In the first post 9-11 Habeas Corpus Challenge case that made it to the Supreme Court, the administration vociferously argued for the right to imprison ANYONE, indefinitely, without the right to counsel or a day in court if that person was declared an ‘illlegal combatant’, such declaration to be at the SOLE discretion of the President based on criteria KNOWN only to the President.

Sound familiar?

The ONLY thought and care that went into Paulson’s proposal was to attempt a grab at ABSOLUTE power over the financial system and ’settle’ for as much of that absolute power as they could get.

For now …

Anyone who thinks they are going to give up the White House are deluded.

If Palin is removed and a senior general (petraeus?) is put in her place – the end of ‘America the Beautiful’ actually is near, and a whole lot of Americans are about to involuntarily give up their lives for the ’cause’.

To vote republican, for ANY republican, THIS election cysle is an act of insanity.

BINGO! Thank you for reminding us of the macro perspective. No one expects empty-suit KongressKlowns to understand economics, other than the street-level basics of a brown bag of Franklins slipped into a greased palm for services rendered.

But out of the tens of thousands of PhD Econs which have been extruded from our elite diploma mills, how many have ever realized that debt-based currency is an inherently unstable pyramid scheme? Perhaps the greatest Fed critic of all — G. Edward Griffin, author of “The Creature From Jeckyl Island” — majored in speech and communications.

Economics is a failed profession; a degenerate form of numerology cloaked in clanking medieval statistical armor.

Anybody with a lick of sense can see that treating a debt crisis with a larger, fresh slug of debt is a brain-damaged policy. Until the fraudulent Bretton Woods II global exchange regime is thrown up against the wall, blindfolded, shot dead, and buried with a stake driven through its rancid heart, the feckless plans of the Paulsons and Bernankes are vanity, all vanity.

They will go down in history as late-empire currency debauchers, and nothing more. Not coincidentally, both have plenty of obsequious ‘economists’ on their staffs to perform the voodoo rites of transmogrifying debt into … well, brightly-colored pieces of paper having no intrinsic value. That’s some mighty crappy magic — not even entertaining anymore.

– Juan Falcone

On a relative note: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95099470

It’s a worth a listen – about how commercial paper keeps companies like Servicemaster (Terminix) functioning from day to day, and how mutual funds breaking the buck seized up commercial paper – you professionals already know this stuff, I put it here for the rest of us trolls…

Besides, as someone pointed out, the $700b isn’t a budget, it’s a headroom figure on the balance sheet. It’s significance is purely psychological.

And if you are going to do something like this, they’re right: go big or go home.

“How about a trillion?”
“Is that the real number?”
“Yeah. Like the Iraq bill. A trillion then?”
“Too [obscene participle] big. Never get approved.”
“$500 billion, then. Done.”
“Too small. Not credible.”
“$750?”
“Looks like we split the difference. $700?”

Thanks for posting the Video of Congressman Fazio and for his excellent comments.

Hirsch & Vicki Gupta