A Midwestern Broad Talks Turkey
Give it back, ya Wall Street scumbags, right down to the tires on your Mercedes!
via Celeste Fremon
A Midwestern Broad Talks Turkey
Give it back, ya Wall Street scumbags, right down to the tires on your Mercedes!
via Celeste Fremon
Amy,
I share your outrage. Many individuals on Wall Street made the problem worse and engaged in very unethical behaviour. Many also profited tremendously from all this which makes things even more outrageous. This package is obviously fraught with moral hazard. Bankers, Wall Street, and homeowners should be made to suffer the consequences of their decisions.
Be careful, however. Right now leaders all over the world (South Korea, France, Germany, Canada, Dems in the US) are demonizing "wall street fat cats" in order to argue that the current disaster was caused by the free markets and more regulation and socialist policies are required. The US (and I would argue the rest of the world) is at a pivotal economic point. If it overregulates and installs socialist policies (such as what occured in 1930), the US could enter a depression (and hence the rest of the world) instead of simply a recession.
Charles at September 26, 2008 4:54 AM
Marcy Kaptur. How cute. Another dimwit who doesn't know her ass from her elbow, apparently.
Taking things away from the so-called "fat cats" won't help - there isn't enough money there. If you took every penny that Franklin Raines stole, if you made Dodd and Obama give back every penny they were given, etc. it's pissing in the ocean.
The problem is that nobody expects anyone to pay them back, SO THEY AREN'T LENDING MONEY.
What's at issue here is not some hundred million dollars in ill-gotten gains. What's at issue is several BILLION dollars in uncertain long-term debt.
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/274247.php
That's the best explanation I've seen yet.
brian at September 26, 2008 5:15 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2008/09/26/a_midwestern_br.html#comment-1593319">comment from brianYes, we're being forced to buy a bunch of crap. And here's a press release from Ayn Rand Institute, by Yaron Brook, about how the UNfree markets were the problem:
http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=index
Amy Alkon at September 26, 2008 7:34 AM
Amy -
Everyone who isn't a socialist knows this. Right now, the chief Senate criminal in this whole thing is standing next to 'Dingy' Harry Reid talking about how "we're going to get this done".
As far back as 1999 the problems with malfeasance at Fannie/Freddie were known, and Congressional Democrats intentionally stood in the way of cleaning up the mess because they were using the money to buy votes.
If I was in Washington watching this speech, I'd be dead right now because I would have punched Reid right in the mouth.
brian at September 26, 2008 7:58 AM
Marcy Kaptur for President!
Roger at September 26, 2008 8:30 AM
Every time i see Reid or Frank or Dodd on tv I want to scream! I am in a state of shock to see that the people who caused this cluster fuck are now tasked to fix it. That's like asking Arthur Andersen to fix Enron. Somebody please pinch me and tell me this isn't a bad dream.
Morons. Our politicians are morons. And so are we, if we keep buying their crap.
I'm reading Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine right now. I'll go discuss this elsewhere, but damn....
Sterling- I'm not a gynecologist, but I'll take a look anyway
Sterling at September 26, 2008 9:10 AM
Sterling - Klein is part of the problem. She's an Obama enabler.
brian at September 26, 2008 10:21 AM
Brian,
Agreed. Klein is part of the problem. But my point is that as I am reading, I see some of what is going one when there is a 'Disaster'. When I saw her on Maher I knew she was probably a hack. But I like to see what the hacks have to say.
New Orleans was a democrat created cesspool, so disaster economics was good for that place, whether Ms Klein thinks it's bad or not matters not to me.
I paid my mortgage and my student loans and my credit cards off. Everybody else that can't should just go suck on it. Or move in with Barney Frank.
Sterling at September 26, 2008 10:28 AM
Ron Paul has been talking about this happening for years. Save the republic.. on nov. 4th.. ask for a paper ballot and write in "Ron Paul - President"
melody at September 26, 2008 11:13 AM
Stuff it, Paulbot. McCain's been on about Fannie and Freddie at least as long, and he has the added benefit of being sane.
Or at least not a xenophobic isolationist.
brian at September 26, 2008 11:58 AM
Oh, I'm a Ron Paul fan myself - much moreso than I am of McCain. I don't know where you get the idea, Brian, that Ron's a xenophobic isolationist, but he's much more libertarian than McCain ever thought of being.
And "Stuff it, Paulbot?" Rude and ill-mannered.
Moving on, I have to chime in with some others that what makes me the sickest about this entire thing is that the free market and capitalism are being blamed for it. I hope people are smarter than that, but obviously we wouldn't be in this mess if the majority of people in this country were smart. I guess we (in the collective sense) are getting exactly what we deserve.
None of this would have happened in the first place without the government meddling in the mortgage market. The political pressure came from the very stupid and misguided idea that everyone in the U.S.A. is entitled to a house. If it costs some bare minimum to build a house that is structurally sound, then by definition there are going to be people who don't make enough money to afford it. SO WHAT???
Pirate Jo at September 26, 2008 12:31 PM
Jo - it was meant to be rude.
As far as Paul? We can start with his distaste for free trade. Then we can talk about his unwillingness to have military involvements of any sort with other nations. Or his dislike of foreign aid.
We can also talk about how his views seem to align with Pat Buchanan's, and if memory serves, didn't Buchanan endorse Paul in the Republican primary?
I have a very strict rule - if Pat Buchanan's fer it, I'm agin it.
Buchanan is a Hilter apologist. Anything else he says is meaningless to me.
brian at September 26, 2008 1:16 PM
This is just political correctness running its course. The subprime loans that are at the nucleus of this mess were given, overwhelmingly, to minorities who didn't qualify for them and who couldn't pay them back. Once the housing marked tanked these loans went into foreclosure.
If Ms. Kaptur wants to nail somebody to the wall she need look no further than her own political party. I'm sure Barney Frank will be all ears.
I do, however, agree with Ms. Kaptur that the people who made big money peddling race based shitty loans shouldn't be able to keep their ill gotten gains while the fallout is passed on to the American taxpayer.
What an absolute fucking joke.
Tom at September 26, 2008 1:17 PM
Right now, I am not asking myself "Who is John Galt?" but "Where the heck he is?".
I think the U.S. public is receiving a great lesson about political awareness. Let's hope they learn it.
Toubrouk at September 26, 2008 1:56 PM
Unfortunately, Toubrouk, if they get their information from the newspapers, they are going to hear how McCain scuttled the bailout deal, and how the Republicans caused the sub-prime mess with their greedy friends.
In other words, they will believe a lie. Because that is all the media will tell them. Because they are so in the tank for Obama that they cannot possibly let the truth of the matter surface.
I watched Harry Reid and Christopher Dodd puke their shit onto my screen today. I almost got sick listening to it. But there are plenty of people who will hear it, and they will believe it.
And that scares the fuck out of me.
brian at September 26, 2008 2:02 PM
Brian, do you have ongoing angst with "melody" the way you do with Crid, or is the fact that she is a Ron Paul supporter enough to justify being rude to her?
I don't think you are right about his concept of free trade - his statements have been to the effect that the way to spread the concepts of freedom and free-market capitalism are by trading with other nations, not by invading them. That doesn't sound to me like he is against free trade.
I agree with him about not having military involvement with other nations. Please elaborate on a current military involvement that we have with another nation that you think is necessary and worth what the American people are paying for it. Are there any that you think we shouldn't be involved in? I'm trying to remember how many countries we have U.S. military personnel stationed in. How much foreign military personnel do we have stationed here? How far should the USA go with "peacekeeping missions?"
As for foreign aid, what is your view about welfare programs here at home? The current mortgage crisis sprouted from the whole Marxist view of welfare - everyone is entitled to "A", so those who can't afford it should be subsidized via the taxes of those who can. I see foreign aid in much the same light, to the extent that the funding for it is being forcibly extorted from taxpayers. If someone wants to write a check to the Red Cross to assist someone living in a refugee camp, they should not be prevented from doing so. But I have a big problem with this going through the federal government, because a) it's not voluntary, and b) the money is so badly spent - it frequently is used to make things worse instead of better, no matter how well-intentioned the aid was.
I despise Pat Buchanan, too. I can't stand fundies of any stripe. But I have yet to hear Ron Paul rant or rave about there being a shortage of white Christian American babies.
Pirate Jo at September 26, 2008 2:17 PM
The sudden dropping of the Paul Bomb is enough. I had to put up with the rants about The Only Man Who Can Save America™, and got tired of the whole thing. If the man's so fucking great, why hasn't he done anything about it in his career as a Representative?
That Ron Paul is against free trade agreements that tear down tariff walls tells me he is in favor of rigged trade that benefits one party but not the other.
We have troops stationed in Europe to keep them from fighting each other. Been that way since the end of WWII. Ditto South Korea. You can argue that we don't need to do that any more, but I think that would be a Bad Thing. I also think he's wrong about Iraq. "Peacekeeping" is a tough one. I think we have a duty as humans to prevent genocide when possible, but someone's gonna get shafted no matter how many times we intervene.
Welfare? Should not exist at the federal level for anyone. Same with subsidies for businesses. If it's not profitable to grow sugar in Florida, I see no reason why my taxes should be used to offset their costs. There are, however, some things only the government can do - like the response in Sri Lanka after the tsunami. I mean, how many people have floating nuclear reactors just handing around?
My problem with Pat Buchanan is that he's the lefitst media's go-to guy when they want to talk to a "conservative", which is why so many people in this country have the equation of "Republican=Racist" and "Conservative=Christian" burned into their heads. I'm neither racist nor Christian, but I'm a conservative. But in Pat's world, I'm just another infidel.
brian at September 26, 2008 2:44 PM
Oh, I thought the Paulistas were sort of cute! I'm with the guy about 85%, which is closer than I was to any other candidate, so he got my support. Nobody made me drink any Kool-Ade though. (I'm pro-choice, for example.)
I was not aware that Ron Paul was against any removal of tariffs. I have never heard him address that topic specifically. Everything I have heard him say would indicate that he is completely behind free trade, so I wonder about the specifics of these instances. Was the removal going to be one-sided? I personally am in favor of tariff-free trade between countries, and the removal of governmental subsidies of all kinds. I think that the only laws that should affect the price of anything are the laws of supply and demand, and evidence would suggest that attempts to thwart these laws always end in fuckuppery. If Ron Paul doesn't agree with me on that, well than I guess I just disagree with him.
I agree with pretty much everything else you said. Yes, peacekeeping is a tough one. The movie 'Black Hawk Down' illustrates an example of that. But when civil war breaks out in South Africa, and thousands of refugees come streaming across the nearest border and find a well-stocked refugee station, I know the USA is probably paying for most of that and am glad we were there to help. Ditto for the Sri Lanka incident. However I see the voluntary outpouring of support from people after situations like Hurricane Katrina, and I wonder how much of this really depends on government coercion of its taxpayers. People WANT to help. What about all that foreign aid that gets channeled to the pockets of the very dictators who are keeping their people from self-sufficiency in the first place?
Agree about Pat Buchanan - I guess (thanks, perhaps, to the Republican party) "conservatism" doesn't mean what it used to. But then again, before that, the term was "classical liberal." So who's to say?
Pirate Jo at September 26, 2008 3:37 PM
You know brian while I dont often agree with you I usually at least respect you but this?
"I think we have a duty as humans to prevent genocide when possible,"
How many armed conflicts and genocides has our government refused to get involved with because the areas they were located had no strategic or material value?
Also what good are we going to do if the cant fucking afford to feed, cloth, and provide bullets to the troops?
And why was it we spent 10 times as muc money for private contrtors to drive trucks, cook meals, and act as quartermasters when the Amry spends millions training soldiers to do it at 1/10 the pay?
How long to taxpayers have to foot the bill to pad the pockets of campaign contributers and failed businiess?
Perhaps if a few businesses were allowed to fail a few decades ago and the pension plans of those failed businesses werent, again, laid at my feet - perhaps business leaders and share holders whould have bothered to lan long term rather than focus on quartly profit margins.
This is why I DESPISE humanity, I mean for christs sake how is it fucking possible that we are so damn lucky as to become self aware, to have the ability to think, to reason, to imagine, and still be so god damn stupid?
Microscopes, telescopes, tv, digital recording, communication, the written word, electricity, air conditioning - we have the capability to create things that could never come into being naturally, we can create our own miricles, solve the mysteries of time and space
Why the fuck is it so hard to create a balanced economic system that checks human greed?
lujlp at September 26, 2008 6:45 PM
Can you tell me the strategic or material value of our intervention in Kosovo? Somalia?
You cannot. Because there wasn't one. The only reason we did either is because some asshole at the UN had something at stake and begged for help. Which is why we did nothing while 500,000 people were slaughtered in Rwanda, and why we sit on our hands while Zimbabwe, Nigeria, and Sudan burn. Nobody in the UN has a vested interest in stopping THOSE slaughters.
Either we stop genocide, or we don't. We don't get to pick and choose which people are more worthy of protection.
Why? Simple. People suck. In 7,000+ years of recorded history, we still haven't figured out how to keep the charismatic sociopath from beguiling his way to power and doing amazing amounts of destruction.
brian at September 26, 2008 7:09 PM
The only reason we did either is because some asshole at the UN had something at stake and begged for help.
You answered your own question - the administration wanted something from the UN
lujlp at September 26, 2008 10:25 PM
> This is why I DESPISE humanity
How does it feel about you?
Crid [cridcridatgmail] at September 26, 2008 11:04 PM
Why the fuck is it so hard to create a balanced economic system that checks human greed?
lujlp, I share your frustration. There is an extremely simple and accurate explanation: small government is a public good and public goods are under-produced. I'm using the technical, economic meaning, not the general English meaning of public good. If you're not familiar with it, you also might want to Google capture theory. If you do this and actually enjoy reading about it, let me know and I'll give you a book recommendation.
However, at the end of the day I've found that understanding how this works, while satisfying for its own sake, is about as useful to solving the problem as knowing that the pain is all in your brain when you've smashed your thumb with a hammer.
Shawn at September 27, 2008 2:34 AM
"Why the fuck is it so hard to create a balanced economic system that checks human greed?"
The USA had one for the first couple of hundred years. Yes, we need laws to punish people who commit fraud or violate their agreements. But beyond that, there really isn't much that needs to be done. Millions of people voluntarily making agreements with each other for mutual benefit, with competition restraining those who get too greedy, actually works.
It's when this lovely system gets polluted and distorted by political agendas that it stops working. For example, the idea that everyone should be able to buy a house. The "American Dream" is such a cliche, because not everyone in America wants the same things. Some people want to buy houses, others would rather have more mobility. So I wonder why home ownership was ever set up to be such a sacred cow in the first place.
It's one thing to make a more general statement that in America, we should have a strong enough economy and enough opportunities that anyone who wants a house should be able to buy one eventually. But that was already true before we ever had a Fannie or a Freddie, or a group like Acorn. Anyone COULD buy a house if they wanted to! It might mean you saved up some money for a down payment, it might mean you don't start popping out a litter of kids starting at age 15, dooming yourself to a life of being broke, and it might mean living within your means. It might mean you forget about living in a more expensive part of the country, or buy a smaller house that doesn't have a wine cellar. But yes, through wise decision-making and delayed gratification, anyone could buy a house. Why did we mess with that?
Or how about the idea that people are "entitled" to a 30-year retirement, starting at age 65? Well, if you leave people alone to earn money, and don't tax the hell out of them, and let them keep what they earn, anyone who wants to live frugally, save money, and invest wisely, can indeed have a 30-year retirement - or more. There was never anything stopping people from doing so.
But somehow "we" got the idea that people should be able to buy a house and enjoy a long retirement, regardless of how much money they make, or how much they save vs. how much they spend, and regardless of any decisions made by these individuals throughout their lives. There are going to be some people who never buy a house, and who have to work until they are 75, and maybe they are fine with that! Let's not sit around and pity these people - who are we to say what anyone should strive for? Maybe they enjoyed living in the moment, and not scrimping and saving for a day in the future? If that means they have to work a while longer, so what?
But we always think we have to suck money away from the earners, and direct it to the non-earners, with the agent of redistribution (the government) taking a sizable chunk out of it along the way. That in itself creates its own market distortion, in every sector of the economy. We had a great system in place - the best the world has ever seen - and it created all kinds of success for everyone. In 200 years we went from being pioneers living out in the sticks or in cities with dirt streets, to what we have now. But we couldn't just leave well enough alone, and now we experience a decline. The financial markets are now verging on collapse, and our Social Security ponzi scheme will be there in another ten years. Sadly, this defeat is being blamed on capitalism and failure within free markets.
Pirate Jo at September 27, 2008 5:32 AM
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