It just seems to me that McCain had a problem with vanity — he didn’t want to look too bad of a guy — and you had the race card issue which was so effectively played by Obama and those who wanted him selected. The truth squads I’m sure also had something to do with this because of the legal threats networks faced with some antiObama ads.

But the Republicans could have made this fact known when the bailout talks started. I believe they didn’t because mostly the Republicans did not want to win. For one, I heard repeatedly from everyday Joe Republicans that they wanted to see the Dems take the blame for this financial crisis so they could regain Congress in 2010, and for two you didn’t have any real investigative reporting being done by Fox News and all probably for the same reason among others.

I really feel that the only way our country will be able to effectively criticize Obama is if AAs like yourself do so publicly. The stranglehold of threats of being called racist is just too overwhelming for many of these racist news reporters.

It’s funny as a Liberal, I never really cared that much about race, although I’ve been more than aware of racial issues and discrimination; I just always tried to treat everyone fairly and with compassion since I come from a multi-cultural family. I really thought we could get post racial in how we deal with things, but this election really opened my eyes. I was so hopeful in the beginning that Obama could take us to a higher place as far as race relations were concerned. Little did I realize that he just intended to use it as a wedge to further divide Americans and get himself elected.

I really hope that we can get beyond this and live up to MLK’s dream wherein people are judged by their character and not otherwise.

Well, thanks for listening

Saying “no” might just be what our govt leaders need, they act like spoiled children. And I’m sick of seeing Obama’s pouty face as it is.

FDR ran as a candidate of the progressive party at one point. What did he do after elected? keeping the same insanely wealthy people wealthy. What did JFK do after his elected? Not a thing for the Native American and minorities other than lip service.

Everyone have to take care of themselves. Don’t rely on those crooked politicians.

I being milking debt on credit card companies for years. I took their offer of 0% for 12-24 months, and but the money in a money market account to earn interest. I pay them off before the end of the promotion. When they try to jack up my interest, I’ll just call and tell them I’ll send them a check for the whole amount, that turn them around most of the time.

Like I said, you can take advantage of the credit card companies as much as they can do to you. The thing is that you need have your finance in order to do it.

What I have a problem with is the fact that politician had use the system in place to further their career and benefit their friends in corporations. They can’t be trusted. They had use class warfare to get elected, and once elected will give crumbs to those supporters and take car of the rich(since that’s where all the money is).

You and I both knew that no matter the tax rate, the rich will find way to shelter their money and middle class will be screw. All I had hear so far is politician running their mouth without a solution. Why can they increase tax on people who make over a million a year as a family (anything less would not be rich)? Why can’t they get people to work instead of keeping them down by the use of Affirmative Action? Why can leadership in the minorities help people instead of use people? Why can’t the politician let big corporations fail just like every day people? If you are talking personal responsibility, level the playing field for all.

I don’t care if they are DEM or REP, they are only using ideology for their own political gain, nothing more, nothing less.

I had supported the Clintons, because they know how to balance between the rich and the poor. They had raise tax to balance the budget, that’s something I can support. The problem was the politician. The ignored the balance budget amendment. They can do what ever they want because most American lack critical thinking capacity, which clearly demonstrated in this election.

To tax people and give to those who don’t pay taxes, sorry can’t do. I came from China in their socialist days, and it wasn’t pretty. People live on ration of 30 lb grain, 6 oz of oil, 2 lb of meat and 6 oz of fish each month. You can’t buy more even if you have money, because of shortage of goods(the discouragement of productivity). So, socialism is not the way to go. The top 10% already pays 70% of total tax in this country, and 80% of those top 10% are just upper middle class people like us. You need to define a acceptable threshold for rich, and the politician aren’t about to do it, ask Obama if you don’t believe me.

The all talk and no action liberal are just as bad as the right wing nuts (I am sure that you can tell I am independent by now). Middle class had let the rich and politician use them by participated. They live on credit, don’t save and live from pay check to pay check. How can you demand for anything when the credit card company owned you? Year after year they go to the voting booth and casted their vote, hoping the next politician will be the ONE, can you say Obama supporters? Until people become responsible adults, things aren’t going to change! I hope for more social justice, but it won’t happen until we pay off our debt(national and personal).

Also, I was in the Navy and worked for the Government. Trust me when I say that wasteful spending is everywhere. I am sure that they can cut spending by 20-30% easily if they want to. But they won’t, since they want to maintain their influence in their positions.

You can restating the fact of what a loser Bush is (an undisputed fact), and how bad Regan messed up ( I am in full agreement here. He ran inflation up the roof and drove interest rate up the roof with huge debt, and killed the economy on his spending, no his tax cut policy). It won’t change one bit with Obama.

Bottom line, don’t hold your breath if you are waiting for politicians to do the right thing. If you don’t take care of yourself, no one will.

And, just because you are in a position of authority doesn’t mean that you are the smartest, or have other’s best interests at heart. I feel that Obama doesn’t match other parameter here. This certainly was reflected in how he treated his own constituents and the failure of his privatization of public housing scheme.

I think this election has made us either all grow up more, or become wiser. Great points.

How do YOU know that? The FEC wasn’t even able to look into where over $250 m came from.

That is why we got this milquetoast POS as president! If he’s gonna act this way toward executives who have demonstrated (AIG’s retreat, anyone) that they are not concerned about saving their companies but just saving their bloody hand-outs, imagine how he’s gonna fare with Russia and Iran. They are gonna eat this pissant for dinner and use his bony ass to floss their teeth.

God the only hope we have at this point is that he never is able to assume the presidency.

Barry Ritholtz sez,

In doing the research for the “Bailout Nation” book, I needed a way to put the dollar amounts into proper historical perspective.

If we add in the Citi bailout, the total cost now exceeds $4.6165 trillion dollars.

People have a hard time conceptualizing very large numbers, so let’s give this some context. The current Credit Crisis bailout is now the largest outlay In American history.

Crunching the inflation adjusted numbers, we find the bailout has cost more than all of these big budget government expenditures – combined:

• Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion
• Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion
• Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion
• S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion
• Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion
• The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion (Est)
• Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion
• Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion
• NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion

TOTAL: $3.92 trillion

if taxes go up you can though Bush for the huge deficit he ran up and the huge deficit he is about to run up because of this economic tsunami.

Lets cut spending and lets start with these wars and the military.

I was talking about the cash going directly to the financial institutions. Read what I wrote. The government is taking equity stakes in AIG and many banks.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122156561931242905.html

http://seekingalpha.com/article/103858-increased-government-investment-in-banks

Your point is a different point.

However, the government is still making an investment in buying the bad debt at a discount. There is still a chance that if they buy the debt at a deep enough discount and things were to improve in the future, they could make money. It depends on what they pay for the debt? That is the debate.

No doubt it is likely that the bailout is going to cost the government and tax payers a lot of money, but in some of their investments they will likely make money. My point is that you just can’t look at the costs as a 100% loss to tax payers, which Larry’s article seems to imply.

Read this article by one of the most highly respected money managers on the planet.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/23/AR2008092302322.html

the sum of the parts has tended to equal more than the whole… that is why society and humans have succeeded.

Anarchy or a society solely run by corporations as your argument seems to imply will benefit some, but not the many…

The middle class is the largest slice of income earners and the most heavily taxed. Our total tax burdon can not get any higher. Add up all the federal. state, and local tax fees we pay and then look at our meager expendable (after tax after expense) income, most of which we get tax on via sales tax etc.. We also have a negative savings rate.

Put that new $7.7 trillion dollar debt this bailout is going to cost aside and look at the $10.7 trillion dollar debt we already have. What is that something like 74% of the that %14.4 trillion dollar GDP Larry mentioned?

About $4.7 trillion of that was added by Reagan with trickle down part I. Sraight number right from the CBO. The promised revenue growth fell short of what Reagan budget team promised and we had 3 presidential terms of consecutive budget deficits as a result. It became the “starve the beast” policy. Rack up the debt to squeeze very last cent out of social spending. Reagan got around 85% of the budget cuts he wanted so at best he still would have added $3 trillion even if he had gotten all the cuts.

Clinton and the last sane congress we’ve had repealed Reagan’s cuts on the top 2% income earner and had Pay AS You Go, and the Balanced Budget ammendment. The ND was $5.5 trillion when he took office with a defict economy. It took about a term to reverse the bleeding and by the end of his second term he left office with two consectuvibe nudget surpluses and onl added around a billion to the national debt.

Dubya’s trickle down II have added to date around $5.1 trillion more to the debt.

Consumer spending accounts for some like 2/3 of the economy and consumers are defined as the middle class. It is our labor, our taxes, and our spending that generates the wealth for those above us on the food chain and the son of bitches are bleeding us dry.

We need a progressive tax policy. We need an economic Marshal plan and since you can’t get blood from rock, the very wealthy in this country need to pay more.

The middle class is the largest slice of income earners and the most heavily taxed. Our total tax burdon can not get any higher. Add up all the federal. state, and local tax fees we pay and then look at our meager expendable (after tax after expense) income, most of which we get tax on via sales tax etc.. We also have a negative savings rate.

Put that new $7.7 trillion dollar debt this bailout is going to cost aside and look at the $10.7 trillion dollar debt we already have. What is that something like 74% of the that %14.4 trillion dollar GDP Larry mentioned?

About $4.7 trillion of that was added by Reagan with trickle down part I. Sraight number right from the CBO. The promised revenue growth fell short of what Reagan budget team promised and we had 3 presidential terms of consecutive budget deficits as a result. It became the “starve the beast” policy. Rack up the debt to squeeze very last cent out of social spending. Reagan got around 85% of the budget cuts he wanted so at best he still would have added $3 trillion even if he had gotten all the cuts.

Clinton and the last sane congress we’ve had repealed Reagan’s cuts on the top 2% income earner and had Pay AS You Go, and the Balanced Budget ammendment. The ND was $5.5 trillion when he took office with a defict economy. It took about a term to reverse the bleeding and by the end of his second term he left office with two consectuvibe nudget surpluses and onl added around a billion to the national debt.

Dubya’s trickle down II have added to date around $5.1 trillion more to the debt.

Consumer spending accounts for some like 2/3 of the economy and consumers are defined as the middle class. It is our labor, our taxes, and our spending that generates the wealth for those above us on the food chain and the son of bitches are bleeding us dry.

We need a progressive tax policy. We need an economic Marshal plan and since you get blood from rock, the very wealthy in this country need to pay more.