A little comic relief for y’all

Representative Michelle Bachman (R-MN District 6) explains to us the (*groan*) Hoot-Smalley tariff!

This would explain a lot

Statement #9 on Time's Mark Halperin's list of the reasons that the Republican Party is doing so poorly:

The near impotence of the right's long-term Big Three issues (national security, taxes, and social issues).

If Republicans are putting all economic issues under the category of "Taxes," that might explain why they're doing so poorly as a political party. The Washington Monthly piece notes that House Minority Whip Eric Cantor's (R-VA) "Solutions Center," has a single item in its' toolbag, a single answer for every problem "Taxes. Lower them."

Debate with libertarians and “Teabagger Parties”

This piece on PhillyIMC led to a group of libertarian "Austrian Economists" to kick off an extensive discussion about what caused the economic crisis. They're convinced it was the Fed and interest rates that are solely to blame for the crisis. I'm not really convinced, but I still have further research to do on the matter.

The "Teabagger Parties" that are scheduled to take place on the 15th are very  clearly sponsored and promoted by the Republican Party and their audio-visual arm, Fox News.

Latest Geithner/Obama plan

Various economists (Paul Krugman, Dean Baker & the blog Calculated Risk) are unimpressed with the Obama Administration's plan for dealing with the economic crisis. YouTube asks "Hey, Paul Krugman, where are you?" (Post also includes links to other issue-oriented tunes). And bleah! Don't even bother looking to the traditional media for answers about the economy.
Complete waste of time, speaking of which, the Inky made a stab at rousing the rabble at Obama's economic plan. Article speaks of sidewalk corners being cut so as to make them wheelchair accessible. Obviously, the bill that directs these corner cuts could have been better written. Not all the corners get much traffic and very frequently there are no sidewalks to go along with the corner cuts. Article drags in the totally-unconnected problem of Route 202 and how that needs to be widened.
Economists View blog rounds up the opinions of many good economists on the Geithner/Obama plan. Again, not very impressed.

Examination of economic crisis

Wall Street Watch puts out a 3 megabyte, 231 page PDF of a report on just what produced the economic situation of today. Summary of 12 main events:

1. In 1999, Congress repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, which had prohibited the merger of commercial banking and investment banking.


2. Regulatory rules permitted off-balance sheet accounting -- tricks that enabled banks to hide their liabilities.


3. The Clinton administration blocked the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from regulating financial derivatives -- which became the basis for massive speculation.


4. Congress in 2000 prohibited regulation of financial derivatives when it passed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act.


5. The Securities and Exchange Commission in 2004 adopted a voluntary regulation scheme for investment banks that enabled them to incur much higher levels of debt.


6. Rules adopted by global regulators at the behest of the financial industry would enable commercial banks to determine their own capital reserve requirements, based on their internal "risk-assessment models."


7. Federal regulators refused to block widespread predatory lending practices earlier in this decade, failing to either issue appropriate regulations or even enforce existing ones.


8. Federal bank regulators claimed the power to supersede state consumer protection laws that could have diminished predatory lending and other abusive practices.


9. Federal rules prevent victims of abusive loans from suing firms that bought their loans from the banks that issued the original loan.


10. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac expanded beyond their traditional scope of business and entered the subprime market, ultimately costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.


11. The abandonment of antitrust and related regulatory principles enabled the creation of too-big-to-fail megabanks, which engaged in much riskier practices than smaller banks.


12. Beset by conflicts of interest, private credit rating companies incorrectly assessed the quality of mortgage-backed securities; a 2006 law handcuffed the SEC from properly regulating the firms.

Both Democrats and Republicans were responsible for the meltdown, but remember, deregulation is a specifically Republican idea. If Democrats did it, they did so specifically to establish their "serious person" bonafides.

Republicans having a “Pre-Recession Mindset?”

Democrats were accused (falsely) of having a pre-9/11 mindset. Are Republicans looking at the world with a "pre-recession mindset?"

The evidence is pretty compelling that the opposition party just doesn't comprehend  the economic trouble the US is in.

What are we left with? Republicans are pushing the same tax cuts they wanted before the recession. They're making the same arguments about spending they offered before the recession. They're engaged in the same petty games they enjoyed before the recession. In the midst of "an all-hands-on-deck emergency that's as trying as war," and in "the throes of a catastrophic economic crisis," the failed minority party, ignoring the election results, public opinion, and everything we know about economics, have the same approach to the economy that they had at this point a year ago. And the year before that. And the year before that.

And BTW, there are indeed people who think our president is failing to fix the economy in a timely manner. Only 2% of Americans share this view. The great majority have more patience.

Jon Stewart of The Daily Show does an absolutely classic smackdown of the financial channel CNBC. The takeaway from this is that the financial advice you get from these guys is about as good as what you'll get from any good astrologer or standard political pundit.

Economist Dean Baker agrees with Stewart. The ups and downs of the stock market tells us nothing useful or serious.

Update: House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), acknowledges the severity of the economic situation and the horrific drop in employment, BUT advocates a "spending freeze," the precise opposite of what needs to happen. NY Times columnist Paul Krugman:

"I'm shocked by the total intellectual collapse of the Republican Party in the face of this economic crisis.... I'd really like to see some genuine bipartisanship in America. But that can't happen until we start having at least somewhat sane partisans."

Updates from various

From Washington Monthly:

Time magazine, highlighting some of those most responsible for the economic crisis, recently singled out former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas), and for good reason. Few deserve as much blame as the former chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.

From Firedoglake:

The Diamond-Orszag plan for "reforming" Social Security calls for reducing benefits on youngsters to make up for people living long—and the younger you are now, the more the benefit reduction. Their plan is to make up half of the shortfall (a shortfall which may not even exist, we'll come back to that) by reducing benefits, and half of it by increasing FICA taxes. They do intend to increase the amount of money that richer people pay, modestly, and they also intend to reduce benefits for wealthier folks by more than they reduce benefits for those who have more average earnings.

From MediaMatters/County Fair:

Yep, the CNBC reporter who yesterday claimed the all-white, all-male traders surrounding him on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange represented a cross-section of America. In fact, at one point on Thursday, CNBC's Rick Santelli turned to face the floor, extended his arms toward the six-figure salaried employees and announced, "This is America!"

From Rich Gardner's  piece on PhillyIMC:

It's conventional wisdom that "everybody knows" that Republicans are really sharp on, and have lots of expertise on, the economy.  Erm, do they!?!?!?