The Real Face of Socialism

The real 'socialists' here.

The George W. Bush administration handed 125 billion dollars to nine of Wall Street's richest banks, but this will do little to help the economy that is crumbling around ordinary U.S. citizens, independent experts and activists say.

"There is no way a modern economy can function without good roads, telecommunication, rail transport and an educated labour force," Allan Mendelowitz, a member and former chairman of the Federal Housing Finance Board, told IPS.

Bush's new Office of Financial Stability, led by Neel Kashkari, sealed a deal Tuesday to provide the billions, plus 125 billion dollars more for small banks, to encourage them to start lending to each other and the world's biggest businesses again.

A freeze in lending, related to the banks' risky trading ventures, has slowed the global economy, rocked stock markets around the world, and tightened lending throughout the U.S. economy.

"We're not proud of all the mistakes that were made by many different people, different parties, failures of our regulatory system, failures of market discipline that got us here," said Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Thursday in an interview on Fox Business Network.

Freddie Mac Pays Republicans to Scuttle Bill

This story has more legs that I can count.

Freddie Mac secretly paid a Republican consulting firm $2 million to kill legislation that would have regulated and trimmed the mortgage finance giant and its sister company, Fannie Mae, three years before the government took control to prevent their collapse.

In the cross hairs of the campaign carried out by DCI of Washington were Republican senators and a regulatory overhaul bill sponsored by Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. DCI's chief executive is Doug Goodyear, whom John McCain's campaign later hired to manage the GOP convention in September.

Freddie Mac's payments to DCI began shortly after the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee sent Hagel's bill to the then GOP-run Senate on July 28, 2005. All GOP members of the committee supported it; all Democrats opposed it.

In the midst of DCI's yearlong effort, Hagel and 25 other Republican senators pleaded unsuccessfully with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., to allow a vote.

"If effective regulatory reform legislation ... is not enacted this year, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system and the economy as a whole," the senators wrote in a letter that proved prescient.

Unknown to the senators, DCI was undermining support for the bill in a campaign targeting 17 Republican senators in 13 states, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. The states and the senators targeted changed over time, but always stayed on the Republican side.

The Ever Increasing Grocery Bill

I was just talking with a co-worker about this yesterday.

Worries over a global recession have pushed the price of oil to its lowest in over a year. Don't expect the same for a bottle of beer, a tube of toothpaste, or a box of cereal.

You can blame "sticky" prices.


That's what analysts call it when companies slap higher prices on products and keep them there even though the rationale for the price hikes -- such as soaring oil prices -- is gone.

The falling cost of oil could help companies pad their profit margins as they pay less to make and transport goods. But it won't mean a break on the average grocery bill.

The price of consumer goods typically lags behind the price of key inputs like oil and wheat, said Chris Lafakis, an economist with Moody's economy.com.

"Consumer prices don't change near as fast, because they are set by companies," Lafakis said. "Commodity prices are set every day on an open market."

The Debate Last Night

An example of art imitating life...

Planet McCain

One of the better videos that I have seen on McSame lately.

Wall Street- The Week Ahead

It should be an interesting week.

High anxiety on Wall Street won't subside this week as the deepening credit crunch pushes the global economy into recession, and corporate profits increasingly become an afterthought as investors scramble to raise enough cash to weather the credit crisis.

On the heels of a panic-riddled sell-off that caused the Dow industrials and the S&P 500 to plummet for eight days in a row, finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven met on Friday -- followed by meetings of the Group of 20, International Monetary Fund, World Bank officials and European leaders over the weekend -- to discuss jammed credit markets and the staggering global economy.

While corporate earnings season gets into full swing this week, results will likely be on the back burner as investors struggle to see through the fog of fear that has engulfed the market.

World Bank to Poor- Suffer

Robert Zoellick, head of the World Bank and cheerleader of free trade, laid down the gauntlet for the world's poor at a meeting of the World Bank's policy-setting committee this weekend while discussing the current economic crisis.

As a result of the downturn, developed countries are not expected to help 28 countries facing twin shocks of rising food and fuel prices, said the bank's president, Robert Zoellick. "For the poor, the costs of the crisis could be lifelong," he said.

Another Blow to the Environment

There always seems to be an excuse as to why climate change cannot be tackled head on. The latest? The economic crisis, of course.

Attempts to tackle global warming are being made more difficult by the spreading economic crisis even as Democratic congressional leaders say it's still a top goal for next year.

At the very least, fear of a prolonged economic downturn is expected to delay attempts by the United States to cap greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

Democratic leaders in the House and the Senate as well as both presidential candidates say addressing climate change by imposing mandatory restrictions on heat-trapping pollution — especially carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels — remains a priority.

Only months ago, the prospect of climate legislation passing in the next Congress and becoming law looked promising. Both presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain support mandatory emission cuts and a Democratic majority vowed to act on the problem early in the new year.

Check Out "That One" 08

You knew it was coming...

Global Economy in 'Major Downturn'

So says the IMF...

The International Monetary Fund said Wednesday that the global economy was sinking in a maelstrom of financial turmoil, and faces a painful crawl toward recovery in 2009.

"The world economy is now entering a major downturn in the face of the most dangerous shock in mature financial markets since the 1930s," the IMF said in its biannual World Economic Outlook (WEO) report.

The IMF revised downward its July forecasts for global economic growth to 3.9 percent in 2008 and 3.0 percent in 2009, the slowest pace since 2002. The markdowns shaved off 0.2 percentage point and a hefty 0.9 point, respectively.

"The major advanced economies are already in or close to recession, and, although a recovery is projected to take hold progressively in 2009, the pickup is likely to be unusually gradual, held back by continued financial market deleveraging," the 185-nation institution said.

McCain on Obama- 'That One'

Here is McCain's 'Dean Scream' moment last night

The Presidential Debate in Nashville

Here is a good preview of what we should expect to see tonight.

If Senator John McCain is in fact trying to shift the focus of attention away from his ability to deal with the economy, it should show up tonight on the debate stage.

Mr. McCain meets Senator Barack Obama at Belmont University in Nashville in the second of three presidential debates.

The event starts at 9 p.m. Eastern and runs for 90 minutes. You can see it on the networks, most of the cable shows, all over the Internet and, of course, right here, live. We will also be live blogging the debate as it unfolds and fact-checking along the way. And tonight we have asked members of the U.S. military to watch the debate along with us and share their thoughts.

The debate comes just a month before Election Day, a time when undecided voters — are there really any left? — traditionally start making up their minds. It affords Mr. Obama a chance to “seal the deal,” since most opinion polls show him leading Mr. McCain.

This should make for a riveting encounter. Mr. McCain needs to do something dramatic to halt his slide. He and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, have taken a sharply negative turn on the campaign trail, and he may well continue that tone tonight.

National Debt Clock Ticks On

The results of 'fiscal conservatism'...

John McCain and The Making of a Financial Crisis

This video from the Obama campaign highlights the 'maverick' John McCain and his role in the Keating Five.

The Keating Five Returns

John McCain has been around Washington too long and has the skeletons in his closet to prove it.

John McCain is once again trying to dress the political wound that never heals: his role in a 1980s banking scandal that is featured in a new Barack Obama attack video.

McCain's campaign quickly moved to limit any damage from Obama dredging up the Keating Five scandal of nearly two decades ago.

The Republican senator's lawyer in the case, John Dowd, told reporters in a conference call Monday that McCain had been the victim of "a political smear job" by Senate Democrats.

When a reporter noted that McCain himself has spoken contritely about his role, Dowd responded, "I'm his lawyer and I have a different view of it."

McCain said his reputation was so tarnished by the Keating case that he compared his ordeal — in some ways — to the torture he suffered as a prisoner of war.

"I faced in Vietnam, at times, very real threats to life and limb," McCain told The Associated Press in a written statement last March. "But while my sense of honor was tested in prison, it was not questioned. During the Keating inquiry, it was, and I regretted that very much."

Homer Simpson Tries to Vote for Obama

A good example of where art imitates life...

Palin Remains Mute as Supporter Advocates Violence

The Palin/McCain campaign have resorted to lies and hatred to win this election at any cost. This, however, crosses the line and has thrust the election into utter madness.

Okay, so Florida, you know that you're going to have to hang onto your hats," Sarah Palin told a rally of a few thousand here this morning, "because from now until Election Day it may get kind of rough."

You betcha. And the person dishing out the roughest stuff at the moment is Sarah Palin.

"I was reading my copy of the New York Times the other day," she said.

"Booooo!" replied the crowd.

"I knew you guys would react that way, okay," she continued. "So I was reading the New York Times and I was really interested to read about Barack's friends from Chicago."

It was time to revive the allegation, made over the weekend, that Obama "pals around" with terrorists, in this case Bill Ayers, late of the Weather Underground. Many independent observers say Palin's allegations are a stretch; Obama served on a Chicago charitable board with Ayers, now an education professor, and has condemned his past activities.

"Now it turns out, one of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers," Palin said.

"Boooo!" said the crowd.

"And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,'" she continued.

"Boooo!" the crowd repeated.

"Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience.

Number of Homeless Rising

This is so sad. To think you still hear the 'We're the richest country in the world' line...

The nation's financial crisis has plunged more Americans into a personal financial crisis that sees the number of homeless individuals and families rising nationwide.

In Massassachussets, a surge in homeless families has swamped shelters and caused state officials to house more than 500 families in hotels, versus the 27 it housed in hotels at this time a year ago, according to reports.

The usual culprits of unemployment and a shortage of affordable housing coupled with rising energy and food costs are driving more people into homelessness. But Massachussets officials have also begun tracking how many people are homeless because of foreclosure.

And it isn't just heavily populated states such as Massachussets that are struggling to cope with growing numbers of homeless families.

In Montana, homeless advocates put on a fundraiser this weekend to raise $30,000 to assist homeless families in getting back on their feet. Some 382 homeless children attended school in the Billings school district during the 2007-2008 school year.

eBay to Cut Workforce By 10%

Going, Going...Gone!


EBay Inc. plans to eliminate 1,600 jobs, or 10 percent of its workforce, to reduce costs as the company tries to revive its slowing growth.

Separately today, eBay revealed its intent to spend $1.34 billion on three acquisitions, the biggest of which is Bill Me Later, an online credit service.

The staff cuts include 1,000 full-time, temporary and part-time workers, plus some open positions that will be left unfilled. They come on top of 125 dismissals earlier this year by the San Jose company, whose core online marketplace is slumping in the face of stiff competition from Amazon.com and users' growing preference for shopping for products at a fixed price rather than by auction.

Dow Finishes Below 10,000

This isn't good.

Wall Street joined in a worldwide cascade of despair Monday over the financial crisis, driving the Dow Jones industrials to their biggest loss ever during a trading day. Even a big afternoon rally failed to keep the Dow from its first close below 10,000 since 2004.

The sell-off came despite the $700 billion U.S. government bailout package, which was signed into law Friday after two weeks in which traders had appeared to count on the rescue as their only hope to avoid a market meltdown.

At its worst point, the Dow was down more than 800 points, an intraday record. The stock market rallied during the final 90 minutes of the trading day, and the Dow finished down about 370 points at 9,955.50.

The Cyberbeggar Times- I'm Back!

Well, I've been away for about nine months now (not by choice) and finally made it back. Unfortunately I was a casualty of this great economy of ours and lost both my old computer and the time to post. There is so much to catch up on and talk about and I look forward to discussing these issues with you. As I have said in the past, I am not an economist nor do I profess to having an extensive knowledge of the fine points of the economy but I do keep up with economic news and understand how it affects me in my daily life.

Thanks for stopping by!