Late last night, after markets closed for the weekend, following an extended discussion the European finance ministers announced their “bailout” solution for Russian oligarch depositor-haven Cyprus: a €13 billion bailout (Europe’s fifth) with a huge twist: the implementation of what has been the biggest taboo in European bailouts to date – the impairment of depositors, and a fresh, full blown escalation in the status quo’s war against savers everywhere.
This is not going to end well.
[Update late Saturday evening]
Glenn Reynolds has a lot of updates. Monday may be bloody. And Monday starts late Sunday evening on the Left Coast…
For those among you so benighted as to not receive the weekly Goldberg File via email, here’s why you should:
Anyway, I spent a week getting crap from all of these allegedly purer-than-moi conservatives about how we could not possibly risk letting Chris Christie or GOProud sully the peripatetic temple of conservatism known as CPAC. And then they invited Donald Trump to be one of the keynoters, with more time than nearly any other speaker. And that did it for me. CPAC is free to invite whoever it wants, of course. But spare me the CPAC-is-for-true-conservatives bunk. I consider Trump a ticky-tacky ass-clown of metaphysical proportions. He’s a huckster and a buffoon who thinks he’s a genius because the rubes fall for his act and his reality show gets good ratings with C-list has-beens who wouldn’t make the cut for a remake of The Love Boat. His conservatism conservatism — to the extent it exists at all — is all by the seat of his pants, which makes sense given that is the article of clothing nearest his brain.
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I’m always amused by people who are absolutely convinced that Rush Limbaugh is a racist hatemonger, despite the fact that they have never actually listened to him.
According to the Washington Post-ABC News poll, half of independents express a negative opinion of the president’s performance; just 44 percent approve. A majority of Americans give Obama negative marks on handling the economy. And the president has only a four-percentage-point lead over Republicans when it comes to whom the public trusts more to deal with the economy.
This is clearly not where a president who is less than two months into his second term wants to be. But in some respects, it’s not all that surprising. Mr. Obama, while he won his contest with Governor Romney fairly handily, was not a particularly popular president for most of his first term–and the key elements of his agenda are decidedly unpopular.
He didn’t win in November because people voted for him — he managed to scare them into voting against Romney, or not bothering to vote.
for pre-order. I’ll be getting a cover thumbnail up soon, and I’m working with them to straighten out the reviews.