A few more salient points worth noting from Ruprecht:

1. Today's financial crisis started 15 years ago (i.e. when Clinton came to power)

2. What Sarah Palin says is right. And furthermore, her "commonsense approach" is "absolutely right". We need to be very careful about regulation because it "could make things a lot worse".

3. Fox Business rocks and you rock too Neil. PS: you and my other CEO's are all getting pay cuts tomorrow.

4. MSNBC sucks, but not because they dumped Olbermann as anchor.

5. The floater that just wont flush out of the bowl:

MURDOCH: Well, look, too much regulations, if they are unwise, definitely limit business. We have seen it in Europe.

Europe has got layers of government everywhere. And what have you got? Zero growth [as opposed to, say, the greatest financial collapse in nearly a century]. We are a much more open, innovative, adaptive sort of society here [we make up our own realities!]. And we want to keep it that way.

Now, obviously, we have got to have laws. We have got to have honesty. We have got to have transparency. And we can do a lot more in that regard here. In fact, we should keep politicians out of it a little bit.

They talk about higher taxes. If they just cut out a lot of the loopholes for some of the rich - and, you know, we were very close to it a few months ago, when, suddenly, the Democrats, who were going to do it, announced did not have time for a couple of years.

Why? Because the people enjoying those loopholes are some of the biggest givers to the Democratic Party.

PPS: Big Obama endorsement, shooter. McCain should be so lucky!

Murdoch said:

"But not the federal government, which is you and I, or the taxpayer."

As I understand it, you would rephrase Murdoch's remarks to mean:

"But not the federal government, which is you and I, or in other words the taxpayer."

Right?

But if that is so, and if Murdoch really thinks of himself as a humble taxpayer (which I seriously doubt) then how much tax does Murdoch pay?

Hint: Murdoch has often said that paying taxes is a fool's game. In fact he is famous for avoiding taxes.

A 1999 report in the Economist stated that in a period of four years, Murdoch's News Corporation and its subsidiaries paid only A$325m (£128m) in corporate taxes worldwide. That translates as 6% of the A$5.4bn consolidated pre-tax profits for the same period. Further BBC research revealed that Murdoch's main British holding company, Newscorp Investments, paid no net corporation tax in the UK for 11 years, despite accumulated pre-tax profits of nearly £1.4bn.

Did you know that about two-thirds of corporations operating in the US did not pay taxes annually from 1998 to 2005. And in that year 2005, according to the GAO, 28% of large corporations paid no taxes at all?

And what's McCain going to do about it?

LOWER THE CORPORATE TAX RATE!

I kid you not - link at my sig.

It's not Right versus Left any more. It's not GOP versus Dems. It's Rich versus Poor.

This is Adolf Hitler, May 1st 1927:

"We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions."

Among the demands of Hitler's National Socialist German workers Party:

* abolition of incomes unearned by work.

* ruthless confiscation of all war profits ("personal enrichment from war must be regarded as a crime against the nation").

* nationalization of all businesses which have been formed into corporations (trusts).

* profit-sharing in large industrial enterprises.

See what I mean? Why doesn't McCain just drop the pretence and run on THAT platform? It would be wildly popular!

Looking at US responses to this crisis, it's amazing how much discussion breaks down into futile, largely academic and nearly always ill-informed (if not wilfully obtuse) debates about McCain versus Obama or "Capitalism" versus "Socialism". As if this was still the 1950s!

Here's an easier way to look at it:

You. Are. Being. Screwed.

Bush has been putting everything on the national credit card for eight years. Now he's got a string of credit cards all maxing out at the same time, and the Letters Of Demand are pouring in from all sides. So what's his solution? ...

*drum roll*

...

TADAAA!!!

A new credit card!

With an even BIGGER credit limit!

Now he rushes down to the bank, withdraws everything he can on the new card, and then runs from one bank to another, paying off his monthly repayment amounts before the Russian-mafia REPO gangs turn up at the door.

Will it solve the his credit problem? No way! But is will be enough to get him through to November 2nd, and then he's OUTTA HERE!

Guess what, Barney? There's a whole LOAD of scrub bush waiting to be cleared down in Paraguay!

PS: "Pitchforks"? Who can afford a pitchfork any more? And what use are a thousand pitchforks against one Blackhawk helicopter?

Oh, and can't GG be put in jail now for even suggesting the idea of inciting violence (yes he can).