Campaign Updates and Media Headlines 9/17/08
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Fed Gives AIG an $85 Billion Loan in Exchange for 80% Stake (by Mark Thoma at Economist’s View)
[T]he Fed is going to give AIG an $85 billion loan in exchange for an 80% stake in the company… So you as a taxpayer now have a large stake in AIG.
Now that we own it, can we turn it into a health insurance company and cover everybody?—Caro
Nationalize the World! The Sun! The Moon! Me! (by Arthur Silber at The Power of Narrative)
Funny. Those damned commies won after all. You go, Murka!
Where’s MY bailout?—Caro
Deep Thought (by Susie at Suburban Guerrilla)
Why is Mrs. Alan Greenspan [Andrea Mitchell] allowed to anchor the coverage of the financial crisis at the Very Liberal MSNBC, considering the part her spouse played in this mess? Why does she never mention her conflict of interest?
Boiler Room (by Dean Starkman, Columbia Journalism Review)
It seems to me that well into Year II of the Panic, the business press is in the process of making the same mistake it made in the run-up to the debacle: focusing on esoteric Wall Street concerns and ignoring the simplest, most basic, but most important one—the breathtaking corruption that overran the U.S. lending industry, including and especially the brand names, and the extent to which Wall Street drove that corruption. Let’s just call it a case of over-sophistication. Its persistence, however, will only impede journalists’ ability to cover this thing going forward. [Emphasis added.]
No historical background is provided, either. There was corruption in the savings and loan scandals. There was corruption in the book-cooking scandals that included Enron. And that’s to name only two. People see it, and they know what is happening. As Robert Reich said recently, markets can’t function without trust. We all know that some really bad people are getting away with some really bad stuff, and are sticking us with the bill for it. Over and over and over again. WE’re paying for their multiple mansions. WE’re paying for their Picassos and their couture gowns and their jewels. We can even watch them spend our money on television—on the CW, and on Bravo.
Corruption is also what’s wrong with our political system Our representatives are helping these greedy bastards, and are being well paid for it. You can’t have a vibrant democracy when so many people are getting away with so much theft. People don’t trust the process, which is supposed to be democratic. It’s supposed to be fair. The only way to solve the corruption problem is to TAKE THE MONEY OUT OF THE POLITICAL PROCESS.
It’s a huge story, but the mainstream media will not touch it. The owners of the media and the lackeys they hire, for huge bucks, have too much invested in the status quo.—Caro
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Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com
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Comments
"hunker down with the reassuring familiarity"
-- "... Obama, a child of the world as it is, offers a dream of the world as it might be. (That's why so much of the world thrills to him, and will be devastated if he loses.) McCain, Vietnam hero, and Palin, hockey mom, offer a dream of the US as it once was. Rational this may not be, but voters who are fearful, defensive, and unhappy with the way the world is going, may just prefer to hunker down with the reassuring familiarity of that vision of America. "Got hope?" challenges the Obama bumper sticker. At the moment, America has got fear. And the temerity of fear may yet defeat the audacity of hope. ..." --
America is gripped by the politics of fear. Bad news for the prophet of hope-Rationally, the economic and financial hurricane should help Obama. But people do not always vote with their heads
-- http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/...