First, I just want to say that I'm in complete agreement with you regarding the way Pelosi leads. I'm not wild about Reid, either. I'll also add that I'm voting for Obama - I think he comprehends complexity and he is surrounded by much better financial advisers than McCain - but I wasn't happy with his vote on FISA.

How can we be certain they're being honest with us now? Because they're scared out of their minds. Bush is thick as a brick, but he now appears to be keenly aware that his place in history will be at the bottom of the list as one of the three worst presidents in the history of the United States. No other president has been more deserving of impeachment than Bush - including Nixon - but I'm afraid we're going to have to settle for humiliation, so we should all do our best to heap it on.

My suspicion is that this has a lot to do with the way the US has been financing the wars in Afghanistan and particularly Iraq and the fact that the demand for the US dollar is declining while the supply is rising. China currently holds over $1.25 TRILLION in US Treasuries and the Chinese government is none too thrilled with the so what attitude the administration has exhibited to the ever weakening dollar. If the Chinese government decides to dump the dollar, there could be a chain of events that would lead to the collapse of the dollar.

So today you're hearing that the market has rallied a bit. However, that hasn't affected the credit market which continues to tighten, and it's the credit market that will affect all of us.

Back to Wall Street for a minute. What I think people should be aware of is how much of what has occurred was legal. Through a combination of a population that has accepted and preferred deregulation and privatization almost without question for the last 28 years, marketing mortgage instruments that were once reserved for specific circumstances to the general population, a corporate culture on Wall Street that used deregulation in the creation of complicated derivatives and mortgage backed securities, and an opportunistic administration that used these elements to finance the Bush Doctrine of Preemption.

Bush Sr. sent James Baker around the world to build a true coalition for the Gulf War so the US only paid for 10% of the war. Sadly, for all of us, his son isn't as bright. He puffed up his chest and said "bring 'em on" and allowed Americans to infer that Iraq was involved in 9/11.

How will this affect your older, retired relative? Other than Medicare being vulnerable, probably not that much. Where we'll feel the pinch is in the credit market. If your relative were to decide to move to assisted living, for example, but she would need to sell her home in order to afford to make the move, she would have to wait for a cash sale since there wouldn't be any financing available for a home loan.

Another area that I haven't seen mentioned yet is how this will affect the growth of the internet since it runs on credit cards. If credit tightens, it stands to reason that we could see a big impact in that area.

The politicians are being straight when they warn that a tightening credit market will create more layoffs and throw our economy into serious recession.

As far as rich people being rewarded - they're safe - they always will be. The best we can do now is honestly assess what years of deregulation and privatization have produced. The good needs to be separated from the bad and regulation and oversight needs to be put in place. Hopefully, it will be good legislation and not over-the-top legislation.

Personally, I see Democrats doing a much better job with this than Republicans. The base of the Republican party has become so nutty, I don't think I will trust them with financial matters until they begin to make them a priority rather than social issues.

...Most of middle America's views are more in line with McCain...,

No they aren't.

I agree that RU486 unsupervised will not be a good idea, but I think we're going to see it happen.

Keep it up - we all need a laugh with the economy on the verge of collapse.

I just finished listening to Captain Cranky McCain being interviewed on NPR where he actually compared Sarah Palin to Ronald Reagan. His defensiveness on the subject of Palin belies his stump speech line "I can't wait to introduce her to Warshington".

I don't envy Gwen Ifill. The Republican ticket looks like a sitcom and to pretend otherwise requires the skills of an actor, not a moderator.

I listed to that interview earlier and I wish the transcript you posted also included the irritable, condescending tone of his voice.

I watched about 20 minutes of McCain's editorial meeting with the Des Moines Register which left me with no doubt that he really does think he deserves the presidency. He also fails to go into details of the bailout illustrating that he doesn't have a command of the specific issues involved. He just keeps repeating that everyone needs to come back to the table.

Duh.

Right on.

Blondie, there are two kinds of people in this world, those who are qualified to lead a nation and the people who aren't.

Tuco rocks...