Initial reluctance to buy stock may have
hurt rescue
New York Times Oct 12, 08 6:29 AM CDT
(Newser)
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The White House is abruptly overhauling plans for the $700 billion bailout package it pushed through Congress just two week ago—raising fears that valuable time was lost on a plan not carefully considered, reports the New York Times . Instead of using funds to buy up troubled securities as initially intended, the focus will now shift to purchasing bank equity—in essence partially nationalizing banks. It's the same tactic the British government began last week.
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Reuters Oct 11, 08 6:59 PM CDT
(Newser)
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President Bush and his allies tried to steady plunging markets today after meeting in Washington, but proposed no new plan, Reuters reports. International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn warned that the global economy was facing "systemic meltdown," but backed the G7's as yet undefined rescue plan, saying it would "unfreeze" markets in a few days.
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OPINION
White House brings no leadership to the table
Washington Post Oct 11, 08 10:45 AM CDT
(Newser)
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George W. Bush tried to calm the markets once again yesterday, and once again, the markets responded by plunging. It was the 20th time in recent days that Bush has issued such proclamations, and every time “the market ignored him, and continued its downward plunge,” Dana Milbank writes in the Washington Post. Bush is saying the right things—albeit in his “characteristically clumsy” way—but “nobody seems to care.”
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OPINION
Accountability is nil, the president useless
Vanity Fair Oct 10, 08 2:28 PM CDT
(Newser)
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The credit crisis has laid bare the failings of US government, writes Christopher Hitchens in Vanity Fair , putting us on par with other banana republics such as Zimbabwe and Venezuela. How else to describe this "collusion between the overweening state and certain favored monopolistic concerns, whereby the profits can be privatized and the debts conveniently socialized"?
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But don't worry, we have acted and will continue to act
Associated Press Oct 10, 08 10:20 AM CDT
(AP)
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The government's financial rescue plan is aggressive enough and big enough to work, President Bush said today, but it will take time to fully kick in. "Anxiety can feed anxiety and that can make it hard to see all that's being done to solve the problem," Bush said in brief remarks from the White House Rose Garden. "We are a prosperous nation with immense resources....We can solve this crisis, and we will."
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Struggling economy requires a $150 billion plug, Speaker says
Associated Press Oct 8, 08 2:45 PM CDT
(AP)
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says a second economic stimulus plan is needed now because of the faltering economy, and she puts the price at $150 billion. President Bush, however, has promised a veto. The House passed a $61 billion economic aid proposal last month before lawmakers left Capitol Hill ahead of the election, but a similar plan failed to pass the Senate.
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MOVIE REVIEW
Stone's third presidential biopic his weakest
Variety Oct 8, 08 11:29 AM CDT
(Newser)
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If early reviews are any indication, Oliver Stone might want to avoid waving a “Mission Accomplished” banner. His George Bush biopic, W., is “a gutsy movie,” writes Kirk Honeycutt of the Hollywood Reporter, “but not necessarily a good one.” The movie comes too soon to have perspective—or an ending, writes Todd McCarthy of Variety : it “feels like a rough draft of a film” Stone should remake in 10 years.
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He might be unable to define what change means, but Barack's the only horse in the race, say mag's editors
Esquire Oct 8, 08 7:45 AM CDT
(Newser)
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Barack Obama "is the only possible choice to lead the country," says Esquire , though the magazine’s position is less an endorsement of Obama and more a treatise against John McCain. Obama has failed to define his key campaign theme of change “except as all those things encompassed by the phrase ‘Elect me’”—but he still represents a departure from George W. Bush that McCain does not.
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UPDATED
Reps who switched vote already spinning change for constituents
Los Angeles Times Oct 3, 08 3:00 PM CDT
(Newser)
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Less than 2 hours after the House passed the $700 billion bailout bill, President Bush signed it this afternoon. With a stroke of a pen, he set in motion $110 million in tax cuts and sent the legislators on both sides of the 263-171 vote home to explain themselves to their constituents just over a month before Election Day, the Los Angeles Times reports.
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OPINION
Noonan: She's a
little transparent but
still very effective
Wall Street Journal Oct 3, 08 10:05 AM CDT
(Newser)
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Sarah Palin starred in her own political "infomercial" last night and once again revived John McCain's flagging campaign, writes Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal. Palin looked "not petrified but peppy," her style far more suited to a debate than a cerebral interview. Biden seemed to be waiting for her to make a fool of herself. She didn’t. Instead, she talked straight to the people in a baldly populist, if transparent, pitch to “soccer moms” and “Joe Six-Pack.”
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OPINION
Palin choice shows Mac is just as willing to roll dice—but now's not the time for that
New York Times Oct 2, 08 12:02 PM CDT
(Newser)
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With Wall Street unraveling, Roger Cohen writes in the New York Times , we should remember who taught America all about incautious betting: President Bush, “the first person to reprice risk on the basis it no longer existed.” The Iraq war was a gamble with US lives and money, even as he allowed the markets to “turn capitalism into a pyramid scheme for trading worthless paper.”
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