The link I provided before is a transcript of the interview used to develop the story you provided. The link is much more detailed, and more revealing, IMHO. It is the actual questions from reporters and reponses from Obama. The bottom line is that Obama is not sure how much Rezko directly or indirectly contributed to the campaign. He said it could be as high as 250,000 over ten years. What we (the public) really need to know is was there any type of quid pro quo for the campaign funds? The Trib and SunTimes have been investigating this story for years and so far there is no there there.

Bill and Hillary did business with convicted felon, Jim McDougal, but wrongdoing on their part was never demonstrated. So I can still vote for Hillary. Obama did business with alleged (but most likely soon to be felon) Rezko, but no wrong doing on Obama's part has been demonstrated. It's not like Hillary has a good track record with fundraisers, btw. Clinton had to return big bucks from Norman Hsu, just like Obama has returned Rezko $$$. None of these guys are saints, to pick up a tune from a prior thread.

Link Again (A must read!)

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-obamafullwebmar16,1,6766557.story

Bear is only the lastest in a downward spiral. You could point to last year when BNP Paribas froze investment funds and the entire structured products markets started to freeze up as the first canary. Plus look at all the "equity injections" ( aka buying major stakes) of the Sovereign Wealth Funds into blue chip finance companies like Citi and Merrill.

It looks like we are in deep doo and those cranky critics of the Fiat monetary system might actually have the gall to be proved correct.

Link

http://www.forbes.com/2007/08/09/bnp-paribas-subprime-markets-equity-cx_ll_0809markets06.html

But it is any good? Looks dificult to check under the hood and poke around.

Tom, I still remain optimistic, perhaps unreasonably so. I agree it is possible that we have already crossed our Rubicon; the parallels between our time and the time of Caeser and Pompei and the slow but steady deterioration of the roman senate are not exactly encouraging. I know that we seldom if ever live up to our ideals, that city shining on a hill, that future vision of America. I also believe that the Founders built our government not on a vision of a better tommorrow but on the fact that men and women have feet of clay. They sought to channel not only our hopes and aspirations, but also our ambition and greed; to harness it all for the public good. So I guess I haven't given up on that divine providence that got the ball rolling. It is still a republic if we can keep it.

The problem is, from my perch as an armchair investor, is that the pile of bad debt is a lot larger that realized, because this problem has been brewing for longer than realized. Putting aside decades long trends in the securitization of everything and economics as state warfare practiced by other means (the dark side of globalization), we've been in a serial bubble economy since the mid-late '90s. Greenspan had an opportunity to "take the punch bowl away" around '97, but he didn't. Instead, he kept the easy money flowing and made it even easier when the market corrected in 2000-2001. This was the foundation for an even larger bubble in real estate. The position of a country with a hollowed out industrial base and hyper-leveraged "consumers" is not pretty.

I've been arguing for months now, along with a number of far more expert financial managers, that when this shitpile of bad debt began to hit the market, it should have been allowed to unwind naturally. Then, the major stock indices could have started to put in a true bottom, and we might well be getting ready for another long rally, with the debt unwound.

No shortage of bomb throwing here. How many weeks until PA?

We are already doing exactly that. So are a lot of all the other central banks. Maybe there is a reason M3 is no longer reported by the Fed, and gold is over $1,000.

I've gotten in into a variation of this argument with my girlfriend who has an old-school libertarian streak. Her position is they took the risks, they they pay the price. If things are going to suck for awhile, too bad. Most of the time I agree with that.

But it's one thing to feel righteous when the financial plauge wipes out the houses of the rich, and another when that same plauge spreads throughout your community and down your block. That's when I wonder if bailing out those guys might be a better trade.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2Jr03ADQmk

The ideology of this movement is no better than the right wing, and the language and hyperbole that is used by these hypersensitive Obama supporters undermines their ability to think rationally.

That is so sweeping I could use it to clean continents.

But he doesn't attack, nope. It's delusional thinking. And everybody needs to calm down.

After you've gotten your blows in, everyone else should lay down their arms?

Look, neither candidates are saints. Hillary has two chances: 1)Obama is discredited or otherwise implodes, 2) she somehow puts FL & MI back in play to win the popular vote along with big wins in PA, NC, and IN. Both of them rely on raising up Hillary by lowering Obama. She is the candidate with the highest negatives. It's only now that Obama's negatives are starting to rise.

Much of the "negative" stuff is low-hanging fruit that the 527's would have used anyways against either candidate.