Housing Crisis linked with Healthcare Crisis–

Face it, our country is in crisis on all fronts!It is clear we need  National Healthcare!

Seven in ten homeowners hit with foreclosure faced some kind of medical expense prior to losing their home. That’s one of the findings of a study entitled, “Get Sick, Get Out: The Medical Causes of Home Mortgage Foreclosures.”

It’s no wonder that 82% of Americans think our health care system needs a “major overhaul”.

 

We already know that health care expenses are the #1 cause of bankruptcy in the U.S., and now this is another striking indication that our health care system is broken. Just how much damage to American families and to the American economy are we going to let slide before we take a stand for quality, affordable health care for all?

Americans pay $217 million for health care per hour, while insurance industry profits rose 1,000% in the past five years. Don’t you think enough is enough? Yet, another maj0r issue to address your representatives about!

Thursday debators– their style

 

http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=ebfac2eaf3489d19fc07c79758598d8b02b3dcbb

The debate Thursday is going to have the highest ratings since the last episode of MASH! Their styles are different– and according to the above video report, Palin has been at McIsane’s ranch 99.9% of the time preparing for this.

Stop, Drop and Roll–

Let’s see– a war with losses that can not be calculated either humanly nor financially, recession/depression, our stock market gone to hell, the banking system crumbled, morale low, unemployment high, gas nearly rationed and out of sight per gallon— what healthcare we even had in the toilet. Humm– haven’t we been here before!!!!!!!!!!

I don’t know about you, but I grew up at the knee of those who spoke about times like these… and how they endured, of those who didn’t… and the climb back up.

The trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange just after the crash of 1929. On Black Tuesday, October twenty-ninth, the market collapsed. In a single day, sixteen million shares were traded–a record–and thirty billion dollars vanished into thin air. Westinghouse lost two thirds of its September value. DuPont dropped seventy points. The “Era of Get Rich Quick” was over. Jack Dempsey, America’s first millionaire athlete, lost $3 million. Cynical New York hotel clerks asked incoming guests, “You want a room for sleeping or jumping?”

Police stand guard outside the entrance to New York’s closed World Exchange Bank, March 20, 1931. Not only did bank failures wipe out people’s savings, they also undermined the ideology of thrift.

Unemployed men vying for jobs at the American Legion Employment Bureau in Los Angeles during the Great Depression.

World War I veterans block the steps of the Capital during the Bonus March, July 5, 1932 (Underwood and Underwood). In the summer of 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression, World War I veterans seeking early payment of a bonus scheduled for 1945 assembled in Washington to pressure Congress and the White House. Hoover resisted the demand for an early bonus. Veterans benefits took up 25% of the 1932 federal budget. Even so, as the Bonus Expeditionary Force swelled to 60,000 men, the president secretly ordered that its members be given tents, cots, army rations and medical care.
In July, the Senate rejected the bonus 62 to 18. Most of the protesters went home, aided by Hoover’s offer of free passage on the rails. Ten thousand remained behind, among them a hard core of Communists and other organizers. On the morning of July 28, forty protesters tried to reclaim an evacuated building in downtown Washington scheduled for demolition. The city’s police chief, Pellham Glassford, sympathetic to the marchers, was knocked down by a brick. Glassford’s assistant suffered a fractured skull. When rushed by a crowd, two other policemen opened fire. Two of the marchers were killed.

Philipinos cutting lettuce, Salinas, California, 1935. Photographer: Dorothea Lange. In order to maximize their ability to exploit farm workers, California employers recruited from China, Japan, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Mexico, the American south, and Europe.

Farmer and sons, dust storm, Cimarron County, Oklahoma, 1936. Photographer: Arthur Rothstein.
The drought that helped cripple agriculture in the Great Depression was the worst in the climatological history of the country. By 1934 it had dessicated the Great Plains, from North Dakota to Texas, from the Mississippi River Valley to the Rockies. Vast dust storms swept the region.

The photograph that has become known as “Migrant Mother” is one of a series of photographs that Dorothea Lange made in February or March of 1936 in Nipomo, California. Lange was concluding a month’s trip photographing migratory farm labor around the state for what was then the Resettlement Administration. In 1960, Lange gave this account of the experience:
I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions. I made five exposures, working closer and closer from the same direction. I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age, that she was thirty-two. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields, and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in that lean- to tent with her children huddled around her, and seemed to know that my pictures might help her, and so she helped me. There was a sort of equality about it.


Dorothea Lange’s , now famous– “Migrant Mother,” destitute in a pea picker’s camp, because of the failure of the early pea crop. These people had just sold their tent in order to buy food. Most of the 2,500 people in this camp were destitute. By the end of the decade there were still 4 million migrants on the road.

Part of an impoverished family of nine on a New Mexico highway. Depression refugees from Iowa. Left Iowa in 1932 because of father’s ill health. Father an auto mechanic laborer, painter by trade, tubercular. Family has been on relief in Arizona but refused entry on relief roles in Iowa to which state they wish to return. Nine children including a sick four-month-old baby. No money at all. About to sell their belongings and trailer for money to buy food. “We don’t want to go where we’ll be a nuisance to anybody.” Children of migrant workers typically had no way to attend school. By the end of 1930 some 3 million children had abandoned school. Thousands of schools had closed or were operating on reduced hours. At least 200,000 children took to the roads on their own.  Summer 1936. Photographer: Dorothea Lange.

During the Great Depression, unemployment was high. Many employers tried to get as much work as possible from their employees for the lowest possible wage. Workers were upset with the speedup of assembly lines, working conditions and the lack of job security. Seeking strength in unity, they formed unions. Automobile workers organized the U.A.W. (United Automobile Workers of America) in 1935. General Motors would not recognize the U.A.W. as the workers’ bargaining representative. Hearing rumors that G.M. was moving work to factories where the union was not as strong, workers in Flint began a sit-down strike on December 30, 1936. The sit-down was an effective way to strike. When workers walked off the job and picketed a plant, management could bring in new workers to break the strike. If the workers stayed in the plant, management could not replace them with other workers. This photograph shows the broken windows at General Motors’ Flint Fisher Body Plant during the Flint sit-down strike of 1936-37.

Waiting for the semimonthly , stipend relief checks at Calipatria, Imperial Valley, California. Typical story: fifteen years ago they owned farms in Oklahoma. Lost them through foreclosure when cotton prices fell after the war. Became tenants and sharecroppers. With the drought and dust they came West, 1934-1937. Never before left the county where they were born. Now although in California over a year they haven’t been continuously resident in any single county long enough to become a legal resident. Reason: migratory agricultural laborers. March 1937. Photographer: Dorothea Lange.


Lincoln Brigade Ambulance Corps. Group photo in New York of sixteen volunteers, American Medical Bureau. 125 American men and women served in the Spanish Civil War with the American Medical Bureau as nurses, doctors, and support staff. 1936-1939. The Spanish Civil War was the great international cause of the 1930s. Aided by Hitler and Mussolini, the Spanish military led a revolt against the progressive elected government. About 3,000 Americans volunteered to fight on behalf of the Spanish Republic. Spanish Civil War demonstration in New York. Press photo. They returned home with no funds, medical care… homes or jobs.

Members of the picket line at King Farm strike. Morrisville, Pennsylvania. August 1938. Photographer: John Vachon. In contrast to a frequently racist society, several unions were militantly integrationist.

Selling apples, Jacksonville, Texas. October, 1939. Photographer: Russell Lee. Many tried apple-selling to avoid the shame of panhandling. In New York City, there were over 5,000 apple sellers on the street. Durham, North Carolina, May 1940

I do not have the answers– BUT I know I do not want to bail out anything. I say let her fall!! It wasn’t built on anything ‘real’ to start with. I do not desire to bail out financial institutes that have a majority foreign interest. Too bad for their bad investments. — let the American and I mean AMERICAN PEOPLE,  100%–  hold the notes.
People are presenting many diverse plans, and that is a good thing– and I think we need to look at them with a sheer eye and mind– and not knee jerk ourselves quickly into Hades any further!! We can do this– I know the best of OUR COUNTRY can do this. We have made, or allowed to be made, too many fast, stupid and dangerous choices. Made quickly and made out of fear or exhaustion and confusion. Let us not do this again. We need to stop, drop and roll folks. Unite, stay focused, be patient… seek sound advice that has the 100% goal of making our country sound again, not lining the pockets of the few who have loyalties that reach beyond our shores and borders.

We can not dilude ourselves individually into thinking that these times can not impact us at these levels. All of us, no matter what are living daily on the slippery slope of crumbling system of foreign borrowed monies — and the note is due folks, the note is due. We, because of living on credit are all one or two pay checks from the street. Think about it.

Women, are you voting!!???

Just askin’…

This ever so short time until the historical November Election is a good reminder of the women’s suffrage movement–

[and if you haven't seen Iron-Jawed Angels yet, you should definitely see it-- I heard it's excellent! But I haven’t a clue where in Knoxville I would get to see it…. And I do not have HBO!]

Did you know that the movement was the first to picket the white house?  Did you know that it was inspired by the women’s suffrage movement in Great Britain, which taught and inspired Gandhi when he was studying law in Britain?  Definitely an amazing & inspiring tale–pass it on!

And really think about this—-
WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE

This is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-grandmothers; they lived only 90 years ago.

Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.

The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote. Many shunned by their families and many lost their jobs.

During the first night in jail…………….

(Lucy Burns)

…………and by the end of that night, they were all barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden’s blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of ‘obstructing sidewalk traffic.’ They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.

(Dora Lewis)

They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cell mate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the ‘Night of Terror’ on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson’s White House for the right to vote.
For weeks, the women’s only water came from an open pail. Their food–all of it colorless slop–was infested with worms.

{Alice Paul)

When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, the men tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid in to her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections … soners.pdf

So, refresh my memory…. Some women won’t vote this year because–why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn’t matter? It’s raining?… did you even register TO VOTE yet??? I guess we won’t talk about being an ‘informed voter’. That is another topic.

The articles about HBO’s new movie ‘Iron Jawed Angels‘… and it’s graphic depiction of the battle these women waged , just so I; all women– could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have our say… reminded me of Women’s History Class in College– and my own living history growing up in the DC area. I am ashamed to say I needed this reminder of how hard fought my right to vote was– and I didn’t bleed once, someone else did.

All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. It has never been just a right I have, it is also a responsibility and priviledge. Even if sometimes is inconvenient.

‘What would those women think of the way we use, or don’t use, our right to vote? All of us take it for granted seemingly, not just younger women. I am hoping your American right and obligation becomes valuable and priceless ‘all over again.’

It was also jarring to recall that Woodrow Wilson and his cronies had tried to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And thank God that doctor refused. Alice Paul was strong, the doctor said, and brave. That didn’t make her crazy. The doctor admonished the men: ‘Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.’
It was also due to many courageous women like this– [women in your families pasts] — that contributed to another cause that needed addressing– The Civil Rights of ALL MANKIND! And their right to have a voice also!

Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know.
We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote democratic, republican or independent party - remember to vote.

History is being made. Set an example for your children and grandchildren. It is their future we are talking about.

A Radical Shift for Goldman and Morgan …

Actually it isn’t a shift at all–if you review Beaulmans previous post!!!! They were ready and waiting!
review:    Brasscheck TV: The Financial Meltdown Explained

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the last big independent investment banks on Wall Street, will transform themselves into bank holding companies subject to far greater regulation, the Federal Reserve said Sunday night, a move that fundamentally reshapes an era of high finance that defined the modern Gilded Age.
The firms requested the change themselves, even as Congress and the Bush administration rushed to pass a $700 billion rescue of financial firms. It was a blunt acknowledgment that their model of finance and investing had become too risky and that they needed the cushion of bank deposits that had kept big commercial banks like Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase relatively safe amid the recent turmoil.
It also is a turning point for the high-rolling culture of Wall Street, with its seven-figure bonuses and lavish perks for even midlevel executives. It effectively returns Wall Street to the way it was structured before Congress passed a law during the Great Depression separating investment banking from commercial banking, known as the Glass-Steagall Act.
By becoming bank holding companies, the firms are agreeing to significantly tighter regulations and much closer supervision by bank examiners from several government agencies rather than only the Securities and Exchange Commission. Now, the firms will look more like commercial banks, with more disclosure, higher capital reserves and less risk-taking.
For decades, firms like Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs thrived by taking bold bets with their own money, often using enormous amounts of debt to increase their profits, with little outside oversight.
They were the envy of Wall Street, dominating the industry’s most lucrative businesses, landing headline-grabbing deals and advising companies and governments around the world on mergers, stock offerings and restructurings.
But that brash model was torn apart over the last several weeks as investors lost confidence in the way they made those bets during the recent credit boom, when investment banks expanded with aplomb into esoteric securities, the risks of which were not easily understood.
Over several harrowing days, clients started pulling their money, share prices plunged and these banks’ entire enterprises were brought to the brink.
In exchange for subjecting themselves to more regulation, the companies will have access to the full array of the Federal Reserve’s lending facilities. It should help them avoid the fate of Lehman Brothers, which filed for bankruptcy last week, and Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch — both of which agreed to be acquired by big bank holding companies.
The decision also raises questions about whether the Federal Reserve will seek to regulate hedge funds, many of the largest of which closely resemble investment banks like Goldman.
Just a year ago investment banks, the titans of global finance, considered bank regulation a millstone to be avoided at all costs. Commercial banks have to subject themselves to restrictions on how much money they can borrow and what kinds of businesses they can be in. Lobbyists for firms like Goldman spent years fending off closer supervision of their business.
As bank holding companies, the two banks, whose shares have lost about half their value this year, will have to reduce the amount of money they can borrow relative to their capital.
That will make them more financially sound but will also significantly limit their profits. Today, Goldman Sachs has $1 of capital for every $22 of assets; Morgan Stanley has $1 for every $30. By contrast, Bank of America’s has less than $11 for every $1 of capital.
JPMorgan Chase acquired Bear Stearns this spring in a fire sale brokered by the federal government, while Bank of America has agreed to buy Merrill Lynch for $50 billion.
As bank holding companies, Morgan and Goldman will have greater access to the discount window of the Federal Reserve, which banks can use to borrow money from the central bank. While they were allowed to draw on temporary Fed lending facilities in recent months, they could not borrow against the same wide array of collateral that commercial banks could. The discount window access for investment banks is expected to be phased out in January.
It will take time for Goldman and Morgan to transform into fully regulated banks because they cannot quickly reduce how much money they borrow relative to their assets. The Fed and the Securities and Exchange Commission have had examiners at investment banks since March, giving regulators huge insight into their operations.
Both banks already have limited retail deposit-taking businesses, which they plan to expand over time. Morgan Stanley had $36 billion in retail deposits as of Aug. 31 and Goldman Sachs had $20 billion in deposits.
“We believe that Goldman Sachs, under Federal Reserve supervision, will be regarded as an even more secure institution with an exceptionally clean balance sheet and a greater diversity of funding sources,” Lloyd C. Blankfein, the chairman and chief executive of Goldman, said in a statement on Sunday night.
John J. Mack, the chairman and chief executive of Morgan Stanley, said: “This new bank holding structure will ensure that Morgan Stanley is in the strongest possible position — with the stability and flexibility to seize opportunities in the rapidly changing financial marketplace.”
In recent days, Morgan Stanley had sought other ways to bolster its capital and had been in advanced talks with China’s sovereign wealth fund and others about raising billions of dollars, people briefed on the matter said Sunday night. It had also been talking about a merger with Wachovia, a large commercial bank based in Charlotte, N.C.
With their transition to operating as bank holding companies, those talks are likely to take a different form, because now Morgan Stanley can buy a commercial bank.
Meeting the Big-Boys:
For decades, one investment bank in Lower Manhattan has churned out a golden list of corporate executives and statesmen, wealthy financiers and nonprofit managers.
In many ways, Goldman Sachs is seen as the financial world’s equivalent of General Electric, the corporate powerhouse, or McKinsey & Company, the management consulting firm. It is a training ground — and finishing school —from which other companies, along with quite a few governments, have frequently plucked their own top leaders.
And it has seeded some of the most successful private investment funds, many of them extending Goldman’s shadow from Greenwich, Conn., to London and beyond.

Goldman claims among its alumni Henry M. Paulson Jr., the current Treasury secretary; Robert E. Rubin, a Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton and now Citigroup’s chairman; and Mario Draghi, the Bank of Italy’s governor. Jon S. Corzine, New Jersey’s governor, led Goldman for several years. Joshua B. Bolten, the current White House chief of staff, is a Goldman alum, and John A. Thain, the new chairman of Merrill Lynch, was Goldman’s president before he left to help rescue the New York Stock Exchange.
To insiders, all this is a result of Goldman’s elite culture, a sense of close-knit partnership that has endured despite the firm’s decision in 1999 to turn itself into a publicly owned corporation. To detractors, the firm is alternately a cult or a secretive fraternity like Skull and Bones at Yale, one focused on profits and power.
The bottom line on Goldman is that it is stocked with bright people who practically mint money. Even as the implosion of the subprime mortgage market forced many of its rivals to take multibillion-dollar write-downs in the summer of 2007, Goldman reported an increase in profit.
As 2008 progressed, Goldman avoided the deepening economic crisis that consumed two of its rivals - Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch. In September, the company reported modest, though diminished, profits for the third quarter, beating expectations.
Morgan Stanley traces its roots back to the House of Morgan, the grandest name on Wall Street. But its last decade of operation has been one of recurrent turmoil.
In 1997, Morgan Stanley merged with Dean Witter, a retail brokerage firm, in the hopes that the reach of Dean Witter’s brokers and the sophisticated stock offerings of Morgan’s investment bankers would combine to create a nationwide powerhouse. The merged company was led by Philip J. Purcell, a Wall Street outsider whose leadership was been marked by a series of legal clashes and bitter internal dissent. Mr. Purcell was forced out in 2005; his place was taken by John J. Mack, a company veteran who had been unceremoniously dumped by Mr. Purcell.
Mr. Mack has revitalized a demoralized firm and achieved progress in weak areas like asset management and brokerage. But by encouraging a newly aggressive attitude toward trading — from his first days as chief executive, he said often and publicly that the firm would deploy its own capital more aggressively and enter higher-growth and riskier areas like mortgages and leveraged loans — he also laid the groundwork for the firm’s next round of trouble, which hit home when the subprime mortgage market melted down in 2007.
In two write-downs in late 2007, Morgan Stanley lowered the value of its subprime holdings by $9.4 billion, one of the largest devaluations on Wall Street. The investment bank announced on Dec. 19 that it would sell a $5 billion stake to the China Investment Corporation, that country’s sovereign wealth fund, to shore up its capital.

For God’s Sake Citizens!!! WAKE-UP!!!
Congress is on the brink of making a one-sided deal to give George W. Bush a blank check — offering nearly (or perhaps more than) a trillion taxpayer dollars to Wall Street to cover its bad debts. That works out to somewhere between $2000 and $5000 from every American family. So what do the taxpayers get in return?
Nothing. No new regulation or oversight to help avoid this kind of crisis in the future. No public interest givebacks to help people whose homes are in the hands of the banks. Perhaps most shockingly of all, the taxpayers get absolutely no share in the profits if and when these finance giants bounce back, even though we are now assuming a great deal of the risk.
This is worse than a bad deal — this isn’t a deal at all. This is a blank check to some of the richest companies in the world.
Congress doesn’t have to agree to a blank check. Instead, it can choose to impose a few sensible conditions on the bailout to ensure that it will be used responsibly. Here are a few suggestions
If the taxpayers are shouldering the risk, the taxpayers should reap any eventual benefits. We accomplish this by giving the government an equity stake in every company we bail out proportionate to the amount we give them.
If we’re paying (more than) our fair share, the CEOs and executives should have to, too. All of the fat cats who got us into this mess should relinquish their stock options and salaries until they start showing us, their investors, that they can once again be profitable. Future salaries should be linked to profitability.
No more campaign contributions from Wall Street executives and PACs. Taxpayer dollars should be used to get our nation out of a crisis. They cannot be used to fund giant, powerful lobby operations that will be used to strong arm Congress into making bad policy.
Better regulations start right now. Wall Street can’t expect to take thousands of dollars out of your paycheck without agreeing to increased transparency and more stringent oversight — the kind that might have helped avoid this mess to begin with.
Bankruptcy judges get broader leeway to help homeowners. Why should we lose our homes so the CEOs can keep theirs?
If Wall Street doesn’t like these conditions, then it is welcome to find private investors to help it out of this debacle. But if the American people are going to take this hit, then we must have a say in the terms of the deal — even if we don’t have an army of high-paid lobbyists at our disposal like they do.

Contact your Congressperson today! Make your voice heard.

TELL THEM–
I strongly urge you not to issue a blank check to the Wall Street giants who have steered our country into financial dire straits. You must address this crisis quickly and prudently. Do not give these companies a dime of taxpayer money unless they agree to the following conditions:
If the taxpayers are shouldering the risk, the taxpayers should reap any eventual benefits. We accomplish this by giving the government an equity stake in every company we bail out proportionate to the amount we give them.
If we’re paying (more than) our fair share, the CEOs and executives should have to, too. All of the fat cats who got us into this mess should relinquish their stock options and salaries until they start showing us, their investors, that they can once again be profitable. Future salaries should be linked to profitability.
No more campaign contributions from Wall Street executives and PACs. Taxpayer dollars should be used to get our nation out of a crisis. They cannot be used to fund giant, powerful lobby operations that will be used to strong arm Congress into making bad policy.
Better regulations start right now. Wall Street can’t expect to take thousands of dollars out of your paycheck without agreeing to increased transparency and more stringent oversight - the kind that might have helped avoid this mess to begin with.
Bankruptcy judges get broader leeway to help homeowners. Why should we lose our homes so the CEOs can keep theirs?
A blank check without these conditions would be nothing more than a reward for bad business practices. If the bailout does not include these conditions, you must oppose it.

Dumbed Down Debate??

This should be quite interesting. If Palin cannot debate at full speed, then this should put the final nail in her self destruction. If questions are going to be modified for her benefit, would a crisis in government be lessened so she could respond to her ability?

How much longer is this joke going to continue….

source> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/us/politics/21debate.html?_r=3&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1222079525-nlz8uZ0EFmq5VsWb2jNXYA

“..Negotiations over the rules for Gov. Sarah Palin’s debate with Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. were thornier than those over the debate between Senators John McCain and Barack Obama.

The Obama and McCain campaigns have agreed to an unusual free-flowing format for the three televised presidential debates, which begin Friday, but the McCain camp fought for and won a much more structured approach for the questioning at the vice-presidential debate, advisers to both campaigns said Saturday.

At the insistence of the McCain campaign, the Oct. 2 debate between the Republican nominee for vice president, Gov. Sarah Palin, and her Democratic rival, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., will have shorter question-and-answer segments than those for the presidential nominees, the advisers said. There will also be much less opportunity for free-wheeling, direct exchanges between the running mates.

McCain advisers said they had been concerned that a loose format could leave Ms. Palin, a relatively inexperienced debater, at a disadvantage and largely on the defensive.
The wrangling was chiefly between the McCain-Palin camp and the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, which is sponsoring the forums. [this was interesting-- it has nothing to do with the Dems]

Commission members wanted a relaxed format that included time for unpredictable questioning and challenges between the two vice-presidential candidates. On Wednesday, the commission unanimously rejected a proposal sought by advisers to Ms. Palin and Senator John McCain of Arizona, the Republican presidential nominee, to have the moderator ask questions and the candidates answer, with no time for unfettered exchanges. Advisers to Mr. Biden say they were comfortable with either format.

Both campaigns see the four debates as pivotal moments in a presidential race that is not only extraordinarily close but also drawing intense interest from voters; roughly 40 million viewers watched the major speeches at the two parties’ conventions. The upheaval in the financial markets has recast the race in recent days, moreover, which both sides believe will only heighten attention for the debates.

A commission member said that the new agreement on the vice-presidential debate was reached late Saturday morning. It calls for shorter blocks of candidate statements and open discussion than at the presidential debates.

McCain advisers said they were only somewhat concerned about Ms. Palin’s debating skills compared with those of Mr. Biden, who has served six terms in the Senate, or about his chances of tripping her up. Instead, they say, they wanted Ms. Palin to have opportunities to present Mr. McCain’s positions, rather than spending time talking about her experience or playing defense. [why can’t she be asked about herself??]

While the debates between presidential nominees are traditionally the main events in the fall election season, the public interest in Ms. Palin has proved extraordinary, and a large audience is expected for her national debate debut.

Indeed, both the McCain and Obama campaigns have similar concerns about the vice-presidential matchup in St. Louis: that Ms. Palin, of Alaska, as a new player in national politics, or Mr. Biden, of Delaware, as a loquacious and gaffe-prone speaker, could commit a momentum-changing misstep in their debate.

The negotiations for the three 90-minute debates between the men at the top of the tickets were largely free of brinksmanship. Neither side threatened to pull out, and concerns about camera angles and stagecraft were minor.

Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, the Democratic nominee for president, and Mr. McCain did not intercede personally to settle any disputes. They agreed to one substantive change to the format originally proposed by the debate commission, giving them two minutes apiece to make a statement at the beginning of each segment on a new topic.

Mr. Obama successfully sought to flip the proposed topics for the first and third debates, so foreign policy is now coming first and economic and other domestic issues come last. There is a second debate, in the format of a town hall meeting, in which the candidates will sit on director’s chairs and take questions from the audience and Internet users on any topic.

The debate commission had proposed that the first debate be on economic issues and the third on foreign policy — in part, people involved in the process said, because the first debate is usually the most watched, and many voters rank the economy as their top concern.

Mr. Obama wanted foreign policy first to show viewers that he could provide depth, strength and intelligence on those issues, his advisers said, given that Mr. McCain consistently wins higher ratings in opinion polls as a potential commander in chief.

Mr. Obama wanted domestic issues to come last; advisers said that they believed even before the start of the financial crisis that the election was most likely to turn on the state of the economy and that he wanted the final televised exchange to focus on those concerns. He has argued that Mr. McCain would continue the economic policies of President Bush.

Mr. McCain also wanted foreign policy topics to come first in the debates, his aides said, in the hope of capitalizing on his positive reputation on national security issues across party lines.

He wanted limits on the original format for the first and third debates, which had been nine topics with nine minutes of free-flowing debate on each one. Mr. Obama went along, though his aides did insist that at least several minutes of open-ended debate occur in each block of questioning, because they believe he does well in that format.

Now the candidates will be asked a question, each will give an answer of two minutes or less, and then they will mix it up for five additional minutes before moving on to the next question in the same format.

Obama aides also agreed to use lecterns at the first event, which Mr. McCain preferred; at the third debate, the two men will be seated at a round table, in the 10 o’clock and 2 o’clock positions, with the moderator at 6 o’clock.

McCain aides said that they were conscious of the fact that Mr. McCain has a prominent scar on one side of his face, and that they could not predict how prominent it would appear with the camera angles, lighting and make-up.

The debate formats were negotiated by Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, representing the McCain campaign, and Representative Rahm Emanuel, Democrat of Illinois, for the Obama camp. A handful of aides from both camps were also involved, hammering out issues between themselves and then holding conference calls with members of the commission to reach final agreements, people involved in the process said.

Mr. Obama plans to begin debate camp on Tuesday with a tight circle of advisers at a site in the Tampa Bay area of Florida, his aides say, with a prominent Democratic lawyer, Greg Craig, playing the part of Mr. McCain in mock debates.

The Obama campaign has been studying Mr. McCain’s debate performances from the Republican primary as well as in his 2000 race for president. Each debate has been rated and scored, with briefing points and h