riddler

I don't think she did a good job at all. A debate is where a moderator asks questions, you answer them and then both sides discuss with each other. Palin evaded nearly every question that was given her - might as well have just been a VP candidate speech. That's fine if she just wants to read from a script, but the real job of VP won't come in a packaged format that she can respond with a script. The only thing she proved was that she can't handle real-world questions in real time. Biden did a better job of answering the questions, at least, but his responses were repetitive political babble that he's been repeating ever since he took the role of VP candidate. The points are valid, but why repeat them? We heard you the first time. This was the Politically Correct debate. The moderator was afraid of cementing the label of Obama-supporter that the media gave her - does anyone think the moderator was biased, now? I wonder if Rush will take back his words ... Biden was afraid of attacking Palin and being labeled a woman-basher, and losing the women's vote. Palin was afraid to open her mouth after she proved she can't answer real questions in real time in front of Couric. And everyone just read from the script. BTW, Lehrer is a MUCH better moderator, and no one accused him of being prejudiced against Obama because he's white and he's from the south. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

And the justifications get even more complicated. I do not think the 700B bailout should happen, either. I hope it fails again. But for Republicans to vote against it, and then say it was the Democrats fault isn't even a spin - it's an outright lie. If you're against something on principle, then be a man (or woman), stand up and say so. Don't blame the other side for your actions. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

The tragedy of our political system is that the worst we can do to our elected representatives is not vote for them. If any of us committed half the crimes they did, we would be in jail or executed. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

A little political fodder for tonight's debate Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

That's not a bad plan considering the Chinese now have a country-wide site license for Microsoft. We could ask Bill G. to program the Chinese computers for automatically deleting their one trillion of our debt. If the Chinese discover it, we'll call it a "feature" of the operating system. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

That is one of the more complicated justifications I've heard lately. Simplified - Dems voted 60% to pass the bill, Republicans only voted 1/3 to pass. Then when it failed, Republicans still blamed the Democrats for it failing! What kind of math are they using, anyway? Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I guess we have sort of become a forum of whiners. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Why, oh why, did McCain keep saying he was not the "Miss Congeniality" of this and that? It would make sense if Obama's VP pick was Palin, instead it just seemed like he was degrading his own partner. I wonder how that made her feel? Watch for the following lines from McCain in the next presidential debate: "I wasn't voted Miss Junior Rodeo of ..." (reference to his current wife) "I wasn't a swimsuit model for ..." (reference to his first wife) Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I have a great idea for getting rid of the national debt. Every taxpayer just has to pay an additional $70,000 to the federal government on this year's taxes (due April 15, 2009). So save your pennies for the next few months and chip in. Here's how I came up with my plan. The current US debt is about 9.65 trillion dollars. There are roughly 138 million taxpayers in the US. So I used a new math concept called "division", and I had to find a calculator that had space for a lot of trailing zeros. By using "division", I was able to figure out that if every taxpayer paid the government an extra $70,000, in addition to their normal taxes for the year, we can pay back all that debt, and have a little left over to spend on cool things like tanks. Spread the word. If this idea really takes off, I'll suggest the idea to President Bush. Oh yeah, we will have to tack on an extra $5,000 from each of us to bail out the corporations that have all that yucky mortgage debt, but that's the sort of earmark spending we can live with, I think. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Yeah, it was the government. Who then negotiated a fire-sale. JP Morgan Chase has leveraged two heavyweight buyouts this year, and with the help of the Fed, stole them both. If they can survive the burden, they are going to be at the top of the heap. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Shhhhh - let's not tell them, the dimes are really just cupronickel. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I went into WAMU this morning, and deposited a large check. They were so happy to see me; apparently, everyone has been withdrawing money from WAMU today Why are people such idiots when it comes to money? WAMU is FDIC insured. That means that everyone gets their money within about two days, even if the entire bank collapses. If it gets to the point that the FDIC can't cover the losses, then the whole economy is dead, and your dollars are worthless, anyway. What good does it do to have worthless paper under your mattress? I hope all those people out there are at least trying to buy gold or something with the few hundred dollars they took out of their bank accounts. You might even get a quarter-ounce for that Now, if you were unfortunate enough to own stock in the bank, you're pretty much screwed right now. I think that people with money in the bank are under the false impression that they own stock in the company. As a side note, there was a blurb in the paper that said that if they had not negotiated a buy-out from JP Morgan Chase, the FDIC would have been completely depleted trying to cover WAMU's defaults. Anyone know if that's true? I think the people crunching numbers were confusing bad mortgage debt with monetary deposits. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Short-sighted, near-term gain economics. It's dominated right-wing economic policy for the last 40 years. First it was trickle-down economics. As a short term stimulus, it works. People at the top get richer, and start spending more to feed on the greed. Long term, it's a disaster. The rich get richer at a much faster rate than the middle-class or poor get richer, so in fact, most people become poorer. Then it was deregulation. Again, short term, it works. New opportunities open up, where before they were restricted, and corporations become profitable. Again, long-term, it's a dismal failure. Eventually, the corporate managers figure out how to abuse the lack of regulation, and even McCain is now standing up and saying there needs to be more regulation (after two decades of fighting for the opposite). Government bail-outs. Short term, they work. People see the money, and they regain confidence in the system. But $700 billion dollars, divided by 138 million taxpayers equals $5,072 for every taxpayer. We pay more taxes, the government prints more money, the dollar is deflated, and the "global economy" that we are so proud of starts to get very expensive with exchange rates. If each taxpayer could keep five thousand dollars, wouldn't that be a much better "economic stimulus" than a check for $600 every few years? Economic stimulus? I have yet to see any numbers that prove a check for a few hundred dollars every four years affects the economy. Maybe it does give a tiny short-term boost, but the taxpayers are still paying for it - why give more money to the government so they can give a small part of it back in a few years? Deficit spending. Man, I could go on all day with all these crap policies. I'm not a financial wizard, and even I can see how stupid they are. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Nope, never said that. I'm pointing to the majority of countries without government-funded education, and how it translates to a complete lack of education for most of the kids. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Remember that the WAMU takeover was forced by the Fed, it wasn't their choice. Usually in a forced takeover, the execs that are replaced are entitled to their "golden parachutes". I've tried a lot of banks, and WAMU has always been fair to me. They're not perfect, but they're a decent bank, despite their gamble on high-risk loans. I'm surprised it took them this long to go under - they bet heavily on the housing market. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

You could run for president yourself on that platform, considering both Obama and McCain have said the opposite, as well as the top economists in the country, and most of Congress. You really would be a maverick. Personally, I think the Japanese and Chinese should bail us out. If the next great depression starts, it will be global, not just in the US. Other countries have a vested interest in making sure our economy stays shored up. Good thing we've been pushing for a global economy Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

From CNN: Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Are we looking at Monica before Weight-Watchers, or after? I guess it doesn't matter, Palin is nine years older, but still hotter Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Typical right-wing diversion tactics. Blame the poor. Affordable housing for the poor is not the reason we are in this mess. All classes are defaulting on loans. Even Ed McMahon defaulted (before Trump offered to bail him out). Dramatically increased home prices affected the middle class, rich and poor alike, and all of them are defaulting. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I agree. I am not saying that the politicians are directly responsible, in that they gave out bad loans. I am saying they are directly responsible in failing to do their jobs. Part of the role of government is to keep us from hurting each other and ourselves. It's why we have speed limits, airline regulations, et al. In this case, not only did they not do their jobs, they were paid to look the other way. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I would argue that by limiting and/or prohibiting regulation of financial institutions, the politicians did, in fact create the crisis. Sure, the managers made the greedy decisions that enacted the turmoil, and individuals made poor financial decisions. However, in a capitalist market, you can EXPECT those things to happen. Many people are going to make poor financial choices if given the opportunity (credit cards, loans they can't keep, etc). Corporations are going to exact predatory lending practices if they have the opportunity. The only power the government has to stop it is regulation. The right wants you to believe they are in favor of less regulation. The left wants you to believe they are fighting for the poor and the middle class. Truth is, they are both on the take from the companies that give them money. In this case, companies made sure, by paying politicians, that they could retain every opportunity to screw their customers over. It worked. And when the companies fail, the government has to step in with taxpayer money to save them. Does the government bail individuals out when we go bankrupt? Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

You should travel more. Go to some poor countries where the government does not pay for education. There, most kids don't go to school. The US government doesn't do a good job with education (which is why I am home-schooling my two girls), but if they don't do it, no one else will. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I imagine our schoolkids would go from being the 18th smartest out of 24 countries, down to the bottom of the list. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Just read a little closer (2006 Overall government spending - this includes Fed, State, Local). Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Well, let's see: 1. For the last 10 years, McCain has been pushing hard to deregulate housing. 2. Housing people got greedy, giving bad loans, way under-valued to people that didn't deserve it. 3. Housing collapses. 4. White house authorizes tax payers to bail out the greed brokers. 5. McCain now says he wants to Regulate Housing! Have the GOP finally realized the errors of their ways? Or is deregulation the new trickle-down economic theory (which didn't work either)? Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD