More financial crisis reading

It's like a car wreck -- I can't turn away.

• An industry insider calls out the finance industry and takes no prisoners. -- "Calling Out the Culprits Who Caused the Crisis"
• Oh, and lest anyone think this is simply an American crisis, the European banks are poised for an even harder fall -- European Banks
• Tales of how the financial fallout is hurting those poor dears in the upper 0.0001% of income, which is always fun reading. -- The Fall of the Gilded Age ...My favorite quote?

A lot of those people will have to sell their homes, they're going to cut back on the private jets and the vacations. They may even have to take their kids out of private school," said Frank. "It's a total reworking of their lifestyle."

He added that it's going to be no easy task.

"It's going to be very hard psychologically for these people," Frank said. "I talked to one guy who had to give up his private jet recently. And he said of all the trials in his life, giving that up was the hardest thing he's ever done.

What an appalling lack of self-awareness these people display.

• But even in their tragedy, they've got their eyes on the prize; they're making demands that any lightening of the draconian bankruptcy changes passed a few years ago will be a deal breaker. Charming, no? -- Finance industry lobbyists get to work
  

And on the subject of taxes and which candidate's plan is going to affect yours, here's a handy widget the non-partisan Tax Policy Center put together to get an idea of whether your taxes will go up or down under either Obama's plan or McCain's plan. (With all the usual caveats about it being a basic information tool, specifics are different, more complicated, yada yada.) I played around with it a bit and it's interesting to note that the bracket at which your taxes go up instead of down under Obama's plan? Somehwhere between the $200,000 and the $500,000 income bracket. Which eliminates -- you guessed it -- about 95% of taxpayers.

Lastly, just because I thought it was incredibly insightful, a comment posted on a Political Animal post about healthcare:

this election is a watershed moment that was on the horizon since the foundation of the republic. America will have a choice for president between a bafoon and a supremely intelligent candidate who happens to be African-American.

And the country will be forced to stake its future on one of its two founding principles, meritocracy or racism.