Top 10 Songs for a Financial Crisis
David Wild, longtime contributor to Rolling Stone, offers ten current songs to help get us through these troubling times. One of them, Randy Newman’s “A Few Words in Defense of Our Country”, is presented below.
Column of the Day – Black Friday Edition
It’s the “Moment of Truth” on Wall Street today. Paul Krugman proposes what should have been done, and what needs to be done this weekend:
But on Wednesday the British government, showing the kind of clear thinking that has been all too scarce on this side of the pond, announced a plan to provide banks with £50 billion in new capital — the equivalent, relative to the size of the economy, of a $500 billion program here — together with extensive guarantees for financial transactions between banks. And U.S. Treasury officials now say that they plan to do something similar, using the authority they didn’t want but Congress gave them anyway.
Pop/Soda/Coke Bailout Needed
According to Matthew Yglesias, there’s a “volume penalty” due to increased prices for 20-ounce Diet Cokes at the Center for American Progress. Where will it end?
Bailout Bill Blame
Senator McCain (he of campaign “suspension” fame) blames House Speaker Pelosi’s pre-vote speech for the GOP change of heart on the bailout bill. A closer look shows that representatives in tight races were the ones most likely to vote against it. Those with little chance of losing their seats voted nearly even for or against it.
So much for retiring at 60
Lessee. . . no bailout agreement, and the Dow drops nearly 7% for its biggest one-day point loss in history. Maybe I need to get working on that novel-that-becomes-part-of-English-classrooms-worldwide plan instead.
Would you like $2293.36?
So, the gov’ment wants to spend $700 billion of our taxes to bailout Wall Street. Why not give it to the taxpayers (and their children) instead? Couldn’t you use an extra $2293.36 in the ol’ checkbook?
Economic Crisis Hits NPR
Sort of. From The Onion:
Bail, Taxpayers, Bail!
I won’t make claims to know exactly what went wrong with Wall Street, but I do know a constitutional problem when I see it:
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.
