Completely Misreading the National Mood, AIG Makes It Rain. AIG, the mammoth and mismanaged insurer — which incidentally holds the global financial market by the balls — is giving out $165 million in bonuses after getting $170 billion in taxpayer bailout money. Everyone is pissed. AIG said its legally obligated to pay the bonuses, which Read More
New York has a daily feature on their Intelligencer blog in which two pundits/experts have an I.M. conversation about the campaign. In yesterday’s installment, the always-fiery Matt Taibbi goes in on Byron York over the economic crisis, which conservatives have blamed on minority homeowners and government programs to aid them. M.T.: So how are you Read More
In case you hadn’t heard yet, the planned $700B bailout of Wall Street failed. The Dow is in a swoon, down 700+ points right now. So what happens now? Douthat: The worst case: You know what. The most likely scenario, as of 3 PM this afternoon: The stock market continues to drop. Some version of Read More
[Photo NYT] As it’s become apparent that McCain has neither suspended his campaign nor done any work on the bailout deal, we wonder: will he or won’t he show up in Mississippi tonight? Preparations have continued at Ole Miss without a pause, Obama has never wavered on whether or not he will attend, and McCain’s Read More
From the NYT: Washington Mutual, the giant lender that came to symbolize the excesses of the mortgage boom, was seized by federal regulators on Thursday night in the largest bank failure in American history. Regulators simultaneously brokered an emergency sale of virtually all of Washington Mutual to JPMorgan Chase. The remainder of WaMu, the nation’s Read More
… without the help of John McCain or Barack Obama, both of whom addressed the Clinton Global Initiative this morning (McCain in New York, Obama via satellite from Florida). Politico: Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah), the top GOP negotiator in the Senate, said, “We have a plan that will pass the House, pass the Senate and Read More
I think Sarah Palin uses words like “recuse” and “fungible” to hide the fact that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Hilzoy: Sarah Palin has been described as a quick study. But she has been surrounded by briefers for nearly three weeks, and she’s still completely unable to string together an intelligent thought on Read More
GTFOHWTBS. (CNN) — McCain supporter Sen. Lindsey Graham tells CNN the McCain campaign is proposing to the Presidential Debate Commission and the Obama camp that if there’s no bailout deal by Friday, the first presidential debate should take the place of the VP debate, currently scheduled for next Thursday, October 2 in St. Louis. In Read More
