Last Call

You have no clue how much it burns to type "Jennifer Rubin is right" but there you are.

The ball is now in Treasury’s court once again. It seems testimony under oath is the only way this will all come out. And if the Treasury Secretary lied or hid the ball, our modern day Alexander Hamilton certainly will be heading out the door.

Obama did come out swinging pretty hard tonight in California and he did take responsibility for the AIG situation. After eight years of Bush, that's a refreshing change of pace.

But Timmy is in serious trouble here if Dodd is telling the truth. Republicans are going to want to know what he knew, when he knew it, and if Obama is truly serious about transparency in government, he's going to either have to hand over Geithner or accept his resignation.

Underwater The Fish Don't Stink

...but the mortgages do, and people are starting to simply walk away from them at a much higher rate.

In California's Inland Empire east of Los Angeles, where Barnard lives and sells real estate, median home values have plunged more than 40 percent in the last year as formerly sidelined buyers snapped up foreclosed properties.

Those bank-owned homes moved at fire-sale prices that decimated the value of neighboring homes -- many of which are owned by people who have limited "skin in the game" because they put little or no money down at purchase.

Deflating home prices thus threaten to accelerate a negative feedback loop that has sent prices lower, said economist Ed Leamer, director of the UCLA Anderson Forecast.

"Should the downward spiral in home prices, neighborhood condition and equity deterioration continue, more and more mainstream borrowers are likely to walk away from their homes," Credit Suisse said in a December report.

Barnard, who already has stopped making payments on five investment properties purchased in 2005, is on the verge of giving up on his own home that is now worth roughly half its $800,000 purchase price.

Others weigh the predictable and relatively short-term foreclosure-related hit to their credit ratings against the diminishing likelihood of breaking even on their investments or even making monthly payments on such severely "underwater" homes.

The death spiral is accelerating, and unless Obama's foreclosure relief plan makes a real dent in home prices, it's just going to be too much downward pressure to keep the housing market stabilized.

The more people who choose to abandon their homes, the lower the surrounding homes will go in value, putting more homeowners underwater, causing more of them to walk away...the vicious cycle is pretty well set now.

Pray this works. If it doesn't, next stop is Hooverville. We're in the Great Recession. We're playing for avoiding a Depression here. I'm not convinced it'll work.

Officer, He Fell On My Knife 37 Times, It Was An Accident

Aaaaaaaaand Chris Dodd scores a critical hit plus sneak attack damage on the Obama administration.

In a stunning development, Sen. Christopher Dodd said that Obama administration officials asked him to add language to last month's federal stimulus bill to make sure the controversial AIG bonuses remained in place.

Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, told CNN that Obama officials wanted the language added to an amendment limiting bonuses that could be paid by companies receiving federal bailout money. He said they were afraid that without it, the government would face numerous lawsuits from employees who were promised bonuses.

Ouch. If this is true, somebody's in deep trouble. So who told Dodd to do this?

On Tuesday, Dodd denied to CNN that he had anything to do with adding the language, which has been used by officials at AIG to justify paying millions of dollars in bonuses to executives after receiving federal money. The nearly $800 billion stimulus bill was approved by Congress in February.

Dodd told CNN he did not speak to high-ranking administration officials and the change came after his staff spoke with staffers from Treasury. The White House did not immediately respond to CNN's request for comment.

Ding ding ding ding! Senator Dodd in the Billiard Room with the Wednesday Night News Dump. Do I win?

Odds of Timmy The Invisible Boy getting tossed under the bus just went way, way up.

However, this means odds of Plan N just went way, way up too. Obama's going to get zero help on bailouts now from Congress or the American people, which means he has no choice but to pursue nationalizing the banks. If this is all true, if Treasury allowed AIG to keep their bonuses and they specifically killed the measure to stop bailout companies from getting bonuses, then Timmy is done.

Obama will not have a choice. The heat really will come down on him for this. That means Geithner thrown under the bus, and that leaves Plan N as the only card in the deck. Calls for him to go are already coming in.

That is if this is all true. Even if it's not entirely the truth, Timmy still has to go.

I Want My Car Loan To Work Like This

So Helicopter Ben and the Fed decide they're going to take $300 billion in borrowed money to buy up Treasury debt.

No really, that's the plan. Take $300 billion in already borrowed money to buy $300 billion in long term debt. Apparently now is the time for HISTORICALLY LOW RATES or something.

It must be a horrendously stupid plan because the markets went from 1-2% loss to 1-2% gain within 15 minutes of this being announced. Behold, the myriad superpowers of Helicopter Ben.

[UPDATE] Jim Cramer says REFI NOW! HISTORICALLY LOW RATES! (insert dancing Jim Cramer here.)

Zandar's Thought Of The Day

Who loses their job first, embattled RNC Chairman Michael Steele, or embattled Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner?

[UPDATE] Republicans seem to really, really want both of them gone. Democrats on the other hand ironically want both of them to stay.

The Most Hated Guy In America Right Now Gets An Op-Ed

That would be AIG CEO Edward Liddy in today's WaPo. Gotta love the Village.

I am mindful of the outrage of the American public and of the president's call for a more restrained compensation system. I am also mindful that every decision we make at AIG has consequences for the American taxpayer. We weigh decisions with one priority in mind: Will this action help or hurt our ability to pay money back to the government?

Although we have wound down more than $1 trillion in the portfolio of the AIG Financial Products unit that is at the root of the company's troubles, there remains substantial risk in that portfolio. The financial downside for taxpayers is potentially very large, and that's why we're winding down this business.

To prevent undue risk exposure in the meantime, AIG has made a set of retention payments to employees based on a compensation system that prior management put in place. As has been reported, payments were made to employees in the Financial Products unit. Make no mistake, had I been chief executive at the time, I would never have approved the retention contracts that were put in place more than a year ago. It was distasteful to have to make these payments. But we concluded that the risks to the company, and therefore the financial system and the economy, were unacceptably high.

To paraphrase the Joker in The Dark Knight:

"Tonight you're all gonna be part of a social experiment. Through the magic of derivatives and counterparties, I'm ready right now to blow you all sky high. Anyone attempts to recoup our bonuses, you all die. Each of you has legislation... to blow up the other political party. At midnight, I blow you all up. If, however, one of you presses the button, I'll let that political party live. So, who's it going to be: Barack Obama's most wanted Wall Street scumbag collection, or the sweet and innocent taxpayers? You choose... oh, and you might want to decide quickly, because the people on the other political party might not be so noble."

With all due respect to Heath Ledger.

Throw Timmy Under The Bus

Henry Blodget takes Timmy The Invisible Boy out back and applies a 2x4 to his forehead as Timmy comes clean to Nancy Pelosi in a letter.

The more troubling part of the letter, though, is Tim Geithner's description of his own approval of the bonuses. He says he registered "strong objections" and then asked for a written legal analysis of why the bonuses had to paid. This does not sound like the behavior a man who has the balls necessary to stand up to the many constituencies that want to roll right over him right now (which is the kind of man we need during this crisis). It sounds like the behavior of a man who is already thinking of how to defend a decision he knows is a bad one.

What Tim Geithner should have said, in our opinion, was "No."

We're also not encouraged by Geithner's defense of AIG CEO Liddy in the penultimate paragraph (people are being unjustifiably mean to him, apparently). Edward Liddy is the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. By now, he should be able to look after himself.

Our concern about Tim Geithner as Treasury Secretary during this crisis is that he's too close to Wall Street to make the kind of decisions that need to be made right now. This exchange bears that out.

In other words, yet another call for Geithner to go. I've been saying that Timmy was always too close to Wall Street to fix this problem from the beginning, but if he actually thinks he can weasel his way out of this and start defending Liddy on the AIG bonus thing, he's toast in every sense of the word.

It's looking very much like Obama's going to have to make a choice damn soon, and that's "Do I throw Timmy under the bus?"

I say Timmy's got to go. Granted, I've been saying that since, oh, November, but now may be the point where he gets the heave-ho.

Nice Bluff, Now Let's See Your Cards

White House Budget Director Peter Orszag isn't backing down on the threat to use a process called reconciliation in the Senate to get the President's agenda through, which would allow the Senate to pass bills with a simple majority of 51 votes instead of having to defeat filibusters with 60 votes.

Peter Orszag, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, said the Obama administration would prefer not to use the budget "reconciliation" process that allows measures to pass the Senate on simple majority votes.

Orszag said he wouldn't rule it out, however. The legislative tactic is being considered to push through Obama's global warming and health care programs, and perhaps his proposals to raise taxes on the wealthy.

"We'd like to avoid it if possible," Orszag told reporters at a luncheon in Washington. "But we're not taking it off the table."

Members of Congress are bracing for a political donnybrook should the Democrats use the reconciliation process to sidestep the Republicans and their power of the filibuster in the Senate. Under normal Senate rules, it requires 60 votes in the 100-member Senate to shut off debate and force a final vote. Democrats currently have 58 Senate votes. Under reconciliation, 51 votes can force anything through.

How HORRIBLE! Orszag is throttling the Senate! it's unconstitutional! Why, this reconciliation thing never happens! Republicans would never do that if they were in charge!

Oh wait, not only would they, they did on several occasions.

There is plenty of historical precedent of using it by both parties, including Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, who used it force through big tax cuts.

"Pretty much every major piece of budget legislation going back to April 1981, April '82, April 1990, April 1993, the 1990 act, the 2001 tax legislation, they were all done through reconciliation. Yet somehow this is being presented as an unusual thing," Orszag said.

"The historical norm as opposed to the exception is for a major piece of budget legislation to move through reconciliation."

Yep, Saint Ronnie, Poppy Bush and Dubya all used them to jam through tax cuts, as did the Big Dog for his budget in '93 (and that was before Newtie and the Contract With America when, like today, Dems were running the whole show.) Obama will be no different on this, looks like.

Clearly the administration is calling out the Senators' bluff from Friday. Good for them. BooMan has argued several times that the GOP will fall in line and stop obstructing Obama once they understand that Obama will resort to reconciliation to give them zero voice at the table when crafting legislation, just like House Republicans have no real voice right now. Obama has plenty of precedent for it, and the GOP knows it. Ergo, the GOP has to play ball and not only has to stop obstructing the President on principle, but they also have to vote for the legislation they helped to craft if they want any say in where the money goes in the future.

If the GOP were logical, BooMan would be correct. The GOP we're actually stuck with however is counting on a 1994 style revolt in the populace, giving Republicans control of both chambers of Congress in 2010. The only way they can engineer that of course is to completely obstruct the President on everything, force him to take measures like reconciliation, proclaim the economy is now 100% Obama's fault, and then pray the financial system fails badly enough and that enough Americans then lose their jobs in the next 18 months to give the GOP a massive landslide next year. They are executing The Plan. Destroy Obama, Destroy The Country. This, they believe, will convince you to vote Republican in 2010.

We'll see who is right.

[UPDATE] Sensible Centrist Senate Democrats are in fact calling out Orszag on this, saying they have enough votes (8) to kill Obama's agenda even with the 51 vote threshhold of reconciliation. This is getting serious.

StupidiNews!

• AIG CEO Edward Liddy faces Congress in hearings on Capitol Hill today over "outrageous bonuses."
• Protests and flying shoes greet former President George W. Bush as he gives a speech in Canada.
• The provision in the stimulus bill for state legislators to overrule governors on what to do with the money may be unconstitutional.
• Britain faces the fastest monthly rise in unemployment since 1971.
• U.S. universities are seeing the first rise in Computer Science majors enrolled since the dot com bust.

Last Call

I wonder if CNBC has learned anything since the Cramer/Stewart fiasco last week. Let me go check to see if they're doing responsible economic journalism and reigning in the happy face, head in the sand mentality that persuaded so many people to buy into the economic disaster of the last two years, especially given the evidence that the worst is still on the way as the commercial real estate market cracks up...

Well, let's see here...

Call off Depression 2.0.

While still far from health, the U.S. economy is showing some encouraging signs of life as consumers tiptoe back to the shopping mall, home builders pick up their hammers, and manufacturers clear out inventory.

That suggests the soon-to-be-completed first quarter will be as bad as it gets, and apocalyptic fears of another lengthy, painful Great Depression look unwarranted.

Oh f*ck it all. It's St. Patty's Day, I'm gonna go have a Guinness and a corned beef sammich.

The Most Breathtakingly Racist Logical Fallacy In The Last Week Or So

It belongs to My Second Favorite Village Idiot, US News's Jim Pethokoukis. His thesis? N*gga Stole My Economy.

There has been a lot of push back against the idea that the Community Reinvestment Act nudged banks to give mortgages to people who should have not gotten them. But then here comes this fantastic story, courtesy of the Boston Business Journal, about East Bridgewater Savings in Boston:

Bad or delinquent loans? Zero. Foreclosures? None. Money set aside in 2008 for anticipated loan losses? Nothing. ... The bank even squeaked out a profit of $87,000. And its Tier 1 risk-based capital ratio was 31.6 percent, or more than three times higher than many community banks in Massachusetts. “We’re paranoid about credit quality,” Petrucelli said. The 62-year-old chief executive has run the bank since 1992.

Yet the FDIC has turned up the heat on Petrucelli's bank, giving it an apparently rare "needs to improve rating," for not making more risky loans under the Community Reinvestment Act. Here is how the FDIC puts it: “There are no apparent financial or legal impediments that would limit the bank’s ability to help meet the credit needs of its assessment area. The FDIC examiners also faulted East Bridgewater "for not advertising and marketing its loan products enough. The bank, which does not have a Web site, offers fixed-rate mortgages."

Let me spell Jim's fantasy out for you.

1. The collapse of the housing market destroyed the economy.
2. The housing market collpased due to subprime loans going bad.
   
3. The CRA (Community Reinvestment Act) forced more loans to be created and given to minorities.
4. Jim found a bank that didn't meet CRA standards.
5. This bank didn't have any bad loans, which proves CRA caused bad loans.
   
6. Therefore, any bank that did meet CRA standards had to have made bad loans.
7. Therefore, the CRA forced banks to make bad loans or face punishment under the CRA.
8. Most banks chose to make loans to minorities to meet CRA standards.
9. To do that, they had to make subprime loans to minorities that were bad loans.
   
10. Therefore, all minorities are poor and cannot afford a home.
11. Therefore, the subprime market collapsed and it's the fault of poor minorities, not banks.
12. The CFA and broke ass minorities wrecked the economy.

Now, considering everything after 2 becomes a logical fallacy due to the fact that banks pushed subprime loans and refinance options with ridiculous terms to as many Americans as possible in order to make as much money as possible (it was okay if they foreclosed on a subprime loan once in a while, as the house they got when they foreclosed was increasing in value) and the fact that subprime loans only became possible after Alan Greenspan's easy credit bubble, we have Jimmy here basically blaming the victims.

It's repugnant, really. We're supposed to believe that while the fnancial industry was screaming REFI NOW! HISTORICALLY LOW RATES! and making NINJA loans to anyone they could find without following up on them, that the Feds held a gun to their head while doing so.

They knew what they were doing. Preying on people and calling it "the ownership society".

[UPDATE] Or as Gavin at Sadly, No! puts Jim's bullshit:

I’m not saying that a fanciful what-if scenario that I built atop a flimsy anecdote refutes all the actual data, but to let the actual data run around unchecked is ridiculous.

Yep.

Zandar's Thought Of The Day

What are the odds that the "Let's tax the bejeezus out of AIG's bonuses!" move is in fact a trap by Democrats to force a knee-jerk reaction out the GOP, where they start yelling "REMEMBER JOHN GALT!" and start siding with AIG?

I'm not sure if the Dems are quite that clever, or the GOP is quite that stupid. But they are politicians, after all. We'll see.

[UPDATE] Well, the Wingnuts are that stupid. Let's see if the GOP is dumb enough to get on the wrong side of this issue.

The Right Question

Joe Weisenthal asks the right question about AIG: not "Will AIG give in to Obama?" or "Will AIG snob Obama?" but "Should AIG give in to Obama?"

Think about it for a moment. Obama is threatening to cut off AIG's air supply unless it reverses course on its bonuses. But AIG's bailout isn't meant for AIG, it's meant for AIG's counterparties. At some point along the way, it was deemed that the best way to bail out those banks was via AIG rather than directly.

Now we're learning how wrongheaded that was.

So there's really not that much upside for AIG. It's a heads-we-win, tails-we-nuke-the-entire-banking-system proposation. Is it really worth playing that game just to stoke outrage.

Which once again is strong evidence that the only workable long-term solution to problems like AIG is Plan N, period.

So let's do it already. I think the public is more than ready to have the government start calling the shots on these companies.

Vast Left Wing Conspiracy!

The Wingers are going insane over this Politico.com story (natch) revealing a SUPER SECRET LEFT WING CONSPIRACY!!11!1eleventy-one!!

For the past two years, several hundred left-leaning bloggers, political reporters, magazine writers, policy wonks and academics have talked stories and compared notes in an off-the-record online meeting space called JournoList.

Proof of a vast liberal media conspiracy?

Not at all, says Ezra Klein, the 24-year-old American Prospect blogging wunderkind who formed JournoList in February 2007. “Basically,” he says, “it’s just a list where journalists and policy wonks can discuss issues freely.”

But some of the journalists who participate in the online discussion say — off the record, of course — that it has been a great help in their work. On the record, The New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin acknowledged that a Talk of the Town piece — he won’t say which one — got its start in part via a conversation on JournoList. And JLister Eric Alterman, The Nation writer and CUNY professor, said he’s seen discussions that start on the list seep into the world beyond.

“I’m very lazy about writing when I’m not getting paid,” Alterman said. “So if I take the trouble to write something in any detail on the list, I tend to cannibalize it. It doesn’t surprise me when I see things on the list on people’s blogs.”

Last April, criticism of ABC’s handling of a Democratic presidential debate took shape on JList before morphing into an open letter to the network, signed by more than 40 journalists and academics — many of whom are JList members.

Oh NOES! They're ganging up! They're organizing! It's a huge conspiracy to skew the news!

Or it's just an e-mail list.

If you would have told me this Politico story was excerpted from the Onion, I honestly would have believed you. Yes, this is a "reported" story about a secret email list for Beltway media elite to talk with each other and congratulate each other for having "fame" to be invited into this apparently high status symbol - as if the creation of said list, and its discussions, is "news." The story really epitomizes every stereotype of the Washington-New York Elite Media Cabal as an insulated status-obsessed hive of self-importance and political incest that is most focused on chattering amongst (and about) itself.

At one level, this is quite literally a "news" story about an email list - yes, a news story about an email list (what amazing grassroots organizing!). At another level, this piece is media reporting on media talking to other media about the media. At still another level of self-absorption, this piece is the New York-Washington Elite Media bragging about the New York-Washington Elite Media talking to fellow New York-Washington Elites about their exciting lives in New York and Washington (which might be fine for a social club - but as the subject of a political "news" story...uh, not so much). And yet, somehow, the elite press corps wonders why it is seen by the public at large as an increasingly irrelevant group of self-obsessed sycophants, and why so much of the public is turning elsewhere for news.

Honestly, journalists communicate with each other. You're telling me the Republican effort to e-mail RNC talking points to every newsie and blogger on the conservative side wasn't by the same logic a vast conspiracy?

Teenagers, You Give Them An Inch

...They swim all over you."

--Sebastian The Crab, The Little Mermaid

Anticipating restrictions on bonuses, officials at Citigroup Inc and Morgan Stanley are exploring ways to sidestep tough new federal caps on compensation, the Wall Street Journal said.

Executives at these banks and other financial institutions that received government aid are discussing increasing base salaries for some executives and other top-producing employees, the paper said, citing people familiar with the situation.

The discussions are at an early stage, partly because the government has not yet issued specific rules on the bonus payments that will be allowed at companies that received aid under the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program, the paper said.

The report comes on the heels of widespread outrage that insurer AIG, kept alive on a government bailout of up to $180 billion, was paying its employees bonuses of $165 million.

In February, President Barack Obama set a $500,000 annual cap on pay for top executives at companies receiving taxpayer funds.

Can't blame Citi and Morgan Stanley for trying, eh?

Oh wait. Yes we can, especially Citigroup. I think this is one fight these guys don't want to pick, but like I've said, more shenanigans were inevitable, and all this does is push Obama more and more towards Plan N.

A Bit Of Good News...Or Not

Housing starts for February rebounded considerably from January's record low.

New U.S. housing starts unexpectedly rebounded in February, surging 22.2 percent, according to data on Tuesday that provided a rare dose of good news for the recession-hit economy and fractured housing market.

The Commerce Department said the jump in housing starts to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 583,000 units was the biggest percentage rise since January 1990.

Maybe that's just a blip, but again if the supply of houses goes up, the price goes down. If anything, this means there's still a major glut of homes on the market, and the big jump in new houses means there will be even more pressure on prices to drop.

And that's not good news.

Scary Ass Numbers

The number of folks who expect another Great Depression within a year is up to 45% in CNN's latest poll.

"Will the Great Recession turn into another Great Depression? A growing number of Americans think it might," said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "Last December, 38% said a depression like the one the U.S. experienced in the 1930s was likely in the next year. Now that number is up 7 points."

Of course if you asked Americans "Do you think Admiral Adama is a Cylon?" 45% of them would say yes too. Still, these are scary numbers no matter how you look at it. Confidence is pretty damn low right now.

The poll described the 1930s' Great Depression as a time in which roughly one out of four workers was unemployed, banks failed across the country and millions of ordinary Americans were temporarily homeless or unable to feed their families.

Nearly nine out of ten people questioned in the survey said economic conditions in the country are poor today, with only 11% suggesting that conditions are good.

And the poll indicates that Americans think it will take time to rebound from the recession, which began at the end of 2007.

"Only one in ten say recovery is likely within a year; one in five predict it will take longer than four years for the country to get back on its feet," Holland said.

And the people will shout "Helicopter Ben, save us!" And Helicopter Ben will whisper, "I think we've averted that risk. I think we've gotten past that."

We'll see. Me? Yeah, count me in that 45%.

Your Liberal Media In Action

Front page on the Washington Post: AIG's bonuses could very well sink the entire Obama administration!(emphasis mine)

President Obama's apparent inability to block executive bonuses at insurance giant AIG has dealt a sharp blow to his young administration and is threatening to derail both public and congressional support for his ambitious political agenda.

Politicians in both parties flocked to express outrage over $165 million in bonuses paid out to executives at the company, demanding answers from the president and swamping yesterday's rollout of his efforts to spark lending to small businesses.

The populist anger at the executives who ran their firms into the ground is increasingly blowing back on Obama, whom aides yesterday described as having little recourse in the face of legal contracts that guaranteed those bonuses.

Wow, not even the GOP could have written a better article. Obama is floundering! He's in over his head! Eight weeks into his failed failure of a failed term he's failing badly! Last Obama aide out of the White House, turn out the lights, please.

But the bonus issue, in particular, is hounding Obama as he pursues his larger goals, in part because of the president's own repeated declarations of outrage -- offered again yesterday -- aimed especially at the firms that are feeding at the public trough.

In February, Obama announced tough new restrictions on executive compensation that promised an end to massive salaries for executives of failing companies. Similar rules were eventually written into legislation and hailed as evidence that executive compensation would be checked.

But reports about the latest AIG bonuses quickly undermined whatever political capital Obama has earned with his past efforts.

Got that? OBAMA IS AN UNQUALIFIED FAILURE AFTER EIGHT WEEKS! Surely the American people have spoken!

President Barack Obama's job approval rating, at 61% in the latest three-day average of Gallup Poll Daily tracking, is slightly above where George W. Bush's and in particular Bill Clinton's were at this point in mid-March of the first years of their administrations.

Umm...what? That can't be! Surely the President's agenda is in deep trouble!

A new Gallup Poll finds just over half of Americans, 53%, favoring a new law that would make it easier for labor unions to organize workers; 39% oppose it. This is a key issue at stake with the Employee Free Choice Act now being considered in Congress.

Ummm....OBAMA IS A SOCIALIST! (storms off)

All winguttian satire aside, there's not a whole lot Obama can do about AIG's bonus situation as I explained yesterday. In fact, a lot more bonus shenanigans and counterparty payoff three card monte is on the way for bailout recipients. However, the notion that AIG has already deep-sixed the President and his agenda is pretty ludicrous. Nobody's blaming Obama for this...except the Washington Post. Funny how that works. Even the wingnuts are blaming, well, AIG for this.

Let's blame AIG for getting themsleves into this mess, needing bailouts from Bush before Obama took office. Course, that hasn't occured to the Village. ITEISATDF. The article glosses over how Treasury has decided it doesn't need to give AIG that latest $30 billion in bailout cash if AIG insists on handing out millions in bonuses.

And while Treasury taking that money out of AIG's bailout is a great idea, there is another option: Plan N. Nationalize AIG and fire people. It really is that simple. If anything, AIG has just brilliantly made the case as to why Plan N needs to be executed now...and the people would certainly back taking over failed companies that required billions and billions of taxpayer money and firing the people responsible for losing all that money in the first place.

The Wonk Room's Pat Garofalo has more on why AIG may have just forced Obama's hand on Plan N. I'm all for THAT action.

StupidiNews, St. Patty's Day Edition

• An Israeli scholar disputes that the Dead Sea Scrolls' "authors" never existed.
• A Florida legislator wants drug tests...for the unemployed.
• GOP aides are ambushing Congressional Democrats with video cameras in order to spur an embarrassing verbal slip.
• The Fed is considering a rapid increase in purchasing bad mortgages to boost the economy.
• Could "Scratch: The Ultimate DJ" do for turntables what "Rock Band" did for guitars?

Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

Hey the stock market's up! We're saved!

"Don't count on a consumer-led recovery."

Umm...crap. Case in point, who does that leave, big business?

"U.S. output plummets, manufacturing at record low."

Double crap.