Brad,

Chase was never bailed out.

Goldman sure was. And they were the prime movers and shakers behind the bubble. They should not be praised for their “business savvy.”

Can you link the article, please?

OT: Does the One’s nefariousness know no bounds?

OK, found it. It was Businessweek.

You missed this part:

Blankfein and Dimon took their bonuses in stock rather than cash, which Obama encouraged other corporations to do. Such compensation, he said, “requires proven performance over a certain period of time as opposed to quarterly earnings.” He said that’s a “fairer way of measuring CEO success and ultimately will make the performance of American businesses better.”

(emphasis added)

Rusty, I’m guessing that Chicago city comptroller was not. Dead. Yet.

actor212 — Dude. I don’t care. These guys wrecked the damn economy. They did. You know it and Obama knows it. They should be out on the street begging for food, not pulling in multi-million dollar bonuses.

Well, communism failed; and capitalism has clearly failed. WTF do we do? I think it’s time we go back and reexamine the first premise.

Actor, this is it.

I really don’t have a problem with the bonuses, but this is politically retarded.

Chase was never bailed out.

The two banks were among those that repaid the bailout money they received from the federal government during the financial crisis.

Obama sought to combat perceptions that his administration is anti-business and trumpeted the influence corporate leaders have had on his economic policies.

Oh, I guess I hadn’t noticed that before.

DK-W, I stand corrected. My understanding was that Chase and Wells Fargo received no TARP funds. Perhaps they were in the second wave of funding.

Oh, I guess I hadn’t noticed that before.

I almost feel tempted to get down on my knees and beg Lambert for forgiveness. My problem with him, though, is he can’t convince me HRC would have been any better.

(OK, on health care she would have, that’s for certain, but on financial reform she would have been the same or worse.)

Because if this country’s going to crash, I want it to crash hard and fast so we can just start over.

Shorter Brad: I want millions of people to suffer because I don’t like bankers.

Look, I don’t like it, but I don’t know what you expected. Obama was never going to be able to do anything to these guys, because they didn’t break the law. He can’t fire them, and just by suggesting that they not get their bonuses he basically created the entire fucking Tea Party movement.

The talk you’re spewing is no different than a Tea Partier calling for a second American Revolution. I’m not down with that, and never will be.

I guess I was always a kind of Socialist. Guess the right wingers were right; listening to BHO would turn you Socialist. I’m joining the party later today, I have given up on the Democrats and I don’t have a big enough clothes pin to pinch my nose to vote Republican.

mmy — uh, no. It’s more that our democracy is inherently broken and corrupted by entrenched moneyed interests. I had accepted that Obama would be a corporate Dem, but I swear to God I thought he’d at least understand that you can’t just let the damn banks do whatever the hell they want after we’d bailed them out. That’s not a matter of ideology, it’s a matter of basic economic survival.

I stand corrected.

No worries. It wasn’t that much money.

What’s important is that by this statement, Obama is attempting to reassure all those people who scream publicly that Obama is a Nazihitlersocialist and Bill Ayers that he is no crazed Hugo Chavez socialist.

This outreach will surely work, calm the fevered ones’ minds, and they will moderate their public screaming and hatred to reflect the new spin, that Obama only mildly sympathizes with the Brilliant Ones running Wall Street so well, and maybe he’s just more of a Salvador Allende Daniel Ortega socialist than Commie Nazi.

I don’t quite understand what the alternative is to letting them accept their bonuses (which were at least in stock). I don’t think Congress will pass a law against it (and it would be too late anyway), and there were no fucking strings tied to the TARP money at all.

Obama didn’t have to come out in support of it, of course, but he’s obviously NOT a populist and never will be. The system is broken, and even if he wanted to do something about it, he couldn’t.

And Elizabeth Warren is just like one of the Teatards, with her crazed hatred of Wall Street and the people we depend on for jobs, the valued and skilled CEOs of our banking and finance industry.

You Democrats and liberals better watch what you say, because if you suggest that handling the utter deregulatory finance collapse desperately needed to have done better so that our massive risks might actually have been addressed rather than coddled with unstable book-balancing, than you and all you Simon Johnson types are just like nuts in tri-cornered hats with teabags on them screaming ‘STOP DA SPENDIN’.

Mind you, it’s good elventey-treeh dimensional chess. Lock up financial industry contribution dollars early for the midterms – then go bank bashing all summer long. Minus the bank bashing all summer long part.

Besides, it’s not like this is going to upset anyone other than bloggers anyways. Srsly, how many people know who these guys are anyways – I think this is the first I’ve heard of Dimon.

Yeah, I have to agree with Barack here. 9 mil is not that high for a CEO of a giant wall street firm.

Well of course the problem continues to be that no one in politica or the media or economic academia will even whisper in the deepest darkest forest what the obvious truth is: a few people have too much money, and the rest have too little. But no one will say that out loud because it’s “class warfare”. So we continue to get all this bullshit about why it’s taking the economy so long to recover – obviously if half the country wasn’t broke going into the recession, things would have picked up already. So it’s really nice of Obama to be stroking the hurt feelings of a bunch of poor multi-millionaires, while the teabaggers rant about how those same poor multi-millionaires are over-taxed.

I’m not an economist, but I don’t have to be one to see that you can’t have growth in a consumer-driven economy when close to half of the people in it own less than 1% of the nation’s wealth. It’s a self-devouring cycle, and there are really only two possible ways to deal with it: mandate higher minimum wages, or tax the shit out the people who have all the money. Otherwise it just snowballs – the more wealth the rich people accumulate, the easier it is for them to accumulate wealth. Until eventually, they’re the only ones who have any money at all – and then they can’t make money, either, because none of the serfs can buy any of the shit they peddle.

So I really wouldn’t have a problem with these bonuses – if all income over say, $1 million was taxed at a rate of 70%. Otherwise, Obama can stick his concern for Wall Street up his ass.

Isolated quotes taken out of context. It will still look very bad and it does say something about Obama’s image.

mmy – It’s not a matter of millions suffering or not, it’s a matter of millions suffering now or later. If there aren’t fundamental changes forced on the banks, this will all happen again, just worse.

And saying that “hey, at least they took the bonuses in stock” is no defense. Now, all they have to do is rig their numbers, raise the stock price and magically $9 millions becomes $20 million. One fine way to raise stock prices is eliminating expenditures… like employees. You’ll pardon me if I’m not reassured.

I don’t quite understand what the alternative is to letting them accept their bonuses (which were at least in stock).

I don’t think there is one directly, as that may get us into bill of attainder territory.

Personally, I’d use the outrage to push for a much more progressive tax structure – undo the Nixon-and-later flattening of the rates.

if all income over say, $1 million was taxed at a rate of 70%.

There really ought to be new brackets. I have a plan – since this is going to be accused of punishing success anyways, let’s punish those fuckers. The new bracket starts at ten million dollars, but it’s 200%.

I think this is the first I’ve heard of Dimon.

Jamie Dimon:

Dimon left Citigroup in November 1998. It was rumored at the time that he and Weill got into an argument in 1997 over the perceived lack of promotion given by Dimon to Weill’s daughter, Jessica M. Bibliowicz.[4] In his 2005 University of Chicago Graduate School of Business Fireside Chat and 2006 Kellogg School of Management interviews, Dimon stated that he was fired by Weill.

In March 2008 he was a board member of the New York Federal Reserve Bank and CEO of J.P. Morgan and made decisions in connection with the $55 billion loan to J.P. Morgan to bail out Bear Stearns.

Ugh, I just realized that I’m turning into an Enlightened Practical Democrat, probably because I’m sick of being pissed off. I’m going to go take a nap–ask me about this later.

I’m not an economist, but I don’t have to be one to see that you can’t have growth in a consumer-driven economy when close to half of the people in it own less than 1% of the nation’s wealth.

You forgot about the Invisible Hand! It will solve all our troubles!

A previous boss of mine one day gave us ass-embled employgrunts a speech about how the tighter times at the company meant that we couldn’t be expecting the higher pay and bonuses / commissions that we had hoped for, and some of us would either have to go on part time and on-call labor or just not work with us anymore.

The very next day he showed up in a brand new $100K+ car and excitedly invited us to take rides in it with him. On the other hand, he really didn’t make that much more than other business owners in his industry.

You forgot about the Invisible Hand! It will solve all our troubles!

Particularly when it enters our invisible pants!

That’s Lloyd “God’s Work” Blankfein to you, buddy. And genuflect when you say that.

“In March 2008 he was a board member of the New York Federal Reserve Bank and CEO of J.P. Morgan and made decisions in connection with the $55 billion loan to J.P. Morgan to bail out Bear Stearns.”

Wow, they just have no concept of conflict of interest anymore, do they? “What do you mean conflict, the NYFR’s job is to make my firm money and my job is to make my firm money.”

Personally, I’d use the outrage to push for a much more progressive tax structure – undo the Nixon-and-later flattening of the rates.

Me too. A huge portion of our problems would alleviated by a more progressive tax structure. We’re going to have to raise taxes eventually anyway, and with Dems in power, at least there’s a fighting chance that they won’t be placed solely on the middle class’s shoulders.

When did this place turn into PUMAPAC?

Dial it back a bit. This is not Obama bowing down to bankers. This is Step 478 in his Quixotic plan to get the opposition to settle down. Seriously, just calm the fuck down and get some perspective. You just wished an economic collapse on the country because you didn’t like something the President said. That’s PUMA-grade wingnuttery, and I don’t like it.

Particularly when it enters our invisible pants!

Yeah, I’m sure you tell everyone that your pants are just “invisible”.

But Brad’s right. The country is going to crash and burn – nothing can hold up under the crushing weight of TEH STUPID which is the American electorate these days.

I spent a few days commenting on that piece of shit by Gerard Alexander over at WaPo – “Why Are Liberals So Condescending?” (gee, Gerard, maybe because it’s impossible not to condescend to the criminally stupid, ya think?). It’s batshit out there, folks. There was this one stupid c**t who continued to insist that religious tests for office were legal, even after being quoted the lines in the friggin’ constitution that specifically state that they aren’t. According to this Clarence Darrow, states can do whatever the fuck they like because…because…she isn’t able to understand the meaning of concisely written English. Then there was the guy who claimed to be a doctor and said that having employees allows him to do 20% more medical practice per year, but if his taxes went up a lousy 3%, then it just wouldn’t be worth it and he’ll fire all those people and do his own lab work and sterilizing equipment, blah blah blah. When it was pointed out that 3% increase would cost him $1500 on every $50,000 over $150,000, and that he would be foregoing about $30K in additional after-tax income to “save” that $1500, he decided that math is condescending. Then there were the unhinged ranters – one of whom was upset about everything from Amtrak to imaginary new taxes and regulations that are “driving businesses under!”, and lots of them whining about Obama “acting like he’s a king” and objecting that he gets to use the president’s airplane and helicopter – since apparently they’re for whites only.

This bitch is going down; nothing can sustain the assault of this kind of stupid for long. Particularly when the guy with the megaphone won’t get out there and tell the stupid people the plain facts about why they’re all a bunch of lowly serfs now.

Actually, major league sports, including baseball, beneifit greatly from taxpayer money. The taxpayer does subsidize Alex Rodriguez.

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-339es.html

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/If+you+build+it,+they+will+leave:+sports+teams+fleece+the+taxpayer,…-a0111574433

There’s too much PUMA in the pants!
There’s too much PUMA in the pants!
Dance, dance, dance, dance!

I know it looks bad, but when Obama isn’t prepped for a question he just says what ever his genuine response was, and his genuine response was 9 milliion isn’t obscene for “rich important” people standards, which is why he mentioned sports stars.

Yeah, I’m sure you tell everyone that your pants are just “invisible”.

They’re not “just” invisible. They’re invisible and magic and explosive.

The taxpayer does subsidize Alex Rodriguez.

Steroids are theft!

TEH STUPID which is the American electorate these days.

The electorate isn’t responsible for both major parties being owned by the banksters.

remember dudes, anyone who defends the working class against politicians who defend predatory capitalism is a PUMA and probably also a rapist

“This is Step 478 in his Quixotic plan to get the opposition to settle down. “

Not gonna happen. Now that Pam Geller has been on TV the crazy will just get dialed up even higher. There is no end to this because tehy don’t give a fuck about policy, even their own. All they want is to destroy Obama and get back in power.

And that’s when the real ass fucking begins.

The electorate isn’t responsible for both major parties being owned by the banksters.

No. But they are responsible for refusing to use their brains. And for siding with the people who regularly fuck them in the ass (but not in the pleasant way).

I’m not an economist, but I don’t have to be one to see that you can’t have growth in a consumer-driven economy when close to half of the people in it own less than 1% of the nation’s wealth.

Sure you can. It’s called foreign trade.

The electorate isn’t responsible for both major parties being owned by the banksters.

Directly, no.

Indirectly, who has spent the last 30 years* rewarding pols who tell them they can have things for free by stopping services for “those” people? Who votes for morons because they talk tough? Who responds to media pollsters (as bad as the polls may be) with “Jebus will help our schools?”

*32 years in California.

Pack it in working people. At this rate 2010 is going to be brutal but 2012 is going to be a massacre.

Psst, Brad! Down the road, not across the street. And if your thighs aren’t too meaty for it, I recommend the femoral artery.

“but this is politically retarded”

I saw what you did there, T&U. Sister Sarah has blessed the usage as long as it is satire. So, she gives Limbaugh a pass when he says it’s OK to call retards retards. That is fucking retarded. But, it’s OK. See? It was satire. If anyone doesn’t see that, they are fucking retarded.

Look, income inequality sucks. Not being able to make ends meet, while these guys make fuckloads of money, is terrible. But “terrible” and “suffering” are not the same thing.

When y’all say things like, “we need a crash so that things can be fixed,” I don’t think you understand the sort of suffering that will generate. When I was in high school there were three of us trying to get by on $20K a year; it was awful, but we weren’t suffering. Not the sort of suffering that a real crash would generate.

At least the Tea Partiers are honest: they understand that a crash would lead to a lot of people dying, and they’re okay with it because it lets them shoot brown people and generally live out their WOLVERINES!!!!!111!!! fantasy. I think the best way to oppose them is not to think a crash inevitable or necessary in order to make things better.

Sure you can. It’s called foreign trade.

actor212 – yes, that’s what Reagan always said. But even at the tender age of 17 when I first heard him say it, I was asking myself, “hmmmm, ok…so if all we’re going to do is provide “services”…how many of those foreigners are going to be dropping by for lunch at McDonald’s here in my town every day to keep all those “service workers” employed? And how many Mexicans making $.35 per hour are going to be buying cars, tvs, and refrigerators?”

It’s pretty much turned out the way I foresaw it at 17.

Also, I love you guys saying “there’s nothing he can do!” Ah, if only Teddy Roosevelt had taken that winning attitude toward trust busting…

If anyone doesn’t see that, they are fucking retarded.

I’m glad to see that you picked up what I was dropping. I think.

I (and lots of real ekonmists) think that another crash is very much in the making, but I think that’s still just a probability rather than a definite.

What appears to be quite solid is that we’re shifting to a model for the foreseeable future of chronic widespread unemployment at rates not quite large enough to threaten system stability, but at rates large enough to have massive social deterioration effects. Much, much better with greater systemic stability (barring very likely potential major crashes) than what preceded.

So, while we shouldn’t go crazy about statements that basically admit that, yeah, there will still be the super-rich and executives and owners of the giganto-corporations that run both our economy and, mostly, our domestic government, it’s probably a better time than most to be hyper-careful about saying things to sound like the large incomes of so many sheer thieving miscreants is understandable and justified.

On the other hand, who would be among the professional athletes who led their teams to the biggest utter collapses ever — I don’t mean just losing a super-bowl, but having, I don’t know, lost every single game, or figured out ways to score negative points, or lost the stadium and all the equipment and all the uniforms or whatever, such that taxpayers had to front the team’s reconstruction — and then got rewarded by not-record-level but pretty impressive contracts?

Remember that awesome speech FDR gave when he uttered the classic words “The only thing we have to fear is aw fuck it, I give up”

nah, Obama wasn’t pointing this at the normal fuckin people. He was trying to assuage the Wall Street Political Money Machine, which the Republicans are counting on to stiff the Dems this time round. It’s a sign of the broken machine Brad is talking about, the taint of Real Money, but it’s a political play, not a cynical one.

Obama is proof that they system cannot be changed from within. Where that leaves us is anyone’s guess.

The seemingly insurmountable problem we face is the pervasive belief that organized labor, strict regulation, and government policy that protects the individual instead of the corporation is “The American Way”. All the gains made by labor and forward thinking politics in the last century are gone. Now, as a nation, we have become afraid of the consequences we’re told we will face if we get these corporations under control and force them to be part of the solution, rather than sucking the life out of the middle class. Since 1980, there has been a deliberate attempt to exterminate the middle class. It’s working.

zrm – the problem there is the banksters have already declared their allegiance to the Republicans. Check out where their money is going.

No sweet talk from Obama is going to change that. They’re always going to go with whoever tells them “you can do whatever the fuck you want – we won’t get in your way.”

Yes and stock has no value. So everything is good.

mmy-

Brad is saying we are riding in a Toyota; full speed, no brakes, going downhill, picking up speed. Running into a tree NOW will result in injuries, possibly even kill some passengers; but running over the cliff two miles later isn’t a better option.

Not saying I agree with him, but I see the point.

Plus, Imma Midwesterner; so when Prez Palin starts shipping us off to Liberal Camps, I should get into one of the Real Amurrican easy labor camps.

Joseph Stiglitz gets all shrill and ultraleft infantile over at Politico:

Obama must resist ‘deficit fetish’

…The deficit hawks from the banking system went on vacation from the fall of 2008 through the spring of 2009, while they demanded money be doled out freely – to themselves. But now that the public clearly won’t stand for another free lunch at its expense, the deficit hawks are back at work, more vocal than ever about the need to cut government spending.

They say it was necessary to the health of the economy to dole out money to the banks; but not necessary to the health of our society to make sure everyone has access to health care. It was not acceptable to alter the contracts of the AIG personnel, even those “key” and irreplaceable personnel who made the mistakes that led to a $180 billion bailout, but acceptable to break the social contract between America’s elderly and the rest of society, by cutting back on Social Security.

The bankers were short sighted when getting the country into the mess. But deficit fetishism is equally short sighted.

It was a mistake to give in to bankers’ pleas for deregulation before the crisis; a mistake to give into their demand for a bailout without constraints and without appropriate compensation for the government during the crisis; and even more wrong now to give into demands for unfettered deficit reductions, including an end to the stimulus…

…There is another lesson in this basic arithmetic: How money is spent makes a difference.

Some expenditures stimulate the economy more than others, giving higher long-run returns. Multipliers (how much GDP increases for each dollar of government spending) for Afghan war expenditures are likely to be far smaller than the above calculations assume, and long-run economic returns are likely to be nil.

So too, if money is squandered on bailouts for bankers without imposing conditions that induce them to lend more, there will be little to show for it — either in the short run or the long run.

Worrying about the deficit can be good, if it focuses attention on four big issues:

(a) What kind of spending yields high returns?

(b) What kind of spending has the largest multipliers? We can increase spending that stimulates the economy a lot, decrease other spending, and still have a stronger economy.

(c) Are there tax increases that will not hurt output and employment, or at least not much? Increasing the progressivity of the tax structure and closing some corporate tax loopholes can, for example, raise revenue and lower the deficit, as employment increases.

(d) Are there other ways of stimulating the economy, e.g. by eliminating some of the problems in access to credit, or inducing banks to lend more for job creation, rather than helping create bubbles? The answer is clearly yes, but that means being a little tougher on the banks than we have been.

When Washington reformed welfare for poor people, we imposed constraints – they had to look for a job or enter training programs. When the banks went on welfare, we gave them money without constraints.

So too, when the Federal Reserve lends money to the banks at close to zero interest rate. It could impose conditions. Regulatory reforms might make lending more attractive and speculation less attractive.

There are no easy ways out of the mess that the financial sector has created. But giving into mindless deficit fetishism risks higher unemployment and a larger long-run debt.

The economy needs another stimulus, and it needs it now.

What I get from this is if we’d just STOP ALL DA SPENDIN’ (TM), things would just get better, ’cause, they would.

And if we’d stop with all the unemployment benefits welfare, people would get back to work, ’cause, you know, they just need to be of a mindset to work hard, ’cause, you don’t need a job to work hard.

And we need to keep Washington outta Wall Street and let the people who create the ekonmee and all the wealth do what they do good and help us grow, and also people need to learn how to save their money and not spend it all, and that’s how we can get out of this Obama recession.

“they are responsible for refusing to use their brains”

Oh, there are always people on the low end of the curve. How is that new? There was a concerted and deliberate effort to dumb down the US electorate. It worked. I mean, we used to teach people how their government works, they called it “civics” and there could have been basic finance education in schools too.

No, we were brought to this point deliberately because the powerful in America want an aristocratic class. They took a good look at people in Europe and thought, hmmmm… all those poor schlubs working in dirty cafés with a master in fine arts or literature. They’d be much more happy if they were stupid. We won’t let that happen to our poor. Then they also got a good taste of the royal family in Saudi Arabia and thought “Sweeeeet, let’s do that back home.”

So, we have a poor undereducated class in American because that’s how the powers that be want it. And they also encouraged the growth of the evangelicals because Leo Strauss says that’s what is good for the masses.

When you own 99% of the wealth in a country you can take it in any direction you want.

What appears to be quite solid is that we’re shifting to a model for the foreseeable future of chronic widespread unemployment at rates not quite large enough to threaten system stability, but at rates large enough to have massive social deterioration effects.

Which should be loads of fun, aside from the economic problems. There’s a reason why social conservatives are BFFs with the economic elites.

No sweet talk from Obama is going to change that.

yeah, I know that, and YOU know that, but Obama seems to be under the impression that his opposition has a lick of sense. I wasn’t defending what he’s saying, just pointing out that I think it was aimed in a slightly different direction. Shotgun blast to the arm, rather than the face, if you prefer.

Agh–

I MEANT to say that organized labor, regulation and policy that protects workers is against “The American Way”

Apologies for sounding like an uninformed idiot and not proofing my crap.

remember dudes, anyone who defends the working class against politicians who defend predatory capitalism is a PUMA and probably also a rapist

Oh, pack it in, fucknut. This was one comment in one interview, not the official fucking policy. Step back and take a look at what you’re saying, here. Obama makes a remark you don’t like and you’re ready to bring back the days of Bush. Is that really what you want? And how is it any different from this comment from Jennifer4Hillary?

I am in a economy proof business, my
parents have money, and I will NOT SUFFER. We have one year of food PLUS, we
have our gardens, we have our weapons, our bullets, our network. We are
prepared.
That being said, I CANNOT WAIT for the suffering to begin. I
hope there is starvation, I hope there is rioting, and i hope that there
is massive death…

Honestly, the sanctimony is enough to kill a man.

Trig is not retarded but his mother is.

Brad is saying we are riding in a Toyota; full speed, no brakes, going downhill, picking up speed. Running into a tree NOW will result in injuries, possibly even kill some passengers; but running over the cliff two miles later isn’t a better option.

And my point is, claiming that a horrible disaster is inevitable has historically been the refuge of scoundrels. It’s how Bush pushed through torture and wiretapping: he created the atmosphere (especially among his supporters) that another 9/11-scale attack was inevitable. Only a scoundrel would solve this problem by hoping that a President Sarah destroys the country.

It’s pretty much turned out the way I foresaw it at 17.

Clinton forsaw it as well. He tried to get a jobs bill passed in the 90s that would retrain blue collar workers to information age jobs and got tax credits enacted to help people pay for college.

The most staggering statistic I’ve seen this year is that less than 20% of Americans of college age are graduating from school. That means something like one-third of American school kids are even bothering going on to college, believing somehow that 7-11 is going to be a career.

By the way, one of the most cogent analyses of the current American economic crisis and its roots in the 70s is from Dr Richard Wolf of UMass.

Read up on it here. Watch it here.

(and no, PeeJ, I didn’t blogwhore. Altho I could have! 😀 )

And just so I can say that I contributed positively to the debate: What we’re seeing now is pretty definitive proof that an economy built on consumerism can’t last. It’s a castle built on sand, to use a Biblical metaphor. Problem is, the American system is very good at generating money but not as good at generating wealth. That’s problematic, but because wealth isn’t a concern of most people (including the Wall Street Masters of the Universe), the problem goes unnoticed.

No one – Obama included – is really trying to fix this, which means that this sort of mess will happen again and again until the system can’t take anymore. Some would suggest that this is a problem which can’t be fixed through government, but that’s really a rash comment to make when no one has actually tried fixing it through government. After all, there’s nothing particularly revolutionary about the notion that a country should have an exportable product.

I’ve never really understood the desire to eliminate the middle class.

“Oh no, people can afford cars and houses and vacations and can get good Christmas presents for the kids and can afford to retire at 65! We’ve got to stop this horrible thing!”

What’s the reasoning behind the Repubs and the banksters wanting to get rid of the middle class?

“Well, communism failed; and capitalism has clearly failed. WTF do we do? “

“Hunter/gatherer” still has positions open. However applications are available only for those under 20 and with good teeth.

it’s a political play, not a cynical one.

I agree. For the first time in history, the first time Democratic candidate (not incumbent) got more in campaign contributions than the Republican, by a large margin.

Not because Wall St liked Obama more, but because they ain’t idiots. It’s better to lose and be in the shirt pocket of the winner than to lose and be frozen out.

Obama knows he’s never going to get that again, but he can staunch the contribution bleed by throwing them a bone or a dozen.

What’s the reasoning behind the Repubs and the banksters wanting to get rid of the middle class?

That’s easy: turn them into a permanently endebted underclass that pays interest and principal in perpetuity.

What’s the reasoning behind the Repubs and the banksters wanting to get rid of the middle class?

The existence of a middle class means that there is still some stuff out there that they don’t own.

and now I want to “bring back Bush” because I think Dear Leader is completely tone deaf and more than a touch in favor of the ruling class. but remember guys, *I’m* the one blowing things out of proportion.

I think you think this is Balloon Juice or something, D

Obama knows he’s never going to get that again, but he can staunch the contribution bleed by throwing them a bone or a dozen.

B-b-b-b-b-but we shoulda elected HIWWAWWY, dammit! Me want HIWWAWWY!

“What’s the reasoning behind the Repubs and the banksters wanting to get rid of the middle class?”

Because they know how things really work and not the bullshit theories people are told. Those who are rich and smart know that they got where they are only by sheer chance. Their wealth allows them to have many irons in the economic fire so to speak. Those in the middle classes can only afford one shot at success but every once in a while they get lucky and become the nouveau riche. So the middle class represents a threat.

Oh, and… because they are greedy sociopathic fucks.

“PK”,

Six of one, half a dozen of the other. I was an unabashed Hillbot, mostly because I saw Obama as being only a shade better (er, no pun intended) and I ascribe to the “Elect Cthulhulu” platform: “Why settle for the lesser of two evils when you can have evil?”

Also what actor said. It’s a lot easier to subjugate people who are hanging on by their fingernails than it is people who can tell you to stick your shitty job up your ass and go find another one. I’ve got personal experience with that last one – my guess is that at least one out of every two employers has used the recession as a cudgel against their employees to make them eat the shit sandwich. Since even though I was hanging on by my fingernails I’ve never been the type to eat the sandwich, I moved on and it worked out for me. But the threat was both implied and implicit in both situations – “this really isn’t a good time to be out of work, so if you want to keep this job, you need to step up and eat this shit.”

And my point is, claiming that a horrible disaster is inevitable has historically been the refuge of scoundrels.

For myself, I would not say that a horrible disaster is inevitable. I would, however, agree with those who point out that right now we are making decisions which make such a horrible disaster very likely, though not unavoidable.

It appears, however, that even beyond the world of Sadly No! posts, those who try to make the point above — how by our decisions right now we are making the likelihood of future disaster greater than such probabilities would be if we were to make different policy decisions — are heard as mere doom-mongers who refuse to give Obama credit for trying.

Okay, I’ll be glad to. I hope it works out, I hope the warnings of high probabilities of disastrous risk turn out not to have been predictions of certainty, and that maybe by desirable developments which as of yet I see no signs, steps will be taken and decisions made to address such still-remaining disastrous risks.

And maybe we’ll even be willing to do something about the rather horrible but not catastrophic situation it looks like we will be in for a while, though at present I see only tiny echoes of such moves, though people tell me I shouldn’t tell that because I appear to be a glass half empty type person.

Obama is proof that they system cannot be changed from within.

Oh fer fuck’s sake. It’s been a year. Calm the feck down.

This clinches it. Dimon will be the next SecTreasury.

tax the shit out the people who have all the money.

C’mon now, Jennifer!

Only some Nazisocialsticterrarist would do something like, I dunno, have a top marginal tax rate of 91%.

A Nazisocialsticterrarist like, say, Dwight D. Eisenhower …

::bangs head on desk::

I don’t understand why someone can’t explain to the American people that raising taxes isn’t always evil, nor is it harmful.

For example: The average American spends $12K in health care premiums each year. Yet if we had universal care paid by a 10% increase in the average American taxes, they’d only be dishing out (again, on average) $4,500 for health care.

That’s a 10% tax increase that winds up saving the average American $8,000!

Yet no politician dares to make that argument … and it’s fucking stupid they don’t.

And how is it any different from this comment from Jennifer4Hillary?

Don’t you think that’s a tad, uh, unfair? I doubt that anyone here is relishing the idea that our democracy is headed toward a state of complete collapse, or is under any delusion that it’s a *good* thing. If you believe we can prevent it, good for you, but some of us aren’t so sure. Being a rip-the-BandAid-off-fast type, I can understand where Brad’s coming from, here.

my guess is that at least one out of every two employers has used the recession as a cudgel against their employees to make them eat the shit sandwich.

Which is why I’m sat at my desk as a blizzard looms over the city, rather than be sanely and safely home, sipping brandy.

Finally! A comment that isn’t “spammy”!!

On the bright side, you all don’t have to slog through the thesis-length comment I tried post.

FYWP! PENIS! POOP! BLART! ETC.! ETC.! ETC.!

“Hunter/gatherer” still has positions open.

zombie is gonna be a growth industry and I am in on the ground floor! sucks to be a breather!!

All That Is Solid Melts into Air

“I’m now officially on the Palin 2012 bandwagon.”

Good for you, Brad! H.L. Mencken’s prediction will finally come true!

“As democracy is perfected, the office represents more and more closely the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

sucks to be a breather!!

Why do you hate Air America so???

The original synchronicity of hard right-wing movements and corporate-sponsored think tanks and lobbies to weaken the U.S. middle class is that had grown so strong and independent that it was difficult to reverse the policy successes it had achieved in the New Deal and even to a degree Great Society reforms.

It’s no different in its basic strategic logic (though different in impact and scale) than other counter-insurgency approaches which recognized that if the enemy continued to draw support from the population, then focus on weakening and killing the population from which they drew support.

You know, the brilliant type of thought in which the decade-long bombing and then under Nixon mega-intense carpet-bombing of the Cambodian peasantry brought the Khmer Rouge from a fringe weak lunatic extremist group generally despised to being the only force capable of emerging from the rubble and uniting the starving and bitter peasantry for a few years until people realized what the hell they had just backed (and Vietnam got tired of watching these nuts murder their own people and destabilize their borders).

This is related to the propensity among liberals and centrists to suggest that it’s conspiracy theorizing to assume that the wealthiest elites (divided though they may be) and conservative movements are completely clueless and unable to analyze the American class and social system and figure out how to pursue their own interests within that and apply the necessary resources to do so, but we can in our magazines and our comic books and our movies.

“On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron…”

The first time, Reagan, as tragedy. The second time, Bush Jr., as farce. The third time, Palin, as…. what?

Look on the bright side. Repubs are running away from their own plans.

“Horney said he doesn’t see why many Republicans are backing away from the plan as a political hot potato, saying it’s consistent with policies they’ve supported for years.”

Also, “Horney.” HA!

It sounds like Obama made a verbal gaffe to me.

And what about the financial reform bill? Even if it’s watered down, it seems to do something about reining in financial abuses.

Man, fuck it. I’m now officially on the Palin 2012 bandwagon. Because if this country’s going to crash, I want it to crash hard and fast so we can just start over.

Not before I make a mint with plans for a Brawndo distributorship.

Conservative elites and corporate interests know exactly what they are doing. The teabaggers and Palin-drones are just useful idiots who assist the former in their goal to ass fuck the middle class even harder.

The first time, Reagan, as tragedy. The second time, Bush Jr., as farce. The third time, Palin, as…. what?

Armeggedon?

The first time, Reagan, as tragedy. The second time, Bush Jr., as farce. The third time, Palin, as…. what?

Torture.

Also gocart. Also.

TruculentandUnreliable

The so-called consumption tax is the VAT used in Europe. The difference is that the Europeans use the tax to pay for their medical systems and social programs. Of course, the Republicans will only use it to steal from the poor.

So here’s the bright and shiny silver lining – the massive crash caused by Palin 2012 probably won’t fix things either.

Remember the previous Occupant, who converted record surpluses to record deficits; who argued against habeas corpus and in favour of enhanced interrogation; who entered into two wars of choice; who when not gutting the civil service – was cronying it up with people selected by Monica Goodling?

Sure that was enough to get a black Kenyan into the White House – but public sentiment still hasn’t shifted that much. I mean, despite the lost decade and the fact that the GOP is riddled with a bunch of mouth-breathing morans, marching lock-step to the beat of Big Pharma and GET OFFA MAH PHONE – there is still a Republican Party. For a group that’s “out in the wilderness” they have an awful lot of influence, and shockingly – support from the public. Yes the “GOP brand” is doing the worse that it has since anyone started asking – but there they are, crying socialism and cutting the jobs bill in half – and outside of the blogosphere, no one laughs their ridiculous asses out of the room.

Could Palin do a worse job than W? Probably, the backroom boys responsible for her campaign would want to keep the leash short – but she does seem genuinely vested in the Going Rogue concept. Still, she’s probably easily manipulable (even compared to W) – especially for a group that’s capable enough to get her elected.

I’m not saying that there won’t be any difference – sure I’m disappointed in Barry O, but I’m only slightly stupid and recognize that he has done some good shit that the other guy wouldn’t have and not done a ton of horrible shit that JiSM3 was dying to do. But even after the brutal horror that would be yet another disastrous Republican Administration, the Age of Enlightenment won’t be waiting on the other side. It’ll probably be yet another centrist concensus builder with plenty of obligations to corporate interests – just with even more pieces to pick up and stitch back together while bleeding off as much as he can to the groups that backed him.

Of course, the Republicans will only use it to steal from the poor.

It’s inherently regressive. They know exactly what they’re doing.

Please do better than HuffPo making up a quote. Just because Arianna’s dishonest doesn’t mean you have to follow.

Krugman gets all shrill again:

..[T]o my knowledge, irresponsible behavior by baseball players hasn’t brought the world economy to the brink of collapse and cost millions of innocent Americans their jobs and/or houses.

And more specifically, not only has the financial industry has been bailed out with taxpayer commitments; it [the financial industry] continues to rely on a taxpayer backstop for its stability. Don’t take it from me, take it from the rating agencies:

The planned overhaul of US financial rules prompted Standard?&?Poor’s to warn on Tuesday it might downgrade the credit ratings of Citigroup and Bank of America on concerns that the shake-up would make it less likely that the banks would be bailed out by US taxpayers if they ran into trouble again.

The point is that these bank executives are not free agents who are earning big bucks in fair competition; they run companies that are essentially wards of the state. There’s good reason to feel outraged at the growing appearance that we’re running a system of lemon socialism, in which losses are public but gains are private.

And at the very least, you would think that Obama would understand the importance of acknowledging public anger over what’s happening.

But no. If the Bloomberg story is to be believed, Obama thinks his key to electoral success is to trumpet “the influence corporate leaders have had on his economic policies.”

We’re doomed.

I disagree with Krugman that the comments really portray the totality of Obama’s view on the subject. I don’t, however, think this disagreement or lack of totality will prevent such types of statements from being used against those who would prefer to have a day or two or a week to clarify what they meant. (“[I] actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it”.)

Yes, again, I don’t think that in a rational society of a political opposition and major news media system and educated, sensible electorate such minor statements should matter.

And I think Obama has come to understand, somewhat, the degree of addressing how the average Amurkin feels about the financial industry bailouts and who caused them, that is, those not screaming ACORN BARNEY FRANK JIMMY CARTER CRA FANNIE FREDDIE. He has in recent weeks and months made clear public statements about how frustrated he is with bankers, etc., and hopes that somehow somebody in the legislature might pass some sort of reform which is more than sort of a cheerful resolution that it would be awesome if the finance industry would occasionally try to act betterer.

He and other Democrats just regularly manage to counteract their own appearance of having learned those lessons. Other Democrats celebrate their own identification with Wall Street and corporate elites in general (Bayh, etc.).

The very next day he showed up in a brand new $100K+ car and excitedly invited us to take rides in it with him.

Is it just me or is that just one step away from letting your best friend try out your new rifle at the shooting range right after announcing you banged his wife?

Is it just me or is that just one step away from letting your best friend try out your new rifle at the shooting range right after announcing you banged his wife?

Maybe it should have been, and had it been some sort of new and major shock, rather than the 17th or 18th glancing wound, it might have inspired that type of reaction. By that point, it was more like, ‘that’s it, I’m fuckin’ tired of this game,’ and employees simply concentrated on getting work somewhere else and taking what what they profitably could, including contacts and business.

FWIW, this quotation excerpt isn’t an “Arianna” / HuffPo thing, it’s a Bloomberg report of an interview from BusinessWeek.

We’ve bailed out ballplayers indirectly, by helping their employers get cheaper stadiums all over the country. Check out what Bush got, for squat, before he peddled off the Rangers, among other ballparks.

“What’s the reasoning behind the Repubs and the banksters wanting to get rid of the middle class?”

The middle class demands living wages, benefits, education, health care–you know, some of the things that the upper class takes for granted in the most obscene way–meaning they believe they are entitled to it, and we are not. I really believe that their end game is to put the American worker in the same class as the workers in the far East, South America, India, etc… That eliminates the need to outsource. It gives new meaning to owing your soul to the company store. The aristocracy has loathed and feared the bourgoisie since its appearance.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/10/white-house-moves-swiftly_n_456739.html

“Relax you guys, we’ve always thought obscenely rich people are a precious commodity to be protected and nurtured”

“Man, fuck it. I’m now officially on the Palin 2012 bandwagon. Because if this country’s going to crash, I want it to crash hard and fast so we can just start over.”

Amen, brother.

The national and state Democratic Give Us Money councils both sent me mail begging for money to “protect Democratic seats” from the GOP.

They both got their own letters sent back with “like hell I will, DINOs, act like leftists with spines instead of triangulating corporate pantywaists and maybe I’ll vote Dem again, til then, call me a proud socialist” notes.

Barry’s corporate cocksucking knows no bounds. It’s hilarious how Bushy he is now.

Fucking useless turd.

“What’s the reasoning behind the Repubs and the banksters wanting to get rid of the middle class?”

IMHO, they don’t do so necessarily on purpose — meaning, I don’t really think they go out of their way to fuck over a majority of the country.

Instead, they’re just sociopaths filled with an disgustingly-huge mixture of greed and short-sighted self interest. They live by the motto of “I’ve got mine, so fuck everyone else!” and don’t really care what anyone else thinks.

They don’t despite the poor or middle class — they just don’t give a shit. At most, they’ll throw a few bucks at a few charities to ease what little consciences they possess.

While that attitude is destructive in business, it’s incredibly so in politics — which is why our nation is in this societally-dangerous situation.

Too many of our lawmakers serve not so they can help move our country forward, but so they can reward those Just Like Them. It’s about power and money, not doing the best for the most.

And when you have both political parties full of people like that, well … you get a middle class that carries more of the tax burden, suffers more pain during economic shocks, and that will disappear if things don’t change.

Of course, in a sane world, the middle class would’ve already revolted.

I guess we’re all too busy posting on the Internet or somethin’ …

Unfortunately it’s going to take another, more devastating terror attack on one of our coastal enclaves before Americans wake up to the true nature of the threat of Islamofascism. So I’m hoping we’ll get one sooner rather than later I don’t relish the idea of an attack mind you but that’s what it’s going to take.

That’s how you do it.

Of course, in a sane world, the middle class would’ve already revolted.

OK, time for a reality check:

Name one, any one, revolution that started with the middle class.

Cuz, they don’t. They either start with the poor (France) or the aristocracy (America).

IMHO, they don’t do so necessarily on purpose — meaning, I don’t really think they go out of their way to fuck over a majority of the country.

Just out of curiosity, why wouldn’t they?

Why is it that social movements we know very well, i.e., leading conservative politicians, very consciously back policies that they know will harm people and that it will politically advantage them to do so?

Why is it that we, blog commenters, are capable of theorizing about what kinds of actions might benefit our long-term desires, but the richest and most powerful of our society are simply incapable of doing so?

The empirical evidence is quite in the other direction — they are unable to maximize their gains while maximizing the gains of the vast majority of the population.

These people aren’t retarded nor do shallow biographies and anecdotes explain how the richest and powerful of the society wouldn’t gladly de-develop the vast majority if it assisted them in increasing their own wealth and power?

Why wouldn’t they? What force, personal, cultural, economic, or governmental, would stop them?

Why is it that peons like us have agency and aim to carry out agendas we support, but the fantastically and generationally-extended centi-millionaires and billionaires are mere creatures of impulse and abstract formal economic theory?

Who would make such an argument based on the empirical records we have about looking back at the wealthiest classes’ efforts to reverse or block or trim the New Deal reforms (even when some of those in the wealthiest classes backed those reforms in their greater long-term interests)? Or of their fights against great society reform?

Or of the generations-long projects to find, back, train, and promote Reagan-type politicians?

Why on Earth would we assume that bit players can develop long range political plans, and religious activists can develop long range social and cultural plans, and business leaders can develop long-range economic plans, but business leaders can’t develop long range political and social plans?

Why wouldn’t they? What force, personal, cultural, economic, or governmental, would stop them?

Theoretically? None. In practice, there are limited, and I stress limited, brakes, such as shame, religion, fairness, future income streams.

Here’s the thing: individually, any one banker is probably a decent sort, if a little greedy, and he’d be happy with just skimming a bit off the top and leaving some for the rest of us.

But as agent K says in Men In Black, “people are dumb”. Collectively, people will rape the fuck out of your grandmother if a) they could and b) they can get away with it.

Even Adam Smith….ADAM SMITH….warned against laissez faire capitalism without strong government oversight and intervention, particularly with respect to business combinations, and that was before we had the phenomenon of multinational corporations that could basically own countries.

Mark D said,
February 10, 2010 at 19:30
““What’s the reasoning behind the Repubs and the banksters wanting to get rid of the middle class?”
IMHO, they don’t do so necessarily on purpose — meaning, I don’t really think they go out of their way to fuck over a majority of the country.
Instead, they’re just sociopaths filled with an disgustingly-huge mixture of greed and short-sighted self interest. They live by the motto of “I’ve got mine, so fuck everyone else!” and don’t really care what anyone else thinks.”

I don’t know. You’re probably right, but I can’t help the sense I have that they absolutely despise the idea of upward mobility by philistines like me. I think they truly have the same mentality as the young child who won’t allow anyone else to play with his toys. Like I said, you’re probably describing them more accurately, but it sure feels like a larger consensus of thought and action.

“Hey Obama: THE TAX PAYERS DIDN’T SPEND HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS TO BAIL OUT ALEX RODRIGUEZ. This is an important distinction that bears repeating.”

Actually, that’s not true. Taxpayers were swindled by both the Texas Rangers and the NY Yankees, not to mention major league baseball. In a very literal and direct way, taxpayers are paying A-Rods salary.

Obviously, this does not diminish your point.

I’m not a big defender of Obama. But his comments here, as usual, are pull-quotes twisted into the Bloomberg reporter’s knee-jerk controversy machine.

This statement is simply false:

President Barack Obama said he doesn’t “begrudge” the $17 million bonus awarded to JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon or the $9 million issued to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO Lloyd Blankfein, noting that some athletes take home more pay.

The dead giveaway in this paragraph which should always be a clue that you’re about to be smothered in utter bullshit is this: one word from Obama in quotes, 42 words not.

Here’s what Obama did say:

Q Let’s talk bonuses for a minute: Lloyd Blankfein, $9 million; Jamie Dimon, $17 million. Now, granted, those were in stock and less than what some had expected. But are those numbers okay?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, look, first of all, I know both those guys. They’re very savvy businessmen. And I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That’s part of the free market system. I do think that the compensation packages that we’ve seen over the last decade at least have not matched up always to performance. I think that shareholders oftentimes have not had any significant say in the pay structures for CEOs.

Q Seventeen million dollars is a lot for Main Street to stomach.

THE PRESIDENT: Listen, $17 million is an extraordinary amount of money. Of course, there are some baseball players who are making more than that who don’t get to the World Series either. So I’m shocked by that as well. I guess the main principle we want to promote is a simple principle of “say on pay,” that shareholders have a chance to actually scrutinize what CEOs are getting paid. And I think that serves as a restraint and helps align performance with pay. The other thing we do think is the more that pay comes in the form of stock that requires proven performance over a certain period of time as opposed to quarterly earnings is a fairer way of measuring CEOs’ success and ultimately will make the performance of American businesses better.

I’ve been boring people to death about Wall Street parasitism for decades (and what’s sad here is that the stock bonuses being discussed are a tiny fraction of the cash bonuses that these two guys inhaled over the last few years). And I’m dismayed but not at all surprised by Obama’s and the Democrats’ weak-tea efforts to regulate even some of the more egregious practices, no less outright thievery. But when it comes to quotes from Democrats appearing in any news item, it behooves everyone to get the actual quote.

Jesus. I’m on vacation one week and return to find Sadly, No! firmly entrenched in the Liberals Are The Biggest WATBs On The Planet bandwagon.

Where the fuck is Clarence Odbody when you need him? Fuck! You may not care, but I want to continue eating cheetos, watching netflix, and playing with my wii (and my weewee) for some time to come.

If we had President Moose Eater, I’d be sent to the front lines of the real life Red Dawn In The Dessert and that is completely incompatible with my lazy lifestyle!

Maybe instead we should elect better liberals. Nah, that’s crazy talk!!!

Liberals are so fucking whiney.

Leftist are truly the most gullible people alive.

Hope and Change! Hope and Change!

Didn’t at least one of you look at what Barack Obama had actually ever done in his failure of an adult life? Or did you simply take Katie Couric’s word for his “awesomeness”.

Did any of the great “intellectuals” find even one instance in Barry’s entire life where he did not go along with the establishment? Barry has always done what benefited Barry the greatest or do you think this nobody rose thru the Chicago Machine because of his steely pecs? Surely nobody was ignorant enough to just believe that Rezko, Jarret, Blago were just someone in the neighborhood?

Barry is a go-along guy for the group whom benefits Barry the most and he has been his entire life.

Gullible fools thought he was the communist messiah.

R. Porrofatto – Thanks. Clearly Obama was just doing the normal political wishy-washy non-answer and neither endorsing nor criticizing Wall Street too heavily. Christ, Brad, do a little research next time before getting your panties in a twist?

Us liberals are still fucking WATBs.

The first time, Reagan, as tragedy. The second time, Bush Jr., as farce. The third time, Palin, as…. what?

Armageddon

Palin is basically the guy from The Dead Zone; except she hides behind her own baby instead of hiding behind somebody else’s.

Name one, any one, revolution that started with the middle class.

Ummm, the one that everyone thinks of when they think of revolution?

“Man, fuck it. I’m now officially on the Palin 2012 bandwagon. Because if this country’s going to crash, I want it to crash hard and fast so we can just start over.”

That was my thinking about Obama 2008, and I was right. Got Mencken’s moron, getting the Crash.

Sadly, yes!

“Man, fuck it. I’m now officially on the Palin 2012 bandwagon. Because if this country’s going to crash, I want it to crash hard and fast so we can just start over.”

“[What] everyone thinks of when they think of revolution?”

If, by everyone, you mean Red Diaper Babies, pasty-faced graduate students, and Vlad Putin, then I guess you’re right. Otherwise, some of us think of this one: Shot Heard ‘Round the World.

See the new thread about the empirical falseness of assuming that the corporate upper classes are incapable of acting together as an ideological and political community to forward their goals, systematically and over time.

This isn’t a theoretical question. Throughout U.S. history, major political and economic developments have been the result of systematic and concerted action by representatives of our uppermost classes, and we respond by ignoring the available evidence in order to hypothesize that such things are by philosophical deduction unlikely.

Ummm, the one that everyone thinks of when they think of revolution?

Miners and soldiers are not middle class. By definition, that’s working and underclasses…

Middle class are the shopkeepers, bookkeepers, white collar clericals…you know, the folks who got shot off on the othe rocket…

“THE TAX PAYERS DIDN’T SPEND HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS TO BAIL OUT ALEX RODRIGUEZ.”

You’re right. The stae of New York only spent 2 billion. I think the comparison is spot on. Socialize the loss, privatize the profit — or is Steinbrenner giving back now?

hey guys, I’m a rabid Reagan fan. We probably agree about zero point zero, starting from the moment of conception forward, but I think we may find common ground in the notion that “too big to fail” is just crypto “crony capitalism.”

Mr. Obama talks like he’s going to stick it to the man, but he mostly sticks it to the rich guys who aren’t his friends. Like Bush did. Just buy enough politicians on both sides of the aisle and you too can become “too big to fail.”

Conversely, if you’re for small government, then you can live without having to pay protection money to neither Bush or Obama. Republicans get Mrs. Palin wrong when they forget/ignore her Libertarian streak. (I read her book. See chapter 2.) If the government is smaller, it won’t give you tasty welfare cheese, but it won’t jail you for failing to pay health insurance premiums to Obama/Bush’s friends, either.

Smaller government gives us the freedom to disagree. Sarah Palin is my fantasy girl because one of my fantasies is that she’ll dial back government.

Otherwise, some of us think of this one: Shot Heard ‘Round the World.

I hope your tricorner hat keeps you warm at night.

Middle class are the shopkeepers, bookkeepers, white collar clericals

You know, Bolsheviks.

Miners and soldiers are not middle class. By definition, that’s working and underclasses…

Middle class are the shopkeepers, bookkeepers, white collar clericals…you know, the folks who got shot off on the othe rocket…

The French revolution was largely middle class. Yes, it was an angry, hungry mob that burned the Bastille, but all the big names of the revolution (Danton, Robespierre, Mirabeau, St. Just…) were middle-class types (lawyers mostly). They used the mob, but they were not themselves of the mob.

De Tocqueville’s guess at why France had a revolution and England didn’t was that in England, you could buy your way into being a “gentleman” (yes, you were nouveau riche when you did it, but your kids were in); whereas in France, if you were not born into the aristocracy, then you were a peasant for life, regardless of how much money you had (and anyway, only aristos could own property of any consequence, so it didn’t matter).

Smaller government would also stop making them damn corporations obey all them rules.

I don’t need no damn nosy fedrul gubmit or state gubmit for that matter telling me whether I want to shit my brains out for the next few weeks by eating fecal matter specials produced by corporate cost savings. We the consumer can eventually get around to selecting some other corporate fecal matter special — it’s called competition, welfare-sucking libtards.

I’m now officially on the Palin 2012 bandwagon. Because if this country’s going to crash, I want it to crash hard and fast so we can just start over.

One teeny-tiny flaw in your cunning plan – the US already crashed hard & fast – remember? Fall of 2008? You’re “just starting over” RIGHT NOW – albeit not the way you’d like. Just be glad you’re not Iceland.

Thinking you’ll somehow magically get a better shot next time, despite now lacking the capital resources to initiate any kind of effective economic stimulus, & in a context where America’s creditors like China are far more likely to impose harsh World-Bank-style (or worse) conditions on desperately-needed future credit, is just more of that latent pathological optimism I keep seeing you exhibit behind all the doominess & angst. Not to mention that big steaming “if” at the start of your “From The Ashes Of The Next Holocaust, A Wonderful Garden Will Grow” thesis. You’re never gonna get invited to the cool hipster partays if you keep it up, dude.

Besides which, abhorrent optics notwithstanding, Obama’s dead-on: everyone who’s awake & on the far side of puberty knows damn well that anything under $20 million for these people is the equivalent of what the rest of us would find in the back of the sofa.

Perhaps a verbal gaffe in an interview isn’t quite adequate as justification for damning the same POTUS who’s almost completely turned your economic death-spiral around in one year when most economists were saying it would take at least a decade to do so (a minor detail everyone seems to keep conveniently forgetting).

Well, okay, maybe two teeny-tiny flaws. For details on the second, simply Google “Weimar Republic” … yeah, see, it turns out that a major catastrophic societal meltdown isn’t exactly a fertile nursery for progressive politics – & America is already pretty fucking authoritarian & hyper-religious right now without one.

Careful what you wish for – you might get it.

It all goes back to those bloated entities Fannie and Freddie, they bundles securities and sold them to the investment banks. Put the blame where it belongs, Demoocrats in Congress. Raines, head of Fannie, walked away with $90 mill in bonuses. Wrap your little brains around that one.

El Cid—
Fantastic comment, but I do have to disagree to a point, and here’s why: The rich cannot afford to destroy and eliminate the middle class.

Sure, they may see a weakening as a good thing (able to pay lower wages, etc.), but if they destroy it completely who the fuck will give them their money?

People who want to cut social programs usually aren’t the rich banksters or business class. They’re conservative jerkoffs who are convinced anyone getting public assistance is a leech of some sort. And they think that way because, in all likelihood, they’ve never had to struggle a day in their lives.

Yes, I’m sure all kinds of groups have all kinds of nefarious long-range plans to destroy those they hate.

But to think that people whose wealth is dependent upon the middle class are actively trying to destroy that source of wealth is just a bit … well, it makes no sense (IMHAPIO*). It’d be financial suicide, and they have to know that.

Again, IMHAPIO, while some at the very top may want to see it end, most are just greedy fucks who are getting all they can, as fast as they can, without any thought to the long-range implications. After all, if they get theirs, what does it matter what happens 20, 40, or even 100 years from now?

(*In my humble and probably idiotic opinion.)

Dimon and Blankfein have simply reminded the One that they already own him. This is simply the newest party line he is to publicly parrot.
If you think he’s not Wall Street’s poodle, tell me even a single Obama decision, beyond mere talk, that has gone against their interests.
You want change? Vote to replace every incumbent, period.

It all goes back to those bloated entities Fannie and Freddie, they bundles securities and sold them to the investment banks.

Sadly, No!

Not only did F&F only get into the game way, way late (following the lead of the private sector), but Republicans got more campaign cash from financial institutions (55% of the total).

But thanks for proving to everyone that you’re an idiotic, clueless fuckstick who is willfully ignorant about basic reality.

Now kindly FOAD.

Y’know, my impression was that most successful revolutions required the support of the middle class. Of course that may be the middle class defined as “everyone not abjectly poor or part of the hereditary aristocracy”.

No, I’m not going to do any research, either, as I am working from my couch while home sick, eating shit sandwiches.

Actually, the taxpayers pay for the baseball stadiums and lots of tax breaks for the teams that make the astronomical salaries of Alex Rodriguez possible. If the teams has to pay for their own stadiums, then they would have less money to pay Alex

Smaller government gives us the freedom to disagree. Sarah Palin is my fantasy girl because one of my fantasies is that she’ll dial back government.

So long as you recognize that notion as a fantasy i.e. not reality, you should be able to cope with real life if only on a limited basis.

Duke: You want change? Vote to replace every incumbent, period.

A bi-partisan solution I can totally support!

To the person that wrote this article…
 
When you donate as much to Obama as Jamie & Lloyd, you too can enjoy the benefits of living in America.
 
Until then, stop whining!
 
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2009/07/jpmorgan-ceo-jamie-dimon-donat.html
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00009638

You guys want some fresh pearls to clutch? Those ones there are looking kind of rough.

You morons all believed the “hope and change” bullshit. All it takes is a good slogan and a good speech to blow smoke up your asses.

You’re right Steve. Drill Baby Drill! You betcha!

Steve’s a mavericky maverick straight off the straight talk express! It’s about time some SUBSTANCE was introduced to the discussion.

You do realize of course that the “bankers” didn’t really cause the problem, they just reacted to the normal market incentives and corresponding government coercion and so thereby both benefited in the beginning but later got burned by the defaults.

eg, the gov’t said you must make loans to bad risks, but don’t worry we’ll tell Fannie and Freddie to buy up all those bad loans and package them in securities which we’ll tell WS are sound because there are defacto backed by the gov’t (Fannie/Freddie) and the rest is history.

see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RZVw3no2A4

great 10 minute video detailing the whole sordid truth, including Obama’s part in it as a lawyer that sued one of said banks for not making enough sub-prime loans.

but, you libs have succeded in white-washing that history. but you’re still in the burned out house aren’t ya?

mmy said, – February 10, 2010 at 16:53
“Obama was never going to be able to do anything to these guys, because they didn’t break the law. He can’t fire them, and just by suggesting that they not get their bonuses he basically created the entire fucking Tea Party movement. The talk you’re spewing is no different than a Tea Partier calling for a second American Revolution. ”
——————————————-
Uhh.. Wall Street *owns* Obama. They were the second largest contributor to his campaign. Wall Street isn’t a Repub stronghold. Period. The bailouts to Wall St have occured for many years, ALL at Democrat insistence.

Head over here and let Ann Coulter explain it to you.

http://www.anncoulter.com/

When Paul Krugman and Ann Coulter are singing from the same songbook, it’s plain to see that President Obama has finally achieved the ‘bi-partisanship’ he has been seeking.

Go read both excellent articles for yourself . . .

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/clueless/

http://www.anncoulter.com/

Hmmmm.

As a fiscal conservative I can only offer: *LAUGH*

at any rate sports stars are in fact bailed out by taxpayers. Most sports stadiums are built using taxpayer funds, taxpayer guaranteed bonds and other financial vehicles.

scott in phx: You do realize of course that the “bankers” didn’t really cause the problem, they just reacted to the normal market incentives and corresponding government coercion and so thereby both benefited in the beginning but later got burned by the defaults.

BS. The “normal” market incentives wouldn’t have existed if they hadn’t gutted Glass-Steagall and the other regulations, and the “coercion” — to stop redlining minorities — accounts for about 3% of the crash. Go suck up to rich reactionary assholes someplace else.

Gosh, thanks Brad for conjuring up a bunch of new Tea Party loons. Next time, just get to the wrist-slashing and shut it with the histrionic suicide note.

“Name one, any one, revolution that started with the middle class.
Cuz, they don’t. They either start with the poor (France) or the aristocracy (America).”

The middle class has traditionally been the revolutionary class. The French Revolution was indeed a middle class affair, as was 1830 and 1848. Also, the Commune. This is not to say that other classes did not participate (they certainly did), but the various levels of bourgeoisie were generally the most involved, especially as leaders and theorists (none of the important leaders of the Great Revolution–Robespierre, Danton, etc.–were poor or working class.)

(Although it is WILDLY anachronistic to refer to “class” until fairly late in the 19th century, especially in France, where identity was corporate, rather than socio-economic).

It was the Revolution of 1848 that saw the end of the revolutionary bourgeoisie. They got frightened enough by the groups pushing up the social ladder that they threw their lot in with the wealthy.

All I can say is…

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Do you miss Dubya yet?

Do I miss Dubya yet? Hahahahahah. It’s like he never left.

Re R. Porrofatto’s attempt to rescue The One, I can’t see that his remarks look any better in context, in extenso. And they’re not really any different from many other stupid things he has said. As I said, it’s like Bush never left.

Amazing what people will believe. Facts obviously don’t matter much any more. No one is held up to facts. the next crash will be merely a deeper hit on the wonderful road the Reagan Trickle Down PR campaign promised.

and the uneducated consumer loved it. they bought it lock, stock and barrel.

We get to see the results of their version of “their” Gilded Age.

yesterday we heard about Carnegie, Vanderbilt and so on.
today it is Goldman Sacks, ChaseMorgan,

oops some return, some don’t

As a scholar of Weimar and Nazi Germany, I’d like to amen this:

“Well, okay, maybe two teeny-tiny flaws. For details on the second, simply Google “Weimar Republic” … yeah, see, it turns out that a major catastrophic societal meltdown isn’t exactly a fertile nursery for progressive politics – & America is already pretty fucking authoritarian & hyper-religious right now without one.

Careful what you wish for – you might get it.”

It’s actually shocking, how many similarities there are between 2010 America and 1930-33 Deutschland. Don’t even mention Godwinning, because I’m deadly serious.

Read Defying Hitler, by Sebastian Haffner. Notice how many things he went through, growing up in WWI and Weimar, sound familiar to you.