Here's the only tin-foil if not exactly the silver lining in today's literally depressing economic news: next year's bread lines will be administered by a Democratic, not a Republican, administration.
You can bet on it.
For personal reasons (like now I have to work till I'm 113) I'm not going to dwell on the monetary side of today's events.
Let's stick with the political. Get out your tops, mix-masters or even your cement trucks but there are ain't no possible way to spin this episode other than as a crushing and humiliating setback for
McCain in specific and the Republicans in general. It's not just that
McBumbler was taking credit for the deal before the deal imploded.
That, my friends, is but a mere detail.
The real zinger, the real a-hole statement of all time has been pooped out of McCain's mouth
when he said: "This bill failed because
Barack Obama and the Democrats put politics ahead of country."
This shameless statement ought to be sufficient grounds to disqualify McCain as a serious presidential candidate -- provided, of course, you didn't mind him naming
a nattering nincompoop as running mate.
Let us quickly review the pesky facts about who is putting what first and who is willing to work with a bi-partisan spirit for the common good.
Basic fact: the Wall Street bail-out is an initiative of the G
eorge W. Bush Republican White House and
Republican Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson. Nevertheless, the Democratic leadership had agreed to a GOP deal last Thursday BEFORE Super McCain swooped into Washington and balled it up.
No problem. Once Johnny Mac left town again another deal was cut over the weekend. And when the vote came to the House today almost 60% of Democrats voted to save the GOP Administration's rear end. But only a 1/3 of Republicans went that direction.
Translation: John McCain and George W. Bush, together, could not bring their own party to vote for the administration's bail-out.
I dunno what else to call that except a Political Rout. Okay, maybe just a Crushing Defeat. And this is after Super McCain took the political gamble of suspending his campaign and in engaging in the insulting Kabuki of single-handedly fixing the deal.
Johnny Mac, as we know,
likes to the roll the bones now and then but as any gambler will tell you, craps is a "house game" in which the odds are always against you.
So now it's time to chant a phrase that must be quite familiar to McCain's ears: "Seven-out."
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September 29th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Predatory Lenders’ Partner in Crime
By Eliot Spitzer
The Washington Post
Thursday 14 February 2008
How the Bush administration stopped the states from stepping in to help consumers.
Several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders. Some were misrepresenting the terms of loans, making loans without regard to consumers’ ability to repay, making loans with deceptive “teaser” rates that later ballooned astronomically, packing loans with undisclosed charges and fees, or even paying illegal kickbacks. These and other practices, we noticed, were having a devastating effect on home buyers. In addition, the widespread nature of these practices, if left unchecked, threatened our financial markets.
Even though predatory lending was becoming a national problem, the Bush administration looked the other way and did nothing to protect American homeowners. In fact, the government chose instead to align itself with the banks that were victimizing consumers.
Predatory lending was widely understood to present a looming national crisis. This threat was so clear that as New York attorney general, I joined with colleagues in the other 49 states in attempting to fill the void left by the federal government. Individually, and together, state attorneys general of both parties brought litigation or entered into settlements with many subprime lenders that were engaged in predatory lending practices. Several state legislatures, including New York’s, enacted laws aimed at curbing such practices.
What did the Bush administration do in response? Did it reverse course and decide to take action to halt this burgeoning scourge? As Americans are now painfully aware, with hundreds of thousands of homeowners facing foreclosure and our markets reeling, the answer is a resounding no.
Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.
Let me explain: The administration accomplished this feat through an obscure federal agency called the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The OCC has been in existence since the Civil War. Its mission is to ensure the fiscal soundness of national banks. For 140 years, the OCC examined the books of national banks to make sure they were balanced, an important but uncontroversial function. But a few years ago, for the first time in its history, the OCC was used as a tool against consumers.
In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government’s actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules.
But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks. In fact, when my office opened an investigation of possible discrimination in mortgage lending by a number of banks, the OCC filed a federal lawsuit to stop the investigation.
Throughout our battles with the OCC and the banks, the mantra of the banks and their defenders was that efforts to curb predatory lending would deny access to credit to the very consumers the states were trying to protect. But the curbs we sought on predatory and unfair lending would have in no way jeopardized access to the legitimate credit market for appropriately priced loans. Instead, they would have stopped the scourge of predatory lending practices that have resulted in countless thousands of consumers losing their homes and put our economy in a precarious position.
When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners, the Bush administration will not be judged favorably. The tale is still unfolding, but when the dust settles, it will be judged as a willing accomplice to the lenders who went to any lengths in their quest for profits. So willing, in fact, that it used the power of the federal government in an unprecedented assault on state legislatures, as well as on state attorneys general and anyone else on the side of consumers.
——–
September 29th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1831461
September 29th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
Well Anna. this video of the crime tells a different story. They say a picture is is worth a thousand words. I say a video is worth a million. Listen to Barney, McCain, Bush, Schumer, Greenspan, etc in their own words, then judge.
http://tinyurl.com/3mva52
September 29th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
More video evidence found at the crime seen.
http://tinyurl.com/4oe8gn
September 30th, 2008 at 6:45 am
Thats right, Jim. Fox is the Disney channel for retarded adults. It tells you stories.
September 30th, 2008 at 6:48 am
This should tell you something – Obama’s campaign co-chair Jesse Jackson Jr. votes against bailout bill.
September 30th, 2008 at 6:50 am
The real story, Jim, can be observed in the empirical evidence of the grass roots activism that caused the bill to go down in flames.
Thats called ‘democracy’, Jim.
Maybe, someday, Fox will have an afternoon special for you and your other little “special needs” kids and tell you the story about the constitution and Bill of Rights and how the bad men who ruled the White House for 8 years tried to destroy the world.
September 30th, 2008 at 7:05 am
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/366094/a_congress_that_can_say_no
From The Nation. Search ‘Chalmers Johnson” and get his archived articles.
#
We Have the Bailout Money–We’re Spending It on War
September 29, 2008
If we don’t significantly reduce our ever-increasing military spending now, then the bankruptcy of the United States is inevitable. We don’t have much time left.
#
Chalmers Johnson: America’s Going Bankrupt
January 23, 2008
From Tom Dispatch: The current economic crisis is caused by policies that tax the richest Americans at strikingly low levels and spend huge sums on defense projects that have no bearing on national security.
Jim R: these aren’t for you. You have to learn to read at grade level, first.
September 30th, 2008 at 7:58 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAGzLfmV4Ks
From your lips to God’s ears, Dennis.
This is the man who should become president.
September 30th, 2008 at 8:53 am
What I fail to understand about Palin is, is she this dense that she cant even see what a laughing stock she is becoming with every new interview? Wow, it was painful.
Alaskans, dont you have a small town somewhere thats lacking an idiot..er mayor?
And Alaskans, this woman is the best you could do for a governor?
September 30th, 2008 at 10:13 am
Normally you assume that party A is not going to lend its money to party B unless party A is reasonably sure that party B can pay it back. The government assumed that this most basic of business principles would be observed. What happened in the subprime mortgage disaster is that people decided the laws of gravity had been repealed. Banks were making a ton of money selling mortgaged-backed securities. They became so popular that there was an ever increasing demand for mortgages to back them up. Based on statistics from the time when the rules were observed, banks convinced themselves that the risk of even the shakiest mortgage loan was small, that in the worst case scenario you wound up owning the house and whatever the boob had managed to pay for it. The boobs took out loans they couldn’t pay on the assumption that the value of houses always rises, and this would bail them out. Banks were so desperate to generate more mortgages that they were handing out loans without making any kind of credit check at all, sometimes to people who would be unable to make a single payment. While there is blame on both sides, ultimately the responsibility falls on the banks because the banks are supposed to be the sophisticated party in these transactions. If they were predators they got caught in their own snare. Conservative dead enders can tell themselves it’s all because the liberals made the banks lend money to colored people, but the reality is that the result of Reagan Era deregulation has been a Ponzi Scheme economy. First it was the Savings and Loans, then it was the Internet bubble, now it’s subprime mortgages. As Stew says, when you see something happen for the third or fourth time you begin to see a pattern forming.
September 30th, 2008 at 10:40 am
Retirement is overrated, Marc. And you can always make this site pay per view.
September 30th, 2008 at 11:09 am
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080930/lf_nm_life/us_financial_psychology
There is always a bright side…according to some academic c***t at Emory University.
Not only is irony dead, in this country, but the idea of shamelessness seems to have evaporated also.
I had to read this garbage 3 times before I believed my eyes.
September 30th, 2008 at 11:28 am
Anna :
What exactly was your problem with the article you linked to at 11:09? You not like the research? You think it is untrue?
I don’t understand what the problem is.
September 30th, 2008 at 11:50 am
Don’t Panic, Anna.
And please step away from the ledge…
September 30th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Woody, what does that tell us? That Jackson didn’t support the bill and thus voted against it? That he exercised his right to vote how he wants?
September 30th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Which candidate said this ?
“(H)e’s got a tremendous amount of experience and, you know, I’m the new energy, the new face, the new ideas and he’s got the experience based on many many years in the Senate and voters are gonna have a choice there of what it is that they want in these next four years.”
September 30th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Sarah Palin. Forgot the Straight Talk Express, give them some seats on the Self-Awareness Express and perhaps send them back to freshman English and have them read Oedipus Rex. I assume everyoe remembers the overriding them in that work: know thyself.
September 30th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Josh, Obama supported the Democrats’ bailout bill, claiming that mainstreet was now at risk. So, why couldn’t he provide enough leadership and influence to change the vote of his own campaign co-chairman for a bill backed by his own party leadership?
Can’t you see just how wishy-washy Obama is on everything until he sees what is popular? I’m beginning to think that he really is as stupid as the left-wing commenters here and that he has no clue as to what is going on and how to solve it.
He is ignorance dressed up.
September 30th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Yet Woody goes gaga over Sarah…
September 30th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
If Jackson had supported the bill rather than express his reservations, Woody would be claiming that all black people vote alike. If Obama had leaned on him to change his vote, Woody would be complaining about Democratic strong-arm tactics.
This is disingenuous bullshit from “ignorance undressed.”
September 30th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Intrade markets have Obama at 65-35.
September 30th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
The gift that keeps on giving:
Asked what newspapers she reads…
“PALIN: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me over all these years.
COURIC: Can you name any of them?
PALIN: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news.”
Oh Christ…thank you John for picking this woman.
September 30th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
The crackpot racist and nativist slugs are amping up their blog attacks full force these days and they will only get more unhinged and hysterical after the elections:
“To say Mr. Obama is not ready for the presidency is a gross understatement. It is not simply that he lacks experience … it is also that he repudiates traditional American values and culture by embracing Marxist ideology, has been an acolyte of black racist theology, cuddled up with the anarchist activism of Saul Alinsky, and even worse … the man is simply and irrevocably dishonest. There is nothing about Barack Obama that may cause us to think he honors American tradition, or shares with us our time-honored values. Significantly, a man who works to undermine our education system through socialist engineering is a man who seeks to destroy America.
“If the American people elect this man to the presidency, he will certainly destroy the cultural and political fabric of the United States, and when he has finished his work, none of us will recognize what he has left behind: The People’s Socialist Republic of the United States.”
This from a guy who used to post here regularly and left complaining about “lack of comity.” One might have assumed, given the facade of joviality, that his swampfever didn’t run quite this deep and degenerate. “There is nothing about Barack Obama that may cause us to think he honors American tradition, or shares with us our time-honored values.” Wow! Prepare for this sewage to rise after the election. If we thought Clinton drove certain people crazy, I’m afraid we ain’t seen nuthin… At least at the margins, things are going to get very, very ugly.
September 30th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Woody. McCain took credit for the bill’s passage when he thought it would pass. Blamed Obama when it failed. Called off the debate, back on. Who is wishy washy?
The Republican President and Republican candidate could not get their own party on board. I think you are barking up the wrong tree.
September 30th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
I’m glad that the Republicans weren’t on board.
September 30th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Re Emory U researcher…a friend emailed me this snippet: “…And ya know he’s on the govment grant welfare system. That over-socialized kid from Sean Penn’s “Into the Wild” was from Emory, I know it well, I lived right down the street for 8 years, lots of activity between it and Georgia State University. CDC + Emory = Biological Warfare Program + animal torture.”
I can’t reduce the lunacy of the guy’s so called “research findings” into anything more reductive and stupid than is already stated.
Goebbles, himself, couldn’t have come up with a better piece of propaganda as science.
September 30th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
And to think I used to like you Anna. Colorful language and all.
Well, it’s over. Because I see now you never liked me.
Now and then there’s a fool such as I.
September 30th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
Interesting article. Should lay to rest all the bitching about who supported the bill and who didn’t
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/30/among-bailout-supporters-wall-st-donations-ran-high/
September 30th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Jim R: please connect dot to your post re your once liking me now you don’t cause I never liked you?
September 30th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
“Goebbles, himself, couldn’t have come up with a better piece of propaganda as science.”
oooooookkkk.
Actually there is a substantial amount of research and scholarship on “social proof” and the tendency of people to conform to the larger group decisions on display even when it contradicts what they can clearly perceive themselves. But if you want to run with your friend’s email about biological warfare…
September 30th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Dan O…seriously re read the piece. I know about the experiments around the herd mentality. Jung’s entire psychological thesis is about the necessity of our breaking free of the collective or herd mentality.
My point about the propaganda is in this asshole’s trying to frame what is a normal healthy political response to an abnormal, rotten political situation as being analagous to a bunch of buffalo being driven off a cliff.
Then thinking he is being ever so clever by claiming he’s running to his broker to like a vulture swooping in on the carrion. Though he doesn’t realize he is picking the bones of a dead economic paradigm.
He is a twisted fuck and should be strung up. Thats all I am saying.
I don’t dispute the psychology of the collective. America and Germany are evidence of what an undifferentiated collective can “accomplish”.
September 30th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Ok I have made too many posts.
On a positive note:
http://www.schumachersociety.org/buddhist_economics.html
September 30th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Woody’s insult: “as stupid as the left-wing commenters here”
You have forfeited your right to whine about any insults you receive in kind.
September 30th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Sorry thought this relevant:
http://www.defazio.house.gov/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=441
October 1st, 2008 at 7:30 am
DC, since when do I whine about insults? At least my comment is accurate. Now, don’t bother me. I’m in comment retirement.
October 1st, 2008 at 11:47 am
“I’m in comment retirement.”
Apparently somebody has been leaving the back door open at Shady Hills.
October 1st, 2008 at 11:58 am
Has anybody here mentioned the fact that this monstrous bailout went down in flames thanks to the overwhelming majority of House Republicans voting against it? Or that 60% of the Dems towed the line and did as they were told by Pelosi — i.e. voting for the bailout?
October 1st, 2008 at 2:08 pm
You know, Woody’s insight has changed my mind. I was for Obama before, but now that Jesse Jackson Jr. joined 227 others in voting against the bail-out bill, I’m confessing my error. And I think it’s downright irrelevant that 133 Republicans weren’t persuaded by McCain. No one expects anyone to pay attention to him, but I had been so impressed by Obama. So it goes….
March 26th, 2009 at 8:25 am
My point about the propaganda is in this asshole’s trying to frame what is a normal healthy political response to an abnormal, rotten political situation as being analagous to a bunch of buffalo being driven off a cliff.
August 31st, 2009 at 8:04 am
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