To be honest, Obama, you lost me when you voted for the PATRIOT Act reauthorization in 2006. You lost me again when you voted for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) amendment in 2008. And you lost me every single time you voted for yet more war funding.

Don't even get me started on your vote for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout.

I cast a ballot for you in November, but I just can't share in this moment of collective euphoria over your election.

So, if your transition team really wants feedback on "where President-Elect Obama should lead this country," here's a Top Five list:

Congress will take up the Auto Industry Bailout when they re-convene this week.  There is no better time than this moment to PUSH for concessions from the Auto Industry.  Time is short.  Democrat.com, can you help us act NOW? Here's a copy of a letter I just mailed to Speaker Pelosi:      Dear Madam Speaker,

Please make the FLEXFUEL component a MANDATORY requirement for any Auto Industry bailout.
IT ONLY COSTS $100 to install this component on a vehicle during the manufacturing process.  The only EPA approved retrofit costs $1300.  All cars sold in Brazil are flexfuel ready.  All cars that GM sells in Brazil are flexfuel compatible.  There is no excuse and there should be no delay in making all cars sold in America flexfuel capable.
THIS IS THE QUICKEST CHEAPEST EASIEST WAY to make rapid reductions in our foreign oil imports.

An Open Letter Regarding the Upcoming G-20 Meeting in Washington, D.C.

To add your name, register, log in, and sign the petition.

More from the Front Lines of the Financial Crisis
by Stephen Lendman

In its latest economic outlook, Merrill Lynch economists "worry about inflation, or more precisely," a lack of it. From crashing global equity markets, falling commodity prices, rising unemployment, stagnant wages, over-indebted households, declining production, the continuing housing crisis, and more. All pointing to several future quarters of negative growth. Showing that Fed chairman Bernanke will face "his greatest fear: deflation." An analysis of the coincident to lagging indicators signals "deep recession."

In his October 24, commentary, Merrill's North American economist David Rosenberg sees "economic data deteriorating in a very serious way (and says) we are witnessing unprecedented stuff happen:"

• the two-year housing recession "is still far from over" with new lows in a number of key readings;
• it's "morphed into a capex recession, industrial production" had its worst decline in 34 years;
• consumer confidence showed record declines;
• retail sales keep falling; evidence is that auto and chain store sales will show four straight down months; it's happened only four other times since 1947, so "we're living through a 1-in-200 event;"
• based on CPI data, prices are falling; at a rapid pace also seen only four other times since 1947;

The Bet That Blew Up Wall Street

Steve Kroft On Credit Default Swaps And Their Central Role In The Unfolding Economic Crisis | CBSNews.com

The world's financial system teetered on the edge again last week, and anyone with more than a passing interest in their shrinking 401(k) knows it's because of a global credit crisis. It began with the collapse of the U.S. housing market and has been magnified worldwide by what Warren Buffet once called "financial weapons of mass destruction."

They are called credit derivatives or credit default swaps, and 60 Minutes did a story on the multi-trillion dollar market three weeks ago. But there's a lot more to tell.

As Steve Kroft reports, essentially they are side bets on the performance of the U.S. mortgage markets and the solvency on some of the biggest financial institutions in the world. It's a form of legalized gambling that allows you to wager on financial outcomes without ever having to actually buy the stocks and bonds and mortgages.

It would have been illegal during most of the 20th century, but eight years ago Congress gave Wall Street an exemption and it has turned out to be a very bad idea.

While Congress and the rest of the country scratched their heads trying to figure out how we got into this mess, 60 Minutes decided to go to Frank Partnoy, a law professor at the University of San Diego, who has written a couple of books on the subject.

Ask to explain what a derivative is, Partnoy says, "A derivative is a financial instrument whose value is based on something else. It's basically a side bet."

The Collapse of a 300 Year Ponzi Scheme: The Real Debate is Crony Socialism or Financial Sovereignty
by Ellen Brown | WebofDebt.com

On October 15, the Presidential candidates had their last debate before the election. They talked of the baleful state of the economy and the stock market; but omitted from the discussion was what actually caused the credit freeze, and whether the banks should be nationalized as Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is now proceeding to do. The omission was probably excusable, since the financial landscape has been changing so fast that it is hard to keep up. A year ago, the Dow Jones Industrial Average broke through 14,000 to make a new all-time high. Anyone predicting then that a year later the Dow would drop nearly by half and the Treasury would move to nationalize the banks would have been regarded with amused disbelief. But that is where we are today.1

Congress hastily voted to approve Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s $700 billion bank bailout plan on October 3, 2008, after a tumultuous week in which the Dow fell dangerously near the critical 10,000 level. The market, however, was not assuaged. The Dow proceeded to break through not only 10,000 but then 9,000 and 8,000, closing at 8,451 on Friday, October 10. The week was called the worst in U.S. stock market history.

'We're All Hosed': A Wall Street Insider on the Economic Crisis
by Laura Rowley | Yahoo! Finance

Earlier this week I interviewed a veteran banker at a major Wall Street investment firm, seeking an insider's view on what caused the current economic crisis, what life is like for people on Wall Street, and what's ahead for the economy.

On condition of anonymity, the banker provided a blunt assessment of the risks taken, mistakes made, and the toll of the financial destruction. Here are the highlights:

Q: What's the cause of the economic crisis from your perspective?

SEC head calls for transparency on credit default swap
by Chris Michaud | Yahoo! News

SEC Chairman Christopher Cox has called on Congress to pass legislation that would make so-called credit default swaps more transparent, including requiring that dealers in over-the-counter swaps publicly report their trades and the trades' value.

Writing in Sunday's New York Times, Cox noted that the $55 trillion credit defaults market is more than the GNP of all the world's nations combined, and that credit default swaps "play an important role in the smooth functioning of capital markets."

Report: SEC Dropped The Ball
Gov't Auditors Found "Serious Deficiencies" In SEC Oversight Of Bear Stearns
by Chris Scholl | CBSNews.com

A new government audit suggests the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) effectively dropped the ball in overseeing a voluntary program to keep an eye on the troubled Bear Stearns and other massive investment banks. Government auditors found “serious deficiencies” in SEC oversight of Bear Stearns prior to its collapse in March. The Inspector General of the SEC also found that in some cases, Bear Stearns did not comply “with the spirit” of the voluntary program designed to oversee it.