You would hope we would have learned by now, that blank checks written out to the Bush administration always bounce.

One of the best lines yet about this crisis and the administration's bailout proposal.

I'm hoping that the Democrats finally stare down the Republicans on this one.

Am I ever with you there, Jeremy!!!

You know, I was very confused when I first read this why a labor activist like yourself would be advocating for the removal of an affordable housing program.

And then I read the post.

So, can we call this something other than "Section 8"? Pretty please? Otherwise, my brain will hurt.

This section must not stand. It would give bullet proof immunity from oversight.

Does anyone think that maybe this law was written so ridiculously because no one actually wants it to pass? I'm beginning to think it was just presented to make plan B look better by comparison.

The problem with the bailout is not just section eight, although the prospect of getting free money has the corporate rich drooling. Every aspect of the bailout is a massive and callous attack on the standard of living of working people. They plan on transferring the losses of speculators among the corporate onto the backs of working people, who’ve already seen a steady drop in our standard of living for the last twenty five years.

If confidence in the profit system, the war and the Democrats and Republicans is the camel back, then this is the straw that will break it. Excellent!

After a little handwringing the Democrats will go along with it because they and the Republicans are tied into the profiteering system. They’re paid by profiteers, make money profiteering themselves and their ideology, such as it is, centers on property rights not the rights of working people to a decent life.

The basic reason for this is that the US is now a debtor nation, much like Argentina or Egypt. The only sense in which the US is superpower lies in its military power which currently being squandered in the unwinnable Clinton/Bush genocide in the Middle East. That all to the good but the economic situation is a real crisis because the US no longer has the credit or resources to maintain a satisfactory standard of living for working people.

With the connivance of the Democrats and the Republicans the debts and losses of rich speculators are going to fall on our shoulders and our standard of living and quality of life are going to drop for decades. With an unwinnable war and an economy teetering on the brink, suddenly the US and its Republican and Democratic leaders are presiding over the newest member of the Third World.

Instead of the bailout we should support the nationalization of banks, financial institutions and insurance companies with no compensation to their shareholders. (Sorry, if there are any speculators or big time stockholders in our midst. Not.) At the same time mortgage and credit rates can be cut to one or two percent.

We should demand a 10 year moratorium on garnishments, repossessions and foreclosures. We should demand that the managers and major stockholders of corporations that engaged in predatory loan practices have their wealth confiscated and prosecuted. (Sorry Gramm, Biden, Edwards, et al. Not.)

Let the rich lose it all. Let working people keep it all.

The only solution of the Democrats and Republicans is to make us pay the debts of the speculators. That’s another very good reason to s vote for the union led and financed US Labor Party if it makes it past the anti-democratic roadblocks put up by the Democrats (sic). If not vote for socialist or communist candidates as a protest or join the scores of millions who sit it out because they’re smart enough to refuse to vote for the lesser bigot, the lesser warmonger or the lesser evil. And don’t forget to vote against all the anti-GLBT referenda and initiatives.