Matt Millen insisted he would stick with the tough job of turning the Detroit Lions into a winner instead of returning to the broadcast booth to make easy money. So the Lions got rid of him. Finally.

I posted about this over two years ago, they should have canned Matt Millen. Someone finally paid attention.

Lions fire president Millen after 31-84 record - Yahoo! News

No Americans say that the national economy is getting better, 13% say it is staying the same, and 82% say the national economy is getting worse.

That's zero. Talk about a consensus.

The National Economy

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?

Let me repeat, that's George Will saying that! Is Obama ready? He's not sure. Is McCain unsuited? That's a much more serious question.

George F. Will - McCain Loses His Head - washingtonpost.com

Up to 10,000 staff at the New York office of the bankrupt investment bank Lehman Brothers will share a bonus pool set aside for them that is worth $2.5bn (£1.4bn), Barclays Bank, which is buying the business, confirmed last night.

Excuse me?! You're a bank that just FAILED and, dodging your bankruptcy responsibilities, you've managed to set aside $2.5 BILLION for BONUSES to the people who presided over your FAILURE?

If anyone wants to know why Main Street is pissed off at Wall Street, look no further than this. This is Wall Street saying, "Fuck you!" in giant letters, to Main Street. Main Street is not amused.

Fury at $2.5bn bonus for Lehman's New York staff - Business News, Business - The Independent

"I miss Michael every single day, but at least he can finally rest now," said Sheila Haige, who watched as insurance rates ate away at her husband over time. "What Michael went through, the humiliating forms, the invasive background checks, the complete loss of dignity and hope—I wouldn't wish that kind of torture on anyone."

I'm not sure if this is satire or reportage. It's just that close.

Man Succumbs To 7-Year Battle With Health Insurance | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

The story of Franci Havemeister, for instance, turned out to be much more instructive than what appeared in the paper. Not only did she love cows as a child, she married into a farming family that depended on a state-owned dairy for its livelihood — a dairy that was one of the responsibilities of her new office. Before her appointment, the board that oversaw the money-losing dairy recommended closing it. Palin fired the board and appointed a new one, including Havemeister, a childhood friend. Havemeister then applied to be agriculture director. Shortly after she took office, the dairy’s losses accelerated — $300,000 in July of last year alone — and it was finally closed.

Worth the read. Sunday the 14th's front page piece on Palin came off to many as a hit job. The full story was actually far worse.

The Public Editor - Make It Airtight - NYTimes.com

Fannie and Freddie gravitated to the securities as yields on agency mortgage bonds often fell below the cost of selling their debt. In 2006, AAA rated securities backed by subprime or second mortgages averaged 0.57 percentage points more than U.S. Treasuries, according to Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. index data. That compares with 0.48 percentage points for fixed-rate agency mortgage securities.

Understanding this one takes a little understanding leap. Fannie and Freddie buy mortgages. What we didn't know was they were also buying mortgage backed securities or in this case, bonds backed by the same mortgages they'd already bought! There ain't no fixin' this one. They bought the same bad mortgages. TWICE!

Fannie, Freddie Subprime Spree May Add to Bailout

The Federal Reserve said Sunday it had granted a request by the country's last two major investment banks — Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley — to change their status to bank holding companies.

The Fed announced that it had approved the request of the two investment banks. The change in status will allow them to create commercial banks that will be able to take deposits, bolstering the resources of both institutions.

This is the death knell for the markets. What Morgan and Goldman will do in the morning is call their holders who have substantial holdings in their accounts and say to them, "We expect the current downturn to continue, and recommend that you place $100K into a commercial account with us now that we have this nice commercial bank attached. That amount will be FDIC insured, 100% protected, and we'll even give you a nice interest rate on the deposit." Their customers, scared out of their gourds by last week, will do so and the move will make the downward prediction self fulfilling.

This is a sound individual move for Morgan and Goldman, it shores up their liquidity problem, their cash holdings increase, but a disastrous move for the markets at large as the money flows out of the markets and is not reinvested in something else in the markets. It is an outflow with no corresponding inflow. It's a trigger event for 1-800-RUN.

Stack on top of it the current refusal (and wisely so) to hand a blank check to the White House on how to resolve the market crisis, and you have a recipe for catastrophe. It should not be as enormous a wreck as handing over the black check, but buckle up.

Last major investment banks change status - Yahoo! News

Here’s what McCain has to say about the wonders of market-based health reform:

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

Does anything more really need to be said? Sure! How about, "Are you kidding me?" Turn health care into financial fiasco part 2 ? Way to go McBrain...

McCain on banking and health - Paul Krugman - Op-Ed Columnist - New York Times Blog

The McCain campaign has cited the proximity of Alaska to Russia as evidence of her international experience.

Hagel scoffed at that notion.

"I think they ought to be just honest about it and stop the nonsense about, 'I look out my window and I see Russia and so therefore I know something about Russia,'" he said. "That kind of thing is insulting to the American people."

Thank you Chuck Hagel