Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Barack

Yeah, yeah he tells us how he feels our pain. Well he didn't start feeling it until the whole country was already erupting in apoplectic rage.

Before that, he just sent his errand-boy Summers to tell us "a contract is a contract".

The next day, he's doing a 180 - and "everything legally possible" to get the bonuses back. Yadda, yadda.

Then Congress actually passes a real bill - takes some real action. And Andy Cuomo threatens to expose the bastards and send out some subpoenas, making some of the rats disgorge their booty.

Let's see Congress 1, Cuomo 1, Obama 0.

I think Trump would have him "fired" by now from the show.

OK -so he is inept and incapable of constructive action. Fine. Well at least he could simply let the more competent players get on with things.

But NOOOO - Mr. professor has to lecture us about how the confiscatory taxes were not the wise way to go about handling this issue.

Barack- to paraphrase Eddy Murphy "Have a Coke and a smile, and shut the %^$ up".

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Monday, March 16, 2009

Here is a terrific letter from the NY Times website:

2009 8:38 am

The Obama Administration should rightfully be the target of a backlash. While the administration has done much to be commended, the people they hired to fix this mess are sadly some of the same who got us there. Their actions reek of hubris and continued self-interest. Consider:

1) Tim Geithner was the chairman of the NY Fed and an active participant in the fumbled, lurching responses of the Bush administration. Similarly, Larry Summers, although he says he is outraged by the meltdown, was a principle architect of the deregulation fest that got us here.

2) Geithner's initial hires are dominated by investment bankers and especially recent employees of Goldman Sachs, the alma mater of Secretary Paulson. Goldman played a pivotal role in promoting credit default swaps and other sketchy derivatives (although they were nimble enough to sell early and avoid the worst of the tsunami). GS has not only taken billions directly from taxpayers; but they are a Primary Beneficiary of the billions of taxpayers' dollars given by AIG to its "secret" trading partners. (The outrages never cease - we own 80% of AIG, yet even Congress can't find out who is getting billions of dollars of payola.) In other words, Geithner and his team of Goldman alumni are donating billions of our dollars to their friends and former employer under the cloak of secrecy. This is the kind of "deal" for the taxpayers that Boss Tweed would have been proud of.

3) The administration's unwillingness to take forceful and timely action on behalf of the taxpayers by nationalizing the most disabled banks is scandalous. The delays in action only prolong the recession while the steady drip, drip of taxpayer funds continue to bail out the wealthiest of the wealthy. And the reason given for inaction is disturbing - they don't want to hurt the shareholders. Well what about the rest of us - the taxpayers?!

4) And perhaps the most disturbing thing is that these "master of our universe" have no sense of the outrage they are perpetrating. Instead, they take it for granted that they are entitled to be bailed out ad infinitum and keep getting their swollen bonuses. Their outrage at anyone questioning their entitlement is evidenced by the absurd statement, "we need to pay huge bonuses to retain the most talented individuals". Never mind that these "most talented" have brought down our economy, thrust ordinary Americans and the rest of the world into the worst hardship since the Great Depression. They are so completely out of touch, that they actually believe their own self-serving nonsense and argue that they deserve the billions they continue to pillage. And, as friends and colleagues of these people, administration officials will spare no (taxpayer) expense to make the "talented" comfortable. Geithner, Inc. will take care of their own while the rest of us go to hell in a rather cracked teapot.

Also, don't count on Congress to take any meaningful action. They will not bite the hands of their masters - the ones who gave and continue to give millions (of our money) to their campaign funds. One of the most egregious outrages of recent years is that hedge fund managers, who contributed heartily to our economic collapse, continue to be taxed at 15% MAXIMUM. The rest of us chumps pay full freight; but the wealthiest billionaires among us continue to pay the lowest possible rate. How is this possible? Well, when Congress considered taxing hedge funds at a higher rate, Senator Chuck Schumer used his considerable clout to protect the thieves (and yes, wealthy people who pay less than the rest of us are simply thieves) by blocking any legislation. As I said, don't expect Congress to take action anytime soon.

The picture is complete and it's quite clear. The greed-obsessed and heedless crowd who wrecked our economy continue to be in power and not only duck punishment, but continue to be rewarded with billions of dollars in taxpayer funds. These people are criminals in the classic sense of the word - i.e., they knowingly endanger others with their actions and are incapable of remorse. We need to be protected from such and they should be in jail - not for reasons of vengeance - but to protect the community at large.

The officials hired to fix this situation are too enmeshed in this world and therefore will do nothing that might harm their cronies at the expense of the rest of us. And last, our elected officials are utterly compromised by the corrupting influence of campaign donations from said "masters" and will do little, other than spouting fine platitudes, to challenge the status quo.

As some great, unknown philosopher put it, "we are SO screwed".

— DHanig, Olympia

Sunday, March 15, 2009

The AIG bailout

Ever since the Fed. bailout
of Wall Street, my view of politics has taken quite a turn. I now
think Ralph Nader is actually right about there being no difference
between Republicans and Democrats- they have both proved themselves to
be whores of Wall Street.

Although I am still a theoretical free-market conservative- all that
stuff has proven to be just abstract theory.
I am absolutely convinced that Wall Street runs the government. They
bankrolled both Presidential candidates.

The Bush/Obama transition has been seamless in what concerns Wall
Street. And it seems not to bother the public too much that the very
group who told us that Wall Street's downfall would be the nations' (
if we didn't pay up quickly with no strings attached) were the very
group who directed benefitted.

Look at the latest AIG bailout. Go to the NY Times website - read the
1500 letters- people are angry.

Forget about Obama. He is a weakling and a tool of Wall Street.
They financed his campaign.
I saw Bernanke lie on TV. We are told that giving hundreds of
billions to AIG is analogous to putting out a fire in our neighbors
house so that our own won't burn down.

The bailout money is not only going to big corporate salaries and
bonuses, but also as shareholder dividends- to the greedy scumbags who
brought down the American economy.

He at least admitted that the trillion dollar credit default market
that AIG was involved in was simply a big casino game based on greed
and was completely divorced from healthy financial activity necessary
for the economy.

And we all know now that the counterparty investment banks to these
casino bets were conducting their own masssive frauds in the real
estate market.

The real-estate fraud aspect of it was well-documented in great detail
in John Talbott's 2003 book "The Coming Crash in the Real Estate
Market".

The free market, left alone, would have punished the perpetrators the
way they deserved to be punished.

You cannot possibly believe WALL STREET'S warnings, parroted by
Goldman Sachs flunkies in the government, that if American doesn't
given trillions to WALL STREET that Main Street is doomed?

You know that this is not free market capitalism- and this is
not socialism either. It is an evil, stinking hybrid which exists only
to benefit the ruling class.