I posted this in comments at Lance’s place, but figure to run it up the flag here as well. Speaking as one who supported Monday’s bill and generally opposes today’s, here’s the high-level list of reasons: It wasn’t going to authorize the whole $700B, but about$250B, with renewal (or scrapping) to follow. (That Henry Paulson […]

I have a cold, or perhaps a touch of the flu, so posting will be light for the next few days. Especially if this is true, which somewhat means the election is over and I can go back to looking at data and hoping the House fails to pass the Christmas Card list bill. But […]

The Washington Post reports: In 18 months of searching, Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine and Office of Professional Responsibility chief H. Marshall Jarrett have uncovered new e-mail messages hinting at heightened involvement of White House lawyers and political aides in the firings of nine federal prosecutors two years ago…

lifted from comments by run75441 Anyone looking at the CDS and the “naked” CDS portion of the Derivative Market? It was said that AIG had $400 billion CDS outstanding, which is why the Fed determined they could not let it go under. It was also said speculators led to AIG’s inability to raise capital in […]

Robert Waldmann notes a bit of financial news that must be read to be believed. Cliff105 who is between jobs and reading about the financial crisis receives an interesting bit of junk mail. a credit card offer from my recently failed bank, Washington Mutual. Normally, I throw these credit card offers into the recycle bin […]

The headline of this piece is “Deposit Plan Will Cost Banks More.” Is there any evidence in the text that this is true? The closest I can find is: After forgoing premiums from 1996 to 2006, the agency must now turn to struggling banks and ask them to pay more, putting more pressure on the […]

Les Gara writes: Then there’s the claim by Senator McCain that our Governor has been a “maverick” fighting federal earmarks. We didn’t know that either. Alaska takes more federal earmarks per capita than any state in the country. Governor Palin asks for them. She, like her predecessors, happily accepts them. Alaska’s budget contains hundreds of […]

Let’s see. There are a bunch of people ready to riot on the streets—or at least do the White Person version of rioting and vote Republican, mainly because of the lies of several House Republicans. And there are a precious few people who believe action needs to be taken and—while they might prefer, say, The […]

WASHINGTON (Oct. 1) – The top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan said Wednesday that he needs more troops and other aid “as quickly as possible” in a counterinsurgency battle that could get worse before it gets better.Gen. David McKiernan said it will take more than adding troops to stabilize Afghanistan — including efforts to strengthen […]

Robert Waldmann is about to share his ignorance on banking, banking regulation, accounting, And accounting standards all in one post. You know the end is near when ordinary people get interested in accounting standards. A wide variety of politicians have decided that the problem with the US financial system is Mark to Market Accounting. It […]