9th September 2008

Sucking on a Lehman

posted in Economy, Politics |

Okay, the virus alarm was a false alarm (whew!).  It seems to have been a hangover from the previous clean-out, a few registry entries that weren’t erased.

So now we’re onto bigger and better things:  A Modest Proposition.

Let’s let the Republicans win the presidential election.

“Whoa!” I hear you saying.  “What’s wrong with you, girl?!”

My theory was that whoever wins this election is going to get into office right as the financial shit is really hitting the fan.  Now, I’m beginning to think that the financial shit is starting to hit the fan, and going to keep hitting the fan, and maybe the best thing to do is to cede the election, so the Republicans are stuck cleaning up the mess they made.  Because I think whoever wins the election is going to be a one-term wonder, tarred with the brush of the financial mess, because whoever wins is going to have to clean up the mess.  And cleaning it up is going to be ugly.

Right now, on Calculated Risk, they’re talking about rumors that Lehman Brothers (big investment firm, you know them, right?) may be going belly up, with a government-brokered takeover a la Bear Sterns to be announced tomorrow.  And Standard and Poors just cut their outlook on Washington Mutual from “positive” or “neutral” to downright “negative”.

The government takeover (de-privatization?) of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac got the Wall Street markets to jump…for one day.  This was huge…and it only got the market up for a day.

I’d love to see a dollar figure on all the financial company shenanigans of the past six months.  The S&L bailout cost $500 billion.  Thousands of savings and loans failed.  So far, we’ve had only a few banks fail, but as some have pointed out, the dollar amount of the failures are far bigger per company.

So unless Obama or McCain are actually secret miracle workers, whichever one wins is going to have to work mighty damned hard to cope with the cleanup. 

And in the meantime, we have Hurricane Ike flailing about on its way into the Gulf of Mexico.  I’ve been watching the predicted five-day path for the past week, and it would be amusing to have an animation of the day-to-day (or even hour-to-hour) change in that predicted path.  Well, amusing in a world-weary, hey, I’m up in Alaska, kind of way; I have friends and family scattered around the Gulf Coast and know that to all of them, this uncertainty must be wracking.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 9th, 2008 at 8:44 pm and is filed under Economy, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

There are currently 7 responses to “Sucking on a Lehman”

  1. 1 On September 10th, 2008, noreen said:

    Except, what about the Supreme Court appointments during the next four years? I’m not sure I want the GOP to have any more of those picks. I’ve been to Alaska and know Alaska politics are scary. I just didn’t think I’d ever be directly affected. I’m scared.

  2. 2 On September 10th, 2008, lizard said:

    I’ve been waffling around the same idea, thinking about the war and wanting McCain to have to clean up from Idiot Boy. But I think that cleaning up Iraq won’t happen any time soon.

    The financial stuff has me thinking a little more that it could be fun to see McCain win and have to clean up some of the mess. You are right that it is most likely that the next prez will be a one-term prez because everything here is going to hell in a handbasket, and the next prez is going to be left holding a bag of crap.

    that said, the idea of the Supremes scares the crap out of me. And I’ve said for years that the first female president is going to be republican, so that makes me nervous, thinking it will be Sarah Palin who scares the bejeezus out of me.

  3. 3 On September 10th, 2008, Vinegar Martinis said:

    I’m not as optimistic as you - I don’t think this financial mess can be cleaned up in four short years - I think we’ve done at least a decade of damage and it’ll take that long to recover.

    My, aren’t I just a freaking ray of sunshine today or what?

  4. 4 On September 10th, 2008, del said:

    I agree that whomever is elected will likely be a one-termer. The changes and cuts the next president will need to make will be both painful and very unpopular. I’d like to think the american people will understand what needs to be done and soldier through it. Unfortunately, after having seen the housing/credit bubble and its aftermath, the 2004 election, and the shortsighted no-farther-than-next-payday outlook most people have I’m not confident of that at all. Not at all…

  5. 5 On September 10th, 2008, kris said:

    i have always said it will be years (like maybe not in my lifetime) before we get over idiot boys 8 years in office. and i hope that the people who elected him are all happy at the horrible mess he made of this country. i have no hope that the next president can do much of anything to solve any of the problems left by this administration. mccain didn’t scare me so much until he brought palin aboard. canada is looking better all the time.

  6. 6 On September 11th, 2008, carosgram said:

    Yes! Let’s let the Republican’s win! Let’s make them fix W’s screwing up our country! At least I think McCain will work with the Dem’s to try to actually fix both our domestic problems as well as return our foreign policy to one of honor.

  7. 7 On September 11th, 2008, Janis C said:

    I am with Noreen & Lizard. McCain/Palin is one scary ticket. “Drill baby drill” reminds me of Bush 7 years ago standing on the rubble yelling, “Lets Go get them.”

    No, college chants is not what this country needs.

    I am voting Obama/Biden and joining the optimism brought by this ticket and taking a pass on the negativity associated with the Republicians. All that booing at the convention and rallies. Brings me down….no wonder everybody is so gloom and doom.

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