It's weird historical/hysterical days like this that make me pull out my Godspeed... records. Appropriately apocalyptic, they also sounded good when we started sending troops to Iraq a few years back.

What else is an appropriate soundtrack?

you should be a good host and extend the welcome mat!

I feel like my quitting of the US of A couldn't have possibly been more well timed.

I like how all the Republicans would have been all aboard the bailout but because the election is on they suddenly realize they are suppose to be conservative.

Makes for strange bedfellows.

And World War II occurred during a depression. Not a recession that started 5 and ahalf years after Iraq. Iraq =/= WWII.

I'm going to be pissed if I can't get student loans.

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article6504.html
[This article suggests this is a Banker's Coup and they are blackmailing Congress.]

excerpt...
How did Treasury Secretary Paulson figure out that recapitalizing the banking system would cost $700 billion? Or did he just estimate the amount of money that could be loaded on the back of the Treasury's flatbed truck when it sputters off to shower his buddies at G-Sax with freshly minted greenbacks? The point is, that Paulson's calculations were not assisted by any economists at all, and they cannot be trusted. It is a purely arbitrary, "back of the envelope" type figuring. According to Bloomberg: Swiss investor Marc Faber, known for a long track record of good calls, believes the damage may come to $5 trillion:

"Marc Faber, managing director of Marc Faber Ltd. in Hong Kong, said the U.S. government's rescue package for the financial system may require as much as $5 trillion, seven times the amount Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has requested.... ``The $700 billion is really nothing,'' Faber said in a television interview. ``The treasury is just giving out this figure when the end figure may be $5 trillion.''(Bloomberg News)

Most people who follow these matters would trust Faber's assessment way over Paulson's. In his latest blog entry, economist Nouriel Roubini said that "no professional economist was consulted by Congress or invited to present his/her views at the Congressional hearings on the Treasury rescue plan." Roubini added:

"The Treasury plan is a disgrace: a bailout of reckless bankers, lenders and investors that provides little direct debt relief to borrowers and financially stressed households and that will come at a very high cost to the US taxpayer. And the plan does nothing to resolve the severe stress in money markets and interbank markets that are now close to a systemic meltdown."

++++++++++
Last week, there was a digital run on the banks that most people never even heard about; a "real time" crash. An article in the New York Post by Michael Gray gave a blow by blow description of how events unfolded. Here's a clip from Gray's "Almost Armageddon":

"The market was 500 trades away from Armageddon on Thursday...Had the Treasury and Fed not quickly stepped into the fray that morning with a quick $105 billion injection of liquidity, the Dow could have collapsed to the 8,300-level - a 22 percent decline! - while the clang of the opening bell was still echoing around the cavernous exchange floor. According to traders, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, money market funds were inundated with $500 billion in sell orders prior to the opening. The total money-market capitalization was roughly $4 trillion that morning.

The panicked selling was directly linked to the seizing up of the credit markets - including a $52 billion constriction in commercial paper - and the rumors of additional money market funds "breaking the buck," or dropping below $1 net asset value."

The Fed's dramatic $105 billion liquidity injection on Thursday (pre-market) was just enough to keep key institutional accounts from following through on the sell orders and starting a stampede of cash that could have brought large tracts of the US economy to a halt." (New York Post)

NO BAILOUT per this Hahvahd economist:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/...ef=mpstoryview

I think the key takeaway is where the hahvahd guy says all the doomsdaytalk is fear mongering.

fear mongering.

I expected an October Surprise from the rethuglicans, but I was looking for a terrorist attack.

It's backfiring because it's making McCain look weak and indecisive.
He keeps contradicting himself and yesterday he was claiming victory as the bill was getting voted down. Obama's numbers are climbing...but all this might be a moot point because the fix may be in. ha ha!

On the note of student loans, even before this most of our generation would have been paying back their student loans well in their 30s. Now, who knows. Student loans are going to be hit pretty hard, along with everything else.

I've already began putting money in a "get-the-fuck-out-of-the-country" fund.

Just as long as it is not a bank account.