On Wed, 1 Oct 2008, SA wrote:
> Yet here, when for once the left could potentially hold all the cards,
> suddenly you say we must accept half a loaf, a bad bill is better than
> none, we should all be pragmatic and bipartisan. This would make some
> sense if it were really true that the world financial system is going to
> collapse next week without a bailout inked, but that's nonsense.
Unfortunately it's not nonsense.
> As long as the markets know that *some* bailout will ultimately happen
> in the relatively near term, they'll manage to limp along until it does.
I'm afraid there's a lot of weasel words in their Seth. Congress is adjourning to campaign. They've basically got a week. The bloc that stopped it was from the right. If you try to move it farther left, you'll get nothing. And then it is quite possible that you'll have a total meltdown. At that point the govt. will be forced to take over the banks, and maybe things will work out fine. You wanna bet on it? I'm afraid this is the kind of hopeful thinking that got us into Iraq: daring total collapse has always been frowned on by all thoughtful people, but hey, what if they're wrong? What if it's an opportunity? Why don't we give it a try?
> In the meantime, the left wing of the Democrats would be out of their
> minds not to milk this unusual moment for all the leverage it can
> generate.
All they can to now is scuttle it. What they should do is scream about all those things and then campaign on all those things that ought to be done, and make it clear they need control of the presidency and Congress to do them. They'll still be an audience for them in the Spring.
This leverage idea is totally misconceived. Who is being forced by what? The Dem leadership has already made it clear they won't force more than 60% of Dems to vote for it because they want the Repugs to bear half the responsibility -- and if the Repugs refuse, they are preapred to let it die. So all the left is already free to not vote and is not voting. They have no leverage.
Michael