why has this dinosaur of a show not gone the way of crossfire?

it has, tho, been a reliable weathervane of conservative failure ever since i can remember...

oh, and frist!

McLaughlin is a tired old Republican stack of shit. He allows fellow old white man bigot Buchanan rant bullshit on and on, and lets that dumbass Crowley do her best Palin imitation each week all while cutting anything Eleanor Clift has to counter short. I had to stop watching that right wing bullshit show.

Though the current financial crisis is well and truly Bush's fault, and Bush will continue to be president until 1/20/09 everyone is talking about how either Obama can or can't fix it.

WTF?!?! Its like they've all agreed before hand that Bush can't do it, so no need to discuss it. Thats fine for the liberal pundits on the panel, but for the conservatives to ignore their own guy's monumental failure and focus on how Obama's not going to be doing the right thing to save the economy, that Bush should be doing right now, is just disgusting.

I don't think bush gives a damn about the economic mess he has created. After the last yelling of "wolf" by Paulson and his telling us the banks would fail if the giant stimulus package wasn't passed, only now to watch one bank after another fail, why the fu*k would anyone believe anything today?

What does it feel like to be on the wrong side of history? I ask you, Pat Buchanan!"

http://www.zippyvideos.com/5171469584804106/t...

I can't help but watch the show - it's a train wreck.

Everytime this administration has cried panic and demanded a fast vote, it has turned out bad for the country. I think many in congress didn't believe this sort of bs would come from the treasury, but it did. Once again the people lose.

If the top guys at the auto industry were replaced by someone who knows how to run a company rather than people who knows how to rob a company, I would be in favor of a loan for them. As for the banks, they looked the other way while mortgages and credit cards were handed out like candy to hungry children. They made their bed, now let them sleep in it. Maybe that's not possible, but it's my attitude right now.

I'm sure glad someone else watches any of these shitty shows, so I don't have too. I can come on C&L Monday morning and see and hear all the things I didn't miss.

I wonder when the Nevada brothels will be asking the government for a hand?

I know Obama has Buffet, and I know what Roubini and Krugman are saying, but there are great number more economists and business leaders saying we can't spend our way out of this, you can't add debt to debt and expect it to work. I hope this is the info Obama is getting behind the scenes.

The bailout will not work folks, but I am going to add info here that will help people understand why it won't. Their has not been a good explanation put forward as to how a bail will work (not even by the 3 well respected fore mentioned) and there are better detailed proposals that will work, so I put one forward now. At the bottom of my post, in just today I have added links reaffirming what I have pounded out directly below, I hope C&L readers receive this well, it is intended as an appeal.

Some time back I read a book titled ‘The Dollar Crisis – Causes, Consequences, Cures’ by Richard Duncan published in 2003 updated in 2005 that discussed the issues we were facing then, and what might happen today. If I could type the whole book and post it here I would. You might find the excerpts I have typed below interesting, I include the issue we are facing now, ‘Deflation’ which just happens to be the chapter title and how a bailout in our current situation will not work.

I also wanted to add some solutions so I included a small part that lays out better alternatives, what good is bitching if you have no solutions? I hope everyone reads this and enjoys.

There is worse to come
The experience in the United States will be remarkably similar to that which unfolded in Japan and the Asia Crisis countries when their credit bubbles deflated. The economic crisis in the U.S. may be less severe than in those countries, since the property market bubble is not as extreme in America as it was elsewhere; on the other hand, there will be no “engine of economic growth” no export of last resort, to help the United States export its way out of crisis in the way the seemingly insatiable U.S. market helped the other post-bubble economies during the 1990s.

The global economy will soon enter a deflation-induced slump similar to the one that has gripped Japan for the last decade. Moreover, the two policy responses developed to treat economic downturns in the 20th century – Keynesianism and monetarism – are unlikely to be able to restore global growth this time around. Government, which spent lavishly during the recessions and economic expansions both over the last 50 years, now may not have sufficient fiscal firepower left to jump-start the economy at this time when fiscal stimulus is so badly needed. Fiscal stimulus has failed completely to restore economic growth in Japan. Worse still, an aggressive monetary policy response would do more harm than good. Excessive monetary expansion, in the form of international dollar liquidity, created the global economic bubble in the first place. Additional aggressive expansion of the global money supply would succeed, at best, only in creating a new round of asset price bubbles that would ultimately implode in an even more terrible economic collapse.

Monetary policy works through credit expansion. When the government wishes to expand the money supply, it buys assets (such as government bonds) from banks, increasing their liquidity. In theory, the banks, in turn, lend more to businesses, which are expected to increase their investment and hire more workers, thereby eventually stimulating consumption and the economy overall. In a post-bubble economic environment, characterized by excess capacity, bankrupt corporations, and overly indebted consumers, monetary policy does not work. Although the liquidity position of the banks is improved by the government’s actions, there are neither a sufficient number of creditworthy borrowers to lend to (given the very large number of debtors unable to repay their existing debts), nor a sufficient number of clients who want to borrow, due to the lack of money-making investment opportunities left in a glutted marketplace. Consequently, the increased money supply never reaches the consumers and personal consumption does not revive.

If you think the bailout or stimulus packages will work, he goes onto explain a dynamic called a liquidity trap we are likely to experience as a result, his conclusion:

Conclusion
Existing policy tools are likely to prove to be incapable of resolving the current global economic crisis. Keynesianism and monetarism have both been too abused during the preceding decades to be effective now. Similarly, bailing out depositors of failed banks may solve one set of problems by preventing a collapse in the money supply, only to produce another set of problems by perpetuating the excessive pool of credit that was responsible for causing the crisis in the first place.

If we persist in the direction that is now being embraced our options to avoid a global depression is hyperinflation or resort to war. However he presents the following to alter our course.

Solutions
Foremost among the prerequisites that are essential to foster a balanced expansion of global supply and demand is a steadily expanding global minimum wage. There is no way around the fact that aggregate supply can not long expand at a faster rate than the growth in the underlying purchasing power of the public. The absolute necessity of expanding wage rates in the developing (or, rather, industrializing) world, and suggestions as to how that could be achieved, are topics addressed in Chapter 12.

Next, the international monetary system must be rehabilitated in order to put an end to the explosion of global money supply that gushes from the U.S. current account deficits. A mechanism to ensure that trade between nations is balanced rather than persistently unbalanced must be put in place to end the destabilizing impact that unbalanced trade has on the global economy. Policy makers must learn to master the global money supply detailed in Chapter 13.

About the Author: Richard Duncan has worked as a financial analyst in Asia for more than 16 years, conducting research and publishing investment reports on companies, industries, and economies from India to Korea.

In 1993, Mr. Duncan was one of the first to warn of the impending collapse of the Thai economy and the Thai stock market in a series of published reports and speeches directed at institutional investors. At the height of the Asian crisis, he worked as a consultant for the International Monetary Fund in Thailand. Subsequently, he joined the World Bank in Washington DC as a Financial Sector Specialist focusing on issues related to the economic crisis in Asia.
http://www.business-in-asia.com/books/dollar_...

FT - Bring back the link between gold and the dollar - By Richard Duncan just this morning
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ba673d22-b977-11dd-...

WSJ - The Fed Is Out of Ammunition
A discredited dollar is a likely outcome of the current crisis.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1227489125335...

Market Watch - Dramatic downturn seen for economic data
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/harsh-e...

Breitbart - Worst of financial crisis yet to come: IMF chief economist

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=08112...

Just doing my best to give C&L readers a different perspective.

:)

I wonder how they would have reacted if Eleanor Clift asked if any of them has to live paycheck to paycheck or if they are in danger of loosing their homes. Perhaps they wouldn't have been laughing so hard.

Pat is trying to change sides for employment reasons

Monica doesn't know if she'll still have her radio job, but fines it hard to except a Black President.

John is just still in shock but trying to fake it.

Mort just says anything as he thinks of ways to be an insider

Eleanor is the only person who has been right every week and calls it as she sees it. She makes all of them look like what they are complete idiots.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KMV3dc2PbI

is DESPARATE to lay the blame for all of this at Barack's feet... they make me sick! They blamed Clinton for EVERYTHING for eight years... and now that W has CRASHED AND BURNED our military, our good standing in the world, and our economy too... they all want to shift responsibility AGAIN to Obama WHO DOESN'T EVEN TAKE OFFICE TILL JANUARY.

They are all pugnatious assholes.
Blame this on George W. Bush.