I strongly encourage everyone to watch this video as former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer gives  thoughtful, reasoned insights into a whole host of recent topics related to our financial crisis, including AIG bonuses, Obama's performance, the media's impact, regulation, etc.

I recommend the 20-minute Fareed Zakaria CNN interview in its entirety, but if you only have limited time, Spitzer offers a concise explanation into the cause of our current economic situation for a few minutes starting at about the 10:45 mark.

Oh goody. Looks like we're about to hear the details of Geithner's long-awaited financial stability plan, which has as one of its key components a public-private investment pool designed to help rid our system of the toxic assets rotting away on bank balance sheets.

Apparently, the Treasury will hire four or five private investment managers to run a fund that will purchase the assets. The government will then match whatever monies the private firms manage to raise and invest.

Great. Now there's a backlash to the backlash to the AIG bonuses, and everyone is scolding Congress for acting so rashly in crafting a bill designed to recover 90% of the bonuses in taxes.

Conservatives are complaining the bill is unconstitutional and unproductive. In his Obama interview, Jay Leno said he's frightened about its implications, and our own Genghis is mocking the effort.

Gimme a break.

Congratulations to the august members of the House of Representatives. You just saved America $148.5M. Of course, after countless hours of wrangling with the Senate, that will surely be reduced by half. And then, there will be the lawsuits challenging the bill-of-attainder tax on a particular company--a really, really, really bad company which deserves to be disemboweled and which we would definitely do if that pesky economic depression weren't in the way.

After much speculation on the matter, Diebold has issued its mea culpa:

Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold Election Systems) admitted in a state hearing Tuesday that the audit logs produced by its tabulation software miss significant events, including the act of someone deleting votes on election day.

The company acknowledged that the problem exists with every version of its tabulation software.

As the U.S. sinks deeper into recession and China gorges itself on ever greater quantities of American debt, you will start to hear about the "Chinese model" and the end of American hegemony. Yet China remains tethered by a stiff leash which will ultimately choke the charging tiger once it runs out slack: its government.

Apparently, $175 billion doesn't buy what it used to.

AIG has decided that it has no choice but to pay out $165 million in bonuses to employees due to contractual obligations. And the government has decided it has no legal recourse to stop the payments.

So some jackass reporter decided to ask White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs to grade President Obama's performance after a whoppin' 50 days in office. Seriously? You could pass the question off as harmless, silly journalistic tripe, but I think it's symptomatic of a rush to judge and criticize anything and everything Obama is trying to accomplish. It's unhealthy, unproductive and unfair. The time to hand out grades will eventually come, but for now, how about giving the president a break and let him do his job.

Seeking qualified candidates for leadership role with a top American political party who will:

No, not New Orleans.

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

I don't know many very happy people. I know people who are content enough, I suppose. I know plenty of people who do a decent job at hiding their discontent. (As for myself, I'm probably somewhere in between those two categories, leaning toward the former).

Last week, I wrote a piece called This is the House That George Built. TheraP at TPM suggested that I make a video. This is the video.

I've been sitting on this one for a bit now, but I feel it's time to break the silence.  For those that don't read him, Glenn Greenwald has been quite persistent in covering this story.  For my money, he's the best read on the topic.

Today, I discuss codependent, abusive relationships, and our general resistance to change. Deadman understands the deal. He, too, just wants to relive the good old days and focus on things that will always stay the same, like the Middle East conflict.

Been away all week on business, listening to my colleagues and the talking heads on CNBC bitch and moan about Obama's budget and economic policies. They believe he's declaring war on the wealthy and is going to destroy the economy with his increased tax hikes.

Are you fucking kidding me?!?

Oh yeah, I feel a rant coming on ...

I didn't really believe the headline when I read it, but here's the deal:

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is sending strong signals that President Obama - who as a candidate said states should be allowed to make their own rules on medical marijuana - will end raids on pot dispensaries in California.

So, I've gotten kind of impatient with waiting for Geithner or Bernanke or someone to explain exactly what they're going to do with the banking system.  I know that nationalization is way too scary to contemplate, despite the fact that the process the word actually refers to in this context has been ongoing with smaller banks and doesn't represent anything even remotely approaching permanent government ownership of these institutions, but what is the "public-private partnership" of which they speak?