I agree that the bailout should just buy mortgages, and not get involved in a game of ‘we say these CDO’s & CDS’s are worth the sky and more’ with slimy weasels who will do anything they can to get the Feds to overpay for this crap. If the derivatives they played with are now so dangerous to their financial health, well isn’t that the Invisible Hand doing what it is supposed to do? Just like it did with this useless neocon “news”paper?

I still want to know exactly who takes the loss if Bailout Plan 2.0 has us (the gov) sticking to buying out actual mortgages while ignoring the whole derivatives market (legalized gambling) that seems to constitute most of the god-awful shitpile that Paulson wants us to buy from his oh, so fucked up friends. But if it’s all largely fictional anyway, where exactly would the buck stop if we simply said “hey, you chose to mess with these ridiculous bundles of other people’s debt, you hold the bag”?

In a world gone insolvent, an unstoppable force travels from our past to destroy our future. He is . . . The Deregulator.

http://snipurl.com/3xln8

Then kick back and enjoy America’s least favorite reality game show: Drop the Regulations!

http://snipurl.com/3xlop

If interest rates nudge up even slightly, more people will be forced to foreclose on housing that is priced beyond affordability. Add to this the enormous debt of the nation (in excess of $9 trillion prior to the financial collapse) and the fact that many people have lost their jobs and…well I don’t think I have to spell out why raising interest rates (yet again) would cut it.

Boo Hoo! I pray more will follow.

Yet the bloggers on those tabs are loath to touch one very obvious issue that is a major issue although it’s not going to prevent Obama from winning the general, but it is almost as amusing as watching the mean spirited bitch Sarah Paylin and her Church Lady persona melt down and cause major stress for the bastards Schmdit and Davis.

That issue is the overt, palpable, conspicuous in your face effort of the Clintons to fuck up Obama’s campaign any way they can. I predicted it all along; I noticed it as the Hillrumonster kept rearing her nasty passive agressive Borderline personality head after Obama had clinched the nomination with the bullshit they pitched at the DNC and prior; and it is now official.

The Clintons are doing everything they can think of to help McCain win and no one on the FDL, Campaign Silo, or EW tab will touch it. I find this particular behavior as comatose and non responsive as Jim Lehrer was in Debate I. I wonder what the dynamic is that makes such otherwise prescient and talented bloggers loath to recognize the Clintons’ effort to defeat Obama.

The Federal Reserve only sets the discount rate that Federal Reserve banks charge banks to take out overnight loans (these loans are used to balance the books on a daily basis). They do this by how much money then inject into (or remove from) the money supply; they don’t just say “that’s it, only 2% is legal today”. Last night they shoveled HUGE amounts of money into the system to try to stay at their target interest rate.

I remember when rates were 10% too. Houses were significantly cheaper because no one could pay a 10% mortgage unless the princple was smaller, and the economy was moribund. Welcome back to the 90’s (if we’re lucky) or perhaps the 70’s (or, Dog forbid, the 30’s), only with different music. If everyone’s home price drops back to what it was in 1990, then maybe 10% rates will be back; or maybe the latter will end up causing the former. Either way, this is going to be a really rough patch of road we have to travel and with a raging hangover on top of it all.