links for 2008-10-14

"The Kremlin staged this showy … PR campaign to distract public attention from the financial crisis and tell the people, 'Look, we still have achievements in the military sector'," said Belkovsky, head of the National Strategy Institute think tank.
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And, will Barack Obama and the congressional Dems now dismantle strategic missile defense?

Russian stocks recorded their worst weekly performance for a decade last week and are now down 66 percent from their peak in May. The impact is slowly starting to filter through to the real economy, with some firms announcing lay-offs.

One of Barack Obama's most potent campaign claims is that he'll cut taxes for no less than 95% of "working families." He's even promising to cut taxes enough that the government's tax share of GDP will be no more than 18.2% — which is lower than it is today.
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A clever pitch which spells tax increasefor many more…..

But is it over? With 23 days, one presidential debate, and countless advertisements, speeches and attacks and counterattacks left to go, could this hugely anticipated race for the White House really be over?
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Not over until the votes are counted…..

This is becoming a very strange campaign.

On CNN last evening both David Gergen and Ed Rollins echoed the current mantra that the "old" noble McCain is gone-and a "new" nastier one has emerged, largely because of his attacks on Ayers, perhaps his planned future ads on Wright, and a few unhinged people shouting at his campaign stops.

Recently Christopher Buckley endorsed Obama, likewise lamenting the loss of the old noble McCain. New York Times columnist David Brooks dubbed Palin a "cancer," and he suggested that Obama's instant recall of Niehbuhr sent a tingle up his leg as Obama once did to Chris Matthews as well.
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Fair weather conservatives, no?

This is what a rapid financial meltdown can do.

The government seizes banks, leaving shareholders luckless and foreign depositors unable to touch their money. The stock market is shut down. The currency is in free fall, leaving mortgage holders who took out loans in foreign currency paying double. Prices on imported goods are on the rise.

This is the situation in Iceland, where a small, struggling government is even turning to the Kremlin to prevent bankruptcy after it became the first country to succumb to the global financial meltdown in a matter of days last week.

"No Western country has crashed in peacetime as quickly and as badly," says Jon Danielsson, an associate professor of finance at the London School of Economics. "This shows the degree of problems facing the global financial systems and how governments must do all they can to stabilize them."