A Sam Stein piece informs us that John McCain is working on a ten point plan of economic principles for the GOP. What is in this outline of principles, I wonder:
“We are looking for some guidance on a definitive plan (aka contract with america style) on the economy…principles,” writes Buse. “Ten principles that JSM could point to on what MUST BE DONE to address the problems our nation faces.”
Buse doesn’t offer specific suggestions of his own, save “NO TAX INCREASES.”
Why do Republican economic principles sound so familiar:
Step 1: No tax increases
Step 2: ?
Step 3: Profit!
Why not, I guess. It worked so well for California.
Also, this.
Comrade Stuck
Poor Kenny. Someday, he’s gonna get himself killed.
C Nelson Reilly
McCain Economic Principle #7 – MORE COWBELL
kommrade reproductive vigor
Bu-but, he’s not campaigning. What dramatic gesture will he make to call attention to his next utter FAILure?
Oh well. McCain Economic Principle #8: Get offa my lawn!
MEP #9: When purchasing clothes for your Alaskan Moosetress and her family, check the sales racks at Macy’s.
Zifnab
#4 – Get the hell off my lawn!
Damn you, komrade
#2 – Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.
Delia
Wasn’t Gramps babbling about a general spending freeze during one of the debates? He could fill in one of the ten steps with that. After that, um, cut Social Security, Medicare, and anything else McPOW can think of, and break it all up into as many steps as he needs to add up to ten. And then he can go stand in a corner and cuss out everyone.
Robin G.
#4: Deny global warming so as to not waste money on eco-pork.
Chris Johnson
Oh come on. Isn’t it obvious? The GOP is Joan Crawford.
Therefore:
#2: EVER!!!!!
Wisdom
The Republicans have nothing on your principles:
1) Write Bankruptcy Bill that gives Credit Default Swap holders first creditor rights in a bankruptcy.
2) ?
3) Cause global meltdown
4) Become Vice President!
crustacean
Jim Cramer to be a guest on TDS this Thursday nite.
Ed Marshall
Write Bankruptcy Bill that gives Credit Default Swap holders first creditor rights in a bankruptcy.
The brave Republican opposition to this affront to consumer rights was spearheaded by…0 republicans in the Senate.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@Chris J.: Are you sure? The GOP totally gives me a Bette Davis as Baby Jane vibe.
Butcha aahr! Ya’aar in the chaaair Mike!
crustaceanette
Ooh, Brad Pitt hanging with my bro, Jim Clyburn, and Nancypants
Omg, what a bunch of celeb worshippers
Also, Jim Cramer to guest on TDS Thurs. nite
crustaceanette
Nancy’s putting on weight.
SpotWeld
#8 Get off my lawn
The Moar You Know
All the way until last week, when we raised taxes.
I take it McCain has finally unsuspended his campaign?
Dennis-SGMM
Call yourself "Wisdom"
Lack it.
TheHatOnMyCat
5. Stop the gay attack on families and marriage, the cornerstones of our economy.
6. Support the troops by keeping them in Iraq for 100 years.
7. Complete that border fence.
8. Drill her, drill now. No, that is NOT a typo.
9. Let everything fail, except Teri Schiavo. Let the market work.
10. Let taxpayers who are out of work keep more of their own money.
The Moar You Know
@SpotWeld: Get off my lawns.
eemom
a fine piece today about the emmessemm’s continuingly zombieish fixation on the Not President:
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_tiny_battles_of_a_hasbeen_candidate
(sorry, dunno how to embed links)
Dennis-SGMM
Return to:
Bush I Era Tax RatesReagan Era Tax RatesNixon Era Tax RatesEisenhower Era Tax RatesDeclare jowls to be "really cool" and multiple chins a sign of wisdom.
gbear
Jeez, I hope they nail Cramer’s chair to the floor before Stewart nails his ass to the floor.
I wonder if McCain’s 10 point plan will have any of the ideas that he was so quick to bring up at the emergency economic summit right before the debate with Obama? I remember everyone being so dazzled with the insight and wisdom he brought to that meeting.
Comrade Jake
At this point, I think the only people who are actually paying attention to John McCain are his "friends" in the media.
Tsulagi
I look forward to McCain’s financial wizard Phil Gramm’s brilliant input…
#4 No regulation!
#5 I got mine so stop whining!
John Cole
Surely there must be room in the top ten for Country First! and Wolverines!
John Cole
Drill baby drill!
Comrade Jake
A NOBEL PRIZE FOR BATTERIEZE!
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
Wait – just no tax raises? No tax cuts?
Liberal scum!
KCinDC
McCain needs a 10-point list? Should have called Letterman. He specializes in them.
joe from Lowell
Poor bastards.
This guy tries, really tries, to brainstorm an affirmative agenda for the Republicans, and the first word out of his pen is NO.
Cat Lady
So far every single republitard since the election has said they need a plan that addresses the real world problems of the American People – except Rush who says policy doesn’t matter, just get your hate on. So far, there hasn’t been one single substantive suggestion. Not one. Newt’s air traffic control (WTF?) gimmick doesn’t count, and neither do tax cuts. Boehner’s spending freeze was called insane by one of their own. Not one single good faith proposal has been articulated, and it’s been months now that they’ve said it’s going to come. Who in the MSM will call them out on this, and when? Time’s up.
joe from Lowell
#5: More rock, less talk.
You know, if the Republicans hadn’t actually offered a capital gains tax cut as an economic stimulus policy in the middle of a real estate collapse, a stock market collapse, an insurance market collapse, and a depression, one of us could write "#8: Capital Gains Tax Cut."
And it would be funny.
Max
McCain does have that neato tire swing, and the media love tire swing rides more than anything.
Litlebritdifrnt
He does know he lost right? I mean it is not like Obama set out all his policy positions during the 100 year campaign and the voting populace overwhelmingly said "yeah gimme some of that!" while resoundingly saying to McCain and Bible Spice "Sry you no can has cheezburger". He does KNOW this right? Cause it sounds like he is thinking he is in charge or some shit. Perhaps he is still walking around looking for Mr. Puddles.
PS) It is my 49th birthday tomorrow (eeeeeeek) however the good news is one of my DH’s teacher friends bought me this
http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Robin-Sherwood-Complete-Collection/9529
as a present. You may not see me for weeks as I indulge in a Michael Praed lust orgy.
Comrade Jake
Well, at least we have The Daily Show to look forward to.
NonyNony
I tried to mock this, but I keep coming back to one question:
Who the FUCK cares what John Sindey McCain thinks about anything?
Republicans don’t care – they hated him last year, managed to swallow their bile long enough to pretend to rally around him after he picked Sarah "starbursts" Palin as his running mate, and then turned the hate back on around November 4th at 10pm when Fox News called the election for Obama.
Democrats don’t care – it’s not like John McCain is one of the 3 remaining moderates in the GOP Senate caucus. If he were someone like Snowe or Collins or Specter who might be swayed to vote for something with the right compromises it would be a different story – but his isn’t. He gave up his title of "moderate" years ago when he decided it was a failed strategy in 2000. Now he’s just another conservative Republican in the Senate, and their game plan is, in the words of Ted Stevens, "NO!" So Democrats have no reason to care either.
Business leaders don’t care – they could tell that John McCain was an idiot. They know that he can’t be an adequate messenger now that he’s made himself irrelevant in the Senate.
Religious leaders don’t care – because seriously, right or left leaning, they never have cared one whit for anything McCain had to say about anything.
Right now Joe the Plumber has a larger constituency of people who trust him to give advice on the economy than John McCain does – at least there are Republicans that still love them some JtP. McCain should find himself a nice niche to fill – like, say, figuring out how to save some money in the Defense budget by cutting waste – and go after it like a man obsessed. Leave the big picture stuff for the people who can actually think big picture and haven’t spent the last year+ running around the country acting like a side-show attraction instead of a Presidential candidate.
Froley
1. Find wealthy beer heiress
2. Marry said heiress
gex
@Delia: How about the ever popular, "what if we tax workers on their employer contributions to health care coverage?" I just know that should make the list of 10.
Davis X. Machina
For the fundamental societal premise for our econimy, we’ve traded ‘a rising tide lifts all boats’ for ‘in a flood, the tall guys drown last’.
I don’t think that was an advance.
KCinDC
NonyNony, you’re forgetting the media. A lot of them might be willing to climb back on the tire swing.
TenguPhule
1. Putin’s head rises in the west!
2. ????
3. I’m Sarah Palin. Give me the Launch Codes.
jcricket
That comes right after "get people to acknowledge the main healthcare problems are overuse, lack of medical knowledge for comparison shopping on the part of the recipient when considering a course of treatment for a disease"
Calouste
John McCain’s 10 economic principles:
#1: Tax cuts
#2: More defense spending
#3: Tax cuts
#4: Abolish death tax
#5: Tax cuts
#6: There is no number 6
#7: Tax cuts
#8: No poofters
#9: Tax cuts
#10: Get off my lawn!
joe from Lowell
Yeah, McCain’s health care reform: taxes on employer coverage, and tax-free health savings accounts. Because the taxes on part of your savings account will buy health insurance. Or something.
Comrade Jake
@NonyNony:
Really nobody SHOULD care what he has to say, but see my post above. The media loves them some McCain. They really are his base.
TenguPhule
3. When she gets old and worn, return to step 1.
Notorious P.A.T.
Do "cut taxes" and "don’t increase taxes" count as separate ideas? I think we should throw them a bone and say yes.
Comrade Stuck
Listen, my friends
Your marks have ears
David
#11: Dropping bombs on the Oppressed in order to liberate them
for profitsand stimulate the economy.Fulcanelli
@TenguPhule:
Yeah, Meghan!
GSD
John McCain is the greatest mind to have burst into the American public arena since Joey Buttafuocco.
-GSD
Notorious P.A.T.
Hahahahaha )
John Cole
How did we forget this- #7: SURGE!
gbear
@Froley:
1. Come home to damaged wife.
2. Find wealthy beer heiress.
3. Divorce current damaged wife.
4. Marry beer heiress.
Incertus
So John, when are you going to change the name of the site from Balloon Juice to Clown Shoes? :-)
Jay Severin Has A Small Pen1s
I was going to suggest the ten commandments but…seriously…you have to break 8 of them just to get elected these days.
Martin
2. Snap inspection! Cut government staffing by eliminating anyone that doesn’t keep their original birth certificate in their wallet.
3. Simulus: seven to ten homes for every American, at least one with a full barbecue to entertain the press.
4. Suspend government for every emergency, thereby saving electricity and tour guide wages.
5. Gas tax holiday. Everyone gets July 8 off, John Rockefeller’s birthday and doesn’t have to pay gas taxes on that day. Gas stations are probably already equipped with the necessary equipment to make this happen.
6. Hire Brick Oven Bill to be Secretary of Tractors.
7. Increase corporate taxes by encouraging weak business to go out of business.
8. Modernize the military. Every Navy pilot is required to crash one plane, allowing the entire fleet to be replaced.
9. Invest the entire Social Security corpus in financial and automotive stocks. Buy low! Sell high!
10. Put bumblebees back on the nickel!
Aeneas
I can’t be the only one who thinks Newt’s ‘big idea’ sounds exactly like the Next Generation Air Transportation System which has been in development for years and is already a given.
David
5.
Become President of the United States of America.Paul
"John McCain is working on a ten point plan of economic principles for the GOP."
That’s terrific, but I think some sort of twelve-step plan should be greater priority for the GOP at this moment.
tomjones
Poor John McCain, has he forgotten that taxes will be raised – that is, reset to the Clinton era level – without any action by Congress or the president?
This will happen because President Bush was too chicken shit to call for a permanent tax cut, and instead passed his with the 10 year "sunset."
All because Bush and the Republicans wanted to hide the true cost of his massive give away to the rich. For shame.
calling all toasters
1 through 10: I was a POW!
mr. whipple
EARMARKS!!! EARMARKS!!! EARMARKS!!! EARMARKS!!! EARMARKS!!! EARMARKS!!! EARMARKS!!! EARMARKS!!!
EARMARKS!!! EARMARKS!!! EARMARKS!!! EARMARKS!!! EARMARKS!!! EARMARKS!!! EARMARKS!!! EARMARKS!!!
ah fuckit, where’s mr puddles?
Incertus
@tomjones:
And because they believed their own hype on the permanent Republican majority, but no one ever accused them of being all that smart.
Comrade Stuck
8) sick wife trade ins
Fwiffo
I’d like to draw the attention of BJ readers to the Kwame Kipatrick sexy texts.
I got to page 3 and had to stop. There was this:
I see why the sexy texts were the thing that broke this case wide open. Forget the dead stripper, this kind of crap is the real crime.
Just a bit further down the same page…
You couldn’t make this stuff up.
gnomedad
This is like a mosquito being a "guest" to a backyard bug-zapper. He must really believe there is no such thing a bad publicity.
gbear
@Paul:
They’re still too freaked out about having to acknowledge a higher power to make any headway 12-step-wise.
David
Things To Do
from the desk of John McCain
______________________________________
join the Navy √
make admiral
get married √
stay faithful
exchange wife for one with money √
stay faithful
become senator √
become president
A Ghost To Most (aka Ack)
7. It puts the lotion on it’s skin
lightsleeper
It often troubles me that America’s binary obsession with winners and losers deprives us of some of our best talent. We dismiss a runner-up as "that loser" instead of acknowledging that the second-place candidate is just that: perhaps the second-best choice to lead our country.
Not in this case though! Whoa, talk about a dodging a bullet!
Chuck Butcher
1) What’s good for Plutocracy is good for the US…
Farley
McCain is a cu…
McCain is a cu…
McCain is a cu…
McCain is a continuing source of inspiration!
Seriously, Arizona has been especially hard-hit by the housing crisis. Any word on when McCain is accepting househousehousehousehousehousehousehouseguests?
Cain
@gbear:
5. Surge
6. bomb bomb bomb iran
7. Surge
8. Cut taxes
9. freeze spending
10. SURGE
11. get the fuck off my lawn
12. SURGE
McCain can’t count.. he goes to 12.
cain
Mike in NC
Does this schmuck have a Dickipedia entry yet?
Rommie
#10 has to be a version of "And if you don’t do points 1-9, we’ll leave the Union and run our own damn country, God’s will be done!"
Enough of the frakkin’ Insurrection talk, or people might just start taking those yapping about it seriously. Teabagging Morans!
KRK
I just want to point out that if Obama had only agreed to do those town halls with McCain, the economy would have fixed itself.
kay
This won’t get any press, because it doesn’t fit the scapegoat Geithner meme, but I think it’s important, and shocking, in a way. I’m still capable of being shocked at how completely debased and demanding Wall Street has become, I guess.
This is Geithner on Charlie Rose. He’s explaining why his plan for the banks wasn’t received well on Wall Street. I felt that this was the case. I felt as if they were pitching a fit because he wasn’t shoveling money their way, on their terms. What’s also really goddamn disturbing is how completely the media played along with this stupid fucking game of chicken they were playing:
"Expectations got ahead of the policy, and part of those expectations which caused disappointment were the hope that we were going to provide a very generous benefit to the banking system on terms that I didn’t think was going to be effective — defensible for the American tax taxpayer.’
kay
Charlie, this idea, this idea to use government financing alongside private capital is an idea that a few people had back in the fall.
[CR]
Warren Buffet, for one, sent a letter to Paulson suggesting this is a way to go.
[TG]
Among others. And some of us put a lot of merit in that proposal at that time.
[CR]
But it was rejected at that time?
[TG]
Well, I’m not sure it was rejected. I wasn’t secretary of the treasury, then.
That’s interesting too. Geithner’s plan is Buffet’s idea. Which Geithner backed at the beginning of this mess, but Paulson (apparently) vetoed.
Which may be why Buffet came out publicly to suggest Obama sell "a plan". Because it’s Buffet’s plan, which Buffet of course, knows. And Buffet was afraid Geithner wasn’t selling it effectively.
jonas
Cramer on the Daily Show? Oooh boy, break out the popcorn. I’m sure he’s under the impression that Stewart is this idiot lightweight "fake news" comedian who’ll get his comeuppance when he has to face a real financial wizard.
I hope Cramer brings a nice, well-polished pewter serving tray with him. His ass will look better on it when it’s handed back to him.
Hyperion
This made me laugh.
Wonk
@Litlebritdifrnt: @Litlebritdifrnt:
From one perimenopausal (TMI, TMI!) Pisces chick to another – my 48th’s on Saturday – HAPPY BIRTHDAY !
Indylib
@Paul:
How this – 12 Step Program for Republican
1. We admit we are powerless over the American voters and our party has become a complete clusterfuck.
2. Came to believe a power greater than Ronald Reagan could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and lives over to the care of anyone other than Rush Limbaugh as we understand Rush Limbaugh.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of our politics.
5. Admitted to anyone other than Rush Limbaugh , to ourselves and to another political party the exact nature of our political fuck-ups.
6. Were entirely ready to have anyone other than Rush Limbaugh remove all these defective political ideas.
7. Humbly asked anyone other than Rush Limbaugh to remove our political shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all government services and we had harmed, and became willing to offer ammendments to correct to them all.
9. Made direct amends to the American (Iraqi, Afghani, etc.) people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take political inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through honest debate and thoughtful legislation to improve our conscious contact with anyone other than Rush Limbaugh as we understood anyone other than Rush Limbaugh, asking only for the honest consent of the American people of their will for their country and the political will to carry that out.
12. Having had a political awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other Republican politicians and voters , and to practice these principles in all our politics.
TenguPhule
Step 1: Charge!
Step 2: Only Filthy Liberals need a plan B!
KG
@82: change step 3 to "Tell Rush Limbaugh to shut the fuck up and get in line" and then remove all other references to Limbaugh, and you might just be on to something.
jcricket
Man, there have been so many side-splitting Republican hilarity moments ™ in the last year I had totally forgotten about that one.
To paraphrase an old SNL skil:
"People often ask if the Republican party keeps losing election after election, how they will retake the majority.
The answer is: Volume"
Aimai
1. Win an election.
2. What was the question again?
Ash Can
Ten principles:
1. Cut taxes
2. Cut ’em again
3. Have we bombed Iran yet? Why the hell not? Get on it, damn it!
4. Nuke Iraq too while you’re at it, you lazy bastards
5. Remember to look presidential while wandering around the stage
6. What the hell do you mean, I didn’t win the election?
7. Have I mentioned tax cuts yet?
8. I thought I told you goddamn kids to GET THE HELL OFF MY LAWN!
9. Crap, I almost forgot to mention tax cuts
10. Where the hell are my pants?
AnneLaurie
Oh, is that what the kids are calling BJs these days? Hmph!
Letterman opened with a "new act: Today’s Media Buzzwords" — clips of a dozen talking hairdos and politicos chirping ‘earmarks’ ‘earmarks!’ ‘earmarks?’ ‘pork’ ‘pork!’ ‘earmarks.. and pork’ ‘earmarks!’.
It was like listening to a chorus of caffeinated chipmunks, and a fine demonstration of mock-blocking in action.
Joshua Norton
For the past 7 years I’ve claimed that our foreign policy was formed by the Underpants Gnomes.
1. Bomb Iraq back to the stone age.
2. ???
3. Victory.
At least they’re consistent.
valdivia
Kay–thanks for the Charlie Rose excerpts. I will try and catch it today on repeat at 1 pm. I heard a pretty long interview with Geithner on Planet Money which gave me a very different sense of him than the one we hear on the news all the time.
How long before CNBC blames Stewart for the market fluctuations and start calling him the Rush Limbaugh of the left?
kay
@valdivia:
Incredible, I know, but I’m suspicious of the motives of Wall Streeters. I don’t know if Geithner’s plan is the best course. I expected that he would get a lot of scrutiny for the bank plan. That’s fair: he’s the Treasury Secretary. I think it’s complete bullshit that Wall Street wanted "clarity", though. They wanted a deal on their terms. When they didn’t get it, they threw a tantrum.
valdivia
@kay:
My take re Wall street is like yours: they throw a tantrum when they don’t get their shiny ball.
kay
@valdivia:
I listened to Bernanke’s speech carefully yesterday. Disclaimer: I’m not an expert. It sounded to me like he rolled on two issues. Transparency and capitalization. Markets rallied, but is that because the petulant children got what they wanted?
aimai
Oh, the pleasure of quoting myself:
From an earlier John McCain foray into underpants gnomehood.
Ash Can
@kay:
One of the reasons the market rallied yesterday (there were several) was Bernanke’s remarks specifically about bringing back the uptick rule, which would have the ultimate effect of increasing the stability of the stock market. Whether the "petulant children" benefit from this makes no difference, happily, because everyone who invests in stocks — and that includes average shmoes with modest portfolios and pension funds keeping retirees afloat — benefits from increased stability of the market. (It means that short sellers won’t be able to make the killings they could in the absence of the rule, but BFD.)
cleek
Step 1: No tax increases
Step 2: The Hale and Virtuous Invisible Hand of the Great Lafferite Spirit performs the Holy Ghost Handjob on the market.
Step 3: Profit!
Lupin
MEP#1 – Invest in whale oil.
gex
@Ash Can: I guess that’s fine, but then we need to have much stiffer oversight of corporate governance in general.
The shorters, for what its worth, are often the ones who find out these frauds. The shorters were way ahead of this crash, and they caught on to Enron too.
I guess I don’t see how irrational stock market exuberance is helped by reducing people’s ability to bet that a company’s stock value will go down. If the only direction you can bet is up, then everyone will be betting up.
jibeaux
1. Checking blog in the a.m.
2. ?????
3. New thread!
Comrade Jake
OT, but man am I getting sick of GMA continually trying to insult my intelligence every morning.
Michael
A real TRVE CONSERVATIVE would not put the end that way. He’d say "G_d’s will be done!"
Then he’d go back to surfing porn while posting paeans to St. Ronnie on Christian Conservative message boards.
jrosen
From the admittedly limited contact I’ve had with recovering alcoholics who work on Wall Street, i get the impression that quite a few of them are half way in the bag before the trading day is over, and that they continue to suck it down afterward, while still wheeling and dealing. (Years ago I observed auto execs in posh Pontiac, MI motel doing the same thing, making decisions that would impact millions while downing martinis like soda water.) That might be the simplest explanation of where we are at (but I don’t think Cramer is doing booze…more like speed or coke). Certainly we’ve seen what happens when a dry drunk like W, with a coke-addled brain — some of the damage is permanent — gets to be a "decider".
I’d certainly send a lot of these guys to rehab. Or Club Fed. Or both.
Ash Can
@gex: That’s a perfectly decent point. And I’m all for increased corporate governance, believe me. In this case, it would be great if equities analysts got wider exposure since, apart from insider trading (which can be spurred by any number of factors), they furnish the first (legal) read on how a company is doing and where its stock is likely to go. The trouble is, the analysts themselves are at the mercy of corporate managements and the quality and accuracy of the information they’re given. A decent analyst will be able to find bugs hidden in financial statements, but if the books are cooked to begin with, they might not show up at all, even to a highly trained eye.
I remember when the uptick rule was instituted. It came in response to stocks of companies with no real problems getting hammered for no real reason other than lemming mentalities. The shorters made out like bandits at everyone else’s expense, and it wasn’t pretty. That in a nutshell was the upside to the uptick rule.
Your point, I think, is a dandy illustration of how problematic this whole financial imbroglio is, and how difficult universally beneficial solutions are to come by.
Zifnab
@Comrade Jake: You could use DVR and watch it at lunch.
Comrade Stuck
OT
A question for a blog Crawl.
Has Howard Fineman gone insane? Or is he just funnin’ us?
You decide.
Mysterious technocrats? Does he mean bobbleheads on Cable News? Or Malkin’s Magoo Crew?
The American Establishment — Does he mean House Republicans? Chuck Norris? Glenn Beck?
Last week Fineman et al were bitching that Obama needed to sweet talk talk us and the markets more about how ever thing is gonna be alright. Instead of all that pooh poohing blunt talk about how bad things are.
The Establishment, or the Three Stooges of brain death.
Medicine, Howard, you need medicine!
NickM
But isn’t part of the problem the treatment of the market as an avenue for "betting" rather than "investing"?
Ram111
Step 1: No tax increases
Step 2: Deliver bottled hot water to dehydrated babies.
Step 3: Profit!
Barry Soetoro
Digby:
I think Digby’s being crazy. She’s crazy; that’s crazy talk.
Michael:
fixt.
Dennis-SGMM
Ten principles? Why not four or fourteen? I’d say that it was a bit on the biblical side save for the fact that McCain hasn’t done so well in keeping those other ten thingies.
Bob In Pacifica
But seriously, since Republican economics theory is merely a game of Monopoly and the winners have "won" and the game is over, what can Republicans do except repeat the same things that got us to this point?
They’ll need to figure out a new model, like The Game of Life, or Parcheesi or something.
Michael
@106 (Nick M)
But that would take the joy out of the "serious" financial reporting on CNBC. Shouldn’t reporting on investing be like a sport, or at least an energy charged, drunken golf weekend in Vegas?
After all, that’s what we’ve encouraged it to devolve to – now we’re doing bets on the outcome of bets on the outcome of bets.
I defy any conservative to explain to me how that adds any value to any transaction.
Dennis-SGMM
@Bob In Pacifica:
Chutes and Ladders: We get the chutes, they keep the ladders.
gnomedad
@Comrade Stuck:
Chuck Norris’s "Black Belt Patriotism": American sucks except for Texas.
Zifnab
@NickM: You’re arguing semantics at that point. You’re still purchasing equity in the market, unlike in Vegas when "$50 on black" doesn’t really buy you anything.
But life is a gamble. There are smart ways to invest in the market and dumb ways. The CDO game wasn’t the result of people just throwing money on the craps table and walking away. They did some very sophisticated calculations to determine what the returns were going to be. But once they found a winning formula, they just started pumping money into it until it broke. This was an industry-wide error in risk assessment, it wasn’t just a jaunt out to Atlantic City.
Dennis-SGMM
What is this "value" you speak of? The beauty of our system was that they could borrow up to $43,000,000 using a $1,000,000 sub-prime mortgage as collateral, bet for and against the transaction, take hostages in the form of CDO’s and credit default swaps while paying themselves a shit-ton of money in the process. "Value" is sooooo twentieth century.
Ash
I think Chutes and Ladders might be a more apt example for the Republicans.
Josh Hueco
Government by Diaper Gnomes
/Vitter’d
John PM
I am so sad that I am only seeing this post for the first time this morning. All of my lines have already been taken, including "merry rich beer heiress after divorcing faithful yet disfigured first wife." Of course, if McCain were a true maverick, he would propose the following: "turn all people over the age of 70 (myself included) into soylent green in order to save social security and medicare costs and provide foor for the hungry." I’m just sayin’.
gbear
@Dennis-SGMM:
More likely based on the Letterman top ten lists because everyone is going to laugh when he reads it.
OT Are John, Doug and Tim all hung over this morning?
Edit: Oops. Commented w/o refreshing. There’s a new thread up.
A Mom Anon
@Comrade Jake:
Thank You. That little "morning team"is from hell. It’s always about them,every freaking story. Diane Sawyer is simply heinous(if I hear her talk about how fat she is one more time I’m gonna scream). Robin Roberts as the plucky cancer survivor is old,she’s not the only woman to bravely survive breast cancer,it’s enough now. Cuomo is a doofus,and Sam Champion as Mr Eco Dude is embarassing.
The is no news anymore,CSPAN is even more wingnutty than normal in the mornings with the blast fax brigade calling in.
Ash Can
@NickM:
Unfortunately, it must be regarded as "betting" insofar as it always involves some amount of risk. There’s no such thing as an entirely, 100% sure thing, especially in an environment like we have now. There are different levels of risk, though, and that’s where the more sober, "investment" side of the business comes in. The cowboys on the exchange floors who are buying junk bonds, unlisted equities, restructurings and other flotsam are doing it with money they know right upfront they can afford to lose (at least, they are if they have any common sense at all).
ETA: Also, what Zifnab said.
NickM
@Zifnab:
I wasn’t really thinking about the subprime/CDO debacle. It doesn’t seem that was based on gambling-type behavior — far from it — as you note the financiers of that debacle were investing in a sure thing. But the wider bubble-based economy seems to have grown out of notions that the market is a gambling rather than investing device — e.g. the focus on short-term price fluctuations and buying based not on underlying fundamentals but on gambles as to whether price will increase or decrease. Some of this of course will always go on but it seems to me — for whatever that is worth — that both the culture and policy seemed to encourage this behavior more than it should have been encouraged.
Calouste
@jrosen:
The City (London’s equivalent of Wall Street) is also rather notorious for its liquid lunches.
Svensker
Did I miss something? Wasn’t McCain the Republican candidate for President of the United States of America last year? And wasn’t it obvious to anyone even without a brain that our economy was going down the toilet last year? And the putative leader of the Republican Party is JUST NOW getting around to a plan to deal with the economy? And asking other people for ideas to help him come up with a plan? Leadership you can believe in!
Mike in NC
(1) Fundamentals…
(2) Economy…
(3) Strong…
(4) Tax cuts!
(5) Capital gains!
(6) Say NO!
(7) Talk to Newt?
(8) Whatever…
(9) Goddamn Obama!
(10) Naptime
Zifnab
@NickM:
That’s the thing. The bubbles aren’t the results of gambling so much as they are the result of investors seeing a "sure thing" that isn’t so sure and having way too much money to toss around.
Take a look at the oil bubble. Investors saw oil as a safe commodity that had been predictably rising. So they started shoveling money into it, driving up the price, and making it look like an even better investment. This inspired more people to jump on the bandwagon. The future projections still showed a rise in oil demand, so the deals continued to look good.
Only when demand slipped below supply did the bubble pop. This wasn’t as inevitable as you’d think, given that people weren’t cutting oil demand even after the price of oil rose several times over.
NickM
@Zifnab – Good point.
Chuck Butcher
Zif,
I think you’re engaging in a bit of sophistry here. I think that researching something to the point of having an understanding of it and then putting money in it would qualify as investing. Depending on what others are doing to guide your investment is flat out gambling. Your description of oil usage not falling with price rises assumes short term pricing has short term consequences, when the reality is that at some point price doesn’t just reduce usage, it collapses the market with small short term results.
it was predictable that at some price point people would make usage adjustments. Maybe that point isn’t predictable, but a real warning flag is waved when the consumers begin to suffer real problems due to the price. When I’ve had job sites out of town I’ve priced them on costs, if gas costs go up I still have to finish that job and I also have to calculate changing from travel costs to lodging costs, a measure I’d already taken. The price point can mean more than a 90% reduction in use of one comodity, gasoline, to an urelated one, lodging. Judging your investment strategy on the fact that people keep putting money on 7 is gambling. Stocks are another example of betting on something because people keep betting on it, stocks have an actual real meaning, a company’s performance and its assets, not the fact that people keep buying its stock regardless of price.