The President received a stunning blow yesterday, and it was delivered at the hands of his own party. Think of it, if this is truly one of the greatest calamities we are facing in our time, and the president can't get his own bill through his own party, then he is truly a lame duck. Regardless of the spin that is applied, the republicans have lost the mantle of leadership, the "mandate of the gods" as it were and people sense it.

John McCain inserted himself into this, and undeniably made an ass of himself. He killed his run there, with an assist from house republicans.

BTW, don't f*ck with Nancy Pelosi.

however, this is no more inevitable than the "permanent republican majority" roviacs were touting eight years ago.

and under NORMAL circumstances, i would say yes, the mccain-palin ticket and their keystone kops approach to campaigning, coupled with the current economic meltdown, is a serious blow to this toxic brand of conservatism.

but the magnitude of the meltdown is a game-changer. a wild card. we don't know how it's going to turn out. some new hole is punched in the economy each and every day.

if people had the wits and wherewithal to see that the republicans shot the bill down not because it fails to protect taxpayers, but because they can't stomach ANY REGULATION WHATSOEVER, they would realize that these ideologically bankrupt fools are not the ones to lead us out of this mess. but i don't think enough people do.

also, keep in mind that whoever inherits this is not going to fix it in a day, a year, or even four years. by then they will have whitewashed the memory of gw bush and proclaimed it all the fault of the dem congress and current administration. and they'll be back.

as much as I'd like to agree with you...I have strong concerns that the era of Bush is really upended.

For one thing the renegade US House Reps seem determined to cloak their radical agenda in the language of principled men. They are pushing for further tax cuts for the investor class. And if they succeed--this will be the ultimate vindication for the conservatism of Bush--that even during a national emergency with the entire economy at stake, these men are willing and able to negotiate their agenda on behalf of the investor class (Bush era style class warfare)...It does remind me of what happened after 9-11.

Liberals can't only win "by default." They need a principled populist agenda, articulated to the public. Can someone also explain this to me: if banks are currently "too big to fail" thus necessitating this tax payer borrowed "liquidity"--why are banks consolidating further with government approval? Do bank consolidations create "efficiency" or do they set us up for a rerun of the too-big-to-fail game with bigger and bigger stakes each time?

...and the Democrats had better make sure they don't catch it, or 10 years from now roles will be reversed.

It has taken one calamity after another for the majority of Americans to finally get wise to the Republican agenda. The financial meltdown was set up by years of deregulation, the worship of the free market and the demonization of government and the common good. Now the Republicans in congress won't even bail out their own president because the bi-partisan bailout bill tramples too much on the the industry that caused the calamity in the first place. I say get all of the Democrats on board by crafting a bill that will reward taxpayers, help homeowners, and regulate the financial markets in a meaningful way. Supposedly the Democrats didn't want to be left holding the bag, but now, with clueless Republicans holding up process, they could be seen riding to the rescue.

I hope the democratic reps can find their spines in time to do this.

direct paste from his Blog Maverick site (yes maverick)

Tax every single share of stock that is bought and sold 10 cents per transaction. One dime. If you buy a share of stock, your brokerage pays a 10c tax. If you sell a share, your brokerage pays a 10c tax. 1 share, 100 million shares. Its 10 cents per share.

Of course the tax will be paid for by those of us who are buying and selling stocks. So what. Here is the reality. If you are a true investor. Someone who wants to own a share of stock in a company you believe in, then its an amount that is not going to impact your investment decision making process.

If you are a professional trader or an institutional trader that trades continuously, then it may impact your decision making process, but only to the point of reducing your returns by a minimal amount. Its not going to change your inclination to trade. If you make 9.9pct instead of 10pct, you aren’t going to stop trading.

Whats the economic impact ?

If the NYSE, Nasdaq, Amex and OTC are trading 2 Billion shares a day, thats $ 200 Million Dollars PER DAY. If there are 260 trading days a year. Thats about 52 Billion dollars a year.

Thats real money.

Of course there has to be some fine print. You could reduce the tax per share for stocks under $5 dollars to 5cents. But i would leave it at 5cents even for stocks priced at pennies per share or less. This tax would act as a protection for investors and traders who get pitched unregulated penny stocks and who are more often than not the victims of rip off artists.

Take this $52 Billion Dollars and ????. I will open it to the floor for suggestions and save my conclusion for a later post.

5 dollar and under stocks

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Thanks Mark, consider it shared. //tomacito

It is very important for the future of the country that the blame for our financial crisis be correctly allocated.

Republicans have run the country into the ground by cutting taxes for rich people and not regulating business. The process began in 1980, and eight years of Clinton presidency only marginally slowed the process. It is the same strategy that gave us the Great Depression, and it has worked pretty much the same way again. The big difference is that the economy did not collapse after the S&L crisis in the '80s because we had deposit insurance and other mechanisms in place.

We also have a national debt that is over ten times larger than it was in 1980--at least 90% attributable to Republican administrations. The huge deficits have helped in keeping the economy from an even earlier collapse.

Now the people who brought us to this disaster are trying to evade responsibility by forcing Democrats to take the blame for a very unpopular bail out. Democrats should refuse to play. It would be better to wait until after the election to take corrective action than have Democrats go into the election after taking ownership of the economy. (They already foolishly took partial ownership of the Iraq war.) My suggestion is that the Democratic leadership tell the President and the Republican leadership that they will provide enough Democratic votes to pass almost anything the Republicans want to pass, but only if 95% of Republicans vote for it. Otherwise no deal.

The Republican Party should not have survived the Great Depression. Maybe this time we can get the bastards, (and I know what I have just written is pure fantasy because Democrats have no balls.)