Treasury, in a tectonic shift, is now considering capitalizing banks with that $700 billion. This means rather than buying the toxic glop, they will take ownership stakes. Sweden did this a while back during their crisis. It worked - and the government eventually made a profit too.

The plan would be voluntary, but any bank that joined would then have its deposits and debt guaranteed by the US government, a huge market advantage against any bank that didn’t. Capitalizing the banks would directly inject money into the system and help unfreeze the credit markets. This could actually work.

Fed officials increasingly talk about the challenge they face with a phrase that President Bush used in another context: “regime change.”

This regime change refers to a change in the economic environment so radical that, at least for a while, economic policy makers will need to suspend what are usually sacred principles: minimal interference in free markets, gradualism and predictability.

Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, has also called for recapitalizing the banks. He makes the sombre point that the consequences of Iceland’s bankruptcy will be both severe and reaching way beyond their borders. Emerging markets in general will get clobbered.

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The Billionaires, formerly Billionaires for Bush, don’t want you to vote this year, so listen up.

(Ok, it’s really “Wil b, from The Political Power of Hiphop, joins his cohorts from The Billionaires, including his alter ego billionaire super-rapper, “Fifty Billion” to talk to Young America about the importance of voting” )

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“It has felt that way at times over the past 8 years”, says Americablog.

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It’s said that Tom Bradley lost a race for California governor in ‘82 even though polls showed him ahead because secret racists told pollsters they would vote for Bradley, a black man, and didn’t. This has been called the Bradley Effect. However, more recent examination of the data indicates this probably didn’t happen, that the problem was that the Bradley polling data was flawed. Moreover, races in 2006 with black and white candidates showed no Bradley Effect.

The overall accuracy of the polling data from the 2006 elections was cited, both by those who argue that the Bradley effect has diminished in American politics, and those who doubt its existence in the first place

Also, pollsters tend to focus on likely voters, those who have voted regularly in the past. Thus, they are not tracking what undoubtedly will be a ginormous turnout by black voters in November voting for Obama, some of whom might not have voted much recently.

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From Blairwatch in the UK. Read the whole thing.

Capitalism is a John Cleese parrot.
Let’s give it stick and not a single carrot!
Bollocks to the dealer, the broker, the lender -
Social justice back on the agenda
Radical stylin’ going on here
Smoked Mammon sarnies and really good beer
For the poor no fear, for the rich no pity
When Attila the Stockbroker cleans up the City!

Well, capitalism survived the Great Depression, and that era included a major upsurge in hardcore communist organizing, including here in the US too. So perhaps proclamations of ’stick a fork in it’ are a teensy premature.

Ending global warming and creating a cleantech, renewable energy economy (which is what will get us out of the current crisis) will require massive amounts of money and the cooperation of huge corporations. A raggedy bunch of anarcho-socialist greenies from the Left don’t have the chops to create and install the enormous numbers of wind and wave farms, solar power arrays and geothermal plants needed to power our countries, and oh, the grids needed upgrading too.  So, let’s jail the rich who broke the law during their piggish pursuits, and get the rest on board with taking their money and creating something of use with it - like a renewable energy economy.

Besides, I don’t want to eat the rich. I doubt they taste good.

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Dave Riley made this slide show presentation of the ideas of Marx and their direct relevance to the current financial meltdown.

Ironic isn’t it? Here I am bashing together some DIY Marxist homilies to describe the Wall Street debacle and the would be whatevers are wondering that maybe there’s more to it than what’s being offered as an explanation in the local media’s finance commentaries.

That suggests to me that Marxism’s economic analysis — a rather basic element I’d think of the methodology — is suddenly of potent relevance to the here and now. How else can you explain this massive contradiction of financial collapse met with a gross and very public attempt to bail out the big end of town gratis. No strings. No receipts. Take the money (all $700 billion of it)…please!

No wonder people are both nervous and scratching their heads.

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His plan (and he’s been right and early in his predictions of what would happen)

* Guarantee all bank deposits (not just up to $250,000, not just in US)
* Triage the banking system: recapitalize survivors with equity injections, let the rest die
* Dump Bernanke and Paulson, who the public has lost confidence in
* Get ahead of the crisis instead of looking panicky and reactive
* In US, put together $300 billion fiscal spending plan (a new New Deal) to begin to replace the coming collapse in private spending

Roubini is giving free access to his entire site now for a limited time. In Feb., he made twelve predictions about what would happen. Nine have already come true. People laughed at him then. Now they pay attention to what he says.

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Prop 8 would re-write our California Constitution to provide that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California — denying gays and lesbians the respect, dignity and responsibility that come with marriage.

The ”Vote No on Prop 8, Equality for All” campaign urges you to vigorously oppose this initiative by voting No on 8 on November 4th.

Due to massive spending by the Yes on Prop 8 forces, polls are now showing it could pass. This would be disastrous. If you live in California, get involved in teh campaign and tell everyone - No on Prop 8.

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