You know, lets go ahead and assume that the financial crisis is solved due to these people's actions.

That being said, its still nothing to be proud of. The very foundations of America's economy and systems of finance have been compromised. There is no longer a free market. The illusion has be revealed. The solution required spending hundreds of billions of the peoples' money, direct government intervention to save companies who deserved their failures due to the mistakes they made. Nationalizing banks.

From here on out the conversation will be different. Healthcare? Welfare? Unemployment? Taxes? All of these things and more are now on the table for discussion. A republican president has done this. The free market is dead. Why lower taxes for the wealthy in hopes it'll trickle down? Just give the goddamn money to the population. The ultimate upshot is from now on everyone knows that the govt will spend the peoples' money to save private enterprise. That knowledge is the free markets failure. Period.

And does he read Glenn's stuff, or should we send it to him?

I used to like Pearlstein, but he doesn't even know what he is talking about now. He is writing like a drunk driver drives.

In his chat last week, Pearlstein said the following in response to a question:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2008/09/30/DI2008093000586.html

The question is, as I put it last week: do you want to get revenge, or do you want an outcome in which you will come out economically better off? It's a real choice, although you are right, I think the right choice is obvious. But you haven't given any evidence that you can do both."

He seems to be saying that we have to save these people, but we can't punish them at the same time.

Now today:

Paulson was a bit whimpy in setting the conditions for the capital injections. He could have been much harsher in setting pay limits (My vote: $1 million salary, $1 million bonus and $1 million in stock, which sounds like a lot to you and me but would be a big comedown for the big guys). Reducing dividend payments. Requiring maintenance of effort in local lending. Providing forebearance on foreclosures where a workout/refinancing is possible. In this respect, he's still too much of a Republican to push hard on those. We'll have to wait until the next administration for that.

As to what you can do going forward, we all need to keep sending the signal that we don't accept the inevitability of the Wall Street oligopoly, that we won't do business with them and favor regional banks and investment banks with our business. We in the press shouldn't lionize them and should give very little weight to what they say because they are, frankly, proven losers. We should tell our pension managers not to do business with them whenever possible. And we should treat them as social, political pariahs. They won't like that, I can assure you, since they have a very high opinion of themselves, of their talents and of their public spiritedness. We might even insist that the next Treasury secretary, while having some background in finance, not be a Wall Street big wig, and if one is nominated, give him (and of course it will be a him) a good roughing up during confirmation hearings.

Now he seems to be saying we need more punishment with the bailout. Go figure.

Well, not really, but we'll have to since Paulson't buddies from Wall Street will be writing and enforcing their own conflict of interest rules as they run the program to buy toxic securities. I'm sure that will go well...

We have always been at war with Oceania.

Did he win some kind of prize like business writer Steve Pearlstein did?

BTW, for those keeping score, the DOW is still down over 400 points since Prize winning business writer Steve Pearlstein penned his now infamous "Ode To President Paulson."

... why Krugman has a Nobel prize and Pearlstein doesn't.

It is much more difficult to predict things before they happen than afterwards.

...a little early for people to start taking victory laps? The DJIA's up less than 90 points as I write, and it's been thrashing all morning.

Far be it from me to piss in anyone's cornflakes, but come on.

Who you gonna listen to, Soros or Pearlstein? Who actually knows what he's doing, Buffet or Paulson? What a buncha clowns.

http://www.propublica.org/article/govt-bailout-2-1014/

or click sig, much more @ linky

Gov’t Bailout 2.0 Hands-Off Compared to UK’s

by Paul Kiel, ProPublica - October 14, 2008 11:38 am EDT

Following the example of Britain, France and Germany, the U.S. government announced a capital-injection program for the nation’s banks this morning. But compared to the British intervention, the U.S. model is quite hands off.

The U.K. essentially took control of those banks with a $63 billion investment, acquiring voting shares (as opposed to preferred shares, which are non-voting). The CEOs of the banks stepped down, and the government could even take board seats at the banks. As the New York Times puts it, the move “creates a two-tier banking system in which the nationalized banks are run like utilities and others are free to pursue profit growth.”

Apparently after looking at the paper for the smart kid in the class, McCain has turned in his plan for the economy a day late. A link to the AP story is at my name.

I can't believe this part:

McCain said President Bush's $250 billion plan to buy shares in the nation's leading banks — which helped stocks soar on Monday — should be short-term and last only until the institutions are reformed and put on a sound footing again.

"When that is accomplished," McCain said, "government will relinquish its interest in these private companies. We're going to get the government out of the business of bailouts and equity stakes and back in the business of responsible regulation."

Really? Relinqish? So, not only are the equity stakes non-voting, but the government will just walk away from them once the banks are solvent?

I am assuming here that by "relinquish" he means surrender, without even getting our money back. Wow, when it comes to the economy, Johnny is in favor of cutting and running.