Who should go to jail? Fill in the Blank(fein).

(Reuters) – Goldman Sachs Group Inc was charged with fraud by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over its marketing of a subprime mortgage product, igniting a battle between Wall Street’s most powerful bank and the nation’s top securities regulator.

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Banking to the Right

From the Los Angeles Times:

The financial services industry is in trouble over its role in crashing the world economy, but that doesn’t mean its lobbyists have lost all their muscle on Capitol Hill.

Exhibit A: The Senate delivered a stinging rebuff to President Obama and consumer advocates Thursday by rejecting a measure to help homeowners facing foreclosure.

The vote was 51 to 45, with 12 Democrats joining Republicans in opposing the proposal, under which bankruptcy judges could order lenders to reduce the principal on home mortgages.

The proposal, which sailed through the House in March, was a key part of Obama’s plan to reduce the tide of home foreclosures.

Damn! Even Evan Bayh voted yes! Not so these twelve, who…

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We don’t know where the buck stops, but that’s okay, because there are no bucks left!

From Paul Krugman at The New York Times:

Everyone’s talking about a new New Deal, for obvious reasons. In 2008, as in 1932, a long era of Republican political dominance came to an end in the face of an economic and financial crisis that, in voters’ minds, both discredited the G.O.P.’s free-market ideology and undermined its claims of competence. And for those on the progressive side of the political spectrum, these are hopeful times.

There is, however, another and more disturbing parallel between 2008 and 1932 — namely, the emergence of a power vacuum at the height of the crisis. The interregnum of 1932-1933, the long stretch between the election and the actual transfer of power, was disastrous for the U.S. economy, at least in part because the outgoing administration had no credibility, the incoming administration had no authority and the ideological chasm between the two sides was too great to allow concerted action. And the same thing is happening now.

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Captain Underpants’s Campaign Goes Down the Drain

WASHINGTON (Fortune) — John McCain has tried to paint his Democratic opponent as a big-spending, big-taxing liberal.

…snip…

How do you condemn Obama as a Big-Government Liberal when your fellow Republicans in the White House are busily nationalizing portions of the country’s biggest banks, bailing out the world’s largest insurer, taking over semi-private mortgage securities firms – and, along the way, putting several hundred billion dollars in taxpayer money at risk? When your own plan, borrowed from Hillary Clinton, commands the Treasury Department to spend $300 billion to buy up home mortgages from people who can’t make their payments?

So in Wednesday’s debate, McCain shifted tactics to accuse Obama of being one of those liberals eager to take your hard-earned wealth and redistribute it to those less hard working or less fortunate. And that’s when we got to meet Joe the Plumber, whose name came up 26 times in the course of 90 minutes.

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“Finally, we come to my number two man. His name? Number Two.”

From USA Today:

He’s now the $700 billion man.

On Tuesday Neel Kashkari, 35, an assistant secretary of the Treasury, was named interim head of the Office of Financial Stability by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. The office will run the $700 billion financial bailout program signed into law Friday.

The former Goldman Sachs vice president came to Washington in 2006 to be a senior adviser to Paulson, the Goldman CEO who had been named Treasury secretary.

For some reason, kids, the appointment of Neel Kashkari makes me very uneasy. I can’t put my finger on quite why. Is it that his name looks like Cash & Carry? No, that’s not it. OMG!! I remember now!! It’s that company picture that they took together before Paulson left to be Treasury Secretary!!

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Risky Business

From NewsHounds:

You know Neil Cavuto right? He’s the head of “business news” at the Fox “News” Channel and at the Fox” Business” Network.

Here’s what he had to say about the financial crisis when discussing it with Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA):

Did you warn or express concern about any things that happened? I’m not saying that one or the other is beyond blame, I’m just saying I don’t remember a clarion call that said Fannie and Freddie are a disaster. Loaning to minorities and risky folks is a disaster? Maybe if you said it, enlighten me.

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Maybe he’ll win one of those giant Publishers Clearinghouse checks

It seems like the foreclosure nightmare has trickled up to the rich and famous! Never one to not exploit someone else’s misfortune, the cadaverous Larry King interviewed Ed McMahon and his golddigger wife Pamela in the wake of the imminent foreclosure on their mansion.

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But…but…but all of Chimpy’s buddies are getting rich!

From the Los Angeles Times:

WASHINGTON — As President Bush spoke about the state of the nation’s economy recently in the century-old Grand theater in New Albany, Ind., his words were as cheery as the vaudeville acts that once played there.

But the storyline beyond the stage is closer to film noir.

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