Is it possible for an entire political party to have senile dementia at the same time?
If this recession is so "mental" why can the bulk of the American people not make ends meet?
Oh, yeah! We just imagined that sawmill closing, and the local restaurant going under, the Sheaffer Pen plant being shipped to Asia, the increase in clients at health and Human Services, the extortive price of gas, the price of food increasing drastically because they are using food for fuel, the very real chance of more and more kids sleeping in their overcoats because heating fuel is out of reach, the collapse several formerly prestigious financial institutions collapsing.
Wow! We really have powerful imaginations!
Hey! If that's true why haven't I won the lottery yet? My family and I been imagining winning it for about a month now. ;-p

IT'S THE ECONOMY STUPID, REVISITED:

This should be a tough day for McCain supporters, watching the stock ticker chip away at their investments and retirement savings, the republican economy again sending shockwaves throughout middle America. You may want to have a beer with McCain and go moosehunting with Palin, I just wouldn't want them handling this economy, which neither of whom know much about.

When you know little and you're under the grips of the neo-conservatives you have few options but to turn to the same people who tutored George Bush (Cheney was busy with his Halliburton investment). Phil Gramm, he of "whiner" fame, is still lurking about in the background, as the architect of McCain's econmic policy, which Alan Greenspan has labeled lethal to the economy.

Lehman Brothers going bankrupt, Merill Lynch being bought by B of A, and WHO'S TO BLAME?

This May, 2008, article (by David Corn) from MotherJones.com, brings us to "Foreclosure Phil:"

"Who's to blame for the biggest financial catastrophe of our time? There are plenty of culprits, but one candidate for lead perp is former Sen. Phil Gramm. Eight years ago, as part of a decades-long anti-regulatory crusade, Gramm pulled a sly legislative maneuver that greased the way to the multibillion-dollar subprime meltdown.

Yet has Gramm been banished from the corridor of power? Reviled as the villain who bankrupt Middle America? Hardly. Now a well-paid executive at a Swiss bank, Gramm cochairs McCain's presidential campaign and advises the candidate of economic matters. He's been mentioned as a possible Treasury secretary should McCain win. That's right: A guy who helped screw up the global financial system could end up in charge of US economic policy. TALK ABOUT A MARKET FAILURE.

On December 15, 2000, when republicans controlled congress and the parties were locked in a budget showdown , "hammering out a $384 billion omnibus spending bill, Gramm slipped in a 262 page measure called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. Written with the help of financial industry lobbyists and cosponsored by Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) the chairman of the agriculture committee, the measure had been considered dead, few had opportunity or inclination to read the version of the bill Gramm inserted...The act, he (Gramm) declared on the Senate floor would ensure that neither the SEC nor the Commodity Futures Trading Commission got into the business of regulating newfangled financial products called swaps-and would thus 'protect financial institutions from overregulation' and 'position our financial services industries to be world leaders into the new century.'

This legislation included an Enron lobbied feature that exempted energy trading from regulatory oversight and,"years later Mrs. Phil Gramm, former cftc chairwoman, who had pushed through a rule excluding Enron's energy futures contracts from government oversight, joined Enron's Board, and brought in between $915,000 and $1.8M in salary and stock income.

'These unregulated swaps have been at 'the heart of the subprime meltdown' says Michael Greenberger, formerly of the cftc, 'I happen to think Gramm did not know what he was doing. I don't think a member of Congress had read the 262 page bill or had thought of the cataclysm it would cause.'

'Whether or not Gramm had bothered to ponder the potential downsides of his commodities legislation, having helped set off an industry free-for-all, he reaped the rewards. In 2003, he left the Senate to take a highly lucrative job a Switzerland's largest bank, which had been able to acquire investment house PaineWebber due to his banking deregulation bill. He would soon be lobbying congress, the fed and treasurey dept for the bank on banking and mortgage matters.'

John McCain, we are all known by the friends that we keep.

The Republicans has built a worthless house of cards as our economy. They shipped off our jobs and whole industries to other countries and wonder why the financial markets are tanking?

Bank failures don't faze Republicans?

The rest of us who aren't K Street lobbyists or speculators have to pay our bills on time. With stagflation, it's getting harder to do it. If we we miss a payment, nobody bails us out.

That's not an exaggeration.

Maybe it's time to create capital in this country again?

Hey Matt? Someone at DNC needs o dig into the archives and find diret quotes from our current president made in December of 2000 about the economy during his transition to become president. Speaking of exaggeration!

This is part question, part comment as I don't really know the answer, but... wasn't it the Republican controlled Congress that greatly loosened restrictions on banking and the finance segment that have given those companies the latitude to sell their services in high pressure and somewhat deceiving ways? ... that allowed exhorbitant credit interest rates combined with "extra charges" to vie with loan sharks (that make it nearly impossible for consumers to get out of debt and thus serves as part of the foundation to consumer fear) ... that saw the greatest use of dreaded-telemarketing sales growth come from the finance segment ... that promised loans to people with more regard to commissions that the consumer's ability to pay?

Wasn't the stage for today's financial crisis (and those yet to come) was set in the year's before Nancy Pelosi and gang (including B.O.) came into their leadership role?