Excellent analysis

run of the mill reporting

Sometimes journalists can be too balanced.

Not deep enough.

Excellent piece of work by AP. Connecting the dots.

Pretty good, but not deep enough.

This is a good commentary on a subject that has crossed my mind several times since Nov. 4th.

An excellent analysis from a journalist who was also part of the story itself

PJ O'Rourke is a dying breed within the conservative movement... he thinks. And, as usual, he's a hell of writer.

This is the kind of journalism we need more of.

Op Ed.

I am not sure I would consider this journalism, in the strictest sense of the term. This is more a study or white paper.

While we hear a lot of scare talk out of Washington and Wall Street about what "will happen" if we don't pump a trillion taxpayer dollars directly into economy's veins, some are warning that will only make things worse. Inflation looms as the US Treasury tries to provide liquidity in a market where the most knowledgeable players have so little confidence they won't even lend to one another.

War with Russia? That's what McCain's VP pick, Sarah Palin told ABC in her first interview today, that if Russia continues flexing its muscle the US may have to go to war with that nuclear-armed nation. This story should be on every front page tomorrow. But will it be?

I covered these two GSE's for almost 20 years and each time I interviewed the CEO's and other top executives I was struck by their arrogance and "our way or the highway" attitude towards those who wanted to do business with them. When they were allowed to go public, becoming a sharehold-owned company, the government made a classic -- and now we know fatal --mistake. They privatized the enormous profits but socialized the risks involved. Now those risks have come home to roost and the taxpayer will have to pick up the tab, just as we did for the S&L mess -- which should have been a warning of things to come.

For a now aging anti-war activist of the 1960's this story was both alarming and alarmingly familiar. We survived the first bout of this kind police state nonsense under Johnson and Nixon. But I wonder if the nation has changed in ways that will allow this state of affairs to not only continue, but tighten control over everyone and everything. I wonder. The answer will come in November.

This story cites yet another example of how McCain's choice for VP, Sarah Palin'e short record in office is filled with contradictions. She is for abstinence, for banning birth control education in schools, but claims to support young, unmarried girls who decide to go through with accidental pregnancies. Then she cuts the state programs that would allow these young mothers to raise their children properly.

As a reporter who has been retired for a decade now, I worry about the state of my former profession. I've watched with growing concern as the new right wing media, like FOX, has bullied mainstream media into a false sense of what "balanced news" really is. It's not balance to repeat untruths or distortions simply in an effort to show your paper or channel is trying to be "fair and balanced." Instead the media's job should be to inform with facts and unmask the cheats, liars and propagandists on all sides.

This is an important story, because it highlights the new - old - reality. We once again live in a bi-polar world. Russia is back and rounding up allies, most of whom feel hemmed in by US policies and expansionism. Maybe rather than trying to bring democracy to Iraq Mr. Bush and Mr. Clinton should have concentrated on encouraging real democracy in Russia rather than simply allow form KGB head Putin put together a Stalinist society with an exclusive upper class and a vast underclass. Of course, this may not be all that surprising since that's precisely what Bush has created in the US over the last 8 years. It seems that when Bush looked into Putin's eyes what he saw was his own reflection.

The story is good as far as it goes. Trouble is it does not go far enough. Medicare fraud comes in several flavors. There's your generic thieving fraud that's always been around and can be easily caught with proper gov. oversight. But, as congress and the administration continue tightening the reimbursement screws on hospitals and doctors they have forced them into survival mode... to wit -- lying and cheating on billings in order to stay out of the red themselves. The only solution to America's growing health care ills is single-payer health care insurance. Because only a system that insures the largest possible actuarial pool can even begin to shoulder the inherent risks involved in health care.

This story should have delved back into the days when the FBI had these kind of powers, and more. That would have been during the Nixon/Johnson years. I know because I was one of the leaders of the San Francisco anti-war movement and had my own FBI detail assigned to me. They intercepted my mail, they sabotaged my car, twice (the wheels fell off) and they generally made themselves as annoying and intrusive as possible. I think if the press reminded people of what it was like then the public would be more upset about reinstating such powers.

I think most of the news coverage of this incident miss the main point. Russia has a long history of neighborly paranoia. The Russian national anthem should be "Don't Fence Me In." Russia sees NATO surrounding them as it admits one former Soviet satellite after another. While we see this as no threat to Russia's sovereignty, we have to understand that paranoia does not have to based on logic. It's an irrational fear. It'll be interesting to see how the West addresses the aspirations of countries like Georgia and Ukraine, without setting the Russian Bear into a frenzy of self-protection.

The public and media debate over the wisdom, or lack thereof, of additional drilling offshore is missing an important point. Drilling for more oil, in and of itself, is a wise idea, if for no other reason than oil remains a strategic component of our national defense. But unless a floor is put under the price to prevent short-lived oil gluts, falling gas and other fuel prices will kill still fragile emerging alternative sources of energy in their cribs. Gasoline, for example, should not be allowed to fall below $3.50 a gallon. Otherwise Americans will simply go back to their old, wasteful and unsustainable ways. We always do.

Recent events would suggest that when Bush looked into Putin's eyes what he saw was his own reflection.

This story tells of anther self-financed effort to address one of the many challenges congress and the White House seem incapable of doing anything about. This effort joins the pro-wind power ads produced and paid for by Texas oil man, T. Boone Pickens. In this case another wealthy American takes on America's tumor-like national debt.

A good overview of the power of inflation to defeat government stimulus actions, such as tax rebates. While such rebates may briefly soften the impact of inflation, they have no sustained effect and may in fact actually fuel inflation.

This story highlights how sound lending practices can be eroded by other social/political considerations. Having covered lenders for nearly a quarter century I never once saw good come from careless, sloppy or just downright stupid lending practices. Either a borrower qualifies for a loan or they don't. And if they don't, and lender insist on pounding that square peg into a round hole, it always ends badly. The road to hell is paved with the best intentions.

Interesting that you can pretty much bet that most of Wal-Mart's employees fall into the Democratic Party demographic. So, it's no wonder that Wal-Mart is worried the Democrats are in the ascendancy. Wal-Mart has become America's "company store," complete with nearly indentured employees who are paid so little they can't afford to shop anywhere but Wal-Mart thus completing the circle. Unionization has and remains Wal-Mart's 900 pound gorilla. It's never mentioned but always on their mind.

An excellent and well-written overview of China and its role as host to the upcoming Olympics. It leaves one wondering "what were they thinking" when the Olympic Committee granted China the 2008 Summer games.

Is the media tip toeing around the developing banking crisis? Could be. And it wouldn't be the first time the mainstream media hedged its bets when it came to something with wide ramifications. Remember the un-vetted WMD justifications for the Iraq War. In an over-developed mandate to "balance" stories reporters have become undependable as heralders of approaching trouble. Then, when the stuff hits the fan, they spend a lot of time asking questions that should have been asked long ago.

The author wonders why ordinary Americans, now invested in the stock market, haven't revolted. The answer is simple -- and unstated by the author. Were they give every dollar of principal they have invested, where else would the put it? Banks? That would be frying pan to fire. Besides interest being paid on deposits is so low it could disappear as a rounding error. Keep it in cash? With inflation just beginning to roar every minute you hold a dollar in your hands it's worth less and less. No, Americans will sit tight for now and see what comes next. They will get angry at some point, and the source of that anger will be over the now yawning gap between the few very rich and the rest of us. Then there will be hell to pay.

The stories about the real state of the US economy have grown increasingly negative in just the last couple of weeks. But the trouble has been brewing for a long time. Seven years of "guns and butter" fiscal policies coupled with open hostility towards even the most reasonable federal regulation of private sector financial services have bankrupted the US Treasury and put our grand kids into hock to the Chinese and Japanese central banks.

Conservatives take it as a matter of faith that markets are self-correcting and that all government can do when it regulates business is to short circuit that magic process. That is until they find themselves on the losing end of investments. Then they can't get enough of government "interference."

Good overview of the MBS mess. Just as the current banking crisis is a re-run of the S&L mess twenty years ago, the MBS mess mirrors the junk bond mess of the same time period. Junk bonds themselves were a great idea. But Mike Milken decided to push the ethical and legal envelope to make them a much better thing, for him. Same goes for MB securities. In responsible hands they provide liquidity to the mortgage markets. In the wrong hands they can throw the entire global financial machinery into chaos.

Fannie and Freddie have been ticking time bombs since the late 1980s. As Government Sponsored Enterprises, (GSEs) they could borrow money at the lowest cost the Fed provides, buy mortgages with that money, bundle them up into securities and sell them on Wall Street raking in enormous profits. The implied government guarantee erased any investor fears of default. Many warned that sooner or later something will occur that will call the government's bluff on that and taxpayers will end up on the hook. And now it's happened.