Paulson should tell the country to piss off and retire. That would leave us with Harry "nobody knows what to do" Reid.

That "hold harmless" provision is the result of criminalizing politics. Unless whatever Paulson did was absolutely perfect and under budget, some idiot Congress person is going to came back later and flay Paulson with hearings and the courts. It's been done repeatedly to the rest of the Bush administration, and Paulson is smart enough to head that off at the pass. I've got mine and Paulson has his. If you folks want to play "chicken" be my guest.

As an aside, I wonder what's going to happen to public opinion when its finally publicized how Mssrs. Dodd and Obama were given huge campaign contributions to quash reform of Fannie and Freddie years ago, blocking legislation offered by McCain. Fortunately they, like Rangel, aren't subject to performance reviews by the courts or even real ethics committees.

Lastly, for those of you having an "oh shit we are in serious trouble and we could go down the tubes" moment... Welcome to GW Bush's world when getting info about WMD's in Iraq. It doesn't matter that the info was wrong or incomplete, it's that he saw possibilities of disaster, that the left will not accept in hindsight.

Personally I think it's funny that the left apparently doesn't care about the possibility of more attacks and hundreds or thousands of people dying, but threaten their paycheck....

For those of you that disagree with the idea of Paulson's plan, what do you have to offer, and are you ready to be investigated and prosecuted if it doesn't work? That's what Paulson faces. If he eventually says FOAD, I'll laugh myself silly.

This rule has only been in practice for a FEW DAYS, and they are already abusing it. General Electric? General Motors? This is the most brazen govt. interference in the market, and a total abuse of SEC power. Why not just ban shorting altogether? Why not dictate that from this point forward, the market can legally move in only one direction, and that is: UP.

The SEC has added more companies to the list of 799 companies that cannot be short-sold temporarily. Included are the following firms, according to MarketWatch:

GM

GE

American Express

Legg Mason

Capital One

View MarketWatch's full short-selling ban list here.

The Detroit News reported that GM was one of more than 90 companies to be added to the no short-sell list:

The SEC said the temporary move was needed to "prevent short selling from being used to drive down the share prices of issuers even where there is no fundamental basis for a price decline other than general market conditions."

The emergency ban expires Oct. 2.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/22/short-selling-ban-list-ex_n_128324.html

This is beautiful prose:

So sacred have growth and free trade become in our modern culture that only rarely do we find the courage to ask why they should be given precedence over the needs of people and nature. Indeed, why should we consider accelerating growth and trade to be of any importance at all except to the extent that they serve people and nature?

Stop for a moment and think how many millions of people just like you are living in abject poverty today. Is it fair?

Most everyone is aware that we live in an unequal world. Few realize, however, just how extreme the inequality has become or how fast the gap between the poor and the super rich is growing. Forbes tells us the world now has 358 billionaires. Their combined net worth exceeds the combined net worth of the world's poorest 2½ billion people.

That's 358 people versus 2,500,000,000 people.

It doesn't have to be this way! Indeed, we simply cannot continue to live this way!

Evidence is mounting that economic growth and free trade are not leading us toward economic justice and environmental sustainability. To the contrary, they are taking us in the direction of increasing economic injustice and environmental unsustainability.

Our greed will kill us, or our love will save us.

You choose.

The time is now.

I've always been amused by the use of that term to describe government officials who will oversee things- the Drug Czar being a prime example. We've unwittingly used this term when in fact they haven't been "Czars" Now. of course the facade is off--they really do want a Czar.

How would that work? With any slavery, and feudalism is slavery, you need a strong controlling government to keep the slaves in line. Since Ron Paul supports our constitution, are you saying that our constitution, if followed to the letter, would result in slavery?

By the way, Ron Paul is not a Ryandian. Most definitely not a Randian. Even so, I can argue with the followers of Ayn Rand all day where they are wrong and agree with them where they are correct. I need not to resort to the intellectually deficient dismissal via calling them "kooks". You should try it yourself.

Hey Glenn,

Digby has an interesting post up today on how the Republicans may attempt to use Democratic support of the Wall Street bailout bill against them in the election. It seems fairly plausible that "Maverick" McCain could attempt to play this game for his campaign's benefit:

"Republican incumbents in close races have the easiest vote of their lives coming up this week: No on the Bush-Pelosi Wall Street bailout.

God Himself couldn't have given rank-and-file Republicans a better opportunity to create political space between themselves and the Administration. That's why I want to see 40 Republican No votes in the Senate, and 150+ in the House. If a bailout is to pass, let it be with Democratic votes. Let this be the political establishment (Bush Republicans in the White House + Democrats in Congress) saddling the taxpayers with hundreds of billions in debt (more than the Iraq War, conjured up in a single weekend, and enabled by Pelosi, btw), while principled Republicans say "No" and go to the country with a stinging indictment of the majority in Congress....

In an ideal world, McCain opposes this because of all the Democratic add-ons and shows up to vote Nay while Obama punts.

History has shown us that "inevitable" "emergency" legislation like the Patriot Act or Sarbanes-Oxley is never more popular than on the day it is passed -- and this isn't all that popular to begin with. All the upside comes with voting against it."