Brother Bush, Can You Spare A Dime?

As Bush's $700 billion bail-out bombed and stock markets took a dive, Democrats and Republicans were quick to point the finger of blame at each other. 

With an election round the corner, few want to get too close to Bush and his years of letting the Wall Street fat cats get away with it. And no-one wants to hand Bush and his treasury secretary a blank cheque.

Both Republicans and Democrats have been inundated with outraged voters telling them bluntly, they don't want the cash going straight into the pockets of Wall Street.

Bush's bail-out strikes deep at the heart of the elections, with both sides making political capital out of Capitol Hill.

It must be hard for the Republicans to change the habit of a lifetime. But voters know Bush lied over Iraq, so why should they trust him over this.

And this is America - the Land of the Free - Enterprise. If you can make a fast buck you are a hero. If you screw up, brother Bush, then no one will spare you a dime.

Democrats can sit pretty. It's not their fault. They're in opposition and knocking the administration is their job. The stock market may crumble, Wall Street may tumble but as long as Main Street doesn't squeal too much, they're happy to let Bush sweat.

Ever since US treasury secretary, Hank Paulson, unveiled the bill, as a 'rescue package' it helped buoy financial markets. But it was quickly seen as a bail-out and that would go against the grain with an unprecedented government intervention in the private sector.

And all sorts of deals, buy-outs and fundings have been earmarked in the bill, to give political advantage. 

House Republicans blamed the bail-out failure on Democrat House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, accusing Pelosi of being too partisan and “poisoning” the Republicans in a pre-vote floor speech, where she blamed the economic crisis on years of Republican economic policies, saying: "It has created not jobs, not capital; it has created chaos."

As the House of Representatives sent the historic bill packing, the stock market went into a tailspin and added to fears that the US will nose-dive into recession, unless the legislation is revived.

But this is one show that could run and run until everyone has had their two cents worth.

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Yo, Blair! The Boys Are Back In Town

One is a powerful political force on the world stage, on a mission from God. The other is President of the United States. Bush and Blair meet today in London for breakfast, only this time there'll be no open mics to record the conversation. 

Officially Blair is meeting Bush as his Middle East envoy - but why in London and why now? 

Bush's farewell world tour is being seen as a 'lame duck president looking for a legacy'. But make no mistake Bush is still the leader of the most powerful nation on earth. 

Bush and the neocons may be on their way out but there's still months to go before he's consigned to the history books as the president who took the US to war in Iraq. And Blair is worried he too will suffer the same fate. 

After hiding away for months in his luxury Jerusalem hotel, Blair has been popping up all over the place. He popped up at Westminster the other week all empty smiles and popped up again to launch the Blair Blind Faith Foundation. 

Blair has already bought a huge house in central London and recently bought a country pile - a £4 million stately home in Buckinghamshire, just a few miles from Chequers, the prime ministerial country retreat. How convenient. 

Strange choices for someone who says he just wants to devote his life to God.

One thing we have learnt about Blair is not to trust him. He is all things to all people. That's how he and his cronies in the New Labour Project managed to fool most of the people, all of the time. Until we saw through him.

So far Blair has been richly rewarded by Bush for taking the UK into the illegal Iraq war and at the same time boosting the profits for the huge US global corporations. But the Big Prize still awaits  him.

Could it be the appointment of Blair as the new full-time permanent EU president, currently being bulldozed through by Brussels, with powers over defence and trade? That would be a US neocon's dream. Bush needs his man in Europe and Blair has never disappointed his powerful masters.

In his political novel, The Ghost, Robert Harris paints a similar picture for his Blair-esque prime minister, Adam Lang. Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction.

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Mission Impossible In The New Vietnam

More troops are to be sent to their deaths on a fool's errand in the Afghan killing fields. Obama is set for a Mission Impossible surge with poodle Brown behind him, pinning hopes on everything coming up roses in time for crucial elections.

Both Washington and London are spinning an 'end game' to dupe a war-weary public on both sides of the Atlantic in a blatant election ploy.

After months of dithering, a rerun of the disastrous Bush/Blair Iraq debacle is on the cards with an increasingly sceptical public left to pick up the pieces.

Der Spiegel put it well: Obama's rallying call to the nation felt like "a campaign speech combined with Bush rhetoric, leaving both dreamers and realists feeling distraught."

Here Brown doesn't blink without first running it past Washington. Singing from the same hymn sheet, the outline of a 'timetable' has been carefully set up to keep the folks sweet.

Obama's popularity is plummeting. Mid term elections are looming. A president who built up hopes closing Gitmo, only to dash them, plans to end the war by getting in deeper.

Public approval for Obama's war has taken a nose dive with noticeable opposition from within his own Democratic party.

It's Vietnam all over again. The Taliban are the new Reds. Johnson and Nixon have been replaced by Bush and Obama who like Nixon promised to 'end the war' by getting in deeper.

Ahead of Obama's 30,000 troop surge, his poodle Brown got in early with 500 more UK troops and a few lamentable excuses, throwing in everything including the kitchen sink.

In a desperate search for a reason, Brown too is embroiled in a bitter battle to win over hearts and minds and capture the hopeless argument in the run up to the general election.

Apparently the armed forces now have the equipment needed to send in more troops. That begs the questions: why were ill-equipped troops sent to their deaths in the past? Shouldn't the right kit and proper support be in place before a country decides to wage war in a far off land?

Bogeyman Bin Laden popped up again as public enemy number one, with Brown urging a new push to hunt him down. Er, wasn't that what they were supposed to be doing ever since 9/11?

Now Brown has repeated his old con that sending in more troops will help keep the streets here safe. Poppycock. The London underground bombers were British not Afghan and trained in Pakistan not Afghanistan.

To top it all, there's a wonderful pre-election photo-op in January with an Afghan London summit.

As Obama and Brown embark on a fool's errand with mission impossible, some fools may be fooled by the spin. The Orange Party isn't. A US pull out, timed to coincide with election campaigns, is a despicable way to use the lives of brave troops for petty party political ends.

The sheer pace of Obama's military deployment mimics Bush's 2007 troop surge in Iraq. But the war-mongering pair can send as many troops as they can, it won't make a jot of difference. This is is an exercise in futility and failure.

People feel duped by a hopeless unwinnable half-hearted war now at stalemate. Opinion polls in the UK resonate with those in the US.

But Brown's government has bound itself to Obama's war, fought with all the fervour of Bush neo-cons, right down to the surge. An accelerated timetable with a built-in endgame smacks of electioneering.

As with Iraq, MPs have been duped, this time with a promised hand over to Afghan control. Oblivious to tribal allegiances of corrupt Afghan security forces, more troops will be sent to their deaths. A high price to pay to prop up corrupt and discredited Karzai.

But stepped-up 'training' for Afghan forces will allow Brown and Obama to claim everything is hunky-dory, just in time for those elections back home.

NATO and other allies will have to contribute additional troops to a war that is deeply unpopular in Europe. Setting out a rough timeframe is a sure sign of mounting concerns on Capitol Hill. But how Obama intends to pay for his escalation is left in the air with the extra cost put at around $30 billion.

Supporting a corrupt Afghan government by adding more troops is a fool's errand. As in the UK, the US public is waking up to the fact that the Afghan Taliban is not a direct threat to the US or UK. The threat comes from Islamic fundamentalists trained in Pakistan. The public has no stomach for Brown and Obama's war.

Like Bush and Blair before them, the new warmongers are doomed to failure in a hopeless, unwinnable war. Once again the public is being taken for a ride with the olive branch of an 'end game'.

Stubbornly refusing to learn the lessons of Vietnam, the Blair/Bush legacy of Iraq and now Afghanistan will come back to haunt them. And like in Vietnam and Iraq, it is troops and civilians who will suffer and bear the brunt of a bloody taste for war.

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Brown Comforts Bush In Bail-Out Breakdown

Bad-boy Bush is taking time out from digging himself out of his economic hole, later today, to pose with Brown for the Downing Street family album. Meanwhile, wife Sarah has already got her picture taken with the sisterhood.

Brown's aides must have called in a few favours yesterday, as it became clear no-one wanted to meet up with him, so they tried to fix up a hastily arranged photocall at the White House.

Bush is having to wriggle hard as it becomes clear the US economic meltdown was the result of years of him letting the fat cats in Wall Street trouser billions of dollars with few checks or balances.

Brown isn't even bothering to wriggle - instead he cut a lonely figure as he wandered aimlessly around the UN, talking about mosquito nets and "Millennium Development Goals". 

The Democrat-controlled Congress won't let Bush get away with it that easily and are stalling for time over the $700 billion bail-out deal to buy up the bank's 'toxic' bad debts. 

Instead they are insisting tax-payers cash doesn't go straight back into the pockets of the Wall Street executives, proper checks are in place and the cash will also be used to help out the thousands of people caught up in the sub-prime housing misery.

But no-one has stopped to ask just where did the figure of $700 billion come from? Apparently it was plucked out of thin air, because it's a really big number.

Apart from comforting each other over the economic mess they've both created, today's meeting with Bush will have another agenda. Bush could tell Brown just when he can pull troops out of Iraq and just how many more troops he's got to send to Afghanistan. 

Meanwhile wife Sarah is having a ball, having her picture taken with Sarah Palin and Wendi Deng Murdoch (Sarah B is the one on the left). What do these three fine looking gals have in common? They all have links to the Tony Blair fan club. 

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Obama Backs Down On Iraq Troop Pledge

Obama loving liberal Americans have been sent in a tizz as the shine starts to fade on their Chosen One and his election pledge to withdraw troops from Iraq has turned out to be a damp squib. War-mongering Bush is being replaced by Obama and his shameful wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That leaves a bitter taste for those taken in by the hype. 

Over here, C4 News, the BBC and Guardian must be having kittens trying to justify the watered down turnaround. No doubt they'll swallow the line from the White House spin.

Obama has announced the withdrawal of some US troops in Iraq by August 2010, leaving a massive army of around 50,000 Marines and soldiers out of the 142,000 troops at present occupying the country and calling the shots. 

The occupation army will stay in Iraq after that date to "advise Iraqi forces and protect American interests." They will remain until December 31, 2011, the date on which the Bush administration had already agreed to withdraw all troops under a pact with Iraq.

And that sits very uneasy with Obama's election promise that he would completely pull out troops within 16 months of taking the job.

Democrats are not happy that the troop withdrawal is being watered down. Even speaker Nancy Pelosi said 50,000 troops seemed too many for a residual force and needed to be justified.

Yet in the crazy world of Obama hype and doublespeak, the Republicans are lovin' it and McCain is Obama's new best friend. 

Here our own foreign secretary, David Miliband, who has been visiting Iraq, said he found a "real yearning... for Iraqis to run their own affairs, to make their own mistakes but also to make their own progress". 

For once the Orange Party completely agrees with this overgrown schoolboy.

Iraq is being kept under the thumb by a multi billion pound private army of security 'consultants' and massive US bribes to militia groups to switch sides in return for the Yankee dollar. 

50,000 is a hell of a lot of US troops to be fighting an illegal war in a country desperately wanting to make a start on its own destiny, regardless of the fractious in-fighting that's bound to happen as Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds align, realign and square up to each other. 

Earlier this month, Obama ordered  up to 17,000 extra US troops to Afghanistan to support a new surge in that bloody, hopeless and unwinnable war. That's all starting to sound suspiciously like the despised foreign policies of the Bush years. 

Obama has now taken ownership of these wars. Afghanistan is his new Vietnam.

Here the government never had the guts to stand up to Bush and Blair will be forever branded as his poodle. 

As the timetable in Iraq and Afghanistan continues to be dictated by the White House, it's looking increasingly likely Brown will just become the poodle in Obama's wars. But just because Obama thinks it's right, doesn't make it right.

The dreadful lessons and legacies of that Bush and Blair partnership are set to repeat themselves, unless Brown can stop himself firmly embroiling this country in shameful US foreign policy.

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Bush and Brown, The Mutual Admiration Society

It was the mutual admiration society today, as Bush and Brown fawned over each other. If any two men ever needed each other and deserved each other, it is these two. Both are facing disasters in public opinion polls and both are frantically searching for their legacies. 

So what do you do if your policies are a mess at home and public opinion of you is at its worst since records began? Bring on the troops and tap into national pride where you think you are on politically safe ground.

Thatcher's flagging political career was saved by the Falklands and Brown wants to try and pull it off with Afghanistan. But Thatcher knew she had public opinion on her side.

Brown has to do something to appease his new pal Bush. It's clear the UK has a timetable for pulling the troops out of Iraq, possibly with an announcement before September's Labour Party conference. He'll want it also before the next General Election so that may be sooner than we think. And the US is losing its taste for Bush and war.

Brown has to do something to show he is still right behind the US. After all, there are all those warships, troops and aircraft and huge military contracts with the US. So send more troops to Afghanistan and try to regain the political agenda. 

The war in Afghanistan was a lost cause before it started. Afghans have been fighting foreigners and each other for centuries. From the British in Victorian times, then the Soviets and now the US and the UK again. And what are we really doing there? Waging war on the invisible Taliban and at the same time protecting the poppy fields which produce most of the UK's heroin.

With some weird logic, Brown is reported as saying: "We have resolved that it is in the British national interest to confront the Taleban in Afghanistan or Afghanistan would come to us."

'We' have resolved have we? He's even using the Thatcher 'Royal We'. And the Afghans? What, come all the way from Afghanistan to the UK? Doesn't he know it's a land-locked country and they haven't got a navy or an airforce! So how do they get here? On foot? We'd see them coming a mile off. It's '45 minutes to destruction' all over again.

The number of UK soldiers killed in Afghanistan since 2001 reached 102 last week.

Playing politics with people's civil liberties is one thing - playing politics with people's lives in this country and abroad is shameful.

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Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?

Bush is in London looking for his legacy on his farewell world tour. This time Brown won't dither. He will meet him, be photographed with him, touch him, sign him. Maybe they'll swap tips on what to say during both their farewell tours? 

Bush and Brown have a lot in common, with Brown even more pro-US than Blair, who will be there too to meet his old pal. 

Bush and Blair were set on destroying world peace. Brown is set on destroying this country. Bush and Blair  now seem to be in denial about the Iraq War. Brown just seems to be in denial. 

Brown is self-destructing. After bottling a General Election, dithering over Northern Rock, the 10p tax fiasco and the 42 day detention debacle, he's on a collision course with fate. 

New Labour and its ten year project is self-destructing, bringing the traditions, values, culture and civil liberties of this country down with it.

Meanwhile, as the anti-war protesters gather in London, kept at bay by the 'political police', the illustrious leaders eye up the dinner menu.

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Joe The Plumber Wins Final US Debate

Joe the Plumber won last night's crucial TV debate, as McCain and Obama got up close and personal and McCain tried to remind voters, yet again, that he wasn't George Bush. 

McCain kicked off the final debate, accusing Obama of waging a class war with tax increases that would "spread the wealth around" and led to a constant battle about what's best for Joe the Plumber, that shaped the debate and could decide the result of the election. 

McCain at times looked angry and got under Obama's skin. Obama tried to keep his customary cool, calmly sipping his water but the unflappable mask and charming smile slipped on a number of occasions. 

It was McCain, not Obama, who needed to win last night's debate and launch a political comeback. 

McCain finally had some fire in his belly as he brought up Obama's relationship with former Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers. 

He demanded to know the full extent of Obama's relationship with Ayers, a violent 1960s terrorist and the Democrat's ties with ACORN, a liberal group accused of violating federal law over registering voters. But he allowed Obama to parry the Ayres attack without driving his point home.

McCain then accused Obama of not levelling with the public over his decision to forgo public financing for his campaign in favour of raising his own funds.

"He signed a piece of paper earlier in the campaign pledging to accept federal financing", McCain said, adding that Obama's campaign has spent more money than any since Watergate. Obama let that one go.

Negative TV ads and accusations are all part of the cut and thrust of any US presidential campaign and the jury's out on whether they sway the undeciders or just harden the views of hard-line Obamakins and McCanines.

The economy dominated the headlines before the debate even started and dominated the debate. The election will be decided on who best to trust with that withering economy. 

Struggling to escape being tarred with the same brush as Bush, McCain ran with the line and sound-bite: "Sen. Obama, I am not President Bush. ... You wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago."

With parallels to the Nixon-Kennedy TV debate in 1960, if you didn't listen to the words, Obama, on the whole, just looked much better than McCain and he came across again as a better debater. 

Obama leads in the national polls and surveys in many battleground states, since the economic crisis gripped the nation.

McCain has a steep hill to climb. But he needs now to stop freaking people out about their jobs. Harping on about Joe the Plumber's small business problems won't help in the final days. McCain needs a game change. Obama, just to keep his cool and a level head.

Obama holds a 7.3% lead in the Real Clear Politics polls average but the latest Gallup tracking poll reveals there are nearly twice as many undecided voters this year than there were in the last presidential election. 

The financial crisis has taken an enormous toll on the McCain campaign over the past month but Obama hasn't closed the deal yet. 

In the campaign's final days, it will be that vast swathe of millions of undecided voters, not the already committed, who will take a last serious look at both presidential candidates and finally make up their minds. 

The outcome of this race isn't cast in stone yet, as much of the media desperately hopes and would have us believe.

And what did Joe 'the plumber' Wurzelbacher make of it all?

He said Obama's reaction on the tax question left him feeling uneasy. "I didn't think much of it the first time I heard it," Wurzelbacher said, adding that he still thinks Obama's plan would keep him from buying the business. About McCain: "He's got it right as far as I go."

And which candidate would get Joe's vote on November 4? "That's for me and a button to know," he said.

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Markets Braced For A Manic Monday

Markets are bracing themselves for manic Monday, as Brown plans another big bank bail-out. Black Monday, Black Friday, Black Wednesday. Soon there will be not enough days of the week left to feel black about. 

Bush and then Brown handed over billions of taxpayers cash to prop up the banks, which sailed off into Galbraith's "wild blue yonder" without any risk or accountability, leaving the markets wide-open for another Minsky moment.

The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned the world financial system is on the "brink of systemic meltdown". What is clear is that Brown's £500 billion bank bail-out package was doomed from the start. Just throwing more taxpayers cash at the problem without full accountability and proper safeguards won't help.

Brown's plan cannot work in its current form, because he is trying to find a solution within a flawed economic model of his own making, strung along by a bunch of sharp Ponzi operators. A point made here earlier in the week.

The cut in interest rates did nothing for the inter bank lending rate which went up. But then it would. Banks got the guarantees of cash. So after screwing gullible investors with Ponzi schemes, they'll screw each other for every penny. 

Traders and investors were put on this earth for money-making in the good times and damage limitation in the bad. Politicians, to bank-roll the banks and utter a few words of comfort for confidence. 

It is confidence which lies at the heart of the matter. Bush's bail-out couldn't work and didn't. There was no Plan B. But what did Brown do? The same, only bigger. Confidence? Throwing billions to the sharks in the banking system smacks of desperation. 

Bush is on his way out. Brown, when the dust settles, not too far behind. Together they've been responsible for creating the 'illusion of wealth' on the back of a decade of debt, living in cloud cuckoo land. If there was an economic war crimes tribunal they'd be brought to book. 

Some politicians and economists are coming round to nationalisation of the banks as the only possible solution. 

Labour grandee, Tony Benn, has used the issue of accountability as the main reason for public ownership along with the disturbing fact that power has been transferred from parliament to the City. 

LSE economics professor and former Monetary Policy Committee member, Willem Buiter, has made a similar case for nationalisation but as a temporary measure to restore confidence.

G7 finance ministers have paved the way for part-nationalisation. Now Brown is planning more bank bail-outs before markets open, with HBOS and RBS likely suspects, hiding behind the spin of "recapitalisation" with few checks and little accountability for taxpayers.

As screens turned red around the world on Friday, the money men took one look at the money markets and each other and decided to sell. Lock, stock and barrel. 

The selling frenzy turned into a stampede, as everyone realised their 'assets' were not worth the paper they were written on. They got out while they could, with what they could.

Cash from the sales has been hoarded away for the next rainy day. That Minsky moment, predicted for so long, the mad rush for the exit, had finally arrived. 

There will have been a lot of hard-nosed thinking by hard-boiled money men over the weekend. If stock markets do ever stabalise, then it will be only because they've milked the system dry. 

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A Bad Case Of Economic Fatigue

There's nothing like a world economic crisis to get the heart a-throbbin' and the brain a-tickin' and this was nothing like the economic meltdown we were led to believe as today everything is looking hunky dory, according to the BBC.

It was scary but it's all over. You can come out from behind the sofa. What do you mean it wasn't real? You should have read the warning. This was fantasy violence with some strong language and no sex. Everyone had a headache and now a bad case of economic fatigue. 

Traders were shouting frantically on the floor and those computer screens turned red. But that's what market traders do - shout and make big bucks for their clients. And red, why red, danger? If you had a wad of cash you'd be looking out for the gorgeous red bits to buy up and make a killing. 

But Bush and Brown said this was really important. Important for them maybe. Still, two losers on their way out,  making a mountain out of a mole hill, is better than starting a war to boost the poll ratings. 

What started out as a 'rescue package' soon turned into a 'bail-out', despite the best efforts of the Bush administration and Brown's BBC to keep everyone on message.

'Rescue package' just doesn't have the same cute ring about it. A bail-out, handing a fat blank cheque to Paulson, does and it's more accurate. 

Democrats and Republicans were spitting blood - well, spitting at each other. With an election around the corner and some of their seats up for grabs soon, who can blame them for making some capital out of it on Capitol Hill. 

And it couldn't have been all that bad - they all skipped off on holiday yesterday.

Elton John would be proud. Stock markets crumbled but Wall Street didn't tumble - they're only made of clay. But the love-in between the government and the City is here to stay. 

Journalists had a field day. Was this the worst time since Black Wednesday, the Great Depression or the South Sea Bubble? And how do you spell Armageddon?

A chance to make up some good headlines though. Though nothing can beat "Bush's Bummer Bail-out Bill Bombs" - that's because it won't happen again.

Did we get the Great Depression? The only people depressed were the public having to listen to all the crap night after night. Still, we got a wartime spirit going with Cameron's call for a coalition government. 

And the political big wigs were summoned to Downing Street for a summit. Only they forgot to invite Vince and he was left out in the rain and made it late. That's a shame. He's the only one worth listening to and the only economist. 

And the media? TV personality anchors were summoned to Brown's bunker - how could they refuse in a time of global warming - to suffer the Great Man droning on and on. Then they had to spoil it all and broadcast it on TV news. 

Still it did give everyone a chance to catch up with some bedtime reading. JK Galbraith - now there's a smart guy, a bit of a liberal economist but worth reading.

Let's face it, no-one on Main Street or the High Street gives a bugger. Soaring prices, rampant inflation, debt coming out of your ears, looming unemployment - now you're talking. 

But a bunch of fat cats who are just getting their comeuppance after years of living on the back of other people's misery and a couple of so-called 'world leaders' who just sat back and let it all happen, now that's something to make your blood boil. 

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