Like everyone else around the world, we’ve hit the cold/flu/bronchitus/sinus infection season.  Apparently, I’m not immune.  My body’s felt like it’s on the brink of a cold for two days now and I simply don’t have the energy wrap my head around McCain, the state of American finance, or Israeli/Palestinian negotiations.

Instead, I’d like to give a shout out to a few other blogs I recently added to my feed reader:

Oliver Willis:  I started subscribing to his feed two weeks ago and never find him lacking interesting posts.  (Although I try not to hold it against him that he’s a Washington Redskins fan.)  Is he overtly liberal?  Yes.  But refreshingly so.

Balloon Juice:  John Cole’s Balloon Juice isn’t too heavy, nor is it too light although a great injection for your daily fix of political opinion.  Gotta love the occasional catblogging.  Even though you’re a Pittsburgh Steelers fan, John, I won’t hold it against you either.

Pissed on Politics:  I can’t quite remember how I came across Pissed on Politics, but I do remember what made me add it to my feed reader.  This is the first place I read a post by someone who wrote if they were for or against the economic bailout bill and explained why.  During those first few days of the bailout bill, most of us were beyond confused.  What exactly did it mean?  Who is voting for it?  Why did they vote against it? Naturally, we migrated to the vast “internets” to get a better grasp on the deal.  Pissed on Politics was the first place I read someone explain why they were against it.  Kudos to PoP.  It earned the right to my feedreader.  (Unknown which football team PoP favors.  I’ll keep everyone updated if I find out more on that.  Dear god, don’t be a Packers fan.)

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Just a few weeks after the U.S. Treasury took over major morgage firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, there’s another major financial institution that is getting a hand from our oh so capable money managers in the government.

Fearing a financial crisis worldwide, the Federal Reserve reversed course Tuesday and agreed to an $85 billion bailout that would give the government control of the troubled insurance giant American International Group.

With time running out after AIG failed to get a bank loan to avoid bankruptcy, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke convened a meeting with House and Senate leaders on Capitol Hill at about 6:30 p.m. Tuesday to explain the rescue plan. They emerged just after 7:30 p.m. with Paulson and Bernanke looking grim, but with top lawmakers generally expressing support for the plan.

But the bailout is likely to prove controversial, because it effectively puts taxpayer money at risk while protecting bad investments made by AIG and other institutions it does business with.

What frightened Fed and Treasury officials was not simply the prospect of another giant corporate bankruptcy, but AIG’s role as an enormous provider of financial insurance to investors who bought complex debt securities. That effectively required AIG to cover losses suffered by the buyers in the event the securities defaulted. It meant AIG was potentially on the hook for billions of dollars worth of risky securities that were once considered safe.

If AIG had collapsed — and been unable to pay all of its insurance claims — institutional investors around the world would have been instantly forced to reappraise the value of those securities, which in turn would have reduced their own capital and the value of their own debt.

“It would have been a chain reaction,” said Uwe Reinhardt, a professor of economics at Princeton University. “The spillover effects could have been incredible.”

So, you know, yay for not having a chain reaction of financial failure across the country, but um…

Does anyone else feel like maybe all these gov’t buy ups and bail outs are just an adhesive bandage on an arterial bleed?

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So there’s a big to-do going on about the words of one of McCain’s (now former I’d assume) financial advisers.  This cat Phil Gramm said in an interview with the Washinton Times that ours is a “nation of whiners” and that the current recession is all in our heads.  Well done Mr. Gramm, perfect timing for such remarks when McCain himself is hanging in Detroit Michigan, a place that’s been struggling under job loss and market collapse for some time now, mostly as a result of the failed economic programs and policies that McCain still to this day clings to.

Right now the two big government backed mortgage managing institutions Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are continuing to post losses and the stock market is reflecting the downturn with drops in stock prices anywhere from 10-20%.  There’s talk of the Treasury needing to step in and bail them out to the tune of roughly $1 trillion of the tax payer’s money, but such a thing is unlikely to happen either with this President, or the next due to the highly charged political climate.  The collapse of these two institutions could prove to be worse than the fall of any investment bank. 

Now I don’t know that Obama would prove to be any better when it comes to fixing our broken economy, but I know for a fact that McCain is stuck behind the times and clinging to a past that doesn’t exist, total reform is going to be needed to remedy our current troubles.  Sadly I don’t think anyone in our government has the brass to step up and try to implement those changes.

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I’ve had a few questions and been made aware of concerns over not receiving an economic stimulus check yet during the last two days. According to the IRS payment time table, the final direct deposit date was on May 16th. Even if you haven’t gotten your direct deposit yet, it doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a problem with your tax return.

Whether you agree or don’t agree with the governments decision to kick-start the economy in this way, here’s the main reasons you may not have gotten your check on time:

1. If you filed with a tax service such as Jackson Hewitt or H&R block, your stimulus payment may be on a later time table. More likely than not, you agreed to have their tax service fee directly taken out of your tax return. By doing that, your return didn’t come directly from the IRS. It was actually paid to you by the tax service company. To the IRS, this means that you’ll receive your payment by check and not by electronic deposit. The time schedule for the check payments are listed here.

2. Perhaps it’s too obvious to mention, but it’s possible there was an error with the tax return that was filed. In this case, the IRS will contact you to advise of the problem. Once the issue is remedied, the stimulus payment will be sent or direct deposited.

Also from the IRS website:

A small percentage of tax returns will require additional time to process and to compute a stimulus payment amount. For these returns, stimulus payments may not be issued in accordance with the schedule above, even if the tax return was processed by April 15.

Lastly, when in doubt, ask the IRS! If you still haven’t received your refund within 28 days from the original IRS mailing date, you can start a refund trace online here!!

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