In 2000, Republican Senators Gramm and Lugar slipped the Commodities Futures Modernization Act into a budget bill that the Senate, under intense pressure to keep the federal government running, passed unanimously. This provision legalized credit-default swaps, which had previously been illegal gambling, and which subsequently became the main cause of the financial catastrophe of 2008, which caused Joe the Programmer to lose his job and his house. Joe now lives in a tent and has almost starved to death, with nothing to eat but marshmallows. He's in such bad shape, he's nothing but a skeleton. Therefore, he's supporting the Democratic Obama-Biden ticket in the presidential campaign.