While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75 year old rancher, who's hand was caught in the gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to Palin and her bid.

The old rancher said, "Well, ya know, Palin is a 'Post Turtle'."

Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a 'Post Turtle' was.

The old rancher said, "When you're driving down a country road you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a 'Post Turtle'."

The old rancher saw the puzzled look on the doctor's face so he continued to explain. "You know she didn't get up there by herself, she don't belong up there, and she don't know what to do while she's up there, and you just wonder what kind of dummy put her up there to begin with

I don't agree with it. He makes some good points, but it's too
libertarian an approach for my tastes. I'm more in the corner of Friedman and Krugman, which is basically the ideology of "throw money at it, and fast, while money is still worth something".

Bankruptcy in banking and brokerage is not the same as bankruptcy of an airline. People who're flying on the airline do not care if the airline is bankrupt. They trust that the government sets certain safety standards (hey, regulation!) regardless of the airline's profitability, and just care about getting from A to B. Brokerages don't work that way. They have most of the money in a given system, so no government can effectively guarantee the money they hold. And if there's a shakeup of confidence, it's not just that the owners have changed and everything is hunky-dory; it means that not only will the people (and companies) will withdraw their money to maintain avenues to liquidity, but lending between institutions, which happens in staggering amounts every day and is necessary for our economy to operate, will become increasingly expensive for the institution in trouble, which will make it collapse.

Not go bankrupt on paper, but collapse, meaning fail to operate. It's
natural selection; if you show weakness, perceived or real, the system will devour you. And as we're seeing every day, the economic setup is very domino-like. If I go down, I take down the entity that I most closely am associated with economically. Now, to a libertarian (read: anarchist, kinda), this might not be a huge problem, but I like my civilization the way it is. I can't go through a huge death and rebirth overhaul and possible industrial revolution at this age. Give'em the damn money.

After months of speculation about his political future, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg plans to announce on Thursday morning that he will seek a third term as mayor, according to three people who have been told of his plans.

The extraordinary move promises to upend New York City’s political world.

Right now, Mr. Bloomberg is barred by law from seeking re-election. But he will propose trying to revise the city’s 15-year-old term limits law, which would otherwise force him and dozens of other elected leaders out of office in 2009, the three people said.

In his announcement, Mr. Bloomberg, a former Wall Street trader and founder of a billion-dollar financial data firm, is expected to argue that the financial crisis unfolding in New York City demands his steady hand and proven business acumen.

The move represents an about-face for Mr. Bloomberg, who has repeatedly said he supports term limits and once called an effort to revise the law “disgusting.” He will apparently try to do so through legislation in the City Council, rather than the ballot box.
...
With his decision, Mr. Bloomberg is overruling the advice of this top three aides at City Hall — Edward Skyler, Patricia E. Harris and Kevin Sheekey — who have all told associates that they oppose a third term.

Those aides have told the mayor — at times forcefully — that any campaign to challenge the term limits law would look like an end run around voters, and could sully his strong legacy over the last eight years, according to people familiar with the conversations.

In the business community, however, the prospect of a Bloomberg third term is overwhelmingly positive. In dozens of private meetings and telephone calls over the last few months, executives ranging from the financier Steven Rattner to the chief executive of the News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch, have encouraged him to seek a third term.

NEW YORK (AP) — Bank-to-bank lending rates jumped Tuesday and Treasury bill demand eased only slightly, a day after Congress' rejection of the bank bailout plan cast an even deeper freeze over the barely operational credit markets.

After the House's vote against the Bush administration's plan, investors pulled their money out of stocks and commodities Monday, sending the Dow plummeting 778 points and crude down more than $10 a barrel. That money got shoveled into Treasury bills, short-term debt issued by the U.S. government that's considered the safest investment around.

On Tuesday, the yield on the 3-month T-bill recovered to 0.90 percent from 0.14 percent late Monday as the Dow Jones industrial average rebounded by more than 260 points in midday trading.

The T-bill yield is still very low by historical measures, however — particularly when compared to lending rates between financial institutions.

Banks were in miser mode after the House's rejection of the rescue package. The key bank-to-bank lending rate, the London Interbank Offered Rate, or LIBOR, soared to 4.05 percent from 3.88 percent for 3-month dollar loans, and to 6.88 percent for overnight dollar loans — the highest level since tracking began in 2001.

That's especially worrisome because normally, LIBOR is just slightly above the Federal Reserve's target fed funds rates, an interbank lending rate. Now, it is more than 4 percentage points above the target rate of 2 percent. That has troubling implications for other lending rates tied to LIBOR, including homeowners' adjustable rate mortgages.

Financial contracts tied to Libor amount to more than $300 trillion — or $45,000 for every person in the world.

Central banks around the world have been ramping up their lending in an effort to keep the markets functional. On Monday, the Federal Reserve said it was doubling the total amount of cash loans to banks to $300 billion, and making $620 billion available to other central banks through currency swap arrangements, up from $290 billion.

Those efforts, however, have done little to encourage lending.

"There's so much liquidity in the system — unfortunately, the liquidity is not opening up lenders at all," said Kim Rupert, managing director of global fixed income analysis at Action Economics. "It's the epitome of credit turmoil. There's too much fear in the market. Everybody is hoarding their cash, hoarding their reserves, not trading funds with each other."

For big companies to operate and grow, they need to borrow money. Typically, they do this by selling short-term and long-term bonds in the credit markets. Right now, the short-term debt markets are at a standstill; the long-term debt markets are a bit more functional, but rates are very high.

pacino wrote:

Something the left has to be careful of is that they don't go too far picking on Palin, or there may be an unintended effect of people thinking she's getting picked on or being treated unfairly (possibly to the extent of some perceived misogyny). This is sort of what happened with HRC, and she used that to her advantage and went populist... thus her surprising "comeback" at the tail of the primaries where she finished much stronger than Obama but fell short. The left has to be careful not to come off as major sphincters in the eyes of the middle.

I never understood this...'the left' is majority female. Can they be self-hating or something?

FTN wrote:

AP article

Link

VoxOrion wrote:I don't know if any of you can answer this "opinion" question or not.

I've run across more than a few "revolutionary" lefty types in school and "around" - and when I read proclamations that the Western World will be significantly less wealthy because of all of this mess... wouldn't that appeal to that ideological segment? If asked, I would say that "leveling the field" is all well and good but I believe that wealth in the West creates wealth for the "rest" (ha ha) - but I don't expect the RATM lefty types to agree with this - or am I wrong?

VoxOrion wrote:I don't know if any of you can answer this "opinion" question or not.

I've run across more than a few "revolutionary" lefty types in school and "around" - and when I read proclamations that the Western World will be significantly less wealthy because of all of this mess... wouldn't that appeal to that ideological segment? If asked, I would say that "leveling the field" is all well and good but I believe that wealth in the West creates wealth for the "rest" (ha ha) - but I don't expect the RATM lefty types to agree with this - or am I wrong?

dajafi wrote:

...It's natural selection; if you show weakness, perceived or real, the system will devour you. And as we're seeing every day, the economic setup is very domino-like. If I go down, I take down the entity that I most closely am associated with economically. Now, to a libertarian (read: anarchist, kinda), this might not be a huge problem, but I like my civilization the way it is. I can't go through a huge death and rebirth overhaul and possible industrial revolution at this age. Give'em the damn money.

The Dude wrote:Maybe read the guys he's mentioning?