Whoops…

Whoops… 29 September 2008

Posted by marisacat in Inconvenient Voice of the Voter.
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AP via The Page

The Financial Services Chair says during a presser that he doesn’t understand the GOP leadership’s strategy. “Because somebody hurt their feelings they decided to punish the country.”

Comes after Rep. Boehner and others say Pelosi’s partisan floor speech is to blame for the financial rescue bill’s defeat.

And from Jesus leader side of the bed:

The failure of the government bailout took Mr. Obama and his aides by surprise. A copy of his speech that was distributed to reporters upon arriving here, declared:

“Today, Democrats and Republicans in Washington have agreed on an emergency rescue plan that is our best and only way to prevent an economic catastrophe.”

To be fair, I am sure there is just as much deshabille in the McCain compass-less wagon train…

Floyd Norris:

September 29, 2008, 3:30 pm <!– — Updated: 4:04 pm –>

September Surprise

The House has voted down the bailout bill, to everyone’s surprise.

So much for party discipline. This bill was supported by John McCain and Barack Obama, the presidential candidates who, between them, have the support of nearly every member of the House.

But a majority of the House voted along with Bob Barr, the Libertarian who said, “We need to make Wall Street take the hit for its irresponsible investment decisions,” and Ralph Nader, the independent candidate who described the bill as “a bailout for Wall Street crooks.”

I had assumed the House leadership could assure that enough members of both parties held their noses and voted yes to gain a narrow margin for passage. But what we have here is a rejection of what Mr. Nader calls the two “corporate candidates.” ::snipsnappy!::

Ooopsie Whoopsie Doopsie… just as long as we are not duped! ya know… … LOL

Comments»

1. NYCO - 29 September 2008: Re Obama’s canned statement…

No. Leadership. Anywhere.

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2. marisacat - 29 September 2008: You must be wrong NYCO, ‘cuz Shrummy declared Obama to be the winner of the presidential race, post debate (“we now know who will be in the WH”). I just read it in The Caucus, that paragon of objectivity. And we know how many many presidential candidates, who won, were advised by Shrum.

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3. same as it ever was - 29 September 2008: The Wall Street Bailout Bill:
Bush McCain Obama et al.

The Realignment Of American Politics:
Anderson Baldwin Carter Choate Clemente Gonzalez Gravel Kaptur Kucinich McKinney Nader Paul Perot Sheehan Ventura

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4. marisacat - 29 September 2008: LOL From Geraghty at The Campaign Spot at NRO… hey, failure is nobody’s child… 😉

HORSERACE, BARACK OBAMA, JOHN MCCAIN

America Needs a Leader

If McCain or Obama got on the television right now and said, “Pass the bill,” they could watch the markets turn around and save the day. [I don’t agree with that, as it happens, LOL — Mcat]

Where are they?

McCain would have the harder sell, but he at the very least would look valiant for making the effort…

Where the heck is Obama at this moment?

UPDATE: John Harwood on CNBC now: “There is no chance of passing this bill in this form at all.”

09/29 02:06 PM

Sure America needs a leader, leaders, but what it has is SELL OUTS.

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5. Madman in the Marketplace - 29 September 2008: last thread: Welcome to ‘Americatown,’ a Chinatown-like enclave of U.S. immigrants in cities around the world.

Hell, I’ve been reading stories like that for years now. Some of William Gibson’s stories are set in dystopic futures where the US has broken up into vaste wastelands of the very poor and anarchists around corporate states, lots of Americans w/ programming skills living as ex-pats in Asia.

Case was twenty-four. At twenty-two, he’d been a cowboy, a rustler, one of the best in the Sprawl. He’d been trained by the best, by McCoy Pauley and Bobby Quine, legends in the biz. He’d operated on an almost permanent adrenaline high, a byproduct of youth and proficiency, jacked into a custom cyberspace deck that projected his disembodied consciousness into the consensual hallucination that was the matrix. A thief, he’d worked for other, wealthier thieves, employers who provided the exotic software required to penetrate the bright walls of corporate systems, opening windows into rich fields of data.

He’d made the classic mistake, the one he’d sworn he’d never make. He stole from his employers. He kept something for himself and tried to move it through a fence in Amsterdam. He still wasn’t sure how he’d been discovered, not that it mattered now. He’d expected to die, then, but they only smiled. Of course he was welcome, they told him, welcome to the money. And he was going to need it. Because — still smiling — they were going to make sure he never worked again.

They damaged his nervous system with a wartime Russian mycotoxin.

Strapped to a bed in a Memphis hotel, his talent burning out micron by micron, he hallucinated for thirty hours.

The damage was minute, subtle, and utterly effective.

For Case, who’d lived for the bodiless exultation of cyberspace, it was the Fall. In the bars he’d frequented as a cowboy hotshot, the elite stance involved a certain relaxed contempt for the flesh. The body was meat. Case fell into the prison of
his own flesh.

That story came out in 1984. There are tons more like it.

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6. Madman in the Marketplace - 29 September 2008: re: 75 in the last thread

leftvet used to write up some good stuff.

Poor silly Booman, channeling his inner Armando.

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7. Madman in the Marketplace - 29 September 2008: cyberspace and Americatown comment in moderation, I think.

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8. Madman in the Marketplace - 29 September 2008: Hey, happy Banned Books Week everybody. Philip Pullman shared some thoughts w/ the Guardian about repeated attempts to ban his books here in the US:

Because they never learn. The inevitable result of trying to ban something – book, film, play, pop song, whatever – is that far more people want to get hold of it than would ever have done if it were left alone. Why don’t the censors realise this?…

In fact, when it comes to banning books, religion is the worst reason of the lot. Religion, uncontaminated by power, can be the source of a great deal of private solace, artistic inspiration, and moral wisdom. But when it gets its hands on the levers of political or social authority, it goes rotten very quickly indeed. The rank stench of oppression wafts from every authoritarian church, chapel, temple, mosque, or synagogue – from every place of worship where the priests have the power to meddle in the social and intellectual lives of their flocks, from every presidential palace or prime ministerial office where civil leaders have to pander to religious ones…

My basic objection to religion is not that it isn’t true; I like plenty of things that aren’t true. It’s that religion grants its adherents malign, intoxicating and morally corrosive sensations. Destroying intellectual freedom is always evil, but only religion makes doing evil feel quite so good.

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9. NYCO - 29 September 2008: I have to laugh at Pullman though… because one could apply his own words to book trilogies. His Golden Compass series was a gripping read, but it didn’t have to be three books long. The last book was awful and bloated (and I’m not talking about the basic theme of his plot, which was interesting). Much bad popular literature has been permitted by the commercial pull of the Trilogy… and only composing a grand Trilogy makes bad writing feel so good. (and Pullman’s not the only one this has happened to).

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10. Madman in the Marketplace - 29 September 2008: 8 – oh, agreed. Should have stopped with two, at the most. Lots of good ideas drawn out way too much, but he was tilting at Tolkien (about whom Pullman has said some unkind things) and then fell into the same trap as his target.

The first book was so refreshing, though.

Oh, check this out … someone found a good use for the shrinking US dollar!

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11. Madman in the Marketplace - 29 September 2008: Fed Pumps Further $630 Billion Into Financial System

The Fed increased its existing currency swaps with foreign central banks by $330 billion to $620 billion to make more dollars available worldwide. The Term Auction Facility, the Fed’s emergency loan program, will expand by $300 billion to $450 billion. The European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan are among the participating authorities.

The Fed’s expansion of liquidity, the biggest since credit markets seized up last year, came hours before the U.S. House of Representatives rejected a $700 billion bailout for the financial industry. The crisis is reverberating through the global economy, causing stocks to plunge and forcing European governments to rescue four banks over the past two days alone.

“Today’s blast of term liquidity will settle the funding markets down, and allow trust to slowly be restored between borrowers and lenders,” said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd. in New York. On the other hand, “the Fed’s balance sheet is about to explode.”

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12. marisacat - 29 September 2008: 6

Re leftvet

I noticed once when he posted inside a thread about the Gainesville 8 events, and posted a pic from the era of the 8, that suddenly Meteor Blades got very very scarce. And he had been in the thread, acknowledged the photo and the comment from left vet and disappeared.

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13. Madman in the Marketplace - 29 September 2008: Presidential Debate Tweets, Analyzed

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14. liberalcatnip - 29 September 2008: Credit cards to ‘implode:’ analyst

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15. liberalcatnip - 29 September 2008: lol from the G&M

Cliff Pallette from Kearney, Canada writes: Maybe Jimmy Swaggert, Pat Robertson, Benny Hinn, Oral Roberts, John Hagee and Jack Van Impe could get together and solve this. They’re all pretty good at getting money out of commoners pockets on a regular basis.

* Posted 29/09/08 at 8:13 PM EDT

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16. marisacat - 29 September 2008: oh isn’t that funny… i was just thinking of the most hilarious one that I used to occasioanlly catch during the night on Comcast, Brother Bob. Southern televangelist who would put his hand on the TV camera and ask the prayerful at home to put their hand on his.

chuckle snort snicker.

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17. Madman in the Marketplace - 29 September 2008: there is all kinds of debt that will be blowing up over the next couple of months.

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18. Madman in the Marketplace - 29 September 2008: Republican talking point whack-a-mole, yet again

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19. Madman in the Marketplace - 29 September 2008: Olympic mottoes borrow lines from O Canada

Two phrases borrowed from Canada’s national anthem have been chosen as the mottoes for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, and organizers have already moved to protect the commercial rights to the lines.

The lines “With glowing hearts” from the English version and “Des plus brillants exploits” from the French version will soon be emblazoned on Olympic merchandise and promotional material as a national campaign to promote the mottoes is rolled out across Canada this fall.

The phrases were recently trademarked by the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee in anticipation of the announcement, it was revealed Wednesday.

“‘With glowing hearts’ is connected and familiar to all Canadians through our anthem, O Canada, and it also embodies what it takes to be an Olympic or Paralympic athlete,” VANOC chief executive officer John Furlong said in a statement Thursday.

“‘With glowing hearts’ captures in a few simple, time-honoured words what it means to be Canadian, the deep pride we have in our country and who we are,” said Furlong.

“It embodies the emotions every athlete will feel — no matter where they are from or what flag they stand under — when they have the honour to represent their own country on the world’s grandest international stage in 2010,” he said.

While the French and English mottoes are different, Furlong said they are drawn from the same inspiration.

“‘Des plus brillants exploits’ references the pinnacle of achievement and the extraordinary feats of human endeavour that will occur, both for the athletes and for everyone involved in staging the 2010 Winter Games,” said Furlong.

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20. marisacat - 29 September 2008: Asia tumbling overnight… from Bloomberg. And other observations in the piece……………

[G]lobal Rout

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index tumbled 8.8 percent yesterday, while the MSCI World Index of 23 developed markets slid 6.9 percent, the biggest loss in 21 years. S&P 500 futures added 0.5 percent in after-hours trading.

The U.S. House of Representatives yesterday voted down the financial-rescue proposal that President George W. Bush said is needed to prevent the world’s largest economy from slipping into a recession. The defeat of the legislation set off a scramble among the plan’s backers for additional support before another vote, which likely won’t come until later in the week.

Mitsubishi UFJ, Japan’s largest bank, retreated 6.6 percent to 875 yen. ANZ, Australia’s fourth-largest bank, lost 5.6 percent to A$17.74. Woori Finance Holdings Co., with the biggest exposure to U.S. mortgage-related investments among South Korean banks, dropped 6.8 percent to 11,050 won.

“Nobody anticipated this in the market,” said Mitsushige Akino, who oversees about $468 million at Ichiyoshi Investment Management Co. in Tokyo. “The global financial market is nearing the brink of collapse, and the only real choice investors have right now is to sell stocks and hold cash.”

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21. Madman in the Marketplace - 29 September 2008: Is ‘Taking it to the Streets’ Worth the Bruises, Tear Gas and Arrests?

What Happened in Seattle?

“Battle in Seattle” accurately depicts the mainstream media as being overwhelmingly focused on the smashed windows of Starbucks and Niketown — property destruction carried out by a small minority of protesters. In the past two decades, the editorial boards of major U.S. newspapers have been more dogged than even many pro-corporate legislators in pushing the “free trade” agenda. Yet, remarkably, acknowledgement of the WTO protests’ impact on globalization politics could be found even in their pages. Shortly after the event, the Los Angeles Times wrote, “On the teargas-shrouded streets of Seattle, the unruly forces of democracy collided with the elite world of trade policy. And when the meeting ended in failure … the elitists had lost and the debate had changed forever.”

Seattle was supposed to be a moment of crowning achievement for corporate globalization. Big-business sponsors of the Seattle Ministerial (donors of $75,000 or more included Procter & Gamble, Microsoft, Weyerhaeuser, Boeing and GM) invested millions to make it a showcase of “New Economy” grandeur. Any student of public relations could see that the debacle they experienced instead could hardly be less desirable for advancing their agenda.

Rarely do protesters have the satisfaction of achieving their immediate goals, especially when their stated aims are as grandiose as shutting down a major trade meeting. Yet the direct action in Seattle did just that on its first day, with activists chained around the conference center forcing the WTO to cancel its opening ceremonies.

“We Care Too”

The altered fate of the WTO is itself very significant. But this is only part of a wider series of transformations that the global justice protests of the Seattle era helped to usher in. Toward the end of “Battle in Seattle,” Andre 3000’s character, an activist who spends a decent part of the film dressed as a sea turtle, makes a key point: “A week ago nobody knew what the WTO was,” he says. “Now … they still don’t know what it is. But at least they know it’s bad.”

The Seattle protests launched thousands of conversations about what type of global society we want to live in. While they have often been depicted as mindless rioters, activists were able to push their message through. A poll published in Business Week in late December 1999 showed that 52 percent of respondents were sympathetic with the protesters, compared with 39 percent who were not. Seventy-two percent agreed that the United States should “strengthen labor, environmental and endangered species protection standards” in international treaties, while only 21 percent disagreed.

A wave of increased sympathy and awareness dramatically changed the climate for longtime campaigners. People who had been quietly laboring in obscurity for years suddenly found themselves amid a huge surge of popular energy, resources and legitimacy. Obviously, the majority of Americans did not drop everything to become trade experts. But an impressive number, especially on college campuses and in union halls, did take time to learn more — about sweatshops and corporate power, about global access to water and the need for local food systems, about the connection between job loss at home and exploitation abroad.

With the protests that took place in the wake of Seattle, finance ministers who had grown accustomed to meeting in secretive sessions behind closed doors were suddenly forced to defend their positions before the public. Often, official spokespeople hardly offered a defense of WTO, IMF and World Bank policies at all. Instead they spent most of their time trying to convince audiences that they, too, cared about poverty. In particular, the elites who gather annually in the Swiss Alps for the exclusive World Economic Forum became obsessed with branding themselves as defenders of the world’s poor. The Washington Post noted of the 2002 forum, “The titles of workshops read like headlines from the Nation: ‘Understanding Global Anger,’ ‘Bridging the Digital Divide’ and ‘The Politics of Apology.'”

Joseph Stiglitz, a former chief economist of the World Bank who was purged after he outspokenly criticized the IMF, perhaps most clearly described the remarkable shift in elite discussion that has taken place since global justice protests first captured the media spotlight. In a 2006 book, he wrote:

I have been going to the annual meetings (in Davos, Switzerland) for many years and had always heard globalization spoken of with great enthusiasm. What was fascinating … was the speed at which views had shifted (by 2004). … This change is emblematic of the massive change in thinking about globalization that has taken place in the last five years all around the world. In the 1990s, the discussion at Davos had been about the virtues of opening international markets. By the early years of the millennium, it centered on poverty reduction, human rights and the need for fairer trade arrangements.

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22. marisacat - 29 September 2008: hmm must try to be awake so I can watch the market tank:

The President will deliver remarks on the economy from the White House at 8:45 am ET.

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23. bayprairie - 29 September 2008: he’s going to wear those shoes out with all that tap dancin’

Trust
by BooMan
Mon Sep 29th, 2008 at 08:13:06 PM EST

::snip:::

Even if it was a good thing to defeat this bill, this episode was a low moment for standards in the blogosphere.

ROTFLOL

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24. liberalcatnip - 29 September 2008: 19. “‘With glowing hearts’ captures in a few simple, time-honoured words what it means to be Canadian,

ET phone home.

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25. Madman in the Marketplace - 29 September 2008: 22 – Apparently babs never read him the “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”.

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26. Madman in the Marketplace - 29 September 2008: 23 – aren’t those words “hoser”, “touk” and “beer”?

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27. diane - 29 September 2008: well indeed, a big Oopsie Doopsie Whoopsie …

no Giddy Three pic, eh?

;0)

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28. liberalcatnip - 29 September 2008: 25. aren’t those words “hoser”, “touk” and “beer”?

Damn. How’d you get your hands on a secret decoder ring, eh?

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29. Madman in the Marketplace - 29 September 2008: well, you guys sold your national song … some Canucks will spill anything for a buck!

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30. liberalcatnip - 29 September 2008: some Canucks will spill anything for a buck!

Not this one.

(How much are you offering?)

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31. diane - 29 September 2008: From Senate May Try to Revive Bank-Rescue Bill as Early as Tomorrow

It’s just not acceptable for Congress to essentially tell Main Street or Wall Street to drop dead,” said Chris Lehane, a Democratic consultant who was former Vice President Al Gore’s communications director. “The Dow dropping 777 points is a pretty powerful force to find another 12 votes.”

The conditions millions of your fellow citizens have been living in are unnacceptable asshole, and your buds who voted yes, along with all of the Republicans, have let them know they can drop dead for quite some time now,…and their death isn’t a demotion from $25 million per to $5 million per, something that wasn’t even altered, for current salary agreements, in that rot they tried to pass.

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32. diane - 29 September 2008: Gee, wonder why they chose to release this report earlier today:<a href=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/29/AR2008092902956.html<Crossing a Line at Justice – A new report lays out in breathtaking detail the politics behind the firing of federal prosecutors

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33. diane - 29 September 2008: sorry corrected link: :Crossing a Line at Justice – A new report lays out in breathtaking detail the politics behind the firing of federal prosecutors

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34. liberalcatnip - 30 September 2008: Asian markets start Twitchy Tuesday

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35. lucid - 30 September 2008: Credit cards to ‘implode:’ analyst

I don’t suppose anyone can explain to me why the interest on my credit card of 5 years went up 14% between August and September… no late payment or nothing and well above the minimum payment made. I tried to call them just now, but alas, the whole business hours thing.

I have an excellent credit rating, and was, in fact, approved online immediately this evening for a $4,000 credit line with no questions asked [to transfer a balance away from above card at 0%]. So why is that card now at 35%? Is that even legal? Especially for one who always makes payments on time and has paid off debt far higher than I currently have on that card alone?

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36. lucid - 30 September 2008: Spamminess on credit cards… but seriously, my last month’s bill was at 21% and this months was at 35%… and I made a payment 5 times the minimum, on time, in the intervening period. That’s fucked up.

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37. marisacat - 30 September 2008: whoops…

bay and diane out of Moderation… probably threw off all number references to comments… Sorry!

AND two of lucid’s out of spam… sorry!

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38. marisacat - 30 September 2008: fwiw from Chicago Trib

Rezko courthouse visits fuel rumors he’s talking

By MIKE ROBINSON | AP Legal Affairs Writer
4:52 PM CDT, September 29, 2008

CHICAGO – Convicted political fixer Antoin “Tony” Rezko has been quietly visiting Chicago’s federal courthouse, setting off speculation that he may be spilling secrets to federal prosecutors in return for a lenient sentence.

Prosecutors investigating Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s administration would plainly like to hear what Rezko knows, and there is plenty of incentive to talk.

“Jail is horrible and Tony Rezko has just two options,” says Jay Stewart, executive director of the Better Government Association. “One option is to do nothing and get a full sentence. The other is to cooperate with prosecutors.” ::snip::

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39. marisacat - 30 September 2008: 35

There is stil credit card offers out there, transfer balance offers of 0% for longer than a year.

You’ll find in the small print they can raise the interest rates at any time and further, they can call in the current unpaid balance at any time.

And yes that is a legal interest rate. Predatory lending could be curtailed, but congress does not do it. They had a chance with an amendment to the Bankrutpcty bill for one, they (including ObRama) passed on it.

You could call the credit card company and indicate you have an offer, see if they will reduce the current, now higher, interest rate.

I don’t know where you bank, but BofA has an Alpha Account wehre overdraft on my checking is 5% (so far)… it’s good for me, as I have never balanced a check book in my life.

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40. marisacat - 30 September 2008: BTW, might remember that a year and half ago, two years (?) there were hearings on the hill on predatory credit cards and carrying punitive charges that were unwarranted?

I don’t think much came of that either.. and I read that as hearings continued, some witnesses dried up… the credit card companies directly threatended people with exposure of their full credit histories – and, i ma guessing here, embarrassing charges on their cards.

Oh yeah Biden was such a good pick. Barney is such a great guy. Etc.

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41. marisacat - 30 September 2008: Oh wow…

Phoenix Lander detects snow fall from martian clouds.

A laser instrument aboard the craft designed to gather information about how the planet’s atmosphere and surface interact detected snow from clouds about 2.5 miles above where the lander touched down on the planet’s northern plains.

Data sent back to Earth shows the snow turning into vapour before reaching the ground.

“Nothing like this view has ever been seen on Mars,” said Jim Whiteway, lead scientist for Phoenix’s meteorological station. “We’ll be looking for signs that the snow may even reach the ground.”

In addition, soil experiments conducted by the lander have provided the first evidence that water could once have been present at this arid, northerly latitude.

Tests by the lander’s robotic laboratory revealed the presence of minerals that on Earth usually only form in the presence of liquid water- calcium carbonate, found in limestone and chalk, and particles thought to be clay. ::snip::

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42. jam.fuse - 30 September 2008: ‘The inevitable result of trying to ban something – book, film, play, pop song, whatever – is that far more people want to get hold of it than would ever have done if it were left alone. Why don’t the censors realise this?… ‘

Applies to drugs, too

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43. marisacat - 30 September 2008: .. everything should be legal……………………………..

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44. Intermittent Bystander - 30 September 2008: lucid – Secret History of the Credit Card (Frontline).

Even if you make your credit card payments on time, the credit card bank can raise your interest rate automatically if you’re late on payments elsewhere — such as on another credit card or on a phone, car, or house payment — or simply because the bank feels you have taken on too much debt.

This practice is called the “universal default” clause and increasingly is becoming a standard clause in credit card agreements. According to credit card executives, the logic behind universal default is that the bank is not being unreasonable in raising rates when it has reason to believe that the risk of being repaid by the customer has increased.

Has to do with FICO scores, etc. Any excuse (for the card issuer) will do. Even applying for another loan or credit card, or having “too much” available credit can trip the gears and catapult interest rates on your existing lines.

More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_default

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45. Intermittent Bystander - 30 September 2008: catnip – Thanks for the info on the straw houses! Will have to pass the Red Feather link on to a designer/builder I know.

NYCO – Enjoyed the pinscreen animation you posted the other day. The landscape elements reminded me a little of Rockwell Kent. And yet the technology was a sort of pointillism, really.

MCat – It was that very same “giddy” photo at the podium that inspired my disgust the other morning. (Had to laugh when I saw Nancy’s “the party’s over” quote after posting the Gilkyson song lyrics, too.) Yesterday was a rare reverse-shock-doctrine moment on the Hill, n’est-ce pas? From giggles to shits in 60 minutes or less.

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46. marisacat - 30 September 2008: oh her “party’s over” speech was enraging. What an irritating creature..

lotta bad shots of Nancy Rahm Barney et al around. Fucking idiots.

Just hearing Dodd, last month’s Irish Stew left in the elements, pontificating on NPR. Switching the channel!

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47. Intermittent Bystander - 30 September 2008: Regulators halt trading on Russian exchanges

World stocks fall but calm returns after sell-off.

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48. marisacat - 30 September 2008: Bob Herbert. What a shame that nearly every columnist, opinion writer, shitforbrains pundit, etc., in the nation is tied to one party or the other.

Shove them all off the cliff. Food for the forest animals.

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49. Intermittent Bystander - 30 September 2008: Another PS to NYCO – Kirsten Gillibrand’s “no” vote on Bailout Version One was a smart move, no matter what happens next. She’s running on fiscal discipline, among other things, and her challenger is Alexander (Sandy) Treadwell (former NYS Sec of State under Pataki and ex-GOP chair), who has promised “no new taxes” if elected.

Treadwell was forced to issue a “me too” press release, after Gillibrand voted no. Here’s the Times-Union Capitol Confidentialblog entry on Treadwell’s statement.

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50. Intermittent Bystander - 30 September 2008: Oops, forgot to include Gillibrand’s own statement, here.

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51. Intermittent Bystander - 30 September 2008: More on CC rate hikes – Card companies jacking up rates; Blame the economy, and some proposed regs that would limit hikes going forward (Fortune Mag via CNN, Sept. 26, 08). Article suggests that card issuers are doing pre-emptive strikes right now, in anticipation of tougher consumer-protective regulation.

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52. Intermittent Bystander - 30 September 2008: From Fortune link:

NEW YORK (Fortune) — When John Dykstra got his September credit card bill from Advanta, a small-business card issuer, he was shocked: Dykstra says he has a good credit score and has never missed a payment, but his interest rate had jumped from 7.99% to 26%.

He was even more shocked by the explanation: A brochure in the mail told him he needed to be aware of the “continually changing business environment.”

He’s not alone. Card issuers from Bank of America to Capital One are using the economic crisis as a reason to raise rates. According to Consumer Action’s 2008 survey of card companies, Bank of America, Citi, and Capital One have recently said that “market conditions” could cause them to increase APR’s.

“It’s becoming a more common practice,” says Ben Woolsey, director of consumer research and marketing at creditcards.com, a comparison site for card offers. “It’s a broad, nebulous provision.”

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53. Intermittent Bystander - 30 September 2008: 48 – From Herbert’s piece, a lovely image.

To deviate from those principles, in Mr. [Darrell] Issa’s view, would be like placing “a coffin on top of Ronald Reagan’s coffin.”

Sounds good to me! Fill it with anvils, and Tramp the Dirt Down! (Sauce for the gander, as well as Thatcher’s goose.)

Have a good Tuesday, everybody.

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54. marisacat - 30 September 2008: I see the estimable Cherie is saying Blair will be as celebrated as Churchill.

What more can one say?

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55. Intermittent Bystander - 30 September 2008: Tramp the Dirt Down gone to spam?

😉

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56. Intermittent Bystander - 30 September 2008: Ta!

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57. marisacat - 30 September 2008: 53

If we can toss Bill C in there with Reagan….

Mr Issa, what a winner. Funded the Recall with his (iirc the source of his wealth correctly) cell phone cash… The R of course shoved him aside for Arnold (he heroically wept, in fact nearly SOBBED, publicly, as he stepped aside). Then, during the 34 day war, despite being Lebanese, he supported Israel. His magnificence knows no bounds. It seems.

He is probably equal to Barney, as a jive and con artist.

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58. marisacat - 30 September 2008: LOL Excuses excuses…

[A]s he exited the hotel for his dinner break, Biden was asked “Senator, can we get your reaction to the House bill not passing?”

Biden interrupted the question with a “Hey folks,” to reporters and then said “Oh, things are going well.”

Biden’s press secretary, David Wade, sent an e-mail minutes later, saying “the senator thought you asked how prep was going” for this week’s debate with Gov. Sarah Palin.

Prior to Biden’s departure, the press was moved further away from the hotel’s exit, perhaps far enough away that it prevented Biden from clearly hearing the question.

… four blind mice. And the mice courtiers with the mics and recorders.

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59. marisacat - 30 September 2008: Dow + 190

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60. marisacat - 30 September 2008: hmm via The Page (which has the ad of course):

Latest TV spot from the Arizonan’s campaign quotes the former president while touting McCain’s record on pushing for stronger regulations with Fannie or Freddie.

Clinton quote: “I think the responsibility that the Democrats have may rest more in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me when I was President to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.”

The McCain ad agsint Ob using Biden quotes IS running out here.. as of today, that i noticed. Ob finally started running an ad about himself, this week.

LOL usually on network channels we are ignored. So special……… or something.

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61. lucid - 30 September 2008: When John Dykstra got his September credit card bill from Advanta, a small-business card issuer, he was shocked: Dykstra says he has a good credit score and has never missed a payment, but his interest rate had jumped from 7.99% to 26%.

I smell class action – that’s the card that jacked my rate. [And it has done shady things in the past to to get it to 21% – I should have gotten rid of it years ago].

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62. liberalcatnip - 30 September 2008: Woohoo! The Liberals Drop a Plagiarism Bombshell on Harper. Even if you’re not into our election, the video of our PM trying to sell the Iraq war by plagiarizing John Howard’s 2003 speech 2 days earlier is quite the site to see.

IB – There’s a lot of info available about straw bale houses and they certainly don’t all look like those on the Red Feather site. Interiors I’ve seen actually look quite adobe-like with curved walls and edges. They’re just an excellent, cheap alternative and the insulation value is much better than your typical house on the market these days.

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63. marisacat - 30 September 2008: The straw bale house I saw a program on couple of years ago, was wonderful looking, evocative of an adobe and, using the bale blocks, nice thick walls.

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64. Intermittent Bystander - 30 September 2008: FYI (lunchtime update): At one point, the NYS legislature passed a bill outlawing the practice of “universal default” in this state. It was the first such law in the nation, I believe, and would have been closely watched as a precedent (given the trickiness of enforcing it against cc companies mostly incorporated in other ::cough cough delaware cough:: states). But New York’s then-Gov. Pataki vetoed the sucker.

What’s worse, another consumer rights bill with the same (and additional) protections was passed here a year or two later, and this time it was vetoed by . . . SPITZER.

(There’s a mention of it in this CJR story about the “consumer movement” in general: http://www.cjr.org/feature/in_the_beginning_2.php?page=all)

Dow currently up 357, according to NYT.

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65. Intermittent Bystander - 30 September 2008: Lunchtime usury update in mod, I think.

62 – Excellent cheap alternatives are good! The designer I mentioned does high-end timber frame homes, but she has also worked with Habitat for Humanity and DIY homebuilders and loves adobe and other affordable, energy-efficient techniques.

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66. mattes - 30 September 2008: 64# Spitzer was a good guy. Too bad he got taken down by Delilah.

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67. marisacat - 30 September 2008: “… brought down by Delilah…”

oh please! Spitzer was a crusader and got his own prick caught in his own crusader sword.

In retrospect it’s pretty funny.

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68. marisacat - 30 September 2008: hmmm

gnu threddddddd

LINK

…………………… 8) …………………

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69. Intermittent Bystander - 30 September 2008: Doubt Spitzer ever called his own penis “Delilah” – but if you like classical references, maybe “Eliot’s Swan-Diving Hubris” could work.

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