Out of the Past

Hasn't McCain been narrowing the gap? No. From when Lehman went down he got steadily worse going from +2 to -6 and then the VPs debated and it stayed at -6 for a few days and then it came down to -5 but now it's back -7. I don't think a candidate that gets booed in his rallies has a shot to win. I hope I'm wrong but I doubt it.

Up 20% from the bottom.. WOW.

Spending is half of the equation. Obama also wants to spread the wealth around by punishing success and rewarding failure through his tax policy. That's problematic.

I believe the current rule was implemented in '06. What I described was the rule through '96 but there may have being changes between '96 and '06. In other news, the market is up 15% from the bottom.

I guess ACORN should be congratulated for their successful campaign of fraudulently registering people... http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20081011/NEWS01/810110362 Hamilton County received more than 160,000 documents this year related to voter registration and change of address. Of the more than 40,000 documents received from ACORN, about 10,000 have been duplicates and many have come back with invalid addresses.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122385651698727257.html ======== One of Barack Obama's most potent campaign claims is that he'll cut taxes for no less than 95% of "working families." He's even promising to cut taxes enough that the government's tax share of GDP will be no more than 18.2% -- which is lower than it is today. It's a clever pitch, because it lets him pose as a middle-class tax cutter while disguising that he's also proposing one of the largest tax increases ever on the other 5%. But how does he conjure this miracle, especially since more than a third of all Americans already pay no income taxes at all? There are several sleights of hand, but the most creative is to redefine the meaning of "tax cut."For the Obama Democrats, a tax cut is no longer letting you keep more of what you earn. In their lexicon, a tax cut includes tens of billions of dollars in government handouts that are disguised by the phrase "tax credit." Mr. Obama is proposing to create or expand no fewer than seven such credits for individuals: - A $500 tax credit ($1,000 a couple) to "make work pay" that phases out at income of $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 per couple. - A $4,000 tax credit for college tuition. - A 10% mortgage interest tax credit (on top of the existing mortgage interest deduction and other housing subsidies). - A "savings" tax credit of 50% up to $1,000. - An expansion of the earned-income tax credit that would allow single workers to receive as much as $555 a year, up from $175 now, and give these workers up to $1,110 if they are paying child support. - A child care credit of 50% up to $6,000 of expenses a year. - A "clean car" tax credit of up to $7,000 on the purchase of certain vehicles. Here's the political catch. All but the clean car credit would be "refundable," which is Washington-speak for the fact that you can receive these checks even if you have no income-tax liability. In other words, they are an income transfer -- a federal check -- from taxpayers to nontaxpayers. Once upon a time we called this "welfare," or in George McGovern's 1972 campaign a "Demogrant." Mr. Obama's genius is to call it a tax cut. The Tax Foundation estimates that under the Obama plan 63 million Americans, or 44% of all tax filers, would have no income tax liability and most of those would get a check from the IRS each year. The Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis estimates that by 2011, under the Obama plan, an additional 10 million filers would pay zero taxes while cashing checks from the IRS. The total annual expenditures on refundable "tax credits" would rise over the next 10 years by $647 billion to $1.054 trillion, according to the Tax Policy Center. This means that the tax-credit welfare state would soon cost four times actual cash welfare. By redefining such income payments as "tax credits," the Obama campaign also redefines them away as a tax share of GDP. Presto, the federal tax burden looks much smaller than it really is. The political left defends "refundability" on grounds that these payments help to offset the payroll tax. And that was at least plausible when the only major refundable credit was the earned-income tax credit. Taken together, however, these tax credit payments would exceed payroll levies for most low-income workers. It is also true that John McCain proposes a refundable tax credit -- his $5,000 to help individuals buy health insurance. We've written before that we prefer a tax deduction for individual health care, rather than a credit. But the big difference with Mr. Obama is that Mr. McCain's proposal replaces the tax subsidy for employer-sponsored health insurance that individuals don't now receive if they buy on their own. It merely changes the nature of the tax subsidy; it doesn't create a new one. There's another catch: Because Mr. Obama's tax credits are phased out as incomes rise, they impose a huge "marginal" tax rate increase on low-income workers. The marginal tax rate refers to the rate on the next dollar of income earned. As the nearby chart illustrates, the marginal rate for millions of low- and middle-income workers would spike as they earn more income. Some families with an income of $40,000 could lose up to 40 cents in vanishing credits for every additional dollar earned from working overtime or taking a new job. As public policy, this is contradictory. The tax credits are sold in the name of "making work pay," but in practice they can be a disincentive to working harder, especially if you're a lower-income couple getting raises of $1,000 or $2,000 a year. One mystery -- among many -- of the McCain campaign is why it has allowed Mr. Obama's 95% illusion to go unanswered.

Mark-to-market is a disaster and deserves a lot of the blame here. In the past if a company intended to hold a debt security to maturity they would value it at its amortized cost. I think if that was the current rule a lot of the write-offs would have been avoided because companies would only need to write-down the loans that actually went bad and not the entire pool of loans being polluted by a few bad ones. I may be wrong but that's how I understand it. I agree that mark to market has contributed to this crisis, but what do you propose? How else are you going to value these assets? I have my own thoughts on this, but am curious about your thoughts. Right out of school my first job was as a CPA working for one of the big six accounting firms and back then when a company acquired a debt security they had to classify it as either Trading, Available-for-Sale or Held-to-Maturity. If you acquired it with the intention to sell it you had to include it in the Trading or the Available-for-Sale portfolios and you had to mark-to-market it. The unrealized gain / loss in the Trading portfolio hit the P&L. The unrealized gain / loss in the Available-for-Sale portfolio went to a section of Capital (no P&L impact). If you acquired the debt security with the intention and ability to hold it to maturity then you had to classify it in the Held-to-Maturity portfolio and this one you did not mark-to-market... it was valued at amortized cost. That was fine back then and I don't see why it wouldn't be fine today.

It's the McCain campaign that is trying to make it seem like Ayers is still a terrorist. Just curious but according to you when did he stop being a terrorist? According to me if you're a murderer you're always a murderer and if you're a terrorist you're always a terrorist.

Mark-to-market is a disaster and deserves a lot of the blame here. In the past if a company intended to hold a debt security to maturity they would value it at its amortized cost. I think if that was the current rule a lot of the write-offs would have been avoided because companies would only need to write-down the loans that actually went bad and not the entire pool of loans being polluted by a few bad ones. I may be wrong but that's how I understand it.

This is getting ugly. Do you oppose efforts to prevent individuals from registering and voting multiple times?

Free water is just fine. I'm glad the school board is not wasting our money on bottled water for teachers.

RONALD REAGAN DID NOT TRY TO OVERTHROW ANY DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED GOVERNMENT IN CENTRAL AMERICA. FutureGM is clueless about this. I hope he answers. Are you a supporter of Somoza or at least would have liked his regime to continue? Not a supporter but he was "better" than what replaced him. How is your question relevant to the topic at hand which is FutureGM's ignorant comment? Are you a supporter of Ortega?

It's like there's no bottom. The Dow's book value is about 8500 (at least that's what a guy on TV said last week). I guess that may be the bottom.

Obama laid the smackdown on AIG last night for this. Yeah, he made cheap political points at the expense of coming off as an imbecile by demanding the $400k get paid back and by calling for the firing of the employees. I guess Obama is not aware the $80 billion was a loan and that loans are paid back and I guess he's not aware that raiding a corporation of it's top performers is NOT a good thing especially when the corporation owes you $80 billion.

I remember four years ago (especially on this site) how everyone was talking about John Kerry ahead in the polls and that don't bother Kerry will win, look how that turned out. I am still waiting for election day when it really counts. I believe Barrack Hussein Obama mentioned 95% tax cuts. Interesting, how is he going to pay for all the programs with only 5% contributing? (please correct me if I am wrong but I do believe he said that 95%) well he says he'll raise taxes on the ones making over $250k and he says he'll give a tax cut to everyone else. I guess the ones making under $250k make up the 95%. He's dishonest because somewhere between 33% and 40% of taxpayers don't pay any taxes at all and you can't cut something that doesn't exist in the first place (i.e. taxes for peolple who don't pay any). What he's actually doing is using the tax code to distribute welfare. Shameful and dishonest. My guess is his tax cut for the middle class promise is BS and will raise taxes on them the second he gets in office but will keep his welfare through the tax code promise for the poor.

I'm horrified as well but it look like that's what the majority of the people want so we have to live with it and get used to it. Welcome to epoch of governemt doing for us what we're not willing to do for ourselves. McCain's one chance is to raise doubts about Obama's judgment and the way to do that is to bring up his links to the bigot, the crook and the terrorist without the media cleanser but McCain blew it.

That Biden sure knows his foreign policy... http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1223254480....html#printMode Biden's Fantasy World Sarah Palin may not know as much about the world, but at least most of what she knows is true. In the popular media wisdom, Sarah Palin is the neophyte who knows nothing about foreign policy while Joe Biden is the savvy diplomatic pro. Then what are we to make of Mr. Biden's fantastic debate voyage last week when he made factual claims that would have got Mrs. Palin mocked from New York to Los Angeles? Start with Lebanon, where Mr. Biden asserted that "When we kicked -- along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said and Barack said, 'Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don't know -- if you don't, Hezbollah will control it.' Now what's happened? Hezbollah is a legitimate part of the government in the country immediately to the north of Israel."The U.S. never kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, and no one else has either. Perhaps Mr. Biden meant to say Syria, except that the U.S. also didn't do that. The Lebanese ousted Syria's military in 2005. As for NATO, Messrs. Biden and Obama may have proposed sending alliance troops in, but if they did that was also a fantasy. The U.S. has had all it can handle trying to convince NATO countries to deploy to Afghanistan. Speaking of which, Mr. Biden also averred that "Our commanding general in Afghanistan said the surge principle in Iraq will not work in Afghanistan." In trying to correct him, Mrs. Palin mispronounced the general's name -- saying "General McClellan" instead of General David McKiernan. But Mr. Biden's claim was the bigger error, because General McKiernan said that while "Afghanistan is not Iraq," he also said a "sustained commitment" to counterinsurgency would be required. That is consistent with Mr. McCain's point that the "surge principles" of Iraq could work in Afghanistan. Then there's the Senator's astonishing claim that Mr. Obama "did not say he'd sit down with Ahmadinejad" without preconditions. Yet Mr. Biden himself criticized Mr. Obama on this point in 2007 at the National Press Club: "Would I make a blanket commitment to meet unconditionally with the leaders of each of those countries within the first year I was elected President? Absolutely, positively no." Or how about his rewriting of Bosnia history to assert that John McCain didn't support President Clinton in the 1990s. "My recommendations on Bosnia, I admit I was the first one to recommend it. They saved tens of thousands of lives. And initially John McCain opposed it along with a lot of other people. But the end result was it worked." Mr. Biden's immodesty aside, Mr. McCain supported Mr. Clinton on Bosnia, as did Bob Dole even as he was running against him for President in 1996 -- in contrast to the way Mr. Biden and Democratic leaders have tried to undermine President Bush on Iraq. Closer to home, the Delaware blarney stone also invited Americans to join him at "Katie's restaurant" in Wilmington to witness middle-class struggles. Just one problem: Katie's closed in the 1980s. The mistake is more than a memory lapse because it exposes how phony is Mr. Biden's attempt to pose for this campaign as Lunchbucket Joe. We think the word "lie" is overused in politics today, having become a favorite of the blogosphere and at the New York Times. So we won't say Mr. Biden was deliberately making events up when he made these and other false statements. Perhaps he merely misspoke. In any case, Mrs. Palin may not know as much about the world as Mr. Biden does, but at least most of what she knows is true.

If you get the chance, try to watch Glenn Beck at 7PM eastern time CNN tonight; Peter Schhiff will be the guest, and he should have some valuable insight. Remember, he is the guy who absolutely nailed this, called it years ago and people laughed at him. I watched some of it and for the most part he was good but I think he loses credibility when he predicts the price of gold will pass the Dow.

Not overly surprising. I do find it interesting that Obama is getting better numbers than Kerry, even though Kerry served in Vietnam. Not surprising at all considering Kerry returned from Vietnam to call the troops babykillers and rapists. Obama is not as offensive in attacking our troops as Kerry was but he did say our troops are just air-raiding villages and kiling civilians. My guess is the slight increased in support for Obama over Kerry has to do with his very strong support among blacks (79%).

Randy Shannon is now 4-10 vs BCS teams being outscored by an average of 30-21.... not surprising at all.

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/10/military_poll_100508w/ Military Times poll: Troops backing McCain By Brendan McGarry - Staff writer Posted : Monday Oct 6, 2008 11:43:13 EDT Sen. John McCain enjoys overwhelming support from the military's professional core, though race appears to be a decisive factor for career-oriented black service members, a Military Times survey of nearly 4,300 readers indicates. McCain, R-Ariz., handily defeated Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., 68 percent to 23 percent in a voluntary survey of 4,293 active-duty, National Guard and reserve subscribers and former subscribers to Army Times, Navy Times, Marine Corps Times and Air Force Times. The results of the Military Times 2008 Election Poll are not representative of the opinions of the military as a whole. The group surveyed is older, more senior in rank and less ethnically diverse than the overall armed services. But as a snapshot of careerists, the results suggest Democrats have gained little ground in their attempts to appeal to a traditionally Republican voting bloc in campaign messages and legislative initiatives, such as the recent expansion of GI Bill benefits, experts said. Related reading: The charts The methodology "The military has been perceived as a conservative Republican institution," said Peter Feaver, a political science professor at Duke University and a special adviser to the National Security Council from 2005 to 2007. "A lot of people thought that eight years of frustration with the Bush administration was going to undermine that," he said. "This evidence suggests that it hasn't undermined it as much as they thought, at least not yet." Officers and enlisted troops, active-duty members and reservists, those who have served in combat and those who haven't, all backed McCain by large margins, to about the same extent they supported President Bush four years ago. About 69 percent of respondents said they voted for Bush in 2004, while about 16 percent voted for the Democratic nominee, Sen. John Kerry. McCain's majority wanes among women and disappears altogether among black respondents. Nearly eight out of 10 black service members indicated they intend to vote for Obama despite his lack of military service and despite McCain's record as a naval aviator and prisoner of war in Vietnam. "I'm going to vote for Barack Obama," said Marine Gunnery Sgt. Derrick Pipkin, a heavy equipment chief with the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing in Miramar, Calif., and a black man who said he served seven months in Iraq in 2005. Pipkin said his vote was influenced more by the continued presence of 152,000 troops in Iraq than by race. "I believe that we did our best for the country," he said. "It's time to move on." Iraq is third-biggest issue Among the top issues for respondents in the survey, the war in Iraq ranks third, behind character of the candidate and the economy. The war in Iraq was cited by more respondents in the 2004 Military Times survey than any other issue, including character and the economy, in considering their choice for president. Recent progress in stabilizing Iraq has helped McCain politically, Feaver said. McCain was an early supporter of the troop surge credited with helping to reduce violence in Baghdad and other areas of Iraq. Similarly, the character question plays to McCain's strength, Feaver said. His dramatic experience as a POW is embodied in his campaign slogan, "Country First," and carries a particular resonance in the military community, as service members themselves indicated. Army Sgt. 1st Class Derriel D. Collins, who is black, said he was influenced by McCain's service record, though he acknowledges black friends question his decision. "I'm not going to give [my vote] to you just because you're black," he said. "It doesn't work like that." "John McCain went to war for this country, even though he had an admiral father who probably could have gotten him out of the service," Collins said. "He stuck it out five years in a prisoner of war camp. If that ain't fortitude, showing your willingness to go all the way, I don't know what the credentials are." Army Sgt. Timothy Coen said he will vote for McCain because that would be in keeping with his political views. "I just always voted conservative and on a lot of the issues at hand ? gun rights and abortion ? it just seemed like the more logical choice," he said. Coen, who is white, said he is proud to see a minority running on the ticket of a major political party. "But we'd all be fools to think that the race card isn't going to be played in this election," he added. "As much as we'd like to say that discrimination or inequality is a thing of the past, it's not." Daniel J. Becker, an enlisted airman who declined to provide his rank because he wanted his comments to reflect only his personal views and not those of the service or Defense Department, said he will vote for McCain because he has always leaned toward Republican candidates. "I've always felt that the Republican Party was interested in having a stronger military, which leads to a stronger America," he said. "That gives us a better voice in world politics and just makes us stand out as the world leaders that we are."

we're screwed. they're going to raise taxes to pay this off while our pay checks stay the same Obama will surely raise taxes as soon as he gets in but don't be surprised if the government ends up making money on the bailout.

10/03/2008, the day your government panicked and sold you out. Yeah, pretty much. :thumbdown Let me add that it was overwhelmingly Democrats that panicked and sold you out. :thumbup It was a bipartisan act of treason. The act of treason was the government's actions that led to the creation of the mortgage mess and the Democrats get the overwhelming share of that blame.

If you have the time, I would suggest you watch this video. I Googled several things stated in this video and they were right. To my knowledge, nothing was edited for the sake of the video. I found this video very interesting. Great video unfortunately most of us don't care one bit about the government regulations and lack of oversight that caused the mortgage problem. But hey, Nancy Pelosi instructed Barney Frank to hold hearing on how to fix the problems going forward so we have nothing to worry about.

Biden's experience is overrated. I'll take good judgement over experience. Biden comes across as if he's knowledgeable and I guess he should be congratulated for that because he doesn't know squat. Krauthammer pointed out he made 7 foreign policy errors in 60 seconds. It's hard to believe anyone could be so wrong so often in such a short span while coming off as if he knew what he was talking about. That takes some talent.