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Thousands of Americans didn't need a Lehman Brother to know which way the wind was blowing:
A few tents cropped up hard by the railroad tracks, pitched by men left with nowhere to go once the emergency winter shelter closed for the summer.
Then others appeared — people who had lost their jobs to the ailing economy, or newcomers who had moved to Reno for work and discovered no one was hiring.
Within weeks, more than 150 people were living in tents big and small, barely a foot apart in a patch of dirt slated to be a parking lot for a campus of shelters Reno is building for its homeless population. Like many other cities, Reno has found itself with a "tent city" — an encampment of people who had nowhere else to go.
From Seattle to Athens, Ga., homeless advocacy groups and city agencies are reporting the most visible rise in homeless encampments in a generation.
But, hey, at least their money-market funds are now protected.
This is the early weekend open thread. Discuss things.
Looks like McCain came out with a substantive plan on the economic crisis and turned the associations meme around on Obama thanks to all of Obama's friends and money from Fannie Mae. The second half of this week has been good. :)— bon
Comment removed.- Looks like the Wall Street Journal called McCain "un-Presidential" on its editorial page today: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122178318884054675.html?mod=todays_us_opinion "Mr. McCain is sounding like a candidate searching for a political foil rather than a genuine solution. He'll never beat Mr. Obama by running as an angry populist like Al Gore, circa 2000." But what can you expect from a liberal media rag like the WSJ?— Red Wright-Hand
- The guy in the picture has smokes and a snazzy pair of cowboy boots. Whats he complaining about.— Keyser Soze
- McCain has a plan?— SteveMG
- Comment removed.
- Who cares about jobs and houses? We need more guns, fewer gays, and a social/religious police the Taliban would be proud of. Which is why McCain will be elected and the future is as dark as an Alaskan night.— what is truth?
(I'm posting this again here, since this is a more appropriate thread for it.)1,000,000,000,000. That's how much (for starters) it's going to cost the taxpayers to make sure these sorry excuse for financial institutions don't have to be held accountable for their failures. They take the profits, but we get saddled with the losses. Everyone knows I usually support the President, but he is making a colossal mistake here. These institutions should be allowed to fail. Free markets always clean up their own messes one way or the other. It would be painful, but we would be better as a country for it. The federal government is a monster beyond our control. The problem is politicians don't value taxpayer dollars. They don't earn it, they produce nothing, and just take what they need out of our pockets. To say I'm disheartend is an understatement. If you think all of the "change" BS of Obama, and the "maverick" BS of McCain is going to make one ounce of difference, then your a fool. The government monster wants to consume everything, and it's succeeding. End of rant.— jmc- Hey, this ought to solve that immigrant labor problem! The republicans ARE the party of solutions!— Jess Wundrun
"Looks like McCain came out with a substantive plan....." . . . You mean Palin has a plan. McCain's just her running mate, bon.- "But what can you expect from a liberal media rag like the WSJ?" . . . . There's nothing like a Wall Street crisis to separate the "liberals" from the men, eh?
- jmc, I agree. I don't mean it as vindictive, but the shareholders, execs, and employees need to be punished, or else no lesson is ever learned. This is why I hate the b-tching about corpotrate tax rates and regs. This is patently ridiculous, profits are privatized and losses are socialized. And i think we're just delaying the inevitable, a severe recession.— RG
- Obama and most Democrats have blamed the subprime-related bankruptcies on the free-market system, and specifically the ‘trickle-down’ economics of the Bush administration. But it was Bill Clinton's administration, who was obsessed with multiculturalism, that dictated where mortgage lenders could lend, and originally helped create the market for the high-risk subprime loans which are now hurting Wall Street. Tough new regulations forced lenders into high-risk areas where they had no choice but to lower lending standards to make the loans that sound business practices had previously guarded against making. It was either that or face stiff government penalties. The untold story in this whole thing is that President Clinton put on steroids the Community Redevelopment Act, a well-intended Carter-era law designed to encourage minority homeownership. And in so doing, he helped create the market for the risky subprime loans that he and Democrats now decry as not only greedy but ‘predatory.’ Yes, the market was fueled by greed and overleveraging in the secondary market for subprimes, but the seed was planted in the ‘90s by Clinton and his social engineers. — Phillysub
- "In the Church of the Republican Free Market, if you didn't plan for this crisis and aren't a millionaire with at least 3 houses," Last I checked, a whole lot of Democrats are pretty wealthy as well - and many of them, such as Jim Johnson, Frank Raines, and Jamie Gorelick directly benefited from fraud at Fannie Mae that contributed extensively to the mess we see now. JMC and RG at least agree that this is a monster that is the creation of leaders from both parties and many Masters of the Universe in the private sector - but all of them won't get hurt all that much - might loose a few million bucks, but they have a lot already, I guess they can't buy that cottage in Mustique now. This is well beyond Republican and Democrat - it points out the utter depravity of the ruling class in both parties and in the private sector. And should be approached as such.— db_cooper
- Bush's failures continue to mount. Too bad for him these financial problems couldn't wait until next February. Let's all remember that this is still George W Bush's presidency. Let us also remember that John McCain agrees with Bush on almost all his policies. Why would anyone want to continue these failures? Perhaps the local shoeshineboy.....the rest of us have to be smarter than that. Vote against Bush/Cheney/McCain by voting for Obama. Even if you don't like Obama or think he's too inexperienced. Anything is better than the last 8 years.— James TL
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Will Bunch, a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News, blogs about his obsessions, including national and local politics and world affairs, the media, pop music, the Philadelphia Phillies, soccer and other sports, not necessarily in that order.
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