Well here it is less than two days until the Vice Presidential debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin and most people are starting to think that Palin might not be such a good pick for John McCain after all. Yes, her pick shocked the world as she was basically an unknown on the national scene, but now she’s begining to seem a little bit unprepared for the job. Many people expect her to get killed in the debate but she might also benefit from the low expectations. A mediocre performance might actually work out pretty well.

We also covered the failed bailout situation where  the Republican Minority leader of the House John Boehner, has claimed that Republicans changed their votes on the Bailout after Speaker of the House Nany Pelosi gave a very partisan speech blaming Republicans for the financial crisis. Seems like a bunch of babies are running the country. We’ll keep updated on the situation as it progresses. Hopefully we can get something figured out soon.

And Finally with a breaking news report exclusive to Pete’s Big Mouth, I announced that my cat Buster had killed a squirrel today. Here’s the lucky fella that felt the wrath of Buster

And Here’s the Killer himself

This lead to Pete bravely admitting that he is a cat person. Yes once in awhile he will talk about things other than politics. Has he gone soft? Do you like cats better then dogs? I know I do. And I love my Buster. He’s like a miniature Budha with Fur and the most affectionate animal I’ve ever known. Thank you and Goodnight.

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We spent a couple hours on the air today talking about where the problems are rooted, but it’s decidedly harder to decide what to do than to decide who is at fault. So now that we’ve pointed some blame, can we point out solutions? I have not found any ideas that thrill me in particular. Here are a few that don’t seem entirely stupid, but I’d love to hear yours (or have you link to alternatives).

I’ll kick it off with a reference to one of the few people who said this crisis was coming way back when (as mentioned in a previous post). Dean Baker offers several “progressive conditions for a bailout,” which I find a little weak and watered down, ut which are probably more severe than anything our Congressional representatives will come up with.

This blogger whose work I’m not otherwise familiar with seems to think we should be letting the government handle credit, since Wall Street just proved itself entirely incapable:

The U.S. government is now the ultimate home mortgage lender, and consequently mortgage rates have fallen. The government has lending facilities for student loans, farm loans, small business loans, and myriad others. The task now is to pick up the pace. The Treasury and the Federal Reserve have been quite creative in setting up new lending facilities for the benefit of investment banks and broker-dealers. How about a lending facility for businesses to replace the commercial paper market? How about a lending facility for consumers to ease the pinch from credit card debt?

Here’s a quick analysis of the proposed plan as it stood this morning. Details always changing, but the important thing is, we should see some details before our rulers move forward on it, no?

Paul Krugman offers a pretty moderate view of the bailout, but he makes some critical points that everyone should understand:

And if the government is going to provide capital to financial firms, it should get what people who provide capital are entitled to — a share in ownership, so that all the gains if the rescue plan works don’t go to the people who made the mess in the first place.

These recommendations that economist Robin Hahnel referred to on the show the other day deserve another look, though once again I think they’re really bland. Maybe I’ll write my own ideas down soon so you all can thrash them. For now, I’ll let you all go at it over these proposals, or offer your own, in the comments.

Oh, and here’s an article on the credit default swaps that one caller brought up. They’re not super hard to understand, but they’re difficult to explain. This article does a decent job. These instruments constitute one of the major variables in this whole crisis, which is why I was saying news on just how bad off they are may be the next wave of the catastrophe

Last but not least, please enjoy this important message of peace from the Techno Viking…

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American University economics professor Robin Hahnel was on to talk about the mortgage/Wall Street crisis. He recommended this article by Robert Weissman, one of the economists who has been most prophetic about the coming crisis that we’re now in the middle of, and one of the people with true alternative paths for us to collectively ignore as we hurl free money at scumbag CEOs and investors. And here’s a link to Robin’s books on Amazon.

Here’s the Sam Harris article on Palin and elitism that Pete got a chubby over.

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The state of Georgia is about to execute a man who is almost certainly not guilty. Seven out of the nine witnesses who provided all the evidence in the case have recanted their testimony. Prominent figures all over the world, including Jimmy Carter, Pope Benedict and former FBI Director William Sessions are standing behind accused “cop killer” Troy Anthony Davis, who will be executed Tuesday evening unless the Georgia Board of Pardons intervenes.

NPR had some great coverage of the situation this morning. And Davis’s support group has a site with tons of material about the case.

We urge you to contact the Georgia Board of Pardons and demand they issue a stay of execution, at the very least. Tell them the whole nation — indeed the world — is watching as Georgia prepares to murder a man who most witnesses say did not commit the crime of which they helped convict him.

Call: 404-656-5712
Fax: 404-651-8502
Email: clemency_information@pap.state.ga.us

Update (9/23): For those who haven’t heard, The US Supreme Court granted Davis a stay of execution until they can consider ordering new hearings on the matter. So he’s still alive, for now.

From WaPo:

The stay of execution will remain in effect while the Supreme Court considers Davis’s appeal. Davis wants the high court to order a judge to hear from the witnesses who recanted their testimony and from others who say another man confessed to the crime.

See also this horribly headlined AP story, or this from AFP.

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My laptop screen busted on me today and I’ve been running around like crazy trying to figure out whether to pay to get it fixed or buy a new machine. All the while losing precious hours at work and not listening to the show. But you don’t care about my computer, you care about the issues, except I don’t know what’s going on because now I’m using one of those old-fashioned CRT monitors that’s glowing in my face and I can’t stand to stare at it any longer. So have at if, folks!

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If only someone could have seen this financial crisis coming, say, in 2003. If only there was an economist who predicted the housing bubble. If only there had been criticism of subprime lending years back. If only someone had discussed the wider implications of the housing bubble and the financial deregulation that spurred it on. Wasn’t there some wild-eyed radical to speak up and say financial mechanisms like derivatives hedges are putting us all at risk? I mean, the only experts the media can rely on are people who were totally surprised by the meltdown. They happen to be the same folks who missed the late-’90s stock-market bubble bursting, but since they uphold elite interests, they’re going to keep their jobs as primary news sources. I mean, really, who could have known?

If only someone could have written something like this years ago:

This situation is frightening for two reasons. First, as a short-run matter, if housing prices fall sharply in some of the areas where the effects of the bubble are largest… new home buyers (and those who recently refinanced their mortgages and took money out) could find they have negative equity in their homes. … When this happens, there is a huge incentive to just let the mortgage holder foreclose on the home. If this were to happen on a large scale, the survival of many banks and financial institutions would be at risk.

I mean, that person would probably be the most sought-after economist in the news today, right? He would be a household name, and major news outlets wouldn’t be turning to Alan Greenspan to explain why everything is falling apart.

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I’ve obviously been doing a pretty poor job of choosing topics you all want to spout off on this week, so today you get an open thread. I know the phones were jammed up during the 9/11 Conspiracy Theory segment, so there’s one idea. But anything goes below, as far as subject matter goes.

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The terror attacks of September 11, 2001 had a deep personal impact on most if not all Americans. My brother was living in Manhattan at the time, and the events obviously had a huge impact on him. I worked at the main trauma center (St. Vincent’s) on the 12th, but my experience was one of frustration since there were so few survivors to help. But spending a lot of time with the EMTs, firefighters and cops who responded in the first hours of the tragedy — all of them losing more than a few friends in the incident — changed my life forever. But seeing Ground Zero up close reinforced the repulsion I felt toward war. I knew we would soon be doing to civilians in other countries what had just been done to us, and it made me even sicker than I already was.

So many people had extraordinary or mundane experiences with 9/11 yet had profound reactions or underwent irreversible changes in perspective or awareness. We want to hear where PBMers were on 9/11, how it affected you, and how you think the so-called “war on terror” has gone since that fateful day.

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Listeners called and wrote in today to express a huge, often hilarious arsenal of ideas regarding just what journalist-turned-tool Bob Woodward is referring to when, in recent interviews about his latest book, he talks about a “true breakthrough” by the US military — some kind of “top secret… operational capabilities” that help “locate, target and kill” enemy leaders. Speculation ranged from Pete’s idea of tiny robots that sneak around and find you then somehow snuff you, to a crass idea suggested by suspiciously Tard-like caller “Drat”: Goat AIDS, which would strike Taliban fighters when they “sought comfort” on cold nights in the countryside.

So what’s your guess? Check out highlight’s from Woodward’s 60 Minutes appearance below…

(Read the article)

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So here’s the dirt, folks. What’s your take on the differences between these recent interviews?

Clips embedded after the jump…

(Read the article)

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