CB, this feeds right into the "out of touch with real people's problems" argument. There is so much wrong and uninformed in your statement I don't even know where to begin.

I'm still baffled... who has never heard of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac BEFORE this crisis? If overwhelmingly, people have never heard of such huge American mortgage organizations... that's sad. Just sad. :(

I know there are plenty of "responsible" people who would love a job that offers health insurance, but cannot nail one. If they aren't qualified for those jobs, I'm 99.9% certain they probably can't afford to fit "individual" health insurance into their budget.

Perhaps the health care "right" vs "responsibility" is another one of those issues we can all agree to disagree... Add to the list with abortion, gun control, same sex marriage and capitol punishment.

If Obama had said it, I would have said it was condescending. There's no reason not to use someone's name unless you're trying to make a point or a jab.

I don't agree with fixed pricing, I'm a big free market economics fan and just don't see a way to do it. You can either socialize it (ick) or put a cap on prices, but if you cap prices than you will just see a benefit cut because in a speculative industry like insurance you have to make enough money to be able to pay out a lot of policies at once if need be. It's further complicated by the fact that insurance companies are themselves insured and if you cap their pricing than you may keep them from being able to afford to be reinsured.

But I agree that we should see some changes in pay out structures, people are treated unfairly by their insurance companies.

I thought this format was a real disadvantage to McCain. Maybe he likes town halls when it's a Republican audience, but these weren't his peeps in the audience tonight. No one to laugh at his awkward "jokes" or ask the questions he's planted. I also thought he looked really OLD shuffling around the stage the way he did, and the more I listen to him, the older and shakier he sounds to me.

I watched after-debate coverage on CNN and MSNBC, and they made a few points over and over: the "that one" reference was disrespectful; that Obama looked/sounded like the future and McCain looked/sounded like the past; that McCain is out of touch with the generations younger than him that are watching the debate (all his nostalgia for Reagan); and that Obama seized the opportunity to talk to the debate attendees afterward whereas McCain took off.

BTW, MSNBC, CNN and CBS polls all are showing numbers overwhelmingly in Obama's favor tonight, not just in terms of who won the debate but also who is strongest on economy and who expresses their ideas more clearly.

here is the quote:

"But you know, one of the real catalysts, really the match that lit this fire was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I'll bet you, you may never even have heard of them before this crisis."

and from the way it appeared...he was addressing HIM when he said it....


again...it looked all kinds of wrong and condescending.


and can someone explain to me McCain wanting to plan another buy out?

'I would order the secretary of the treasury to immediately buy up the bad home loan mortgages in America and renegotiate at the new value of those homes -- at the diminished value of those homes and let people be able to make those -- be able to make those payments and stay in their homes.'


uhhh then what just happened last week?

McCain reminds me so much of my late grandfather. I kinda want him to tuck me in and read me a bedtime story. I really like him as a person and I have been disgusted by jokes about his arms (among other things) that were the result of the sacrifice he made in Vietnam.

It's a pick yourself up by your bootstraps attitude. I guarantee you that most people buy things that they could do without if they had to pick between that and health care. I agree, health care is important, important enough that you do what it takes to get insurance. Now I understand that there are going to be some emergency situations where people can't make ends meet on health insurance for a short time. If you have a medical crisis during that time then most private hospitals have a charity fund that is used to treat such emergency situations and there are lots of other charities that do the same. And for non-emergency medical care in those times of crisis, I know in my area there are a number of low-income and free clinics that are run by some of the big doctors offices in the area and staffed by either volunteers from amongst their employees or employees who are paid to do a certain number of hours a month at the clinic. You rely on the goodness of people, not the goodness of the government. That's the role for charity to play in my opinion.

And I do support the government facilitating the creation of risk pools so that small businesses can group together to improve their bargaining position with insurance companies and make it a better assumption of risk for the company by having a larger coverage pool to pay in. That alone would allow a lot of additional businesses to provide health care. I think more businesses should be providing health insurance because it's in their best interest to have a healthy workforce and where it's possible to help them provide insurance without undermining the market system we should do so.

If ever there was a system where by McCain's standards we would get $5000 to buy insurance you can guarantee 2 things

1. Not everyone will be eligible to get 5000 or even part of that money

2. It would be taxed....I don't think anyone want that money taxed on their healthcare...can you see trying to pay for meds you can barely afford and have to pay taxes on it too?

CrackerBarrel (love your rocking chairs, btw), what do you pay each month for health insurance?

I don't get why we attach health insurance in this country to employers. The two have nothing to do with each other.

Darn skippy. I get a tax benefit right now thru a flex spending account. You can bet that'd be gone under McCain's plan.

exactamundo...and anyone out there with an HSA account, especially if you have a lot of health issues....that money disappears too quickly.

CNN.com has the same numbers but in favor of Obama

Maybe it's just that I'm not looking to get offended, but I took it to mean that most people (particularly younger people who may not be home-owners yet, that looked like a college kid to me) didn't have a clue what the mortgage situation was or how the mortgage market was structured until it boiled over. That's how I interpreted it and I would guess what McCain meant, but if you want to be upset about it, be my guest.

And on the mortgage bailout, you're not catching the difference between mortgage-backed securities (what the government is about to start buying) and mortgages (what McCain proposed they buy).
A mortgage-backed security is essentially an investment device that pays dividends to holders (investors) using the interest income that the mortgages which back it bring in. It's a way for a mortgage holder to lower their risk in issuing or holding a mortgage because he can sell the right to some of the interest to a third-party. Because of that it was a popular way for issuers of sub-prime ARMs (which are at a high risk of default because of who they are being made to) to pass along some of their risk and make it relatively safer to issue sub-prime mortgages. Now that people aren't paying their mortgages and going into default, the security isn't receiving an interest payment, so they are losing money. Further, no one else wants to buy a junk security that isn't paying, so they can't sell them to anyone and have lost their entire investment. The government is buying these securities up to give money back to the investment houses which held them and take the "toxic debt" out of the market to let it die (or hopefully make some of the money back when the housing market turns around).
McCain's plan on the other hand is to buy the mortgages themself and let the government take the loss of converting the ARM's to fixed rate mortgages which should hopefully allow people to have lower payments which they could then afford to make. I assume the government would then sell the revised mortgages back onto the market. People paying their mortgage gives banks cash to lend out, so then banks can start making loans again and the credit market unfreezes.

I'm not an expert on hybrid-securities, but that's the way I understand it and hopefully it should help clear some things up.

I have to admit that watching McCain shuffle around the floor was painful to watch. He looked every bit his 72 years of age. Scary!

I think Obama won the debate hands down.