"Here's business correspondent Bob Moon and host Kai Ryssdal on American Public Media's Marketplace from back in the spring.
BOB MOON: OK, I'm about to unload some numbers on you here, so I'll speak slowly so you can follow this.
The value of the entire U.S. Treasuries market: $4.5 trillion.
The value of the entire mortgage market: $7 trillion.
The size of the U.S. stock market: $22 trillion.
OK, you ready?
The size of the credit default swap market last year: $45 trillion.
KAI RYSSDAL: That's a lot of money, Bob."
FYI - 'Credit default swaps' are just hot-air trades - i.e. as in trades in the hot-air that steams off of hot-potato (no-doc mortgage-backed securities) trades, exactly that!
Just 2. $2 Trillion, that is! Iraq War (ref Joseph Stiglitz) - $ 1.5 Trillion Crony bail-out so far* - $ 0.5 Trillion Of course that's not counting the as-yet-to-be-decided bail-out to purchase the toxic securities on investment banks' books!
* Crony bail-out broken down as follows: Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac (US Treasury) - $ 200 billion Loans to banks - $ 183 billion Loan to AIG - $ 85 billion Loans to investment banks - $ 60 billion Financing to JP Morgan to buy Bear Stearns - $ 29 billion Total deal - $ 557 billion (* Ref Washington Post, Sept 19, 2008, "The Insiders - In Crucible of Crisis, Paulson, Bernanke, Geitner Forge a Committee of Three")
And the tab for Bush 44, another Republican administration? At the going rate probably another Trillion dollars!
Maureen Dowd - NYT 9/18/2008: about an Alaskan protester's handpainted sign "McPain + Palin = McPain"
Obama in Nevada on 9/17/2008 on McCain fighting the old-boy network (as reported on NPR and paraphrased): "The old boy network? In the McCain campaign, that's called a staff meeting!"
After being a lurker and $ (small) contributor, I have signed in to campaign for O!
Sent emails to some friends who so kindly replied and agreed to join! (Was scared about that at first, as I felt I was using my friends, but I think the cause is indeed right - I wonder though do all activists feel the same way - Republicans too (I'm going to stop calling them Repugs, for one thing - let it be a grown-up discussion, and may the best grownup win!)
First event at VA this Sunday!!
Will make calls, and go door to door in VA the next few weekends! A friend will also join me from Long Island on the weekend of October 3rd!
Why? I asked myself for the 3 most important reasons why I wanted to step out of my comfort zone and do this, and after going beyond the horse race aspect of it - the anger of the past 8 years, the disappointment over Gore's loss (a good man against an air-head only, I originally thought - boy, was I mistaken!), the anger over Kerry's loss (the deceitfulness of the swiftboating of a veteran by a draft dodger no less!), (all of which made me realize I was complicit in those events because I did not participate, tho' I did donate to Kerry's campaign, and kept up a pro-Kerry buzz at work; no one in my immediate circle of friends/office-mates were left unaware of my political persuasions) - after going beyond all of that I settled on the following three reasons why I need to be doing this.
First - I have 2 children who are born and bred here in the US and consider it their home, their country. I cannot bear leaving them a legacy of financial debt, deteriorating health, education, social, environmental, infrastrucutural prospects combined with foreign policy fiascos that will leave this country mired in one crisis after another, with only the law of the jungle - might is right - prevailing. That is the exact opposite of what attracted me and brought me to this country, and I certainly don't want that to be what I will leave my children to, if I can help it. McCain will guarantee that that will be the case. Obama will guarantee that it will not!
Second - I have friends and family in many parts of the world, and strong immediate family in India. The approach taken by the US in the past 8 years and under a McCain administration threatens the world, in short my friends and family, and indirectly pits my children against my own siblings' children. It is a metaphor for what is happening to others - unwittingly all of us, children of the same god, are being pitted against one another by right-wing paranoia that plays on our nerves. Under Obama, I know bridges will be built, friendships secured and we will be be able to rebuild from the present wreckage as after a disaster storm.
Third - while I come from and am in comfortable circumstances both when in India, and where I am now, I know of many who just struggling to get by there as well as here; and I can imagine many similar others the world over, in most of the ravaged political hot-spots of the world. I think a powerful, wealthy country in the name of its citizens in the US has an obligation to better the circumstances of such less fortunate people the world over, or at least do no harm to those less fortunate, and certainly not plunder and loot from the meager resources of those less fortunate (in the name of spreading democracy no less!). It is patently clear that the past 8 years we have seen such a devilish operation in place. And under McCain, Compassionate Conservatism Phase 2, will come into operation. This cannot happen.
So ABMAFO - Anyone But McCain, All For Obama!!
I understand I have just stated as a fact that McCain will continue what Bush and Cheney have set in place, and Obama will overturn or gradually correct things - how do I prove that?
