Nothing described below should be interpreted to mean that greasing the skids of the financial system is unimportant. So long as credit is locked down, much of the economy does not function.

But, fixing the credit markets will be of no importance if demand declines. Businesses will not use a...

As previously described, John McCain's body language shows he is a hater ("McCain's Body Language: He is a Hater", October 8, 2008). Now, his rhetoric has caught up to his body language. He has been baiting his audiences to view Barack Obama as dangerous, and representative of a "foreign" (read:...

Although the problems with the financial markets are fundamental, some of the resistance to unclogging the credit markets is the absence of confidence, in the future and in our leaders.

There is one simple, pervasive fact that cannot be ignored: no one trusts anything George Bush says. He has lied...

Many people, including the punditocracy, commented on McCain's body language during the first debate. He looked away from Obama when they greeted one another. He did not look at him once during the debate. His jaws clenched, his body was tense, his eyes were fixed forward and glared. His grins...

John McCain makes a big deal about his opposition to earmarks. During the debate, Barack Obama juxtaposed McCain's taxcut proposal that would cost $300B with the $18B represented by earmarks.

While some earmarks are clearly booty from the taxpayer to local interests, many can be justified as sound policy. Obama...

Here in Washington State, we have a close Governor's race between Democratic Governor Christine Gregoire and her Republican challenger Dino Rossi. Although he shuns the Republican label in favor of "GOP", Rossi promises to bring a George Bush regime to our beautiful State: he will cut taxes and decrease spending...

[Addendum since posting: Biden ought to wonder aloud if the windfall profits tax on oil companies in Alaska ought to be applied nationally. And, if Palin distinguishes it by stating they have no income tax, then aren't the rest of us, who pay for Alaska's oil, actually subsidizing Alaska with...

The proposed Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (aka, the bailout) contains pathetically weak limitations on executive compensation.

As indicated in Section 111 of the Act, for companies whose bad debt is acquired without an auction process, and for which the US government gets an equity position, and only for such companies,...

No one should put up with any suggestion or statement by John McCain, Sarah "Putin-flies-overhead" Palin, or any surrogate concerning "cutting and running" from Iraq or "forfeiting gains" of the surge. If any of these sources, however, accuses Obama-Biden of not heeding the words of bin Laden that Iraq is...

CNBC's Erin Burnett has spent most of the day interviewing the players in Congress and the financial markets, feeding them the gibberish that we are "all responsible" for this economic meltdown.

No, Erin, we are not.

The reason we are not is not that the new, "marginal homeowners" (to coin...

The Paulson proposal to purchase mortgage-related assets (MRAs) focuses entirely on the health of distressed banks. Presumably, the government will pay above-market prices for the MRAs, perhaps doing terminal value analysis with a discount to present value, and paying that inflated price will improve the banks' balance sheets (assets vs....

As indicated in "The Proposed Bailout: Zero Pain for the Perpetrators, Toxic to Taxpayers" (September 21, 2008), the major provisions of the Paulson proposal cede enormous unaccountable power to the Administration (i.e., the Treasury Secretary), and virtually guarantee conflicts of interest for financial institutions that are going to be...

True to its pedigree, the Bush administration's proposal to bailout the financial system contains not a single element of shared pain by Wall Street. According to the text I have read, the bozos who bought the mortgage-related assets (MRAs) that contained toxic loans, or that floated the toxic loans in...

Larry Kudlow, a minor figure in the Office of Management and Budget under Reagan, is the host of a show, "Kudlow and Company"on CNBC. His audience is primarily the financial community on Wall Street--those that remain anyhow. Although most of his guests are rightwing, Kudlow does include the other side...

John McCain is 72 years old, and despite showcasing his 95 year old mother and his own protestations to the contrary, 72 is, well, 72. Couple that with the aging process that inevitably occurs under the stress of 5+ years of deprivation and torture in prison, and there is enough...

In times of universal deceit, truth-telling becomes a revolutionary act. --George Orwell

Contrary to conventional wisdom, and the assumptions of the Democratic consultant-strategists who guide our nominees to losses, lie-exposure is insufficient to win over the electorate.

Yesterday, I wrote about the political psychology of lying [The Political Psychology...

The McCain campaign has crossed the Rubicon from colorable truth-telling to outright lying. They will win, they believe, by telling their tales and avoiding accountability by limiting press access. It is a replay of George Bush's presidency.

The Obama campaign has, as with the Palin pick, been thrown off-stride...

During the Democratic National Convention, Senator Bob Casey (PA) said that John McCain was not a maverick, he was Bush's sidekick. That more accurately characterized McCain, but the Obama campaign has felt it better just to remind people that McCain voted with Bush 90% of the time.

Although I thought...

Yesterday, 9/10, Barack Obama found his voice again. In response to the manufactured controversy (aka, "manufactroversy", Google it for definition) over the lipstick remark, Barack Obama replaced the somewhat bewildered responses to McCain's choice of Sarah Palin with a heartfelt clarity accompanied by genuine anger.

He rightly stated the McCain...

He served a President with historically low approval ratings. His opponent was an attractive, intelligent history-making leader--Ségolène Royal would have been France's first female President. The country was struggling economically, and Sarkozy had been, among other things, the Finance Minister under the unpopular President Chirac.

Nonetheless, Nicolas Sarkozy had brandished...