Congress has apparantly made a deal to bail out Wall Street. Warren Buffett thinks they had no choice.
Billionaire Warren Buffett told congressional negotiators that if they can’t agree on a proposed financial bailout, the nation will face “its biggest financial meltdown in American history,” two sources familiar with the talks said.
Word of Buffett’s omen came hours before Democrats posted a draft of the bailout bill online and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday afternoon she hoped the chamber would vote Monday.
Buffett, whom Forbes magazine has placed at No. 2 on its 2008 list of richest Americans, was one of several business experts whose opinions were sought, Sen. Kent Conrad, D-North Dakota, told reporters Saturday.
Buffett is chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. His wealth is estimated at $50 billion. Buffett was consulted by telephone, Conrad said.
The whole thing stinks, but they really didn’t have much of a choice.
Update: The House has rejected the bailout deal. It seems some are happy to play chicken with our financial system.
Both candidates did well tonight. McCain’s campaign was imploding, and he needed to get back in the game tonight. He accomplished that, despite a slow start. Obama needed to demonstrate a working knowledge of foreign policy, and he accomplished that.
I think Obama did a little better. Both had good points on Iraq, and each was able to make their respective arguments. Given that McCain has the edge on experience and foreign policy, this is a win for Obama. Along those lines, here’s the best moment of the debate for Obama.
McCain did a good job of emphasizing his experience and knowledge of the issues, and he repeated over and over his argument that Obama did not understand the issues. That said, Obama was able to deflect those by being able to speak intelligently about the issues.
We’ll see how this plays out. McCain did not hide his utter contempt for Obama. McCain always hates his opponents, and he was barely able to even look at Obama. The grouchy candidate rarely wins, so this might hurt him. Obama, on the other hand, was confident and tough without being arrogant or antagonistic.
This past Sunday, George Will ridiculed John McCain on This Week for McCain’s foolish claim that he would fire the head of the SEC. He called McCain’s actions “unpresidential.”
Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama.
Channeling his inner Queen of Hearts, John McCain furiously, and apparently without even looking around at facts, said Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, should be decapitated. This childish reflex provoked The Wall Street Journal to editorialize that “McCain untethered” — disconnected from knowledge and principle — had made a “false and deeply unfair” attack on Cox that was “unpresidential” and demonstrated that McCain “doesn’t understand what’s happening on Wall Street any better than Barack Obama does.”
George Will is a respected conservative, but he has never been a fan of John McCain. He has been especially critical of McCain for campaign finance reform, and he hasn’t been shy in the past about questioning McCain’s temperment. Nevertheless, he seemed willing to give McCain the benefit of the doubt – until now.
Conservatives who insist that electing McCain is crucial usually start, and increasingly end, by saying he would make excellent judicial selections. But the more one sees of his impulsive, intensely personal reactions to people and events, the less confidence one has that he would select judges by calm reflection and clear principles, having neither patience nor aptitude for either.
It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?
Will is arguing that John McCain is unfit to be president of the United States. Throw in Sarah Palin and you have the scariest ticket in American history, following perhaps the worst president of our lifetimes.
