So stock markets around the world are bouncing back this morning, mainly because Europe and the US are combining in a united effort to solve the liquidity crisis by buying equity in the banking system.
Unlike the US Treasury’s original bailout plan (which merely involved purchasing the toxic debt) this is a part emergency nationalisation of the banks. There are upsides and downsides. The main upside so far? The markets seem to believe it will work...
Quick diary to alert everyone that McCain might well take another impetuous maverick move before the debate on Wednesday.
The balloon has been hoisted up by Bill Kristol in today’s New York Times:
It’s time for John McCain to fire his campaign.
He has nothing to lose. His campaign is totally overmatched by Obama’s. The Obama team is well organized, flush with resources, and the candidate and the campaign are in sync. The McCain campaign, once merely problematic, is now close to being out-and-out dysfunctional. Its combination of strategic incoherence and operational incompetence has become toxic. If the race continues over the next three weeks to be a conventional one, McCain is doomed.
Over at Fivethirtyeight Nate Silver has been reading the runes…
Yes, yes, I know it’s probably only early evening over there, but it’s early morning here so I get a pass.
Two things for your delectation. How great to see Hillary on the campaign trail. I’ve missed her. A lot.
And she comes out swinging in a vibrant bold attack on the years of Republican mismanagement
“Make no mistake about it. We’ve done it before and we will do it again. America will once again rise from the ashes of the Bushes.”
America can rise indeed. Especially with Hillary on the stump. Inspiring stuff. But it won’t rise with ‘post turtle’ Sarah Palin.
So hands up. Who remembers what a Post Turtle is?
For months we’ve been rightly warned that the only hope for the Rovian styled McCain campaign was to paint Barack Obama as an ‘angry black man’.
I see the charged comments about ‘palling with terrorists’, Ayers, not being a ‘real American’ as deeply offensive, but above all provocative. They want to provoke Obama. They want him to respond angrily, and then they can say he’s played the race card first, and thereby remind the electorate he is black, black, black and potentially angry.
Now we all know what happened yesterday
Hat tip to Btchakir for alerting me to this great Salon piece on Sarah Palin’s connections to the extreme right wing Alaska Independence Party.
The AIP have been instrumental in Palin’s rise from small town mayor to the Governorship, along with a rag bag assortment of other far right wingers (including Palin’s pastor who claimed that Alaska would become a refuge state during the rapture).
(image from http://www.drawger.com/zinasau…
The money quote below:
It’s going to be a bumpy ride. Two clouds on the horizon… Or may be that’s one cloud and a silver lining.
Over here in Europe, having rallied a bit in the last couple of days, the London Stock Exchange, DAX and other Bourses have tumbled ten per cent in response to last nights Wall Street fall. According to those who know, today is a day of reckoning. Why? 400bn of credit default swaps are due. (These are the insurance policies against default which could easily bleed the market further). 400bn. Doesn’t leave much change out of 700bn does it, when you have to also save the banking system?
The Enron gang were apparently the smartest guys in the room: but what about the other smartest guys in the world?
Here’s the glimmer of hope…
Another day of WTF as everyone tries to figure out what this complete financial and political debacle means for their homes, their jobs, and their pensions.
A bit of historical insight from Howard Fineman which some of you might have missed in yesterday’s welter of bad economic news: Bailout Ushers in the Era of Obama
I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist this. Some light relief – or at least it seems like that watching the Dow index
Having heard Matt Damon ask:
I need to know if she really thinks that dinosaurs were here 4,000 years ago. I want to know that, I really do. Because she’s gonna have the nuclear codes.
I was fascinated to read this recollection of Governor Palin’s beliefs recalled by a Wasilla Resident, Philip Munger, and reported into today’s LA Times
More below the fold.
Some rambling thoughts after the first Presidential debate, and before Thursday, and much of it inspired by DC Democrat’s excellent diary.
Ever since McCain made his first big decision of his campaign, selecting Governor Palin as his VP, I’ve begun to mentally construct what happened in the Republican party during those long months of the Democratic Primary battles
While some of the conflict between Obama and Hillary appalled many of us, it probably enthralled the rest of the country, and McCain and his strategists looked at this long and hard.
At first they tried to exploit it, fanning internal problems with Rush Limbaugh’s Operation Chaos, sending legions of obvious trolls to invade our blogs. But at heart they must have been sickened. Dems were capturing all the public attention: they had two phenomenal change candidates, one a woman, one a black American, who enthused different constituencies to register, turn out and participate in a vote. If these active elements could unify They must have wracked their brains to work out: what can we do?
And so for three months, the rumor has it that McCain wanted Lieberman but the conservative base wouldn’t wear it. It was only in REACTION to Obama’s VP pick that McCain decided to play a gender card and pick Palin