Wednesday's musing

The Dow was up yesterday almost 890 points or 10.9% of its value...The Federal Reserve is expected to cut a key interest rate by another 1/2 point today...President Bush yesterday "ordered" banks to free up some of the bailout money for lenders. There's a fear that banks that received a sizeable portion of money as part of the "rescue" earlier this month are not loaning it, but rather, sitting on it...The nine largest banks in the US have received $125 billion of bailout money. In other words, the US government now owns shares in the nine largest banks. They key question here is, "when will the government sell its shares and divest itself"?...Senator McCain, even though he voted for the bailout, is now railing against it. Unfortunately for McCain, he had his chance to take a stand against the bailout but decided to vote with Senator Obama...The "spread the wealth" comment Senator Obama made to "Joe the Plumber" in Ohio earlier this month appears to be resonating in key battleground states...Many of Obama's internal polls show the race much closer than some of the traditional polls that have Obama ahead anywhere from 4-10 points...IBD "Investors Business Daily" has the race tied...From Ben Smith at http://www.politico.com/ "John McCain's campaign is demanding that the Los Angeles Times release a video of a party for a prominent Palestinian activist that Barack Obama attended in 2003. The Times described the going-away party for former University of Chicago professor, and Obama friend, Rashid Khalidi, in a story in April. The story reported that Palestinians thought they might have a friend in Obama because of his friendships in that community, despite the fact that his positions have never been particularly pro-Palestinian"...Answer: $250K, $200K, or $150K? Question: "At what income level will Senator Barack Obama raise you taxes? Obama's plan calls for 95% of Amercians to receive a tax break. Moreover, if you make less than $250K, you won't see an increase in your taxes. Last week that number dropped to $200K. Now Joe Biden says that anyone making less than $150K won't get a tax increase. Senaotrs, which figure is correct?...President Sarkozy of France called Obama's and the Democrats' position on Iran as "immature"...According to a Roll Call poll, Democrat Congressman Jim Marshall leads his Republican challenger, Rick Goddard, 49%-45%. It's a close race and certainly within the margin of error. Marshall outpolls Goddard among African-Americans 9-1, but Goddard is ahead 2-1 among white voters. Of course, the election will turn on how heavy turnout is in Houston County. Read more about this story at http://www.macon.com/. If Obama wins the White House and allows the Bush tax cuts to expire, which they will in 2010, the average household will pay an additional $2500.00 in taxes to the federal government. This begs the question: Will the Obama "tax cuts" offset the tax increase?

There are only 6 days until the presidential election. There are 82 days left in the Bush presidency. And, it's been 7 years, 1 month, and 18 days since there's been a terrorist attack on US soil. Good day and God bless!