I say this because the analogies which will be drawn from our Iraq experience will have major implications for the next major foreign wars we insert ourselves into, and more are coming, in the mid-term if not in the next Administration. And the ‘Petraeus succeeded, and because he was better’ meme will do us a world of damage in due course, despite it’s substantive inaccuracy. I will be arguing this for years, but our getting this wrong now—and the country _has_ gotten it wrong, and so will remember it wrongly—will have deep costs down the road.

Feature. Paulson and the kleptocrats are not above holding the country hostage to get what they want. Oh, I suspect that they really believe that their choice is the best one. But there is more than an odour of blackmail in how this ‘crisis’ of the last two weeks has proceeded. The bondmarkets know that they will face a Democratic Congress and Administration, and even after Election night they will be cut off fromt he kind of steal they are trying to bullrush through now, so if they are going to siphon off public funds to make good their bets they have five weeks—but really once Congress adjourns that’s it. This entire process is odious, only matched by the total failure of national political leadership of all stripes.

Cui bono? What’s in it for them?

The Treasury has not implemented the program, merely announced that it was coming and left it hanging. Check the website. They have not provided any details, merely a sketch and a promise more was coming.

Remember, this is a VOLUNTARY program, and participating money market funds must pay a fee of some sort. This is not something the Treasury is doing unilaterally.

The Treasury has not provided any details of what the charges will be and how to participate and thus no money funds appear to have signed up.

This is confirmed by readers who have called their money fund and have been told that they are waiting for details of what the program will be.

The commercial paper market is done one way or the other, unless they let AAAs borrow right off the Fed facility. I don’t know if any of the lawmakers have the stomach for that. If only the $50b were enough to capitalize a new, private sector bank who could pick up the slack.

Yves, the Fed has earmarked $70 billion for the money market fund bailout… that’s from the current H.4.1 report. Where are you hearing that the money funds aren’t being supported?

Brad Setser thinks that the changes in the Fed’s balance sheet may be driving the panic in DC. I think he might be right.

http://alephblog.com/2008/09/26/entering-the-endgame-for-monetary-policy/

As for Stein, can anyone tell me with a straight face that he hasn’t been pushing for deregulation and “free markets” for years with the rest of them? There are those of us who saw the thrift crisis coming out of Garn-St. Germaine and the current mess coming out of Gramm-Leach-Bliley, but do not number Stein with us Cassandras. And his grasp of CDSs is positively Reaganish in its masking of incomprehension as simplification.

Maybe there is a Zimbabwe solution in the works.

Ohhh……

As far as I can tell, their main objection was to the ‘equity kickers’ added by the Democrats.

The GOOPERS have led this country to ruin but at least we have creationism taught in our schools.