A Quiet Windfall for U.S. Banks

While everyone on the planet with some sort of access to the news was focused on the $700 Billion dollar bailout plan, congress was left unsupervised. While the world had their backs turned to congress, they went ahead and changed some tax laws. This new tax law gave banks a tax break that would save as much as $140 billion dollars. This is actually a great idea. Let the banks save money so we can afford the rates that they are assigning and now more of that bailout money can go to Detroit to save GM, Ford and Chrysler because if they go down, so is this country.

There was a major reason why it was purposefully left out the news. There was a fear that of this tax break was announced then it may have unraveled the mergers that happened and it could have send the economy even farther down than it went.

There are now lawmakers and tax lawyers who are furious over this tax break. I don't totally understand why but on MSNBC.com they seem to bash this new law and they don't actually say what it is. I think that this story should get more coverage because it will really test a lot of people. It will test the media to see if they will admit to something that they missed. It will test The Bush Administration to see if they can provide a logical explanation and it will test president-elect Obama by letting us know that he is up to speed and ready to take over this office.

Is there still a war going on?

I understand that the election is a pretty big deal and the outcome will determine the course of this country for the next four years, but what happened with the Iraq war? There is no media coverage what so ever on it. Throughout the month of October there was more coverage on Ares and Obama or Palin's $150K wardrobe splurge than the wars we are involved in. Afganistan has gotten very little coverage since the start of the Iraq war and even less since the start of election season. Iraq was a 6 o clock news staple before election season and now its barely a thought on the back burner in the mind of the TV media. There are a few websites, however, that still update and report on the war faithfully. MSNBC.com has an entire section devoted to the two different wars. I'm sure that these sections don't get as many hits as the election '08 tab but at least MSNBC is reporting something that is going on. Good news from Iraq usually helps stimulate the economy and seeing the economy plummet during "shock-tober", its amazing how the news of the improving conditions over in Iraq weren't reported on instead of Tina Fay perfect impression of Sarah Palin. This would be a perfect example for how different news media have to cater to different audiences. TV channels can't be dedicated to one topic but websites can because the cost to maintain a website is mere pennies compared to television.

Whatever the case and whichever the medium that gives us news, I wish that it was a little more well-rounded.