Memo to President Bush. Please stop so hard on the economic turmoil thing so we all don’t have to work so hard on a solution!

All kidding aside, we’re looking at a problem so immense the US government alone is looking at devoting $1,000,0000,000,000 (a trillion dollars for those who don’t want to count the zeroes - gasp!) to the problem to prevent an economic collapse.

Conservatives balk. Right now I’m watching Neil Cavuto on Fox News interviewing Republican turned Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr. Typical of right-wing Fox News, economic libertarian Cavuto is having a great time leading Barr by the nose to parrot his own anti-regulation, anti-government intervention viewpoint.

However, it can’t be argued that more unregulated markets is the solution in light of what unregulated markets have led to now nor, in my most humble opinion, can it be argued doing nothing and let a trillion dollars of bad debt sink countless financial institutions won’t lead to larger economic devastation ruining millions of innocents - our friends, family, neighbors and perhaps ourselves, essentially.

Lest you think I’m being partisan here. This is a bi-partisan mess. From Time magazine (emphasis added):

“The result was the growth [in less regulated lending] of what’s now often termed the shadow banking system of securitization and derivatives, which took over many of the responsibilities of banks but was not subjected to the same kind of risk controls or oversight. This process began in the 1970s, as the rigid New Deal approach of segmenting financial institutions into narrowly defined boxes began to crack under the pressure of inflation, globalization and floating exchange rates. The money market mutual fund, invented in 1971 as a way to get around federal limits on savings-account interest rates, was among the first of many innovations that undermined the old ways.

The anti-regulation ideological bent of the Reagan administration sped this transformation, but the Clinton years were the really interesting ones. In the aftermath of the savings and loan collapse and a banking-industry near-miss there was a flurry of activity aimed at keeping banks healthy, not by shoving them back into their New Deal box but by reasserting their central role in the financial system. Glass-Steagall repeal can best be understood as part of this effort. So was 1994 legislation allowing interstate branching. This was a bipartisan movement: The Gramm-Leach-Bliley legislation passed the Senate 90-8 (Joe Biden was for it; John McCain didn’t vote, but had supported the bill in an earlier roll call).

There’s an argument to be made that if this kind of regulatory approach had continued into the Bush years, some emerging financial market excesses might have been nipped in the bud. Until very recently, the Bush Administration has showed no interest whatsoever in tightening financial regulation, and at the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan was if anything even less interested.”

Unfortunately, there are many vocal economic libertarians in the Republican ranks - heavily featured on conservatives Fox News - who hope to block any changes because laissez faire business as usual fits their ideology.

We cannot afford more of the same!

“If Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to issue minimum-wage checks to 200,000 state workers in less than a month, he may want to rehire any semi-retired computer programmers he terminated last week.” -The Sacramento Bee

This has to be one of the more bizarre political stories I’ve read. California, like most states, has a big budget mess. California, like many states, plans to lay off workers. California, unlike other states, also plans to pay its remaining workers minimum wage. That’d be $6.55 per hour. Wal-mart pays better. Yeah, it’s that bad.

Using an antiquated COBOL computer system that’s too hard to change - especially since Arnie let semi-retired programmers supporting the system go - as an excuse, the Democratic Controller isn’t going to let this happen. So we end up with political theater a Hollywood screenwriter would be envious of.

Of course there’s the serious side to this mess. America is mired in debt from the federal government down to lowly citizens like you and me. It was a fun party but the hangover’ll be a doozy.

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If you’re still experiencing problems you need to clear the cache in your web browser.

The smart asses amongst you will note Overflow uses WordPress and the same ISP but is fine. True but this is a cheesy canned install they offer. The issue best as I’ve been able to diagnose it - and I’m no web guru - is the redirect to our main site, a custom install job SoD and I tossed together, is failing.

Meanwhile, I’ve posted a new video on YouTube here. There’s also an accompanying blog post on EyesOnFox.org but obviously you’ll have to wait a bit to see the whole package.

So Obama travels overseas. He embarrasses the Bush administration struggling - but failing miserably - to twist Iraq’s arm for a commitment to a long-term US troop presence. He also embarrasses a McCain campaign similarly shilling for a long-term military stay akin to our relationship with South Korea. But we come to find Iraq’s Prime Minister Maliki’s druthers fit in nicely with Obama’s 16 month timetable.

He appears at Berlin’s Victory Column before a crowd of 200,000 while McCain is caught in embarrassing photo ops in front of a mom and pop German restaurant looking lonely and haggard. He’s also seen in a nearly empty grocery aisle where people are paying more attention to some goods that fell off a shelf than to him.

So we have the image of a presidential candidate who has an overseas stature and legitimacy towering over our unpopular president’s. Prompted by McCain’s own criticisms. You’d think he’d leave well enough alone. But, no, he runs a desperate political ad trying to turn Obama’s overseas popularity into something ugly. Sure, McCain suggests. He’s popular. Just like airheads Paris Hilton and Britney Speers. Huh?

Witness this absurdity for yourself.

Now I’ve heard many Republicans gush over this ad. It feeds their bloated Obama angst. But aside from stirring up the far right which is already in a tizzy who is going to be convinced that overseas popularity is a negative for a president? Overseas unpopularity sure hasn’t helped President Bush.

Tossing in the unrelated issues of taxes and oil prices doesn’t fit well and only make McCain’s Obama-bashing all the more transparent. With the solution to high oil prices in Congress swirling around the domestic topics of drilling, speculation, conservation, and alternative energy solutions it’s hard to see the connection to Obama’s overseas popularity.

My only shock is a campaign has incompetent as McCain’s still has him in the hunt.