(Copyright 2008)
The WALTHER REPORT
By Tony Walther
It’s just a rumor, but the news is that Hillary Clinton might replace Joe Biden on the Obama ticket. And I think that might be the winning ticket. Hillary has one heck of a lot of supporters and women always decide the vote anyway and faced with the choice of Palin or Clinton, c’mon one is steeped in politics at the higher level and one is definitely not. One is progressive and one is regressive. The rumor is that Biden will drop out for health reasons. He already publicly said that Hillary would have been a better choice. Everyone probably thought, well Joe is just running off at the mouth, and maybe so, but maybe there was a message there…..
And now the rest of my blog, which was previously posted:
Despite a massive public outcry against the $700 billion (plus?) Wall Street bailout I read in the news this morning that quick action is expected on it, meaning it will sail through, which would mean that lawmakers and the administration are going one way and the American people the other.
Everything I’ve read and heard in the last 24 hours indicates that public sentiment is against the bailout, although it is too early to know whether Bush’s address had an effect, but it was only good on a quick backgrounder on the problem, with no credible sales job (well except to threaten that the whole economy would fall apart with out it – but why? And couldn’t there be a better and more prudent and more capitalist way of handling things?).
One item I read about it said there is a clause in the proposed Bush bailout bill that gives total authority to the treasury secretary and says it cannot be legally challenged by a court or administrative agency. Well that sounds like a Bush tactic. I don’t see how that can be constitutional, but that has never bothered Bush.
Now he won’t be the executive for long, but he seems to want to get this thing through awful bad. Maybe he and his buddies need the money they lost.
I notice former president Bill Clinton is pushing hard for this bailout too.
And I also have noticed that Bill is not campaigning all that hard for Obama. I watched him the other night on David Letterman and he barely mentioned Obama, except to finally give him the obligatory Democratic endorsement. But He went on and on about what a great man John McCain was and how good of a friend McCain was to Hillary and him. And today I read that he’s gone on TV and said that McCain had good intentions in suspending his campaign and wanting to delay Friday’s debate. I thought that too at first, but quickly saw that it was more of a ploy, a political tactic to steal the show and appear as a statesman. Apparently he can’t vote on the bailout and run for president at the same time.
I also just read an article that says that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation may need $150 Billion due to increased bank failures. The FDIC is of course the entity that insures everyone’s bank account up to $100,000. I would think it would be far more important to refresh that fund than fund the bailout. I realize both can and probably will be done – guess I just don’t understand how the government keeps finding a billion here and a billion there, and you know it all adds up to real money as Dirksen said (or supposedly said).
Much of our money comes from loans from the Chinese. A Reuters news service story today (in the Drudge Report) said that Chinese domestic banks have been ordered by their government not to lend money to U.S. institutions during this economic crisis.
The Bush administration tried to ram the bailout through last weekend, no questions asked, but was unsuccessful.
Now it appears that enough compromises have been made, to include help for homeowners and limits on pay packages of executives whose firms get help, to pursuade reluctant lawmakers.
I definitely think the presidential debate should go on Friday and economic policy should be discussed, possibly with foreign policy, the scheduled topic.
Again, if action on the federal level is needed, I think it should be more cautious.
And isn’t it strange we are already hearing that with this economic crisis some of the hoped for social reforms pushed by Obama may have to be put on hold.
Bush policies (war, bad economics): the gift that keeps on taking!
When the top defenders of the free market suddenly change their tune, it is cause for suspicion.
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