The whole U.S.A. has turned into nothing but a huge pile of bullshit. No wonder our economy is in the tank.

He apparently doesn't know the USA is involved in two major military actions.

I'll add that he helped start them.

I wonder if it was a Freudian slip revealing that he knows those wars were phoney.

... but I don't think he can run fast enough, even if we give him a head start,

Clinton destroyed the mortgage industry, exported our manufacturing base, and turned our securities exchanges into casinos. The balanced budget he left us was a result of capital gains tax revenues from the rampant speculation that he created and which got us to this point.

I'll agree that those things happened, or at least got worse, while he was in office, but I'd like you to explain your apparent assertion that he caused them.

For China's own economic security, it needs the U.S. economy to recover.

The perhaps China should do something to fix the trade imbalance problem they've created by pegging the value of their currency to the U.S. dollar. I don't think they'll be able to have their cake and eat it too.

"The goal is to take advantage of this situation to pass what appears to be a 20- or 30-year wishlist for liberal elements of their party."

You mean the way Bush took advantage of 9/11 to pass a 20- or 30-year wishlist for fascist elements of his party?

Larry Summers: There's never been a better time to buy!

The problem is that tomorrow might be an even better time.

These guys get out and join the jihad again and kill again. You can drop anything you want, you can call them anything you want, the fact is that a lot of them are natural born killers on a mission.

Ahhh. If you are so intimately familiar with the individuals who are being detained, why don't you share some of the details to make your argument more convincing?

Or is it possible that you're just *assuming* they are all enemy because Bush's shills told you so? If there is so much evidence that they are enemy, why has it taken so long to try them even though the trials were to have been held in kangaroo courts that were heavily slanted in the prosecution's favor? Why did they even need to create the special kangaroo courts? And why did they establish special rules, such as making hearsay and statements made under torture admissible as evidence?

IMO, anyone who thinks that this is acceptable conduct is probably a bigger enemy of our country than anyone being held in gitmo.

aren't P/E values still on the high side, historically?

The hell with P/E ratios. I wanna see some dividends to provide some actual value to people who hold the stock.

This pure speculation crap is for the birds. It makes the stock market into a ponzi scheme: Everybody's payments come from someone else's new investments. It also tilts the playing field heavily in favor of professional traders who spend every waking minute watching the market.

I remember after 911 when everyone, liberals and conservatives alike, were calling for war, torture, the whole nine yards.

That's interesting, because what I remember is lots of reich-wing talking heads denouncing people as traitors for objecting to those things.

We are back to the "pure speculation" model, whether we like it or not.

I think that's going to be an obstacle to getting the market going up again.

A lot of people got burned during the recent decline, and for many of those it isn't the first time. Volatility might be nice when the bull is running, but it just scares people away at other times. I think Joe Sixpack might have figured out that he doesn't belong in a volatile stock market if he doesn't have several hours/day to spend watching what's going on.

Bringing these detainees to the continental United States is tantamount to injecting a virus into a healthy body.

Sen. Hatch's remark seems to presume that these people will pose a danger if they are brought into the U.S.. Is he expressing doubts about the security of our prisons? Does he think all dangerous prisoners should be sent outside the U.S because we're not competent to confine them?

It's amazing that everyone thought about demanding concessions from GM's employees before GM got a dime, but NOBODY consided that AIG might want to give bonuses. This is particularly amazing considering the financial industry's track record of giving bonuses in spite of current conditions.

IMO, Geither knew damn well this was going to happen, and he deliberately didn't do anything to prevent it.

... if there's any "double dipping" going on here. Is anyone selling their toxic CDO's to the government at inflated prices AND collecting on Credit Default Swaps for the same securities?

If so, is paying the double-dippers really appropriate when we're trying to prevent collapse of the system?

...they allowed chris dodd and barney frank to force them to insure subprime loans..

Now I am certain that you are completely full of crap.

Exactly how do you think Dodd and Frank "forced" them to insure these loans? Any legislation to do this would certainly have caused anguished howls from Republicans, and would also certainly have been vetoed by Bush.

Or are you saying the Republicans passed such legislation? If so, why are you blaming Dodd and Frank?