Calling Out the Culprits Who Caused the Crisis
By Eric D. Hovde, Washington Post, 21 September 2008

Looking for someone to blame for the shambles in U.S. financial markets? As someone who owns both an investment bank and commercial banks, and also runs a hedge fund, I have sat front and center and watched as this mess unfolded. And in my view, there’s no need to look beyond Wall Street — and the halls of power in Washington. The former has created the nightmare by chasing obscene profits, and the latter have allowed it to spread by not practicing the oversight that is the federal government’s responsibility.

[Read the article]

Luigi Zingales, Robert C. McCormack Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance at the University of Chicago, believes capitalism can be saved (.pdf).

As during the Great Depression and in many debt restructurings, it makes sense in the current contingency to mandate a partial debt forgiveness or a debt-for-equity swap in the financial sector. It has the benefit of being a well-tested strategy in the private sector and it leaves the taxpayers out of the picture. But if it is so simple, why no expert has mentioned it?

Hat tip for both links to bookforum.com.

McCain Draws Fire for Health Reform Modeled on Banking Deregulation
Scott Hensley, Wall Street Journal Health Blog, 22 September 2008

Paul Krugman, op-ed columnist and blogger, at the New York Times, riffs on an interesting piece on health-care reform by John McCain in an obscure, to us, journal for actuaries.

In the current issue of Contingencies, McCain makes his case for a freer market for health coverage by arguing that insurance would benefit from the same sort of deregulation that has led to innovation in…wait for it…banking.

The money quote from McCain, as noted by Krugman:
Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

[Read the post]

McCain Secretly Plans New Tax on Middle Class
United Steelworkers International President Leo W. Gerard
September 16th, 2008

John McCain should not be traveling in a bus called the Straight Talk Express. No, that equivocating multimillionaire who kowtows constantly to the wealthy should be riding in one of those private, gilded railroad cars.

That would be symbolically appropriate as well since he is trying to railroad the middle class on taxes.

He is actually proposing a brand new tax on the middle class.

[Read the post – hat tip]

Frederick Clarkson, Talk To Action, 3 September 2008

The more theocratic elements of the Religious Right have a disturbing habit, (more like a practice) of invoking “imprecatory prayer” — a call for God to literally pour his wrath down on those they consider to be his enemies. Last year, for example, Rev. Wiley Drake, then a Second Vice President of the Southern Baptist Convention made news when he called on his followers to pray for God to smite members of the staff of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. (Drake was angry that the organization had reported Drake to the IRS for endorsing Mike Huckabee on church stationary, among other apparent abuses of his church’s 501(c))(3) tax-exemption.)

The most recent target of theoractic imprecations is none other than Republican presidential candidate John McCain. They hope that an act of God will make Sarah Palin president.

[Read the report]

via New revelations re Palin and dominionists

September 18, 2008
Laure Chedrawi, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

OneWorld.net note: A group of Lebanese and international deminers will receive a prestigious human rights award for their work, which has cleared the way for nearly 1 million displaced people to safely return home.

Marwa, an 11-year-old from Aita Shaab in southern Lebanon, receiving treatment last year for injuries stemming from a cluster bomblet that exploded while she was playing with it. © Dina Debbas / IRIN

Earlier this year, an Israeli investigative committee ruled Israel’s use of cluster bombs during the July 2006 war in Lebanon — fought against the armed wing of the Lebanese political party Hezbollah — to be a violation of international law with regards to protecting civilians.

In 2006, tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, a powerful Shia militia active in southern Lebanon, erupted into a month-long conflict. “In the final 3 days of the conflict with the ceasefire looming, [Israeli] aircraft sprayed up to 4 million cluster bomblets over southern Lebanon. Over 1200 Lebanese were killed, most of them civilians, and a quarter of the population was displaced,” explains OneWorld.net in its Lebanon country guide.

Nansen Award: Mine clearers in Lebanon win Nansen Refugee Award
From: UNHCR

By Laure Chedrawi

BEIRUT, Lebanon, September 15 (UNHCR) – The 2008 Nansen Refugee Award will go to a group of international and Lebanese deminers who have cleared tens of thousands of mines and cluster munitions in southern Lebanon, allowing hundreds of thousands of displaced people to return home.

[Read the report]

According to MSNBC, one demonstrator “managed to get through” and ignited the fury of John McCain and Sarah Palin supporters today in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. As Palin lied through her shiny teeth and McCain drooled on his crib notes a distant rumble of dissent could occasionally be heard but the crowd drowned out the words with shouts of USA and We Want [insert the speaker’s name here].

McCain finally admonished the protester (but not the mob) for shouting.

Sarah Palin’s Alaskonomics
By Michael Kinsley, Time.com, 9 September 2008

Sarah Palin thinks she is a better American than you because she comes from a small town, and a superior human being because she isn’t a journalist and has never lived in Washington and likes to watch her kids play hockey. Although Palin praised John McCain in her acceptance speech as a man who puts the good of his country ahead of partisan politics, McCain pretty much proved the opposite with his selection of a running mate whose main asset is her ability to reignite the culture wars. So maybe Governor Palin does represent everything that is good and fine about America, as she herself maintains. But spare us, please, any talk about how she is a tough fiscal conservative.

[Read the report]