25 a barrel. Um, that sounds bad.

by **Woody** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 14:49:15

jerseyhoya wrote:Oil up $25 a barrel. Um, that sounds bad.

ptk's mom's reply had far-reaching effects, i see

by **The Red Tornado** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 14:50:34

jerseyhoya wrote:Oil up $25 a barrel. Um, that sounds bad.

stupid speculators think they can hedge against inflation or impending recessions by buying oil when all theyre doing is making it worse

by **Woody** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 14:52:14

bad news sounds so much better when a dancing panda delivers it!

by **jerseyhoya** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 14:54:01

Yeah, as far as accompanying sights go, the panda >>>>> Drudge siren

by **TenuredVulture** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 14:54:05

Woody wrote:
jerseyhoya wrote:Oil up $25 a barrel. Um, that sounds bad.

ptk's mom's reply had far-reaching effects, i see

I just saw that too. Maybe we don't have to worry about deflation.

Anyone explain the spike? Can't be just dollar weakness, because gold wasn't up nearly as much.

by **TenuredVulture** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 14:56:23

Oh, and we might be having some trouble with our erstwhile Pakistani allies.

by **TenuredVulture** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 15:38:42

538 has some interesting stuff on "the ground game". It seems to me that knocking on doors has made a big comeback in recent years, and the ground war is now more important than the air war.

by **jeff2sf** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 15:39:19

Let's talk Andrew Sullivan. Is this guy the most annoying blogger who tends to have reasonable views you've ever read? How the hell did he get so shrill? He's unreadable at this point. Everything is the biggest crisis to ever come down the pike. I'm pretty sure we were all supposed to die of Bird Flu last year. This year the stock market's going down to 8000 and we're living in a dictatorship.

by **Woody** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 15:44:15

jeff2sf wrote:Let's talk Andrew Sullivan. Is this guy the most annoying blogger who tends to have reasonable views you've ever read? How the hell did he get so shrill? He's unreadable at this point. Everything is the biggest crisis to ever come down the pike. I'm pretty sure we were all supposed to die of Bird Flu last year. This year the stock market's going down to 8000 and we're living in a dictatorship.

Extreme opinions and outlandishness are far better for the blog business; apparently he's figured that out. I'm not familiar with his blog (other than the google search I just did now), but he probably gets his stuff linked all over the place, and people like you talking about it, by doing it this way.

by **TenuredVulture** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 15:44:35

jeff2sf wrote:Let's talk Andrew Sullivan. Is this guy the most annoying blogger who tends to have reasonable views you've ever read? How the hell did he get so shrill? He's unreadable at this point. Everything is the biggest crisis to ever come down the pike. I'm pretty sure we were all supposed to die of Bird Flu last year. This year the stock market's going down to 8000 and we're living in a dictatorship.

I started reading Andrew Sullivan because a friend of mine was alluded to in his blog as a "very liberal professor". I stopped reading him when he became irrelevant.

by **dajafi** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 17:08:43

Interesting Politico article on the McCain campaign's apparently clumsy effort to "work the refs" on a conference call today:

Sen. John McCain’s top campaign aides convened a conference call today to complain of being called “liars.” They pressed the media to scrutinize specific elements of Sen. Barack Obama’s record.

But the call was so rife with simple, often inexplicable misstatements of fact that it may have had the opposite effect: to deepen the perception, dangerous to McCain, that he and his aides have little regard for factual accuracy.

The errors in McCain strategist Steve Schmidt’s charges against Obama and Sen. Joe Biden were particularly notable because they seemed unnecessary. Schmidt repeatedly gilded the lily: He exaggerated the Biden family's already problematic ties to the credit card industry; Obama’s embarrassing relationship with a 1960s radical; and an Obama supporter’s over-the-top attack on Sarah Palin when — in each case — the truth would have been damaging enough.

I'm not interested--in fact I'm violently uninterested--in the endlessly vapid debate over media bias. But I'm almost at the point of wondering whether the McCain camp's battles with "the press" are intentional.

Nobody trusts the media (as is clearly seen by the fact that we all think they're biased), and through at least early summer, the perception was that the press, or at least many of its leading lights, simply adored John McCain. I think that making an enemy of the media probably bonds the Republican base to McCain--along with Palin and all the criticism on that front--more effectively than most anything else they could have done (e.g. Hagee, Parsley).

by **mpmcgraw** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 18:39:11

TenuredVulture wrote:538 has some interesting stuff on "the ground game". It seems to me that knocking on doors has made a big comeback in recent years, and the ground war is now more important than the air war.

what

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livestock, lipstick, and liquidity: politics thread