The Day The Music Stopped

Banks For Sale - Cheap!!!

Good morning America. All the banks have gone crazy. Make sure you have cash on hand in case the ATM networks decide to play it safe and restrict access to your bank's accounts.

Tough day to be a banker.

BTW, does anybody else see some dark irony in the inability of insurance giant AIG to manage it's own risk?

ANYWAY, I really don't know how this mess all got started, but it has to end. At the bottom of the mess is the credit crunch in housing. This is what is killing Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers and other investment banks. At least that's what we used to call them. I believe they are all just "financial institutions" now, thanks to a law called Gramm-Leach-Bliley or GLB.

That's Gramm as in Phil "Mental Recession" Gramm, the smiling fellow on the left in the picture below. Phil was a senatorial whore for the banking industry back in the day, and so pushed through GLB to repeal the old Glass-Steagall Act, which was passed back in 1933 to prevent another Great Depression caused by the collapse of our banks. I think we can all see what a great idea this was, and we should thank Phil accordingly. He's from Texas, you know, where the death penalty is enthusiastically enforced.

Old Boys Network

So, GLB got rid of the separation of banks, investment firms, and insurance companies. Now they could all merge into giant "financial institutions" that, it turns out, are "too big to fail." But fail they do, and tax money is used to prop them up.


Guess who voted for this brilliant idea! Republicans! Really. Check out the vote right here and see it split along party lines. Bill Clinton signed it though. Another nail in his legacy coffin.

Sandy Weill

What prompted all of this? Businessmen like Sandy Weill, who seems to have been president of most of Wall Street at one time or another, hired Gerald Ford and Robert Rubin and other lobbyists to push congress to dismantle Glass-Steagall. And it worked! Sandy even got an early exemption to pretend that the law didn't exist for 5 years before it was repealed, during which time he merged Traveler's Group with Citibank to form the world's largest financial institution. Wow! Impressive, but bad.

John McCain voted for the repeal. Joe Biden voted against it.

BTW, Glass and Steagall - both Democrats.

Senator Carter Glass

Congressman Henry B. Steagall

Wall St Wants Obama

Jim Cramer says that the investment community wants Obama. Appearing on The Chris Matthews Show on Sunday, Cramer said that under Bush we "have the worst of the worst" and that we "need a new broom." He also said that Obama's tax plan "will work." As for McCain's tax plan, Cramer said that the only to benefits would be to those "making over $2.8 million per year." He also tossed in that investors don't trust McCain.

That is pretty incredible. Cramer is the controversial, and possibly insane, host of CNBC's Mad Money. I don't know where he got that $2.8 Million number, but it's a pretty severe indictment of McCain's plans.

At the more serious and somber Bloomberg News, on last week's Political Capital with Al Hunt, intrepid financial reporter Alison Fitzgerald stated that under McCain's tax plan the top 1 tenth of 1% (o.oo1) of taxpayers would realize a tax cut averaging $800,000. This is in stark contrast to Obama's plan to allow many, if not most, of the Bush tax cuts expire, basically returning us to tax levels similar to Ronald Reagan's, while pledging not to increase taxes for families making less than $250,000 a year. That covers most of the folks I know. The tenor of the show seemed to be that Obama's plan was more realistic, though neither adequately addressed the looming budget deficits.

Bloomberg's Albert R. Hunt

In other news the Newsweek poll shows Obama ahead of McCain nationally ahead by 15%. Even my home state of Georgia is in play. Hey, we are the state of MLK, Jimmy Carter, and Sam Nunn. Why the big surprise?

Worldview Brainy Chick - Special Edition & More

American Astronaut Karen L. Nyberg

NASA Mission Specialist Karen L. Nyberg, Ph.D.

Dr. Nyberg is currently spending day 10 in space on the Space Shuttle Discovery, which my family and I got to see launch on May 31st. She is the 50th woman in space. Dr. Nyberg is a mechanical engineer, earning her Ph.D. from the University of Texas where her research was on "human thermoregulation and experimental metabolic testing and control." Yeah, I almost majored in that, too.

Although I'm not really sure what that is, it sounds plenty smart to justify a Special Edition of Worldview Brainy Chick.

Also, being able to write "astronaut" on forms as your occupation has to be pretty cool.

So, "bon voyage and godspeed" to Dr. Nyberg and her shipmates on their mission to the International Space Station.

So, What's up with the Brainy Chick Thing?

Well, since you asked, it's my own anti-bimbo contribution to the ongoing fight for equality, meritocracy, and egalitarianism. By recognizing women of real accomplishment. It's not much, but I'm pretty busy and don't have a lot of resources. So I do what I can. "Better to light a single candle" and all that. I have a lot of women in my life, so I care.

People Disappearing From the Internet

Carol Shepp McCain - John McCain's first wife. A lot of conspiracy blog buzz that this former "swimsuit model" has been intentionally removed from most websites. Lots of folks are looking for photos of her though, especially any taken before her 1969 car accident. She's from Philly, so you'd think there would at least be a published wedding announcement from the Inquirer.

Carol Shepp McCain - 2008?

1973?

Old Liberals Never Die

Ex - Noam Chomsky Colleague Brit Hume

They just amend their resume's.

Was Brit Hume really the Washington correspondent for old timey, anti-war, leftie rag Ramparts? The one from Berkeley, not the Irish one. Nothing about it on his Fox bio or Wikipedia page. MAKES YOU WONDER WHAT ELSE HE'S HIDING! Just kidding. A little Fox news humor there. Note to parents - a cool name like "Brit" is a gift that keeps on giving.

Fox Business News?

Two days in a row I find myself watching the Fox Business Channel in the morning because it had the most compelling story. First, a rather in-depth (for tv) look at oil prices and possible reasons why they are so high. Next, an articulate look at the commercial mortgage backed securities (CMBS) market and signs of trouble there. Whatever was on MSNBC, CNBC, or CNN could not compete. And the host, Alexis Glick, is kind of growing on me. Because, unlike most Fox newsies, she's not a complete jerk.

Not a Complete Jerk Alexis Glick

Don't Forget - Father's Day this Sunday!

Side Note To Google

The spellcheck on this thing still calls out "Wikipedia" and "Obama" as typos.