A reporter for the Florida Times-Union asked him about his refusal to honor a subpoena in the Imperial Sugar wrongful death lawsuit. Chambliss can be heard saying, "You can take it away now" as he pushes the camera away.

Very dignified behavior from a sitting US Senator, isn't it?

Chambliss, getting increasingly desperate to hold on to his Senate seat, has also resorted to gay-bashing fliers.

While Chambliss himself hasn’t attacked Martin directly on gay issues, the National Republican Senatorial Committee mailed a flier claiming Martin should “take his show on the road” on “Left Wing Air.”

“San Francisco would hold a parade in his honor,” the flier claims, next to a cartoon rainbow, noting that among other issues, Martin “opposes banning gay marriage.”

 Support the Martin campaign.

"President-Elect Barack Obama's transition team is exploring a swift, prepackaged bankruptcy for automakers as a possible solution to the industry's financial crisis, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Obama's team has already contacted at least one bankruptcy- law firm to say that Daniel Tarullo, a professor at Georgetown University's law school who heads Obama's economic policy working group, would call to discuss the workings of a so-called prepack, according to this person.

Since the election, Team Obama has become "trial balloon central" (if they were genuinely serious about firing the leaker, Rahm Emanuel would hit the Chief Of Staff revolving door post-haste).  They have been strategically using the media to test public opinion, but in this case I'd imagine they also did so with the intent to force the unions, bond holders and other stakeholders in the Big 3 into a more pliant negotiating position.

It was interesting to watch how quickly the chess pieces moved yesterday in the Senate.  As soon as the Senators from Big 3 states called a press conference to announce their bipartisan plan to repurpose the Energy Bill money as a bridge loan, Reid and Pelosi stepped on their press conference and said they were calling a special lame duck session to deal with the problem.  They usurped the cameras and demanded the delivery of a restructuring plan to Dodd and Frank's committees on December 2 -- something Obama had quietly called for in his 60 Minutes appearance only last Sunday.

If I was Waggoner, I'd be on a plane to China right now (probably coach).  The Chinese have announced their desire to buy the Big 3.  Why not?  It would allow all their debts to be paid off so their suppliers and other creditors won't go under in a domino effect, their stockholders won't get shafted (which should make Wall Street happy), and they could easily make both interest payments to bondholders and  the $35 billion payment to the VEBA fund that will take UAW pension and health care legacy costs off their books.

However, there are some long-term implications that could make this less than appealing for the US.  As Ian Welsh has pointed out, there's a reason the Chinese are so keen to buy a US automaker:

The moment when China becomes a consumer driven society is the moment when the US loses its leadership of the world, and when if it's economy isn't in good shape, it crashes out.

[]

Why?  Because the US needs massive inflows of money from nations like China and Japan in order to finance both the government and private consumption.  China and Japan, and other countries, for that matter, have amassed holdings of US securities, cash and so on, in the many trillions, as a result.  They have been willing to buy assets that they know they will probably not see a full real return on because the US buys their exports, and in China's case, is busily shipping American jobs to China, thus industrializing China.

The world needs the US because the US is the "consumer of last resort".  It buys everyone else's stuff, issues a pile of securities and dollars in exchange, and exports industrialization to China in exchange for deindustrialization and cheap consumer goods at home, which kept down inflation for a very long time.

[]

At the current time, China is not ready to have a consumer society.  As Stirling points out, it's about 2 economic cycles away from being able to switch to one.  If it gets to buy up a US car company, it's probably one cycle away.  Since the US is in a really really deep hole and currently digging deeper at a ferocious rate (the five trillion spent on the financial crisis will add to the US's outstanding debt) when this happens is a big deal.  Two economic cycles gives America longer to get its house in order and fix things so that when China does take off, it doesn't find itself unarmed with every major nation in the world able to annihilate its economy whenever they feel like and take only minor losses themselves.

I'm supportive of Obama's idea that there needs to be a plan going forward for Big 3 viability before they get a bridge loan, but "viability" may not mean "profitability." If we're serious about converting to a green economy, when gas prices are low people want to buy the gas guzzlers that Toyota and BMW and Mercedes are still making in Richard Shelby's right-to-work state.  You can't demand that the Big 3 be profitable and make fuel efficient cars that people don't want to buy, so you've either got to levy an unpopular gas tax or give people other incentives to make the cars attractive.  

The fact is that the Big 3 and the UAW  have already made a lot of the structural changes and compromises that they need to make going forward, and holding the threat of "organized bankruptcy" over their heads when a buyer is standing there waiting in the wings seems unrealistic.

If we're playing chicken here, let's let Richard Shelby and Jim Inhofe go back to their states and tell their constituents that Chevy is being sold to the Chinese (Inhofe visibly bristled at the very suggestion on CSPAN the other day).

That'll go over well.

Baker's plea joins those we've seen from Paul Krugman and Nouriel Roubini (video at right -- h/t Stoller) as well as 375 other economists signing a letter organized by the Center for Economic Policy Research. From Dean Baker:

We know how to keep the economy from collapsing. We didn't have this information 80 years ago. The secret is to spend money, lots of it.

CEPR just circulated a letter that garnered 375 economists' signatures arguing for a stimulus between $300 billion and $450 billion. This might be too small given all the bad news that we are seeing. We may need to spend $500 billion or $600 billion a year to get the economy back on its feet, possibly more. The key point is that we can get the economy back on its feet; we just have to spend the money to do it.

So where are Congress and the Administration? Despite the growing economist consensus on what needs to be done, today Congress was able only to pass a narrow bill extending unemployment benefits a few more weeks. The President says he'll sign the bill.

That's good, but this effort is trivial compared to what the country needs.

We've a severe recession rolling through and a possible depression staring us in the face; another 500,000 workers applied for unemployment comp last month while prices and markets are in free fall.

But Government is as frozen as the credit markets, primarily because an obstructionist Republican Party, already at its lowest disapproval level in decades, is still clinging to the delusion that they can resurrect themselves by restricting government spending while tanking the economy.

They can't be driven out of town fast enough.

What, you weren't invited to the bipartisan drum circle?

The least they could've done was keep him from parading his smug, sanctimonious face in front of the camera.

For those who would rather take action than fume, we're building a list now to hand over to Tim Tagaris and Matt Browner-Hamlin for 2012.

Oh and this?  Best post of the week.

Bloomberg had an article saying that Obama's team consulting on how to take the Big 3 into bankruptcy.  Obama's team is now denying it.  Barry Ritholz, who I usually agree with thinks that bankruptcy is the best option, but for once I have to disagree.  Folks won't buy cars from bankrupt companies, so even if you're ok with breaking the union, and see dumping other costs as a benefit, it's not a good way to deal with the problem. 

There's plenty of room for criticism of the way the Big 3 have been managed, but there's one particular grating bias that permeates most of the reporting that's being done:

All week long, Senators and Representatives from both parties have lamented the decades of bad management that have put the auto industry in its current predicament: investing in SUVs when the rest of the world, eyeing the future oil crunch, was betting on smaller, more fuel-efficient cars; spending millions lobbying Congress to avoid regulation that would force tougher environmental standards; and giving its union unsustainably generous deals on salary and benefits that hobbled its ability to compete with Japanese and European carmakers.

Consider for a moment that right-to-work states that make it impossible to unionize might have given an unfair advantage to foreign auto makers.    

The contempt for labor -- and for blue collar workers in general -- by people who would never work for the $14-16 an hour that a new union employee in the 2 tier system now makes in the latest UAW contract is oozing out of almost every story written.

There's an expectation that workers should be happy with MacDonald's wages, and that asking for more is -- well, just plain greedy.  

We allow corporations to organize as individuals and engage in completely amoral behavior.   The film "The Corporation" argues that "the DSM-IV’s Personality Diagnostic Checklist would diagnose a corporation as a sociopath, lacking as it is in honesty, regard for others and remorse."

But we won't allow workers to organize themselves and speak with one voice, because that would be -- well, anti-corporate or something.

How about we pass Employee Free Choice and make it easier for unions to go into right-to-work states and organize Toyota and Honda?  How about leveling the playing field by letting workers' argue for a middle-class wage, rather than telling them they need to be the ones to sacrifice while their bosses fly around on private jets?

The New York Times argued the other day that workers in the non-union factories like Toyota make almost as much as their Detroit counterparts, therefore unions aren't necessary. Do they really believe that Toyota would be paying their workers that much if they didn't have to compete with union wage rates?

The level of class bias and lack of understanding among people who haven't taken the time to comprehend what the loss of three million jobs would do to our economy is gobsmacking.

Lots of people are posting this YouTube, but no one, as far as I've seen, has contextualized it.

This seemingly organized snub took place, after all, at the end of the attempt on the part of the G20 to find some global solutions to our present economic crisis. The snub occurred after Bush welcomed his guests with a radio address pre-empting some of the demands those guests were making.

This is a decisive moment for the global economy. In the wake of the financial crisis voices from the left and right are equating the free enterprise system with greed, exploitation, and failure. It is true that this crisis included failures by lenders and borrowers, by financial firms, by governments and independent regulators. But the crisis was not a failure of the free market system. And the answer is not to try to reinvent that system. It is to fix the problems we face, make the reforms we need, and move forward with the free market principles that have delivered prosperity and hope to people around the world. [my emphasis]

And the snub came during a summit in which Bush championed the adoption of a passage in the Declaration that came out of the summit that, once again, insisted the free market was working fine (this could have--and probably did--come straight out of Administration statements leading up to the summit).

12.  We recognize that these reforms will only be successful if grounded in a commitment to free market principles, including the rule of law, respect for private property, open trade and investment, competitive markets, and efficient, effectively regulated financial systems.  These principles are essential to economic growth and prosperity and have lifted millions out of poverty, and have significantly raised the global standard of living.  Recognizing the necessity to improve financial sector regulation, we must avoid over-regulation that would hamper economic growth and exacerbate the contraction of capital flows, including to developing countries.

And the snub came after the rejection of international regulation to control those purportedly functional free markets.

8.  In addition to the actions taken above, we will implement reforms that will strengthen financial markets and regulatory regimes so as to avoid future crises.  Regulation is first and foremost the responsibility of national regulators who constitute the first line of defense against market instability.

This meeting should have been the foundation of a new Bretton Woods--the start of new cooperation to prevent the kind of meltdown we're seeing. But Bush--a dead-ender to the last--refuses to see the catastrophe in front of him, and certainly refuses to work with others to solve the world's economic crisis.

No wonder they wouldn't shake his hand.

Except for when she lapses into hilarious self-parody...

So I guess we'll be seeing her a lot.

Just a few weeks, before the Palin/Joe the Plumber "Left Behind Tour" begins anew in Iowa for 2012.

But in the mean time, please enjoy and be completely and utterly horrified at this video which shows just how violent irony can be (seriously). A moment clearly inspired by the video to the left.

Stay tuned for when Palin recreates the Odessa Steps scene from the Battleship Potemkin, which she'll tell you her great grandmother virtually saw from Juneau -- after you tell her where Odessa is.

The Derek Trucks Band - Key To The Highway.

What's on your mind tonight?