The financial crisis we face today is purely a product of the classic Republican doctrine "let free markets reign" left unchecked. You will not find any balanced political forum draw it any other way. Even the dissolution of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 (when Clinton signed the veto-proof legislation) was precluded by all sorts of legislative gobbledy-gook courtesy of the Republicans and perpetuated by the banking industry, which then waxed gleeful at its demise.
And now Bushie is trying to wrench one colossal golden egg out of Joe American as a parting gift to the banking industry using fear, fear, fear. Oh yeah? Well I remember when Bush's imaginary weapons of mass destruction threatened the world too.
You filthy cheating lying bastards. Maybe we should just let the whole goddamn game go down in a spectacular fireball and see what's left when the smoke clears.
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I've thought for a long time that if enough taxpayers would form a coalition and pay tax into an offshore escrow account,(you know, we could have the box next to Cheney's), there would to too many for the gummint to prosecute for treason, and then we would issue fiat and micromanage these fucknuts. It would require very hard work, an educated,collaborative electorate and entail risks, sorta like the Republic envisioned 232 years ago.
As Bob Schiefer pointed out yesterday on Face the Nation, all this was done within, barely, the limits of law. Kevin Phillips(Bad Money) gets it exactly right when he describes the "financialization" of the US economy. A concerted erosion of the valuation of skilled labor, manufacturing and innovation by the amoral scions of that very wealth in their Armani suits.
We have abdicated, through intellectual atrophy and our own greed, the throne of Democracy to career charlatans, there is no real daylight between the collective greed of both sides of Congress, all liars and lobbyists but for a few.
We see now that our own collective actions and inactions, however small, can topple these shell games, the way every tainted, nameless stream in northeast Ohio impacts the algae bloom in Erie.
Surely we can smarten up and retake the reins of true government. Shit, from my house, I can see Collinwood, I'll be Secretary of the Hood.
These asshats bicker over sodomy and lipstick while Russia, unchallenged, establishes bomber flight paths off Venezuela to protect Chavez' cocaine shipments to Europe.
Leaders? I think not. Experience? Crack whores have it, too.
"It would require very hard work, an educated,collaborative electorate and entail risks, sorta like the Republic envisioned 232 years ago"
Hate to be the voice of doom but I'm guessing even with the historic nature of the upcoming election and the crisis situation we'll still be lucky to get 55% of the registered voters to the polls on 11/4.
Another prediction. When the dusts settles and the Right has had time to generate a cohesive economic philosophy( i.e. "talking points"), those that don't agree with it will be labeled Marxist or Communists and UnAmerican just like people who opposed the war were called unpatriotic. And, if there was a mass revolt and refusal to pay taxes, those people would be labeled "Terrorists".
RJ
If you want to blame someone for what happened to Russia at the end of the Soviet era, blame Karl Marx.
If you want to blame someone for what's happening to America right now, blame Milton Friedman.
In fact, Uncle Miltie's grave is still relatively fresh. Let's go install a portajohn in place of his tombstone.
Then use it.
Never trust ideologues to run things. Someone, and eventually everyone, always gets screwed while they contort themselves into positions even the Kama Sutra says, "Do not try this at home!!!" trying to bend reality to their pet theories. This Administration is living proof.
Did Marx cause the collapse of the Soviet Regime or predict it?
I am no Marx expert but it has never been clear to me how his descriptions of class struggle and theories on how to avoid it resulted in Stalin, Hitler and Mao. Correct me please if I'm wrong, but it seems they ad libed a good bit.
RJ
EVERYBODY QUIT BEING SO SMART!
Just get really mad and irrational like me, then go get drunk on cheap beer and swear a lot.
My research into the cause of the Crash of 1987 yields one theory that DERIVATIVES may have been the cause at that time also.
Ironically, of course, DERIVATIVES are being blamed--at least in part--again today.
Also, OVERVALUATION--in general--was blamed then; and is again blamed today; however, in 1987 the overvaluation was in various stocks and today the overvaluation was of course in residential homes.
Working on the periphery of the financial industry, I would blame at least in part the crisis on the fact that Americans--when it comes to their own personal finances--don't a lot of times have even 7th Grade math skills: I could explain to my 10-year-old nephew WHY a guy making $50,000 per year should not live in a $250,000 house.
Down and dirty, the explanation is monthly debt-to-income ratio...
There was an infamous commercial for a real estate franchise in 2004 where a husband and wife are looking at their "dream house." The husband says they can't afford it, and the female practically SNIPS HIS BALLS OFF in front of the real estate agent.
This panders to the Madison Avenue "Bonehead husband/Smart wife"-Paradigm that is visible in a large amount of commercials, and in the matrix of TV shows like, "King of Queens."
Anyway, the message is, "I don't care how much your boss is paying you! Find your balls and buy an expensive house! The rest will work itself out later, as if by magic..."
I have heard the same "Cart before horse"-rationale with CARS--another source of American financial woes: "Just BUY a Corvette, then your boss will see you driving it, and magically think you need to make more money, and he will give you more money BECAUSE of the Corvette..."
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Oh, sorry--I just read the above:
"*Hic!* Get me another beer, bitch! 'Ultimate Fighting' is on the Spike Channel, and I am pissed at some nebulous force I can't identify! Motherfuckers!!"
RJ, realizing that this is a fantasy, I'll quibble by saying my scheme does not advocate not paying taxes, the cash clears out of payees account and into escrow, behind a firewall.
The gummint has derivative income, has to e-petition said taxpayers line by line each request for a transfer of cash from Grand Bank of the Cayman Islands or where ever.
By ceding control of millions of small amounts of cash, we give enormous power to institutions(well educated gangs) who act to perpetuate and inflate their cut. Call my theory trickle up. Or B.S.
Now, off to Sav-a-Lot fer a twelve-pak!
Heading out for cheap beer......
Off topic but pertinent,
Palin goes to U.N. tomorrow to meet world leaders. Media allowed photos but no questions. GOP strategist says all voters pay attention to is images. That's what they think of us folks. Strategist also says if Dems criticize her, it'll be a mistake.
RJ
Palin goes to U.N. tomorrow to meet world leaders. Media allowed photos but no questions. GOP strategist says all voters pay attention to is images. That's what they think of us folks. Strategist also says if Dems criticize her, it'll be a mistake.
Cheap beer, swearing, and alarming irrationality, right? I'm heading to Vegas at the start of next week and will make sure all three are followed.
here is an interesting take:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aSKSoiNbnQY0
Kevin Hassett is FULL OF SHIT. TO Wit:
The 108th United States Congress was the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives from January 3, 2003 to January 3, 2005, during the last two years of the first administration of U.S. President George W. Bush.
The apportionment of seats in the House of Representatives was based on the Twenty-second Census of the United States in 2000. Both chambers had a Republican majority.
The 109th United States Congress was the legislative branch of the United States, comprised of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives, from January 3, 2005 to January 3, 2007, during the first two years of the second administration of U.S. President George W. Bush.
House members were elected in the 2004 general election on 2004-11-04. Senators were elected in three classes in the 2000 general election on 2000-11-07, 2002 general election on 2002-11-05, or 2004 general election on 2004-11-04. The apportionment of seats in this House of Representatives was based on the Twenty-second Census of the United States in 2000. Both chambers had a Republican majority, the same party as President Bush.
So The GOP controls the Executive Branch and Both Branches of Congress from 2003 - 2007. They start a war but they are "so tied up in knots" by the Democrats they can't get a bill through congress?
BULLSHIT!
RJ
So, all of the irrelevant facts aside are you saying the S109 did not exist? Are you saying it was not held up in committee (most Senate Committees have a 1 seat majority of the party in power, so yes a Repub or Independent voted with the Dems)? Are you saying McCain was not a co-sponser? Are you denying the Freddies casued much of the current financial crisis, just what is bullshit?
Were former Clinton officials (nice windfall Jamie Golic -- your hands are on two great crises -- 9/11 and subprime mess)
I'm saying once and for all that the GOP is desperate to remove their hand and footprints from a crime no less simple to solve than the OJ killings.( And the GOP faithful are as guilty of jury nulification as the jury in Ito's courtroom. The evidence is overwhelming. We have the perpetrator.) You can quote chapter and verse from any rag you can find and it will never change the fact that when Bush 2 was elected the promise was to restore integrity to The White House, prosperity to America and peace to the world. There was a fricking BUDGET SURPLUS.
Now people don't know if their 401K's are safe or even if the ATM will work. We are running the most massive deficit in U.S. History. There is a string of lies and deceit so long and well documented coming from The Oval Office that denial borders on delusion. The U.S. invaded a sovereign country WITHOUT PROVOCATION for the first time in history. THE WORLD hates our imperialist asses.
This is good government? This is the fault of The Left? BULLSHIT!
RJ
To the anonymous poster:
I don't know much about Stalin or Mao, but the Nazi party was not a communist party. In fact, the Communist Party was an opposition party to the Nazi party, and were "taken care of." Hitler was a strong believer in "survival of the fittest."
I don't think there has ever been a Communist country the way Marx envisioned it. I think the closest thing to Communism in the world today is the Amish, lol.
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