>>>>>Contrary to the notion held so dear by some, the economy seems to do a lot better under Democratic presidents than Republican ones.
>>>>
>>>>The economy does a lot better under divided government than single party control.
>>>
>>>That may be true as well.
>>>
>>>I'm not sure what an undivided government would be in our system, though. The Democrats have a heavy majority in both houses of Congress and the Republicans are still able to thwart most of their initiatives. (While trying to stop every single one of them). All you need is 41 votes in the Senate.
>>
>>That's a fun but inaccurate little quip. The Republicans have been trying to have a say in nearly every major piece of legislation which has come forth. Health care, cap-n-tax, financial, etc. Each had strong "bipartisan" negotiations which eventually broke down because the committee leaders (Democrats) decided to pull away from the Republican ideas and push their version of the legislation. At that point the Republicans became unified in opposition. Hey, better late than never. ;)
>>
>>>It surprises me some, although it probably shouldn't, that they are trying to block reform of the financial system.
>>
>>Again, fun but inaccurate. The original Senators putting together the legislation were Shelby(R) and Dodd(D). Negotiations broke down in February when the two could not compromise and Dodd decided to push forth with the Democrat version. Thus began the hard fight in the Senate to get Republican sponsored amendments into the Democrat bill.
>>
>>The bill has now passed the Senate with assurances made to Brown, Collins and Snowe that their concerns will be addressed either during the reconciliation process with the House bill or through follow-up legislation. To me the bill is laughable because it completely ignores reforming Fannie/Freddie. It imposes new regulations on private financial institutions and hedge funds while ignoring the bull that's been rampaging through the china shop.
>>
>>>Surely they have not developed total amnesia about what happened two years ago, so I am attributing it to pure orneriness in an election year. (And not saying the Democrats would be any different if the roles were reversed).
>>
>>Let's not pretend that this bill is some panacea of virtuous reform which will prevent events like 2 years ago. As I said, this does nothing to address Fannie/Freddie.
>
>I imagine you read Gretchen Morgensen. Her column a couple of Sundays ago was about some apparent shenanigans still going on with them. Part of their ongoing heavy losses are a result of them taking bullets so lenders/banks don't have to.

Private reward with public risk. It's exactly the same as the too-big-to-fail bailouts. The same as bailing out AIG so they could pay off Goldman at 1-1. Same as taking over GM & Citi & ...

>Here we go. And this is funny -- the headline is the same phrase you used. (NOT accusing you of lifting it -- it's a cliche, after all).

Bull, elephant, 800-lb gorrilla whatever animal you want. ;)

>http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/business/09gret.html

>Mr. Baker’s concern that Freddie may be racking up losses by overpaying for mortgages derives from his suspicion that the government might be encouraging it to do so as a way to bolster the operations of mortgage lenders.
>
>That would make Fannie’s and Freddie’s mortgage-buying yet another backdoor bailout of the nation’s banks, Mr. Baker said, and could explain the government’s reluctance to include them in the reform efforts now being so hotly debated in Washington.

I love this :
Freddie Mac said the main reason for its disastrous quarter was an accounting change that required it to bring back onto its books $1.5 trillion in assets and liabilities that it had been keeping off of its balance sheet.

Wanna bet whether those assets and liabilities would've been kept off the balance sheet if they were positive? ;)