By Dave Lindorff

It’s a safe bet that within the next several months, Congress will
vote to bail out General Motors. It will be a colossal boondoggle
involving, probably, upwards of $50 billion when it’s through, and it
will fail in the end.

The reason is before our eyes. This bloated megacorporation is being run by idiots.

For years, as it became evident to everyone that oil prices were
going to soar because demand has been exceeding both production and
supply and will continue to do so, it has been obvious that to succeed,
a car company had to offer well-made cars that could demonstrate high
gas mileage. GM, perhaps more than any other company, ignored that
reality and has been paying the price, watching its share of the car
market wither.

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.

By Dave Lindorff

The one thing we are not hearing from Congress or from incoming
president Barack Obama in the current economic crisis facing the
country are the words “anti-trust” and “public ownership.”

From the moment the crisis first struck, with the near collapse of
AIG, the mantra has been that companies like AIG, Morgan Stanley,
Merrill Lynch, Citibank, etc.--and more recently General Motors Corp.
and Ford--are “too big to fail.” That is, it is argued that these
companies are so huge that if they were to collapse into the rubble
they deserve to be, it would damage the nation irreparably.

The question is, if that is genuinely the case, why were they
allowed to be that big in the first place, and why aren’t we rethinking
that policy?

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.

By Dave Lindorff

After watching the markets plunge and the credit freeze become
glacial, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson backed away from his scheme
to rescue his investment banking colleagues by spending hundreds of
billions of dollars buying up worthless credit derivatives. His new
strategy: follow Britain’s lead and invest that same money--$250
billion for starters—into the banks as equity—specifically into the
shares of nine of the country’s largest banks.

This might sound a little like socialism—the kind of mandatory
nationalization that the US has devoted decades, and tens of billions
of secret dollars to trying to undermine and attack when practiced by
leaders in countries like Venezuela, Cuba, Chile or post-war Italy. But
Paulson’s no red.

CQ Transcript: Obama Campaign Advisers Hold News Teleconference on the Economy | CQ Transcriptswire

In Brief - All can be done under existing laws:

1. Jump start job creation.

2. Financial relief for families.
3. Help for homeowners.
4. Addressing the financial crisis.

How to Save the U.S. Economy
by Richard C. Cook

The crashing stock market has given its verdict. The financial rescue plan currently being implemented by the U.S. Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve System will fail to revitalize the producing economy, even with continued interest rate cuts. This is because the banking system is essentially a supply-side, trickle-down mechanism with a currency based on a pyramid of bank lending and debt. All the current plans being suggested by economists and others to save the financial system by varying degrees of tinkering are useless. Similarly useless is the pumping in of credit or liquidity by Treasury or the Federal Reserve because it is no more than new debt to roll over old debt.

The cause of the financial failure is that the producing and consumer economy is “maxed out” and is unable to repay existing loans much less new ones. This is because purchasing power in the U.S. has collapsed.

Financial industry bailout plan needs to protect taxpayers | Economic Policy Institute

The turmoil in financial markets is clearly deep and threatening. The economy, especially the job market, is already facing recessionary conditions, and a further meltdown in credit markets could absolutely deepen this crisis. Piecemeal attempts to repair the damage created by years of inadequate oversight, over-leveraging, and reckless lending and borrowing standards have not worked.

EPI debates Cato Institute on Google's Knol

The Economic Policy Institute today began a two-week online debate with the Cato Institute about the $700 billion financial bailout package signed into law by President Bush. This is the first in a series of pre-election debates sponsored by Google using Knol, its new interactive tool that allows readers to suggest edits and leave comments on signed articles. EPI's piece, written by Policy and Research Director John Irons and External Affairs Director Nancy Cleeland, argues that the federal action was imperfect but necessary, and that vigilance is now needed to ensure that taxpayers are protected as much as possible.

Bailout Alternative Offered by House Democrats
by: Frank James | The Chicago Tribune

You know the failed but still alive $700 billion bailout proposal has scrambled politics in the nation's capital when a fairly liberal member of Congress offers a solution to the financial-markets crisis that looks like something a Reagan Administration official created.

Actually that's exactly who created it. Rep. Peter DeFazio, an Oregon Democrat, took the ideas of William Isaac, who served as Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. chairman during the Reagan Administration and created legislation meant to help the capsizing financial markets right themselves.