Update: David Walker resigned his post on Feb 15th, 2008 (source).

Bernanke said that federal funds won't be used to bail out banks, but we know that once the shit hits the fan all bets are off. So far the Fed has been offering huge short-term loans, which are properly backed by what's left of these banks' assets. They're not meant to solve anything, but to buy some time.

The next couple of months are going to be very interesting.

In reply to this comment by Farhad2000:
Just wait until the big banks start to roll over and go to the federal government to bail them out, it will be titled something big and patriotic like "Homeland Economy Security Act" but in reality is another case of privatize the profits but socialize the costs.

>> ^J-Rova:
He's questioning why the government gave up the ability to control the money supply. And if you want "checks and balances," The Federal Reserve consists of an entire board - not just Ben Bernanke.

Do you know who controls the Fed? The Fed is not a public institution. It's a cartel of private banks.

Despite the fact that the economy is beyond complex (every action has both good & bad consequences, which are incredibly far-reaching), the Fed knows what it's doing.

Recent events clearly show that the Fed either does NOT know what it's doing, or knows and is acting contrary to the United States' best interest by following a political agenda. The Fed's policy of low interest rates created the current housing bubble, and it's laughable to claim that this was good planning.

Since mid-2007, Bernanke has been hiking rates for people who were solvent, and lowering for the ones who were not. He's made the problems worse by breaking the people who actually could pay their bills, which in turn caused more trouble for the ones who were insolvent to begin with. We have a huge amount of foreclosures and still no one knows what the hell is going on with the big depository institutions.

Just recently Citibank had to borrow billions from Abu Dhabi at a 14% interest rate because they needed long term funds so desperately that borrowing from the Fed wasn't an option. Yesterday (Feb 14th) the Fed received a request of $268 BILLION dollars in TOMO/TAF (read: short-term) loans from depository institutions (source). That's more than 1/3 of the Fed's whole open market reserves, so only $66 billion were given out. Since the beginning of January, the big banks no longer have their own reserves. Their current reserves are composed of cash borrowed from the Fed.

All this shows that there are very big players in trouble out there, but we have no way of knowing who they are. Everything connected to the Fed is secretive, and not even members of Congress with the highest clearance can find out what's going on.

I could go on for hours about the amount of BULLSHIT that Bernanke puts forth, but I won't. The information is out there, so I suggest you use your "background in economics" to find it.

Any politician who tries to challenge the independence of the Federal Reserve loses whatever he was running for. It is believed that this is why Bush Sr. lost to Clinton, because he pressured the Fed for lower interest rates (which is a BIG NO-NO), as you can see in the following link.

This is ridiculous once you consider that Greenspan helped implement GWB's policy of artificially low interest rates and deficit spending which ultimately led to the mess we're in.

Thanks. That's a great clip.

In reply to this comment by kulpims:
Fixed it, should be fine now

In reply to this comment by flavioribeiro:
Yeah... *dead

Yeah... *dead

>> ^yonderboy:
2) If cops saw me smoking weed and then I slipped it into my pocket... guess what... they have the right to search my pockets. WITHOUT ME BEING CHARGED WITH A CRIME. If I shove that joint up my ass... guess what else they have a right to do.

I'm not qualified to discuss the legality of strip searches, since I know very little of American laws, and lately the US legislation has changed to allow a lot of invasive procedures in the interest of "national security". What I hold is the personal belief that it's absurd to strip search someone without a proper accusation. A police officer shouldn't be able to do it just because he feels like it. Your example hinges on the whole "war on drugs" issue, which I also think is very damaging from a civil liberties standpoint.

3) Did you just say that being immobilized is automatically excessive force? Can you REALLY not think of a single situation where cops would legitimately need to immobilize someone? C'mon... you can't possibly be that stupid/naive

Being immobilized without being charged with a crime is (to me) excessive force.

I think your example about weed shows we have a deeper disagreement about civil liberties. I believe that getting immobilized by the police is a REALLY BIG DEAL. A police officer shouldn't have the right to hold someone against his or her will without making a formal accusation which he would later have to follow through with legal procedures. Otherwise they can just go around intimidating people and charging them with "resisting arrest".

>> ^MarineGunrock:
2) The search might have been fully warranted.
Why? She was a victim. She shouldn't have been strip searched or arrested. It's absurd to strip search someone who hasn't been charged with a crime.

3) I didn't see any excessive force. Yes, she was being held down and the "pretzel position" is simply a technique that allows one officer to control her legs. That doesn't mean she was in pain from that.
She was taken down and immobilized. That by itself is excessive force.

5) This video would have seemed a LOT less dramatic had she not been screaming bloody murder the whole time.
She should've been screaming bloody murder.

This episode brings out the "Fuck the Police" side in me. In these scenarios all it takes is ONE person to point out the evil and stop the others, but everyone decided to play along.

I also wonder why this is on tape. I'm glad though, because otherwise she wouldn't have a case.

I thought that was pretty good, especially the first half. Does this means I'm a pig?

That was surreal.

It's weird that the agent smiled so much during the interview. I never liked Saddam Hussein, but I found it extremely disturbing how he was used, emotionally manipulated, condemned by an illegitimate court and executed in an utterly undignified manner. No one deserves this kind of treatment -- not even our enemies.

Could you give an example that wouldn't fit in the wtf channel?

Yeah, he did... Here's the clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFknKVjuyNk

In reply to this comment by rottenseed:
wait...McCain said that we need to have troops in Iraq even if it takes a 100 years? ONE HUNDRED YEARS??? WOW. Yea this is the type of practical thinking I'd like to see in a president. He seriously said that? Was that just taken out of context? If he really did say it, why hasn't he been lynched yet?

I don't know what you're talking about.

This was released by a group called Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain: http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com

"If you believe in a cause, it goes on and you continue to fight for it, and we will."

Look out for this bastard when the US economy falls and Americans feel humiliated. It won't take 10 years, and he'll be there promoting fascism under the American flag. When the time comes, there will be a LOT of people falling for his speech.

*requeue

First off, I'd like to thank you for your comment. You make very good points, and I appreciate you taking the time to write them.

I think of Paul because he supports moving from federal to states' rights, and under states' rights as he would like to have them, decisions are handed off from local politics to local regionally-based politico-educational power-brokers (district school administrators and, as you mention yourself, school boards). I disagree, because those guys happen to be even dumber than presidents and mayors. I want to go lower than that, I want teachers and school administrators to make decisions on what's taught in our schools.

I'd like that was well (keeping in mind that there's a limit to how low one can go down the hierarchy before things become a mess and neighboring schools no longer follow the same curricula).

The dumbness problem isn't specific to school boards. It also involves teachers and school administrators, simply because teaching jobs aren't paying enough to attract competent professionals. Gone are the days when engineers would teach math and science, because the government cut salaries and started regulating the profession. I agree that we should give more control to teachers and school administrators, but it would be a rough ride in a lot of places.

I'm on board for the market comparison. Currently, using the free-market as a model for education system development falls through when one evaluates the current US public educational system through that lens, because it is specifically not even close to a free market (yet).

And every day, the US public system moves further away from the free market concept.

Until college, students must attend regional public schools with very few exceptions. They are thus not free to take their education elsewhere without paying up the wazzoo or going to private school. This is why school vouchers are so important to me, allowing students to choose which school to attend and thus send their allocated money to is key to moving back towards a free-market model.

I agree with the voucher's purpose, but they would have unintended consequences by allowing government interference with private schools. This is why Ron Paul voted against them: http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul132.html

Parental demand is a poor way of regulating schools when my first point is true. Unintelligent and uneducated parents will often be unable to tell a good school from a bad one (...)

And this is the #1 reason why education is in bad shape. Kids with good performance nearly always have parents who are actively involved in their education. (I want to say ALWAYS, since I have yet to meet a counterexample, but exceptions are bound to exist).

The libertarian approach only works if people are willing to take responsibility and get involved. Ron Paul was hesitant to run again for president because he wasn't sure if the people were at this stage, and he was pleasantly surprised. The 18-29 demographic responds very well to this message, but unfortunately it's not nearly enough to get a majority in the polls.

Your examples are great cases of free market success. And in every one of them there always was an involved community of parents, students, alumni and very talented, well paid teachers. This is what made them great.

The US government is trying to compensate bad salaries and parental disenchantment with regulation and "research based" assessment (such as NCLB). I've seen this happen before my eyes during the last 10 years in Brazil, on a more aggressive level. It doesn't work because it's like trying to treat symptoms instead of underlying causes.