You know things are bad when Bush calls for an emergency meeting of not just the G-7 or the G-8, but the G-20. As they say on the Gossip Girls, OMFG. That’s like when the Justice League called in not just Superman, Aquaman, and the Wonder Twins, but the Black Canary and the Red Tornado, too. The meeting, planned for Nov. 15, will hopefully make significant strides toward a new, forward-looking, structural response to the financial crisis.
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Deficiencies of Judgment
Mona Charen over at The Corner thinks that Palin’s $150,000 spent on wardrobe in two months isn’t really all that impressive. To demonstrate, she points out that Obama’s suits are rumored to cost as much as $1,500.
Of course, for Obama to buy enough $1,500 suits to spend $150,000 in 52 days – the amount of time between Palin’s selection as Vice Presidential nominee and when the story broke on Monday – he would need to buy 1.9 suits per day.
Of course – Charen also points out that some of the money was also spent on the rest of the Palin clan – but the amounts here seem to be relatively trivial – $5,000 on her husband for example.
This is also clearly part of a history of Palin using public office for her private enrichment – from the budding travelgate scandal, in which Palin charged the state of Alaska for all of her children’s and husband’s travel and for hotel rooms, adding up to at least $40,000 (not including her own travel) – to the per diem charges she billed to the state of Alaska for every night she stayed in her own home adding up to some $16,000.
Based on her dismissal of the outrage over Palin’s expensive wardrobe due to her faulty math skills and partisan blinders, Charen declares the real reason for the outrage:
I cannot escape the suspicion that one reason everyone is so exercised (other than the obvious, i.e. that she’s a Republican) is that she is so gorgeous in those clothes. There is simply no other woman in political life to match her. The green-eyed monster strikes!
By that logic, can’t we also accuse all those conservatives out there of jealousy – as they brought up John Edwards’s $400 haircuts at every mention of his name?
I just don’t buy it. I think $150,000 in a close fought race is a lot of money to spend on clothes.
At the same time, this reinforces some of the more unsavory aspects of the scandals brewing in Alaska.
It’s news – whether Mona Charen likes it or not.
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Too Big to Fail
Robert Reich points out the obvious result of this crisis of “too-big-to-fail” institutions:
Maybe the biggest irony today is that Washington policymakers who are funneling taxpayer dollars to these too-big-to-fail companies are simultaneously pushing them to consolidate into even bigger companies. They’ve prodded Bank of America to take over Merrill-Lynch and Countrywide. JP Morgan to acquire Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns. And now they’re urging General Motors to absorb Chrysler.
So we’re ending up with even bigger giants, with even more power over the economy and politics, subsidized by taxpayers, and guaranteed never to fail because they’re just … too big.
Reich echoes the common sense idea that has been articulated all over the United States – if they’re too big to fail, they’re too big to exist. Perhaps that should be another criteria to judge whether a monopoly should be broken up or not – whether a company is so large that any of it’s internal problems would threaten te entire financial system.
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A Chart of the Lehman Mess
I’ve been trying to figure out how to explain my understanding of the liquidity crisis that was the latest and most panic-stricken phase of the ongoing financial crisis.
I’ve created a series of charts – trying to put all the different factors in perspective.
They are all basically drafts at this point – but let me know what you think, if you have any suggestions.
(For those who are going to say the government – and especially Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – played a role in causing this mess aside from the lack of regulation, and failing to act to prevent Lehman Brothers from collapsing – the government is given a greater role in the section that is expanded on in the “Housing Prices decline” chart that I haven’t posted yet. If you see a greater government role in the events and factors here – as some who read this previous piece of mine did – than let me know where – because I haven’t really seen any specific explanations that seemed convincing.)
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A Bitter Interview
Mark Salter, top McCain aide, gives this bitter interview to Jeffrey Goldberg.
My favorite line – to throw back at all those McCain fans who have told me McCain is only doing what he has to do to get the nomination, and will go back to being his reasonable self after it’s over is this:
In McCain’s mind the biggest sin is to run as one thing and then be another. You incur an obligation, just like when you go to war, the worst thing is to not accept responsibility for the deaths that you are responsible for.
[digg-reddit-me]Just a few weeks ago, today was seen as a pivotal day in managing the economic crisis. The deadline for all credit default swaps to be settled on debt in the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy is today. Much of the fear that swirled about disrupting markets several weeks ago centered on who would be able to survive this “settling.”
This morning, Reuters is reporting that these fears are overstated. One key reason is that a number of the major players who were involved both bought and sold credit default swaps – thus accomplishing to some extent what they were supposed to do – hedging their bets in the event of a catastrophic outcome. Despite the fact that an estimated $400 billion in credit default swaps on Lehman exist, some industry observers estimate less than $6 billion will actually change hands as many institutions have effectively hedged their losses.
Of course, this is a delicately balanced system – and if one party has not effectively hedged their losses, it could trigger another bout of panic as any banks who were expecting to be paid by the party that did not hedge don’t get paid – thus increasing their losses.
But with the stock market surging and the voices of calm and reason seeming to prevail for the time being, with liquidity apparently restored to the financial system and the federal government willing to step in to prevent another major player from collapsing – today’s deadline doesn’t seem as apocalyptic as it did just last week.
Christopher Hitchens is a writer – nay, a provocateur who happens to write. Thus he has viciously attacked Catholics from John Paul II to Mother Theresa to John Kerry. He pushed for the ill-fated war with Iraq – and is today entirely unrepentant. He mocks those he disagrees with. He is mean-spirited. He is the David Addington of debates – always ready to “go for the kill” and despite his intellectual dexterity, somehow uncouth. Yet, he is, in his way, honest.
Lately, he has been on a tear:
At numerous rallies where the atmosphere has been, shall we say, a little uncivil, Gov. Palin has accused Sen. Obama of accusing our forces in Afghanistan of simply bombing villages. Only a moment’s work is required to discover that the words complained of were never uttered in that form and that they occurred in a speech that stressed the need for more ground troops as opposed to more airstrikes (a recommendation, by the way, that begins to look more sapient each week, at least in respect of the airstrikes). Again, I have a question: Did Palin know that she was telling a lie? Or did her handlers simply assume that she would read anything that was put in front of her, however mendacious? And which would be worse? And when will she issue the needful retraction? There seems no way of putting her in a forum where these points could be raised. So, continued media coverage of her appearances is no better than lending a megaphone to a demagogue, the better to amplify her propaganda.
Andrew Sullivan has been tireless (and I mean really really really really really really really tireless) in pointing out that Sarah Palin has yet to give a single press conference – a first for a vice presidential candidate in the modern era, and perhaps ever.
Yet the liberal media continues to “lend a megaphone” to this demagogue, playing on class resentments, using the language of class warfare, attacking a majority of America, ignoring the shouts of “Kill him!” at rallies, and lying shamelessly about her life and her record as well as Barack Obama and his.
And, to keep anyone from making her accountable, she demonizes the press for good measure – to give her an excuse to avoid having to answer any questions.
Maggie Gallagher at NRO’s The Corner pulls off this Orwellianism this morning:
Can the pro-marriage forces raise enough money to keep message parity with the ACLU/HRC/Labor unions/Hollywood crowd?
Because of course, the “pro-marriage forces” are the ones against gay marriage “crowd.”
Neoconservatives extol the virtues of American hegemony and believe that other states will welcome U.S. leadership so long as it is exercised decisively. They attribute opposition to American dominance to deep-seated hostility to U.S. values (rather than anger at specific U.S. policies) and believe that enemies can be cowed by forceful demonstrations of American power. Thus, neoconservatives downplay diplomacy and compromise and routinely charge anyone who endorses it with advocating “appeasement.” To the neocons, every adversary is another Adolf Hitler and it is always 1938.
So saith Stephen M. Walt in The National Interest in the cleverly named “The Shattered Kristol Ball.”
The more I talk to people who support McCain, the more easily I forget that he is a neoconservative and a believer in American empire. Certainly, this paragraph describes John McCain’s foreign policy as well as it does George W. Bush’s.
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Mourning McCain
[digg-reddit-me]If you want to know why I – like so many others – held John McCain in such high regard for so long, it had a lot to do with David Ifshin. And if you want to know why my opinion of him has plummeted, it has something to do with William Ayers.
Joe Klein mourns the McCain he used to know.
Of course, this is the same McCain who refused to take on the issue of the Confederate flag flying over the state capitol during the 2000 South Carolina primary – until after the primary was over. This is the same McCain who condemned torture – until he finally was in a position to actually affect policy. This is the same McCain who promised to run a clean campaign – only to base his campaign around slander, hiring the very people who he had so vigorously condemned for playing dirty during the 2000 campaign. This is the same McCain who – after being embroiled in the Keating Five scandal – vowed to become a reformer – and did so, but meanwhile maintained cosy relationships with lobbyists and did many favors for donors. And on and on.
Some might even call him a “make-believe maverick.”