Oh, goody, With the carnage unfolding all around it, the Fed finally cut the federal funds rate by a full half point today to 4.5%. Better late than never. More bucks for bankers and brokers. That's the ticket to keep our foreign creditors happily stashing their extra bucks in Uncle Sam's bottomless money bucket.
Posted by Marie at September 18, 2007 01:54 PMOf course the public wasn't swayed by Petraeus...we all have televisions. We can see the news. Having 8 or 9 GI's killed during his testimony each day makes it kinda hard to convince people that things are more successful. Besides everyone knew he was just mouthing Bush's words. The public knows what the state of affairs in Iraq is. But the public doesn't matter. Petraeus/Crockof/Bush are just lucky that the Dems doing the questioning were more concerned with giving speeches than asking really important questions.
Posted by T2 at September 18, 2007 02:14 PMT2, yeah, creating our reality is working to well these days. If it were, we would still believe people like Pa-tray-us.
Oh, and the Grand Ol Pervert Party sure loves those little five year old girls, don't they. Damn, is the whole fucking party perverted? Don't answer that, I already know the answer.
Posted by Judith at September 18, 2007 02:20 PMThe Fed's decision is a scandalous cave-in to the vocal demands of hard pressed Wall Street financiers to help bail them out from the essentially fraudulent mortgage-backed paper they foolishly created. This is a sign that the entire system is gamed and foreign investors will see it as such.
With the dollar tanking and oil increasing a country running a huge trade deficit heavily dependent upon foreign capital cannot cut rates and further depress the currency. Yet that's what the Fed has done.
This should ingite very serious inflation in the economy. I think this will be seen as a very bad decision in future. So what else is new?
Posted by euzoius at September 18, 2007 02:39 PMI think I finally have this whole thing figured out. George Bush was a cheerleader at Yale. Cheerleaders are taught to be upbeat, enthusiastic, and supportive even in the face of overwhelming odds and the inevitability of failure. So, even if it is late in the fourth quarter and the score is 52 to 6 (not unusual for Yale), they keep on cheering although almost everyone else has left the stadium. Forget the fact that their team would have to score 47 points in the last eight minutes to win the game. Hope springs eternal. We don't need such people right now.
What we need to do is elect a 230-pound, 6'2" right tackle who has had to face a 280-pound, 6'8" left tackle all day. That person would be a little more able to recognize a hopeless cause when he saw it....and take the appropriate action, i.e., get this debacle over with as soon as possible and tell those damned cheerleaders to shut up.
Posted by PretzelsOne at September 18, 2007 03:22 PMeuzoius - the Federal Reserve was in a bind, cut interest rates and watch the dollar go even further down (with increasing inflation) OR not cut interest rates and watch the economy go into recession
EVERYTHING Bush touches turns to shit, it will take decades to clean up his mess
Posted by gay veteran at September 18, 2007 03:52 PMgay vet - doesn't the first option merely delay the recession? If the FED is really good, they might be able to time it just right and have it hit on 1/20/09
Posted by Marie at September 18, 2007 04:01 PMBush...with the anti-midas touch!
Posted by mp at September 18, 2007 04:19 PMI see none of those above chose to correct the 4.5 rate posted. The fed lowered the rate to 4.75. Seems, y'all like to march lockstep with anything against the current admins. Who cares about the facts. Details.
So now McConnell lied to Congress. They just didn't vote for FISA now on their own. Naw, that's not how it happened. Democrats trying to distort what happened only in August. More revisionist history this close to the event. Wow, how short the memories are over here.
Posted by peter at September 18, 2007 04:27 PMGV--I completely agree with your analysis, the Fed was in a bind, but by cutting rates they chose to save the asses of extremely wealthy hedge fund investors who had bought into some terrible positions, at the expense of destroying our currency long term.
I think that igniting out of control inflation and currency meltdown will turn out to be much worse for the middle class overall than the risk of a housing-led recession. The wealthy can handle enormous inflation. And we may very well get the recession anyway. But we shall now see.
Posted by euzoius at September 18, 2007 04:46 PMPeter, even for you, that one was of the lamest critiques I've seen around here from a troll.
You're off your game, mister.
Posted by Steve Soto at September 18, 2007 05:37 PMEvening Update
President Ahmadinejad of Iran will be travelling to New York soon to speechify at the UN. I am looking forward to reading the reports here at TLC.
Posted by Bagley at September 18, 2007 05:39 PMWhy not just check out the Big Dinejad's personal blog, bags, and write a few comments, since you're so obsessed with him? You could even request UN "tickets" from the Iranian embassy!
That should get your email data-mined by Bushco's NSA.
Posted by euzoius at September 18, 2007 05:57 PMAgain, Peter is correct and all you can do is look in from the outside.
How Sad For You
Posted by jj at September 18, 2007 08:21 PMAgain, Peter is correct and all you can do is look in from the outside. .....sorry double "j"...there's a reason he's coined Pants Pissing Peter!!!..he just wet himself over 25 basis points!!
The proof is in the archives here at The Left Coaster. Blog entry after blog entry of being wrong about the economy. LOL. It's true you can't hold a candle to those idiot unhinged locksteppers at Angry Bear, but you're definitely in the running.
Posted by UR Ijits at September 18, 2007 11:04 PMgee, right-wing trolls, if things are going so great then why do the overwhelming majority of Americans feels America is on the WRONG track?
you need to pry your head out of Dear Leader's ass, the lack of oxygen is killing what few brain cells you have left
Posted by Gay Veteran at September 19, 2007 05:37 AMSo what exactly in the TLC's archives is specifically "wrong", dimwit?
And another densely argued, substantive comment from the clownish "jj". Dittoheading petr of all idjits!
Can ANYONE on the extreme Right make an actual argument? Do any of them have the slightest understanding of the most basic facts and concepts?
What a motley collection of half-retarded ignoramuses--and absolutely certain that their opinions (based on nothing) are correct! This is nothing but a "faith based" anti-intellectual mindset, and spells doom for the country.
Posted by euzoius at September 19, 2007 05:54 AMAnyone notice how jj immediately comes in to give validity to Peter's posting? Hmm.......
Posted by Judith at September 19, 2007 06:05 AMJudith
It sounds like Coyote and snark.
JohnT,
If you'd really like to know if Iamcoyote and I are the same person or not I have a simple way for you to find out. There's an email address listed at the top of the site for Mary. Send her an email and ask her. I assure you she's in a very good position to know the answer.
Posted by snark at September 19, 2007 07:08 AM