Rachel Maddow w/ Obama

Lots of Good Vids

Whazzup!!





Infomercial



New ad on McCain, the economy and Palin

Keeping an Eye on Oregon voting

This PDF gives % of early voting in Oregon.

This site tracks nationwide.

Squealing like a Repub!

Mitch McConnell highlights his ability to bring home the pork to Kentucky. How this is not massively hypocritical as a Republican and how Republicans can not see that he is showing off his pork is beyond me.

Are you voting from fear?

 


I am not.

Daily Show and Colbert

ACORN:



Real American:

On ACORN

Pay the fuck attention!



Michael Winship: The Republican ACORN Hoax

You see, the ACORN “election fraud” story is one of those urban legends, like fake moon landings and alligators in the sewers, and it appears three or four weeks before every recent national election with the regularity of the swallows returning to Capistrano

The New Yorker: Hendrik Hertzberg Blog: Voter-Fraud Fraud

During this election cycle, the Times reported today, ACORN has deployed thirteen thousand mostly paid workers, who have registered 1.3 million new voters. One or two per cent of these workers turned in sheaves of forms that they filled out themselves with fake names and bogus addresses, and, even though at least a hundred of these workers have already been fired, the forged forms have been submitted to election boards.

Sounds suspicious—unless you know that groups like ACORN are required by law to submit them, even if they’re obvious fakes.

 . . .

Sounds suspicious—unless you know that even if one of these fake forms results in a nonexistent person actually being registered, now under the Help America Vote Act of 2002, “any voter who has not previously voted in a federal election” must provide identification in order to actually cast a ballot.

 . . .

And on and on...

F*ck All Y'all

Dividing America:

Viva la Mashup!

 


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Political Catch Up

People for the American Way: Hate You Can Believe In: ACORN Deluged with Threatening and Racist Voicemails and Emails

Rolling Stone: Make-Believe Maverick: A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty by Tim Dickinson

New York Mag: Is John McCain Bob Dole? By John Heilemann

The recommendation of Colin Powell is a dubious distinction IMHO. And this.

More financial meltdown links

Matt Taibbi and Byron York Butt Heads Over Whether McCain Deserves Blame for the Wall Street Meltdown

M.T.: Oh, come on. Tell me you're not ashamed to put this gigantic international financial Krakatoa at the feet of a bunch of poor black people who missed their mortgage payments. The CDS market, this market for credit default swaps that was created in 2000 by Phil Gramm's Commodities Future Modernization Act, this is now a $62 trillion market, up from $900 billion in 2000. That's like five times the size of the holdings in the NYSE. And it's all speculation by Wall Street traders. It's a classic bubble/Ponzi scheme. The effort of people like you to pin this whole thing on minorities, when in fact this whole thing has been caused by greedy traders dealing in unregulated markets, is despicable.

Chris Floyd

• Cronytopia: What the World Knows -- and Americans Don't -- About the Bailout

  Readers of The Guardian were greeted with this leading story -- front-page, up top -- on Saturday morning:

  Wall Street banks in $70bn staff payout
  Pay and bonus deals equivalent to 10% of US government bail-out package

  Having laid out the thrust of the story very plainly in the headline and sub-head, the paper then detailed the way that the Bush-Obama bailout (the most apt moniker for a scheme devised by the top echelons of the bipartisan elite) is yet another inside job by the Beltway bandits who move in and out of the revolving door between "public service" and vast feeding troughs of Cronytopia.

• Not Enough Money in the World: The Real Monster in the Meltdown Closet

  What has struck mortal fear in the heart of markets and governments is not bad mortgages, but the almost incomprehensibly huge and complex market for "derivatives," based in part on mortgage debt -- but also on a vast array of other sources that were "securitized," turned into tradable if ghostly commodities then sold off in a bewildering variety of increasingly arcane forms. This was accompanied by the expansion of yet another vast market in insurance mechanisms designed to protect these derivatives -- mechanisms which themselves became "securitized."

Mike Whitney: No More Investment Banks

It is 100 percent certain now that Paulson’s plan to use the $700 billion bailout to buy-back the non-performing loans and bad mortgage-backed securities from the banks would have failed and led to disaster. Paulson stuck by his wacko plan even though more than 200 economists opposed him and the stock market tumbled 8 straight days in a row losing more than 15 percent of its value. Paulson's Wall Street bias is so great that he would have driven the country off the cliff just to reward his dodgy friends with lavish cash giveaways from the US taxpayer.

In fact, right after the European plan was announced, Paulson convened a meeting of the country's largest banks so he could hand out $125 billion of freshly-minted, taxpayer-generated loot to shore up their flimsy balance sheets. Citigroup got $25 Billion, as did JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley both netted $10 Billion each. None of these banks had to submit to any type of regulatory investigation to see how much of their asset-base was held in worthless mortgage-backed slop or other structured garbage. Paulson never even tried to find out if they are even solvent! On top of that, taxpayer gets no voting rights, no position on the board of directors, and no limits on executive compensation for the $125 billion contribution to Wall Street's biggest white-collar criminals. On Thursday, all of the aforementioned banks reported horrendous quarterly losses, multi-billion dollar write-downs, and more grim warnings on future profits. It's clear that Paulson wanted to deliver the bailout money before the public discovered the extent of the carnage

Pam Martens: How the Banksters are Making a Killing Off the Bailout

The bulk of the $125 billion will be dispersed among Uncle Sam’s own brokers, or in street parlance, Primary Dealers. Primary dealers are those financial firms anointed by the Federal Reserve to participate in the Fed’s open market activities and are required to participate to a significant degree in buying up Treasury securities at every Treasury auction. In other words, without these firms, the U.S. Government would have no means of financing its own funding needs.

. . .

In 1988 there were 46 primary dealers. That number had shrunk to 30 by 1999. In June 2008 there were 20, in no small part as a result of the mergers facilitated by Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett. In rapid succession since July, three more have disappeared from bad bets: Countrywide Securities (shotgun marriage with Bank of America); Lehman Brothers, bankrupt; Bear, Stearns (shotgun marriage with J.P. Morgan Securities). That currently leaves 17 and that number will drop to 16 when Merrill Lynch is folded into Bank of America. (The rest of the 16 primary dealers that are not getting part of the $125 billion are foreign banks.)

Catching Up with Afghanistan

Chris Floyd

• Road to Perdition: Yet Another Atrocity in Afghanistan, More to Come

  No doubt the "NATO-led" investigation of the Helmland "incident" will find that yet another magnificent feat of arms has produced an unfortunate by-product: i.e, the corpses of at least 15 innocent children, including a six-month old baby. But as Seamus Milne points out in the Guardian, the mounting death toll of Afghan civilians is the result of deliberate policy, not "regrettable" accident or the mischance of war:

• The Wounded Shark: 'Good War' Lost, But the Imperial Project Goes On

  Don't tell Obama and McCain, but the war they are both counting on to make their bones as commander-in-chief -- the "good war" in Afghanistan, which both men have pledged to expand -- is already lost. Their joint strategy of pouring more troops, tanks, missiles and planes into the roaring fire -- not to mention their intention to spread the war into Pakistan -- will only lead to disaster.
  
  Who says so? America's biggest ally in the Afghan adventure: Great Britain. This week, two top figures in the British effort in Afghanistan -- Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, UK ambassador to Kabul, and Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, the senior British military commander in Afghanistan -- both said that the war was "unwinnable," and that continuing the current level of military operations there, much less expanding it, was a strategy "doomed to fail."

Notorious MSG!!

Notorious MSG

Daily Show on McCain's FUD

 

Coffee Klatch Research: Who Pays Taxes?

Via the Tax Foundation:



UPDATE 1

From the CBO:

Vile Repubs

Continued excrement from the Right:

Stanley Kurtz: Wright 101: Obama funded extremist Afrocentrists who shared Rev. Wright’s anti-Americanism

Melanie Phillips: On Obama

Previously:

• Coffee Klatch Research: McCain / Obama Equally Nasty?
• That said...

The Daily Show: On Finance

 

That said...

So, McCain is nastier, but it is just politics and such right?

Hmmm...



I personally think the objection that McCain is not somewhat accountable for his supporters' behavior given his own campaign (as documented below) is absurd and dangerous: Plainly he and the Right are looking the other way to actively encouraging such behavior/belief.

Coffee Klatch Research: McCain / Obama Equally Nasty?

Game Over: There is no equivalence

Via: http://www.youtube.com/user/JohnMcCaindotcom

McCain's Ad regarding Ayers:



"Too Risky"



McCain / Palin interview by Sean Hannity on Fox: Part 3

VS.

Via: http://www.youtube.com/user/BarackObamadotcom

Obama's 13 minute Keating Video



"Seven" Houses of McCain



McCain "Same" as Bush



( If you think there is a much worse Obama ad on McCain please tell me. )

Coffee Klatch Research

A data dump of Iran and Israel modern fighter aircraft:

Iran:

• 40 MiG-29A

Israel:

• 104 F-16A/B "Netz"
  
• 121 F-16C/D "Barak"
  
• 101 F-16I "Sufa"

And now for something a bit lighter...

 

Financial meltdown links cont.

Peter Morici: The Dow Tanks as Bank Bailout Fails to Restore Confidence

It’s official! The bank bailout has not worked.

Global stock prices are in a panic rush to the bottom.

The bank bailout cannot fulfill its primary mission to restore investor confidence, because it does only half the job.

The bank bailout will provide banks with much needed liquidity but it does not address the compensation and management practices on Wall Street that drove irresponsible decisions and gave rise to the crisis. It does not address the void of sound leadership at the top of major financial institutions like Citigroup and Merrill Lynch.

Dean Baker: The Fed Can Buy Commercial Paper Directly From Corporations: Who Knew?

Remember way back to last week when it was going to be the end of the world if Congress didn't pass the bailout package? Remember the Washington Post's account in which Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson told President Bush, "there is no Plan B."

Well, it looks like the Fed has discovered a Plan B. It turns out that the Fed can buy commercial paper directly from non-financial corporations needing credit to maintain operations. This will keep the credit markets working even if the zombie banks aren't up to the task. In other words, the threat of a complete meltdown in the absence of a bailout was nonsense and the media once again got taken for a ride by the Bush administration.

Paul Krugman: The International Finance Multiplier

Finally, if you think Obama is going to be any better, then you really do not understand that our system of government is actually corporatism. See opensecrets.org:

• Contributions by Sector
  
• Commercial Banks: Top Contributors to Federal Candidates and Parties

Speaking of Michael

Now Michael Berube is a good guy. So I interpret him as such. I am sure he only wants to kill the bad guys (could not find something more recent via the great Google, sorry):

The anti-imperialist left correctly believes, for instance, that the American bombing of Kakrak in early July (a massive "intelligence failure" that killed about 50 Afghans attending a wedding party) was an atrocity; but it cannot admit that, on balance, the routing of the Taliban might have struck a blow, however ambiguous and poorly executed, for human freedom.

Now we could interpret him as being not too terribly worried about this bombing as it has "struck a blow ... for human freedom". But then so have each additional bombing since. But that would be wrong: Michael is a good guy and means well. I wish he would be a bit more charitable towards others though.

Here is what I have taken away from my reading of Chomsky, Zinn, et al:

War is almost always a net negative thing for everyone involved; and especially the innocent and those on whos behalf the war is being fought.

[ And of course it should be pointed out that we, eg. US, are the ones doing the deciding who the war is for: Particularly galling for the "anti-imperialists". ]

Finally this by Chris Floyd is required reading.

Arthur Silber post to remember

 
In Praise of Contextual Libertarianism

Not So Fast, Please: Contextual Libertarianism, One More Time

More financial meltdown links

Mike Whitney: Still on the Edge of the Abyss

Now we're in a terrible fix. People are scared and removing their money from the banks and money markets. This is intensifying the freeze in the credit markets and driving stocks into the ground like a tent stake. Meanwhile, our leaders are caught in the headlights, still believing they can finesse their way through the biggest economic cataclysm since the Great Depression.

If something is not done to increase the flow of credit immediately, the stock market will tumble, unemployment will spike, and many businesses will grind to a standstill. We could be just days away from a severe shock to the system. Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson's $700 billion bailout does not focus on the fundamental problems and is likely to fail. At best, it puts off the day of reckoning for a few weeks or months. Contingency plans should be put in place so the country does not have to undergo post-Katrina bedlam.

Paul Craig Roberts: A Futile Bailout as Darkness Falls on America

The deregulation of the financial sector was achieved by the Democratic Clinton Administration and by the current Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson, with the acquiescence of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Paulson bailout saves his firm, Goldman Sachs. The Paulson bailout transfers the troubled financial instruments that the financial sector created from the books of the financial sector to the books of the taxpayers at the US Treasury.

This is all the bailout does. It rescues the guilty.

The Paulson bailout does not address the problem, which is the defaulting home mortgages.

The defaults will continue, because the economy is sinking into recession. Homeowners are losing their jobs, and homeowners are being hit with rising mortgage payments resulting from adjustable rate mortgages and escalator interest rate clauses in their mortgages that make homeowners unable to service their debt.

Shifting the troubled assets from the financial sectors’ books to the taxpayers’ books absolves the people who caused the problem from responsibility. As the economy declines and mortgage default rates rise, the US Treasury and the American taxpayers could end up with a $700 billion loss.

Nouriel Roubini: The Fed keeps on wasting time while the mother of all bank runs is underway

The only way to stop this liquidity panic is a blanket guarantee of financial sector liabilities and direct public provision of liquidity to the parts of the financial system and the corporate system that are now at risk of a meltdown driven by a liquidity run on their short term liabilities. So it is time for the Fed to stop wasting time and start the actions that will make a difference. We are now at risk of a systemic financial meltdown of the financial system and the corporate sector too.

Finally, I called Wu and told him I was very unhappy about him changing his vote. Here is his explanation for why he voted for the "new" bill on Friday. I requested a reply from Wu to my call. I will post what he says when I get it.

[ On this note, here is Barbra Boxer's justification for changing her vote. ]

Financial duh

The bailout failing:

Market plummets

Google's interactive market graph

Always seems to end up justifying the dismissal of animal interests

In this post by Michael Berube over there at Crooked Timber, he is displeased with Peter Singer:

Anyway, I won’t post my entire text, not because it would break the Internets again (this post will do that handily enough on its own) but because the conference proceedings are going to be published someday, and I think I’m supposed to save the Whole Thing for the dead-tree edition. But I will put up one of the challenges I issued to one of the conference’s more controversial speakers, a guy named Peter Singer:

In his 1994 book, Rethinking Life and Death, Peter Singer famously claimed that “To have a child with Down syndrome is to have a very different experience from having a normal child. It can still be a warm and loving experience, but we must have lowered expectations of our child’s ability. We cannot expect a child with Down syndrome to play the guitar, to develop an appreciation of science fiction, to learn a foreign language, to chat with us about the latest Woody Allen movie, or to be a respectable athlete, basketballer or tennis player” (213). Back in 1994, when Jamie was only three, I might have fallen for this; I once believed—and wrote—that Jamie would not be able to distinguish early Beatles from late Beatles or John’s songs from Paul’s, and now he knows more about the Beatles’ oeuvre than most of the people in this room. His interest in Star Wars and Galaxy Quest has given him an appreciation of science fiction, just as his fascination with Harry Potter has led him to ask questions about innocence and guilt. He is learning a foreign language, having mastered the “est-ce que tu” question form in French and being able to charm young women at the cheese counters of French supermarkets by saying “je voudrais du fromage de chèvre, s’il vous plait.” I confess that neither of us has the least interest in chatting about the latest Woody Allen movie; but perhaps Professor Singer will be interested to learn that Jamie and I have had a running conversation over the past five years about the film Babe, which introduced Jamie not only to the question of whether it is right to eat animals but also to the fact that there are various theories out there as to why humans eat some animals and not others.

Alas, I said all this on Thursday evening, and Professor Singer was not in the room at the time. But I have to give him his due for sticking around for all of the Friday and Saturday sessions in a largely hostile environment.

A commenter then writes:

now he knows more about the Beatles’ oeuvre than most of the people in this room. His interest in Star Wars and Galaxy Quest has given him an appreciation of science fiction, just as his fascination with Harry Potter has led him to ask questions about innocence and guilt. He is learning a foreign language, having mastered the “est-ce que tu” question form in French and being able to charm young women at the cheese counters of French supermarkets by saying “je voudrais du fromage de chèvre, s’il vous plait.” I confess that neither of us has the least interest in chatting about the latest Woody Allen movie; but perhaps Professor Singer will be interested to learn that Jamie and I have had a running conversation over the past five years about the film Babe, which introduced Jamie not only to the question of whether it is right to eat animals but also to the fact that there are various theories out there as to why humans eat some animals and not others.

Michael, it sounds as though you’re arguing here that not all people with Down’s Syndrome are what Singer (or most of us, anyway) would call severely cognitively impaired rather than against the claim that “it is less wrong, all other things being equal, to kill someone with severe cognitive impairments than to kill you or me.”

Also, what if Singer had set the bar lower and instead of “to play the guitar, to develop an appreciation of science fiction, to learn a foreign language, to chat with us about the latest Woody Allen movie, or to be a respectable athlete, basketballer or tennis player” had said “to use language at all, to play a sport at any level, to watch a movie or distinguish between music and noise”?

I know you’ve written a lot about this, probably on CT as well, so feel free just to refer me somewhere else.

To which Michael responds:

I’m just not buying the utilitarian calculus at all, no matter where Singer sets the bar. The fact that he underestimated the potential of some people (and did so with considerable certainty, I might add, pointing to the “we cannot expect” line) is in itself, for me, reason enough to resist any moral calculus that involves a performance criterion for being human.

---

All this is quite fascinating but I never understand this criticism of Singer:

Singer is comparing babies, mentally deficient, the brain damaged with animals. He says they are similar in "personhood" so we can treat them alike. Fuck Singer! Killer!

Instead the much more obvious interpretation and certainly the more charitable one is:

Singer is comparing babies, mentally deficient, the brain damaged with animals. He says they are similar in "personhood" so we can treat them alike. Fuck me! Killer!

There are two ways of interpreting Singer when he says something like:

For on any fair comparison of morally relevant characteristics, like rationality, self-consciousness, awareness, autonomy, pleasure and pain, and so on, the calf, the pig and the much derided chicken come out well ahead of the fetus at any stage of pregnancy -- which if we make the comparison with a fetus of less than three months, a fish, or even a prawn would show more signs of consciousness. (Practical Ethics, 118)

We can read him as saying:

• Hey! Babies are like pigs. We treat pigs like shit. Let's treat babies like shit.; OR
• Hey! Babies are like pigs. We treat babies nicely. Let's treat pigs nicely.
  

Why interpret Singer as encourage or advocating any sort of mistreatment of any organism? Even animals that he would consider much lower on the "personhood" scale he would never advocate mistreating.

So, returning to Michael Berube's quote of Singer: To have a child with Down syndrome is to have a very different experience from having a normal child. It can still be a warm and loving experience, but we must have lowered expectations of our child’s ability. we ought not interpret Singer as suggesting mistreating these people, but as he advocates for animals, we should interpret him as advocating for taking their interests into consideration.

---

Then a commenter recommends this paper by Jeremy Waldron. This paper is quite interesting and here is its own summary:

The idea of basic equality connotes that, for normative purposes, the range of humans is not subject to any fundamental differentiation along the lines of the differentiation that some people maintain between humans and animals. We humans are all basically alike.

What is with the desire to separate humans and animals? It all really seems like a rationalization not for better treatment of different sorts of humans, but a defense of not taking animal's interests into consideration.

Peter Singer Day! Yay!

Peter Singer

Origin of Ethics



Singer on Colbert



Singer's top 10 books

Financially F*cked

Nouriel Roubini: Financial and Corporate System is in Cardiac Arrest: The Risk of the Mother of All Bank Runs

House Passes Bailout Bill
Here is the vote: Wu voted for it. Gotta call and make my displeasure known.

Paul Craig Roberts: Why Paulson's Plan is a Fraud

Paul Craig Roberts: Can a Bailout Succeed?

Mike Whitney: Why the Bailout Stinks

In Other News

 
When Settlers Attack (in Israel)

Nir Rosen reports from Majd al Anjar, where the rage of young men mixes with the sectarian fervour spilling over Iraq’s borders.

A philosophy link: Equality

Do not want to forget this: Jeremy Waldron: Basic Equality

Thanking Wyden!! Have you?

Well, I never got through to Wyden either via the capital switchboard or direct: Busy or put on hold.

But, Wyden voted no!! Yay!

Just called him and thanked him. Will also send a nice email. Grin!

Of course "small government" Smith voted yes. Honestly, I need someone to tell my why they are Republican or why they vote Republican!??

Now I need to contact Wu and tell him to stay strong!

My understanding cont.

As my good friend corrects me, we should not be bailing out the banks at all.

Admittedly I came up with the "dollar-for-dollar" solution mostly because I thought it was reasonably pragmatic: I just can not imagine Congress not paying off the bankers and financiers that they whore to. But as it says right here on this blog: Everything revolutionary is impractical: I should have been more revolutionary! I will endeavor to be next time.

And little did I realize that the solution is not completely stupid: Glenn Greenwald documents a number of "real" economists suggest simply buying the "toxic" mortgages: A bailout for the little guy. Glenn also provides a number of links to other solutions.

Glenn's post is not really about solutions though. It is about the media -- specifically one award winning journalist: Steven Pearlstein -- who just can not stand the little people having their say. You should read it.

Capital switchboard has been busy!

Tried to call my (Dem) Senator but the switchboard was busy both times!! Yay! I hope Congress is getting an earful.

I guess I will try calling direct...

UPDATE 11am: Put on hold with Wyden.

My understanding of the financial meltdown

 
In answer to my good friend, I believe this is being called a "credit" crisis because right now the biggest problem is that the "shadow banking system" is near collapse: Banks are afraid to lend to each other. If this happens, the US and global economy will pretty much halt: 60 - 0 in nanoseconds. That is definitely not good.

But this is just a symptom of the real cause: sub-prime mortgages ( again, as my good friend points out ).

I am no economist, but I certainly have my opinion. I am quite happy that the bailout was rejected in the House. But the probable effects on "average" people -- those outside Wall Street -- is real. So, my suggestion is a dollar-for-dollar bailout: For each dollar given to "write-off" a "toxic" mortgage/asset, a dollar goes to write-down the mortgage of a needy home owner; eg. one of those "toxic" mortgages. $350billion in funds for the "shadow banking system" and $350billion in mortgage write-downs.

Now I am not really happy with any sort of equal treatment between "Wall Street" and "Main Street" -- I would prefer the whole $700billion to write-off the mortgages -- but this seems reasonable: To me, not an economist.

Anyone with comments?

More links on the market/credit meltdown

Chris Floyd: The Shadow of the Pitchfork: Elite Panic Attack as Bailout Goes Bust

Pam Martens: What Wall Street Hoped to Win

Nouriel Roubini: The US and global financial crisis is becoming much more severe in spite of the Treasury rescue plan. The risk of a total systemic meltdown is now as high as ever ( free reg req )

Let me explain now in more detail why we are now back to the risk of a total systemic financial meltdown…

It is no surprise as financial institutions in the US and around advanced economies are going bust: in the US the latest victims were WaMu (the largest US S&L) and today Wachovia (the sixth largest US bank); in the UK after Northern Rock and the acquisition of HBOS by Lloyds TSB you now have the bust and rescue of B&B; in Belgium you had Fortis going bust and being rescued over the weekend; in German HRE, a major financial institution is also near bust and in need of a government rescue. So this is not just a US financial crisis; it is a global financial crisis hitting institutions in the US, UK, Eurozone and other advanced economies (Iceland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada etc.).

And the strains in financial markets – especially short term interbank markets - are becoming more severe in spite of the Fed and other central banks having literally injected about $300 billion of liquidity in the financial system last week alone including massive liquidity lending to Morgan and Goldman. In a solvency crisis and credit crisis that goes well beyond illiquidity no one is lending to counterparties as no one trusts any counterparty (even the safest ones) and everyone is hoarding the liquidity that is injected by central banks. And since this liquidity goes only to banks and major broker dealers the rest of the shadow banking system has not access to this liquidity as the credit transmission mechanisms is blocked.

Blog to watch: http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/: Fed's Lockhart on Financial Crisis

Credit markets remain quite strained. This is particularly the case in interbank markets in the United States and abroad. The interbank markets are a fundamental element of the plumbing of the financial world. Banks with excess balances put them to work by lending to other banks that have clients—companies and individuals—who need the funds.

The loan portfolios of U.S. banks and financial institutions are, as you would expect, mostly dollar-denominated. But foreign banks in recent years have also built sizeable "books of business" in dollars. The dollar interbank credit contraction is a worldwide problem that affects not only our banks here but banks overseas, particularly in Europe.

When banks lend or take on other forms of exposure to each other, they gauge the counterparty risk. In recent weeks, there has been a widespread withdrawal of confidence in counterparties that has resulted in efforts to reduce exposure.

Thom Hartmann: How Wall Street Can Bail Itself Out Without Destroying The Dollar

Peter Morici: The Bailout and the Economy