Supposedly the market is down

[Viking]

China trying to cool off
Greece CDS blowing out
EM FX blowing out
Obama is dumb
Market is 5% from rally highs.

ho hum

[New Mexican Disaster]

It seems that Obama's moves the last few days are an indication that he is leaning more on Paul Volcker and less on Geithner and Summers. Thank god for that. Geithner and Summers are pieces of crap and Geithner's involvement with the AIG/Goldman bailout/giveaway stinks to high heaven. I think that is the reason for the move back toward a Glass-Steagall type regime and it seems like a necessary move. But it might be painful initially.

Hopefully there will be enough political capital left in BO's tank to get this done. Wall Street will fight tooth and nail against it probably and some of the market drop this week is a realization that the party might be over.

[Viking]

the whole administration is a disaster. they don't know their ass from their elbow. and i'm a new york democrat

[RobinFinderson]

It seems to me that the USA has put off making the changes to our standard of living neccesary since the end of the Cold War opened so much of the world to the world economy. US manufacturing started declining in the late 90's and the market correction went to the housing market, which was financed by self-creating debt. It lasted about a decade but now the chickens are coming home to roost.

This is what I think as well, 'napper. I don't think it matters which party is going to run this country. As long as it is promising to return a standard of living that most of us enjoyed for most of our lives, then it is also promising to continue borrowing deeply from foreign interests into the foreseeable future. When I talk about a New New Deal, the one I hoped that Obama would engineer, I'm not talking about the socialization of the nation. I am talking about the realization that there is no quick fix that will put America back on top again the way we were before, and any slog back to our previously leveraged way of life is going to require a massive retooling of the social contract, one that views citizens primarily as productive assets rather than passive consumers, and then invests in their skills development appropriately. Americans were once the sharpest knife, but we have become dull, and we don't realize it because we are still the same knife.