in the quiet between moments

Good afternoon. Not much to say today.

Glenn Greenwald talks about the media role in pushing the so-called "bailout" that was advanced via parliamentary tricks yesterday in the Senate. You might read some of the people he quotes in that article, they're worthwhile. There's an ongoing attempt to stop this thing in the House, again - Mish Shedlock has a list of the most important people to contact here - tho' it does feel a bit like the FISA fight all over again. Oh, incidentally, some members of Congress are going on about this being done primarily for the foreign banks. (I was speculating about this yesterday; check previous entry on the economics tag if you care.) Marketwatch, on the other hand, thinks Secretary Paulson's former firm, Goldman Sachs, is the biggest winner.

LIBOR and TED spreads got markedly worse after the Senate passage, by the way. The TED is currently at 3.61, back into monstrous territory. The stock market reaction is mostly in response to the terrible manufacturing and jobs reports, though.

US total debt topped US$10T yesterday. Fun times.

Kevin Depew's Five Things from yesterday is really one long thing. Interesting thing, tho', all about the bailout and how it's moving ahead whether the public wants it or not. He's not entirely in my camp - he's okay with doing nothing, which I think is a bad idea; but we both agree this plan is worse than nothing. It's still worth reading, just for the mood of it.

As had been generally noted, cities are having to cut back projects because of the poor condition of the bond markets. And since everyone else is linking to this Spiegel Online article, I may as well too. Brad Setzer calls the crisis systemic.

Actually, I should clarify something; also, an amendment drama

Here's the thing:

If any of the governments involved overseas who will benefit from this fiasco actually are going to cut off T-bill purchases, and really mean it, that's their right; but if they plan to stop purchases and flood the market with the ones they already have, then this is extortion. In the latter event, it's a case where not paying the extortion money would, arguably, be worse. Pay it, and then next year's budget would have to be balanced, no matter what it takes, period, end of story.

Sadly, even if the former is true, the latter will not happen. So it's quite the mess.

Also, a quick update: a group of Republicans are trying to add this amendment in the Rules committee. It's apparently a big effort because reportedly it'd get the votes to pass the package in the house, but would also guarantee a White House veto. It's wild and wooly over there tonight.

eta: Brad Setser tallies out that the Fed is up to US$1.25T in liquidity injections already. He gives them credit for "holding things together" as long as they have.

Sanity break

From the Lexington Science Fiction and Fantasy Association mailing list, Hey Oscar Wilde! It's clobberin' time!, an art blog of drawings from "various artists interpreting their favourite literary figure/author/character." It's fun!

Completely unrelated, have the original instructions (retyped, not scanned) for setting up and operating your Crosley 51 Radio Receiver, one of the first affordable radios, from back when tuning in an AM station was a four-knob challenge helped by having a bit of practice at it. And that's after the half hour of setup, involving a couple of hundred feet of wire (for the long-distance high-gain loop antenna you'd make) and two to three kinds of wet- and dry-cell batteries. Radio used to take some real determination.