I will be really fucking angry if Obama does ANYTHING to help Bush & Co get this $700 billion Trojan Horse through the gates.

Absolutely. Though this makes me feel a bit better about what his idea of a package would look like. [link]

I don't know enough about the financial markets to have a valid opinion on the bailout plan. It seems like it will pass, I'm just hoping there is sufficient oversight. It seems like the potential for corruption is enormous.

Dude, "oversight" is for wimpy over-regulating Democrats. This is a time for mavericks and bold action.

I keep thinking I want a 10-year moratorium on the whole "Main Street/Wall Street"* line, but the literal involvement of Wall Street is making that look pretty unlikely.

* not the issues, obvsly, just the rhetorical trope

(and just to be clear, I'm reacting to every pundit and speech and not-so-smart article on the current crisis, not anything that's been said here. Including, in spirit, by Hank Hill.)

It seems like it will pass, I'm just hoping there is sufficient oversight.

Given that the Republican starting bid is NONE, Treasurer should have more power than the President? Not likely.

In more trivial news, bad celebrity baby names made me laugh.

"The only Main Street left is in Disneyland. And just try to buy a gun there." --Hank Hill

This afternoon, I left my office on Wall Street (literally, but not figuratively) to go to a meeting at a large bank (that still exists!), across the street from the Waldorf Astoria, where many of the international big-wigs stay. There were many many cops and protesters and a lot of craziness. Oy.

Rate change would be from 6.5% to 6%, and part of my trouble is I don't really have a good sense of where those numbers fall on the spectrum of typical rates. Do people get rates much lower than that?

If you have enough years paid, you could go to a 15 year fixed. You might be able to get an even better rate that way as well.

Dave Ramsey specifically mentioned this week that rates are dropping right now.* He only ever recommmends 15-year fixed and I'm pretty sure it was in the low 5s. It definitely wasn't close to 6%.

It seems like it will pass, I'm just hoping there is sufficient oversight.

Just listening to CNN, this bill (in its current incarnation) is dead in the water.

ETA: *for people that are financially stable and ready to buy houses.

across the street from the Waldorf Astoria

Ooh. Can anybody, like, go in there and ask for a Waldorf salad?

Ooh. Can anybody, like, go in there and ask for a Waldorf salad?

Sure. It has about five restaurants. Most of them probably serve it.