The Worst Are Filled With Passionate Intensity

“Never in the history of the Republic has the public really understood the intricacies of legislation: it’s too complicated, sadly, even for many of the people who legislate it.”

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THE most telling comment by Joe Klein since I have been frequenting the swamp.
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Too complicated? Are you joking?
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Perhaps for someone like yourself who weigh in on these subjects without any research or putting any time into fully understanding the legislation being proposed it is too complicated.
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For those of us who have taken the time to read about the proposed bills, who have taken the time to research and read the opinions of credible sources to fully understand what is in the bill, your lame comments are nothing more than the blowhard bloviation of a self-avowed liberal hack. You are nothing shy of disgusting.
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With all of the Nancy Pelosi Representatives who claim, “we’ll know what’s in the bill when it is passed” is NOT what we want from our representatives.
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Legislation is on average complicated because people like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid do not want the average American to know what is contained in the bills. If the average American knew the shady, corrupt deals which are struck in the halls of the capitol, they would be tarred, feathered and put on a poll, then run out of our people’s house, the Capitol. Then we have writers like you who pontificate about how “stupid” people are and illiterate to comprehend what is in the bill. Instead of doing your job researching it, you take the easy road and write an opinion. No wonder this country is going to hell. The lame stream media has failed to do its job, and writers like you need to be fired.
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Perhaps instead of writing drivel like this, you could pen an article calling upon the Nancys and Harrys of politics to start telling the people the truth, nothing but the truth, so help me God.

Conservatives often defend their policies by pointing out that high taxes punish the most ‘productive’ in our society. Fair enough. For every way people go about making money lets create an actual measure of how much that activity can actually be considered productive.
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A quick examination will reveal that a significant fraction of the activity in question isn’t productive at all but actually extracts wealth out of the economy and provides nothing in return. In my youth, such activity used to be called ‘stealing’. Today it is simply ‘innovative’.

You write: “Legislation is on average complicated because people like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid do not want the average American to know what is contained in the bills.”

As opposed to, say, Tom Delay and Trent Lott? Democracy has always been messy, always required grease–and I mean grease–for the wheels of progress, always muddled through. And it has always worked. Those who think any piece of major legislation–like, say, Ronald Reagan’s tax reform–didn’t include shady back deals in order to get votes are living in an alternate reality.

Yes, Rusty, I’m sure someone who doesn’t even understand what a proper noun is has a comprehensive understanding of the intricacies of federal legislation.

For all the attention to the NYTimes today, you missed the editorial they had on the latest debunking of the “climategate” nonsense:
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/opinion/11sun2.html?_r=1
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Perhaps now we can put the manufactured controversy known as Climategate behind us and turn to the task of actually doing something about global warming. On Wednesday, a panel in Britain concluded that scientists whose e-mail had been hacked late last year had not, as critics alleged, distorted scientific evidence to prove that global warming was occurring and that human beings were primarily responsible.
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It was the fifth such review of hundreds of e-mail exchanges among some of the world’s most prominent climatologists. Some of the e-mail messages, purloined last November, were mean-spirited, others were dismissive of contrarian views, and others revealed a timid reluctance to share data. Climate skeptics pounced on them as evidence of a conspiracy to manipulate research to support predetermined ideas about global warming.
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…
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There have since been several reports upholding the U.N.’s basic findings, including a major assessment in May from the National Academy of Sciences. This assessment not only confirmed the relationship between climate change and human activities but warned of growing risks — sea level rise, drought, disease — that must swiftly be addressed by firm action to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
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Given the trajectory the scientists say we are on, one must hope that the academy’s report, and Wednesday’s debunking of Climategate, will receive as much circulation as the original, diversionary controversies.

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That last point is essential, but certainly not likely to happen. Mainstream outlets like CNN and Time will do minor corrections, probably, while Faux News will ignore the vindication of the scientists altogether.
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I’m sure one of the conservatives here can explain how all those panels exonerating the scientists and all the studies independently confirming their results, how all that is just part of the larger scheme to redistribute wealth and put us all on collective farms for Maoist indoctrination something something Glenn Beck was right.

It becomes complicated when you legialsate favors to political allies, re-distribute wealth or direct social engineering.

A quick examination will reveal that a significant fraction of the activity in question isn’t productive at all but actually extracts wealth out of the economy and provides nothing in return. In my youth, such activity used to be called ‘stealing’.

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What you described is government today and you favor it and call it progressive. For things done people and corporations that go wrong, the government demands punishment and jail. When it happens in government, the same folks now call for more government and more programs (spending)

“As opposed to, say, Tom Delay and Trent Lott? Democracy has always been messy, always required grease–and I mean grease–for the wheels of progress, always muddled through. And it has always worked.”

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As opposed to any of them. The one thing the TEA Party movement has uncovered is the rampant corruption within the halls of our governments.
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The question begs, who benefits the most from all of that grease, Mr Klein?
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For at least the last 30 or 40 years, people have been elected to go to Washington to not serve the people, but to get caught up in the lobbyist’s perversion of our system of government. We have been promised time and time again by the current leadership to “drain the swamp” or to provide us with more transparency. But what we get are more closed doors and backroom deals.
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The current bill to fund the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars is yet another example. Is the bill simplified to just the funding of these two wars? No, it is full of pork for buying votes back home so crooked politicians can go back home this fall to tout how they have brought more government jobs back to their failing economies. So that more politicians can go back to their home districts and brag about all the stimulus jobs created or teacher jobs saved from the budget axe.
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No Mr Klein, I do not forgive or forget Delay or Lott, I am however thankful they are no longer in positions of power. The same as I will be thankful the current leadership will be out of leadership positions after this fall’s elections.
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Again Mr Klein, when will you do some research, and write about the specific bills and what is contained in them exposing the corrupt “grease”. When will you identify those who are not representing and are only there to stuff more tax dollars down into their individual pockets or the pockets of close friends and business associates? Why not start with the War Funding Bill, Mr Klein. See what you can dig up.
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Rather than vilify those of us who are working hard to get some real change in Washington, you just might begin to do your job for a change. Perhaps even join us in draining the swamp or more importantly shining a light on the dark recesses of the political sausage making machine.

On the TARP blowback, Steve Benen actually has good advice for Republicans:
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It’s no doubt tempting for lawmakers who voted for TARP to defend their position by defending the policy — the bailout was effective in preventing a collapse of the financial industry; the program cost far less than expected; and the bailed out institutions are already paying the money back. Unfortunately for those politicians, no one wants to hear a defense of a universally reviled policy.
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If I were a Republican candidate taking heat for this, I suppose the preferable tack would be to point to those who came to the same conclusion in October 2008 — the bailout was requested by a conservative Republican administration (George W. Bush and Dick Cheney); it was enthusiastically endorsed by the House Republican leadership (John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and Roy Blunt); it was enthusiastically endorsed by the Senate Republican leadership (Mitch McConnell and Jon Kyl); it was enthusiastically endorsed by the Republican presidential ticket (John McCain and Sarah Palin); and enjoyed the support of assorted, high-profile conservative voices (Mitt Romney and Glenn Beck).
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For GOP candidates taking heat from the party’s right-wing base, it should count for something to say, “I took the same position on this as Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck,” right?

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http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_07/024667.php

Replace Climate scientists with tobacco companies and ask NYT if they would reach the same conclusion?

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For GOP candidates taking heat from the party’s right-wing base, it should count for something to say, “I took the same position on this as Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck,” right”

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So you are saying that Palin and Beck are right. How can these inconsequential dumber than dirt duo be right. The left has spent most of the last 2+ years telling everyone how dumb and ridiculous they are.

Schizophrenia remains the MO for the looney left

It becomes complicated when you legialsate favors to political allies, re-distribute wealth or direct social engineering.
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I’m sure you can find another 20-year-old summer intern at the WSJ to help you wildly misunderstand the details here, like you did with the RTP last night.

Beck and Palin were right when they joined the nearly universal consensus in favor of TARP in 2008. Now that they’ve turned 180-degrees from their old position, they are wrong.

This is wildly incoherent, even by your standards.
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Or did I miss the part where the entire scientific community and multiple review boards vindicated the tobacco companies?

While the jury is still out on what was or wasn’t the best for the economy when TARP was used, clearly Benen is not a typical resource to follow and rely upon to make sane and rational comments on anything conservative or to have any conservative listen to him and his opinions.
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“Benen was born and raised in Miami, Florida, and received his B.A. in Political Science from Florida International University. He received a Master’s degree in Political Management from the George Washington University, and was an intern in Bill Clinton’s White House Office of Speechwriting. In 1996, he was the communications director for an unsuccessful Democratic congressional campaign in Pennsylvania. From 1997 to 2002, Benen worked in the communications department at Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.”

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Suffice it to say Benen is nothing more than a liberal political hack in the same vein as Joe Klein. What was it again that Benen said so profoundly that would lead any conservative to believe he may be right? Was his thoughts that the troubled banks have paid back some of their loans with the same exact dollars given to them the rationale that struck you to write this drivel?
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Newser) – US banks are eager to repay their TARP money, but doing so might rob taxpayers of the upside they were originally promised, the New York Times reports. In exchange for emergency loans, the government got 10-year warrants to buy stock in the banks. If repaid, it must sell those warrants. But at what price? Should it try to maximize taxpayer profit, or minimize pain for banks?

One bank, Indiana’s Old National, has repaid its debt and bought back its warrants, paying $1.2 million for investments analysts say were worth up to $6.9 million. “It’s a great deal for Old National,” said one professor. “Treasury accepted a lowball offer.” He values the Treasury’s warrant portfolio at up to $10.9 billion, and thinks it should sell the assets to the highest third-party bidder.”

Read more: http://www.newser.com/story/59464/banks-lowball-taxpayers-on-tarp-payback.html#ixzz0tNnohMcF

V”Or did I miss the part where the entire scientific community and multiple review boards vindicated the tobacco companies?”

Vindicated the tobacco companies? Where do they go to get their billion back then?

Speaking of wildly incoherent, its good to see you still test positive for stupid, daily!

“The Worst Are Filled With Passionate Intensity”

JK:

Do you consider your pal Chris Tingles in this statement? It seems tailor-made.

“Beck and Palin were right”

Since the looney left has condemned these two as always being wrong and mentally deficient how can we be sure they were right then and wrong now instead of vice versa?

Since they are mentally deranged (according to the lonney left) and you agree with their them, does that make you mentally deranged? Or have they been right about more than just that?

The unfortuante love affair that most liberal reporters like Joe Klein and “Chris Tingles” have had for nearly 2 years now with the Obama Administration does not seem to be waivering at this point.
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It is obvious to any reader, the love affair they have now is only hoping that Obama does not fail any further so they can continue to justify their support of Bozo the Clown.

In Joe Klein’s never ending display of his utter, complete ignorance of what evidence is, Klein now asserts (falsely and with the predictable absence of any evidence) that TARP was “successful” because nut job leftist political activists Carl Hulse, David Herszenhorn and the New York Times-Democrat allege that Bob Bennett alleges that unnamed, unidentified “people would walk by my booth and say ‘TARP, TARP, TARP, TARP!’ But when you tried to talk to them about it, they did not know any of the details.” The names of said “people”? Unsaid. The number of said “people”? Unsaid. The locations of said “people”? Unsaid.

I guess we should be grateful that Klein, Hulse, Herszenhorn and Bennet didn’t allege that the unnamed, unidentified, alleged, so-called “people” were “members of the United States military.”

Sorry. Naked credit default swaps add absolutely zero to the economy. At least in Vegas, they sell alcohol.

In any list of the “worst” you must not omit Sarah Palin, who has the luxury of never having to answer a question and the media should let her get away with it and not give attention to her tweets and other noises.

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I’m sure you can find another 20-year-old summer intern at the WSJ to help you wildly misunderstand the details here, like you did with the RTP last night”

And I am sure you will lie and misrepresent articles of your own choosing to exaggerate a point that did not exist as you did last night.

It comes naturally to the left to lie about everything because their philosophy is mentally and morally bankrupt on its own.

I noticed how you snarkily avoided defending an inefficient unproductive government that you love to recommend.

Why does the left have such a terrible time that they in reality support failure

It got Obama elected, so why should Palin not duplicate that template?

There was also a telling moment on Meet the Press today with Head Clown Gibbs. When asked about whether Obama would, with the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, let the largest tax increase in history happen.

Part of his response: Obama would allow tax rates to rise on the who did not need it or “DESERVE IT”.

Where but in an Obama Amerika would people not deserve their own money? And the arrogance of them to say who does deserve it!

It’s too bad that economic ignorance and political hatred will likely lock in high unemployment for the next decade or longer. Even the Obama administration now seems to be giving up, altough they were only half-assedly into stimulus in the first place.
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My anger with the financial community is due to the fact that they were given 100 cents on the dollar for their reckless behavior, with the understanding they would lend those dollars, which they have not. Consequently, there are trillions of dollars parked on the sidelines doing nothing.
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Since we have given up on stimulus the only course ahead is to find ways to stimulate the economy, without spending any money. Here is one suggestion, why don’t they impose a huge tax on those trillions of dollars, sitting on the sidelines, unless they are reinvested?

If I had to respond every time you said something that was untrue, I would quite rapidly cease having a life.
You can play I’m rubber – you’re glue all you want but if you actually believe that teachers and firefighters and road crews and water departments and the military don’t add value to the economy, then you’ve outdone yourself in ignorance..

“…a distorted economy, where too many of the profits come from making deals and too few come from making things.”

LOUDER and more often, please.

Joe, caught a bit of your appearance on Mathews show today. Appreciated your trying to fight the good fight against the misinformation Trish Regan was peddling.

I have given up the Sunday shows for the most part and couldn’t bear to watch more after the Mathews meter and its question – which is the worse perception for Obama, Incompetent or Big Spender. Good grief – why didn’t he add a third, has he stopped beating Michelle. That made me remember why I quit watching.

It’s true that mainly righties, not lefties, are using TARP as an issue. And Klein is right that it’s a moronic, no-nothing issue. But what’s funny is that that one of the most prominent uses of it recently came from the Democratic candidate for the senate in Missouri, Robin Carnahan, at a fundraiser attended by President Obama. There, as this NYT article reports, she ripped into her GOP opponent, Roy Blunt, for supporting TARP. And the president said exactly nothing, of course. Nor does Klein, in spite of his annoyance over the NYT article, point out that that incident offered a perfect opportunity for Obama to lead rather than follow on this issue. He could have pointed out right there that Carnahan is wrong to demaogue the issue. But of course he didn’t do that because it wouldn’t have been good politics, and of course Klein won’t criticize the president for his notable silence on this issue; because at the end of the day, if someone who is a D manages to win an election – well, that’s really all that matters for Klein, isn’t it?

Alzheimer’s is a terrible disease, Freepizza and I hope there is a cure for you.
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If you didn’t have memory problems you would recall that seeking the Democratic primary Obama and Clinton went over policy plans with a fine toothed comb followed promptly by the campaign for the general election where, once again, Obama spelled out exactly what he intended to do.
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Sarah Palin in her most recent video promises a parade of pink elephants sorounded by my mother grizzly bears up in arms and against those unstated things which are upsetting people.

Freepizza,
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“It comes naturally to the left to lie about everything because their philosophy is mentally and morally bankrupt on its own.”
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I’ve seen this hundreds of times from you, but, you have no way of saying that attacking extra countries, giving no bid contracts to the VP’s company, hiring mercenaries unanswerable to any military or civilian authority, ignoring the plight of thousands of Americans dying in New Orleans, tuning the SEC into a place where watching porn and other time wasting activities is radically preferred to protecting investors from fraud, turn MMS into a drug and sex crazed cesspool of corruption and rigging your first election is somehow the moral superior of Pelosi and Reid, just as happened with Dennis Hassert, Newt Gingrich and all other house and senate leaders including Daniel Webster trading a few pet projects for votes for some good to excellent legislation likely to help millions of Americans.
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You know as well as I do that the Republic Party is the morally bankrupt party filled with lies about death panels, armed 16,500 armed IRS agents, Weapons of Mass Destruction and sycophants of the oil and financial services industry.

I would like to attribute this phenomenon of having voted for a successful government program, TARP, become a liability for an incumbent to right wing (il)logic, but as you point out, that tactic is a refuge for any cheap politician of whatever flavor. Still, as Klein points out, is makes maddeningly little sense.

Joe Klein:

Democracy has always been messy, always required grease–and I mean grease–for the wheels of progress, always muddled through. And it has always worked. Those who think any piece of major legislation–like, say, Ronald Reagan’s tax reform–didn’t include shady back deals in order to get votes are living in an alternate reality.

Hmm…some politicians did pretty well in the past couple of years by explicitly running against that sort of thing, by telling voters that it was up to all of us not to accept “reality,” and cast our ballots for them, so that the worst would be changed. Early on, these politicians found that the rhetoric of “our government doesn’t have to operate this way, if we demand better” worked pretty well as a vehicle to the highest offices.
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( link to Obama’s inspiring speech ):

What’s truly offensive about these scandals is that they don’t just lead to morally offensive conduct on the part of politicians; they lead to morally offensive legislation that hurts hardworking Americans.
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Because when big oil companies are invited into the White House for secret energy meetings, it’s no wonder they end up with billions in tax breaks while Americans still struggle to fill up their gas tanks and heat their homes.
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When a Committee Chairman negotiates a Medicare bill at the same time he’s negotiating for a job as the drug industry’s lobbyist, it’s hardly a surprise when that industry gets taxpayer-funded giveaways in the same bill that forbids seniors from bargaining for better drug prices.
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This is the bigger story here, and this is why the recent scandals have shaken the American people’s faith in a government that will look out for their interests and uphold their values.
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Real reform means making sure that Members of Congress and the Administration tell us when they’re negotiating for jobs with industries they’re responsible for regulating. That way we don’t have people writing a drug bill during the day and meeting with pharmaceutical companies about their future salary at night.
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Real reform means giving the public access to now-secret conference committee meetings and posting all bills on the Internet 24 hours before they’re voted on, so the public can scrutinize what’s in them.
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Senator Barack Obama, January 26, 2006,
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Lobbying Reform Summit Lobbying Reform Summit
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National Press Club Washington, DC

You know, that sure doesn’t sound like “Never in the history of the Republic has the public really understood the intricacies of legislation: it’s too complicated” to me. I’ll bet a lot of other people might find quite a bit of cognitive dissonance between those two ideas, especially since so many of us voted for one of them, and against the other.

We aren’t “living in an alternate reality“, Joe Klein, we just tried to elect ourselves one, first in 2006, and then in 2008.
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Where were you when Barack Obama campaigned on these things? Why weren’t you telling us what a liar he had to have been for telling us all we had the option of “living in an alternate reality,” if only we’d vote for change?
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Calling ordinary people fools for demanding better now seems strange, doesn’t it? Why wouldn’t you have provided them this information about how the real world will always work, how we’ll perpetually be living with a government somewhere between Tammany Hall and the Democratic Republic of the Congo before we voted for an option that never existed?
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The bank bailouts were not successful, unless your definition of success is keeping the finance system largely as is, because you believe that the “modernization” program enacted by Summers and Rubin –the program that made failure inevitable– was the best policy. The choice was never only between TARP and doing nothing, that’s a lie, the same lie that we’ve been told about every predictably bad policy championed by this Administration and the Democratic leadership. There were other policies, other ways to keep the corrupt and broken financial system from destroying the economy, but they were dismissed in favor of TARP. We citizens know this. We know that policy was limited to that favored by elites or nothing.
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You have one thing correct, Joe Klein.
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When you say:

TARP, the successful bank bailout plan, has been seized upon by populist fools–mostly of the right, but some on the left as well–as the prime irritant in their anti-big (government and business) frenzy.

, you have correctly, if pejoratively, captured the heart of the disdain we ordinary folks have for you anti-popular centrists and the failed institutions you prop up upon our backs.
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We are “anti-big,” whether “big” means industry cooperating with the state to spy on the citizenry, or “big” means the state cooperating with finance to keep the tax-dollar casino out of bankruptcy.
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You’ve got it –we’re “anti-big.”
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More precisely, you could say that we’re “anti-Too Big To Fail.”
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I won’t speak for movement conservatives, but movement liberals like us know that the choices we’ve been given -always between accountability-less welfare for elites or nothing– is false, just as false as the choice between corrupt, back-room dealt legislation or no legislation, or the false choice between kleptocracy or anarchy.
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The choice was never between doing nothing, and letting the economy collapse, it was between either going back to the well of old, obviously discredited Third Way think tank financial policy, or rescuing us citizens from being held hostage by the biggest and most inveterate gamblers on the earth –between New Democrats and a New Deal, in other words.
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This

Never in the history of the Republic has the public really understood the intricacies of legislation: it’s too complicated, sadly, even for many of the people who legislate it.

pretty much describes you centrists and your entire approach to governance, doesn’t it, Joe Klein?
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The public is stupid, much too febrile and illiterate to understand how the workings of their betters should affect their lives. Proper policy is much too complicated for people to understand, electorate-accountable legislators to enact and for journalists to accurately report. It’s all just too complicated for democracy, isn’t that what you’re really saying?
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The best case would be for us all to cease dirtying our beautiful minds about such things and trust, trust, trust the people that you, Joe Klein, trust to manage our affairs. We should just get back to shopping, working and huddling in our little churches,right?
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Please, by all means, go on campaigning for the necessity of back-room corruption in the legislature. Go ahead with your “pro-big” program, Joe Klein. Be honest about your contempt for everyone else who doesn’t have the good fortune to spend their fortnights in the best salons, speaking with the best minds about the most exciting Third Way “modernization” regimes, and the sacrifices required by the ungrateful, impractical populace “living in an alternate reality“.
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You be honest about “progress” has “always worked” because of “shady back deals,” and make the Obama ’08 campaign into the obvious liars they were, and we’ll just continue on out here with our “anti-big (government and business) frenzy.” Keep doing that for as long as you can, and we’ll be out here helping people like us understand the difference between you, the people you trust to make policy, and everybody else.
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You keep saying “The Worst Are Filled With Passionate Intensity,” and I’ll keep saying “The Worst are Filled With Dispassionate, Detached, Disinterested Contempt.”
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Let’s just see what happens during hard economic times, shall we, Joe Klein?

“…an inefficient unproductive government that you love to recommend.”
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The post office: gets mail from any two points in the US in two to four business days with a failure rate less than one percent of one percent.
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The FBI: caught ten Russian agents before they could gain access to any information more valuable than your useless posts.
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The Interior Department Parks:
Provides access to world famous National Parks maintaining the land and wildlife.
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The Department of Justice: 90% successful prosecution rate exceeding any jurisdiction in the US and nearly all other equivalent agencies in developed Democracies.
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I could go on and on, but, none of these services could imaginably work on a for profit basis and none of them have ever been improved by the hiring of for profit sub contractors.
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If you want Yellowstone National Park made into a condo complex for Multi-Millionaires only, if you wan the Grand Canyon turned into a private amusement park, if want counterintelligence to return to local law enforcement as it was during World War One and earlier as the Germans murdered three thousand New Yorkers at Black Tom’s Island in 1916, if you want to pay $20 to a private business to send your brother a birthday card, if you don’t mind dangerous workplaces, polluted air and water for our children to be poised by, then you really do not belong in America where we do not want what you want.
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Somalia would be an outstanding place for you and your non-government.

So, Freepizza is telling us that tobacco is health food or he has totally lost his mind.

“The left has spent most of the last 2+ years telling everyone how dumb and ridiculous they are.
Schizophrenia remains the MO for the looney left”
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I think a person who lives in a word of conspiracies is a better candidate for some form of schizophrenia, aren’t they? Just because a person is said to be involved in all sorts of dastardly acts, does not mean they have actually done them, in the real world, nor does it mean they have a mental illness.

“Since the looney left has condemned these two as always being wrong and mentally deficient how can we be sure they were right then and wrong now instead of vice versa?”
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No, it most reasonable to conclude that Beck and Palin among the ultra right of the Republic Party are whores.
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If there is money to be made from feigning false outrage, they bend over and smile for you while they do so.
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When it was the Republican agenda, they sucked up to every word Bush and Dick said, so long as this would make them more money.

“Still, as Klein points out, is makes maddeningly little sense.”

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Little sense to question the motives behind the bailouts, the buyouts, the stimulus, and TARP? Are you nuts?
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Tax payers have by the hand of this Administration and the previous Administration mortgaged not only our future, but the futures of our children and their children.
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And, when a deal was struck with our money, they have sold us down the proverbial river to get back pennies on the dollar as a return on our investment. Why is that formerlyjames? Why has the current Administration sold us down the river?
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If an investor makes an investment they are hoping the return is more than the outlay of capitol spent. In this specific case, we did or could have made billions, but Obama’s purely inept abilities have permitted bankers to borrow and walk away with little to no cost to them. I read on this site all the time how big business is bad, how the average Joe in America is constantly screwed by big business. Now we have a chance to get some of that money back and pay down the national debt with those dollars we invested, and you say it makes little sense to question or comment on it.

“Where but in an Obama Amerika would people not deserve their own money? And the arrogance of them to say who does deserve it!”
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Clearly he is referring to middle class workers who are putting in the same number or more working hours than the wealthiest and who badly deserve a tax break to take good care of their families.
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It is an opinion that some badly deserve and others can make due without and not notice the consequences of paying a higher amount of tax.
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A graduated income tax is like a senior citizens, children or serviceman’s discount at some places. It is not about punishing adults between the ages 18 and 65 who are not serving in the armed forces. It is about supporting parents of young children, seniors and service members.

Most excellent Mr zechman.

Rather than quoting the garbage from the NYT, perhaps you can get on the bandwagon to agree with the LA Times instead.
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Or is this the greasing of wheels you want to see happen, Mr. Klein?
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“And once again, lawmakers went to work. On the eve of the vote last week, Democratic leaders compiled a complicated $82-billion package of war funding, disaster aid and domestic spending that achieved the seemingly impossible — meeting the president’s request while accommodating the needs of its politically diverse members.”

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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-war-congress-20100709,0,1045259.story
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I will publicly commend Obama here and now for taking this very unusual step. (If he actually follows through with a veto). You would be elevated from head-greaser journalist to a more respected proponet of fiscal responsiblity if you did too, Mr Klein.

Stuart,
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I haven’t often disagreed with you and when I have it has mutually been without ad homenim attacks but, to your credit, with a great deal of work to compete with your well documented opinions.
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More or less, debating you is hard work but hard work in a good way which our forefathers dreamed of political debates.
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Outside of the government bailing out existing businesses such as banks and car companies first and creating some legislation to prevent such future failures, how could we have not avoided tens of thousands of layoffs directly from such failures and millions of layoffs as the economy cascades further downwards?
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Had the government not done a bailout, if unemployment were, instead, as high as 15 to 20%, how could we expect anybody of having a prayer of being elected to a second term to even begin the reform process?
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I do see a huge difference between the secret meeting Cheney had with oil company executives and standard horse trading among house and senate members. To the best of my knowledge, nearly all of the congressional and Senate horse trading was about agreeing to future votes on particular projects wanted by particular members and adding on a few earmarks.
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Health insurance companies are halfway between their dream of being able to continue to turn away anybody who is actually ill and in need of insurance rather than insuring exclusively the healthy as has been the case since health insurance was first created and their nightmare of being crushed by a non-profit, no frills, no executive pay, no executive office no private jets public option. I see it like the Korean War, not like the Vietnam War and, that is, a total stalemate not a defeat.
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Stuart, what options are out there given that your number one short term priority is to prevent bank failures for both depositors (which caused massive harm during the Great Depression leading people to not trust banks for, in some cases, another half century literally keeping cash under their mattress – which leads to a variety of other problems) and massive layoffs in both that field and for automakers?
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If you really know of a viable option I do not know about, you know that I am open minded enough to contemplate it long after the fact and change my mind.

If I had to respond every time you said something that was untrue, I would quite rapidly cease having a life.
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Tell me about it. I disproved a set of his lies last night — showing that not even his source (which was fundamentally wrong) supported the assertions he drew from it — and he thinks I’m the one who was lying.
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No need to worry, When Reid beats Angle in November, he’ll have to leave the website for a year due to the terms of our bet.

I ask this in all seriousness, not as an insult:
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Are you retarded? I mean, have you been clinically diagnosed with a mental impairment? It wouldn’t surprise me, and if you are, I’ll stop arguing with you.

They once said TARP was a good idea and now they say TARP was a bad idea.
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Given that TARP wound up preventing the complete collapse of the financial industry, yes, I agree with the 2008 Palin and Beck (and Bush and everyone else) that TARP was necessary. It worked. It cost less than expected, and many of the firms have already paid back the loan in full, plus interest. The taxpayers are going to make money of this thing in the end.
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Let me ask you this — do you think Palin and Beck were right in 2008, or are they right today? It has to be one or the other, meaning that one time they were wrong in your eyes.

how can anyone be bothered by this when the Netherlands are about to win the world cup?

And I am sure you will lie and misrepresent articles of your own choosing to exaggerate a point that did not exist as you did last night.
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Really? Let’s roll the tape:
http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/07/10/this-recurring-dream/#comment-180551
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You said Research Triangle Park was started in 1950. That was a lie. It wasn’t conceived until 1954 and actually started later.
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You said that date was offered in an “article” from the Wall Street Journal. That too was a lie. Not only was it not an “article” from the WSJ, which would imply it came from the professional and unbiased reporters at the newspaper, but rather it came from an op-ed written by a college junior who’s a summer intern there. And hysterically, not even that kid said it started in 1950.
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More important, you (and your little wingnut-welfare-recipient inspiration at the WSJ) said Research Triangle Park rose to success solely private funds and no government spending whatsoever. That was a complete lie. RTP initially had $1.4 million in private funding, but that got it nowhere. The $70 million investment from the Department of Health Education and Welfare was not only a massive outlay in government spending for RTP, but one that finally opened the floodgates for private investment.
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I didn’t misrepresent the article I cited from John Hardin in the slightest, and I even provided a convenient link to the piece so you and anyone else could read the real story of the public-private venture at Research Triangle Park for themselves. And unlike your little kid, this is someone who’s the executive director of the North Carolina Board of Science and Technology, a member of the North Carolina Department of Commerce and a professor in the Department of Public Policy, University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill.
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You, meanwhile, drew wild misrepresentations from a 20-year-old kid’s op-ed piece, and refused to provide the link in three straight comments. I had to dig it out on my own and it was quick to see why you’d never provided the link, or even the oped title or author’s name — you were completely misrepresenting what it had to say.
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And yet here you are, after having been proven to be a liar and an idiot, accusing me of doing the lying. Sweet Jesus, if you projected any more, you’d work in a movie theater.

Hey, I’m just trying to kill time until kickoff.
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I only wish they could get Ruud Gullit back on the pitch for this.

patricksartor:
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I haven’t often disagreed with you and when I have it has mutually been without ad homenim attacks but, to your credit, with a great deal of work to compete with your well documented opinions.
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More or less, debating you is hard work but hard work in a good way which our forefathers dreamed of political debates.
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That’s extremely generous of you, and a fine compliment, thank you so much!
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Outside of the government bailing out existing businesses such as banks and car companies first and creating some legislation to prevent such future failures, how could we have not avoided tens of thousands of layoffs directly from such failures and millions of layoffs as the economy cascades further downwards?
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First of all, let’s just discuss the biggest financial firms, “the banks,” because they, unlike the car companies, were the ones who repeated the crash of 1929, and it is these bailouts in particular that require our special attention, more so than any other industry, really.
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Also, let’s not assume that the “legislation to prevent such future failures” was in fact addressed when we talk about TARP and TARP II.
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Finally, let’s indeed focus on how we could have avoided the dire effects of a complete collapse, i.e. doing nothing at all, i.e. what the Hoover Administration did after 1929 in terms of the banks:

Hoover in 1931 urged the major banks in the country to form a consortium known as the National Credit Corporation (NCC).[44]
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The NCC was an example of Hoover’s belief in volunteerism as a mechanism in aiding the economy. Hoover encouraged NCC member banks to provide loans to smaller banks to prevent them from collapsing. The banks within the NCC were often reluctant to provide loans, usually requiring banks to provide their largest assets as collateral. It quickly became apparent that the NCC would be incapable of fixing the problems it was designed to solve…

, but not using the TARP framework –one mechanism amongst many available– to do so.
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I think I really need to reiterate that point, because when you say
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Had the government not done a bailout, if unemployment were, instead, as high as 15 to 20%, how could we expect anybody of having a prayer of being elected to a second term to even begin the reform process?
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, you are back in Klein-Geithner-Paulson Land, where the only options are between “not done a bailout” and “done a bailout.”
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I think it’s pretty important for us, the public, not to just parrot the idea that, unless we did exactly what Bush/Paulson started and Obama/Geithner finished, we’d be in 20% unemployment territory, and no “prayer” of a second term to start some sort of “reform process” (whatever policy that “reform” might actually be).
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We need to know for ourselves whether it was Paulson and Geithner’s way or the highway, don’t we? And if you don’t know yourself, and you’re just taking Joe Klein’s or Jonathan Alter’s or various bloggers at CAP’s words for it…well, that make us just as gullible as the rightists and their televangelists, doesn’t it?
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I’m going to leave this
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I do see a huge difference between the secret meeting Cheney had with oil company executives and standard horse trading among house and senate members. To the best of my knowledge, nearly all of the congressional and Senate horse trading was about agreeing to future votes on particular projects wanted by particular members and adding on a few earmarks.
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alone for a the time being, and not talk about where “horse trading” has gotten us, and whether Obama really meant one kind of deal vs another, because the first point is more important.
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Likewise, I’m going to put aside my response to this
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Health insurance companies are halfway between their dream of being able to continue to turn away anybody who is actually ill and in need of insurance rather than insuring exclusively the healthy as has been the case since health insurance was first created and their nightmare of being crushed by a non-profit, no frills, no executive pay, no executive office no private jets public option. I see it like the Korean War, not like the Vietnam War and, that is, a total stalemate not a defeat.
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, since it requires an explanation of the problem with the unique problem health care in the US, and an explanation of the differing solutions to that problem offered by the right (Heritage, Phil Gramm, Dick Armey), the center (PPI, Obama, Bob Dole) and the left (the rest of the OECD, ignored by the Beltway establishment).
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Stuart, what options are out there given that your number one short term priority is to prevent bank failures for both depositors (which caused massive harm during the Great Depression leading people to not trust banks for, in some cases, another half century literally keeping cash under their mattress – which leads to a variety of other problems) and massive layoffs in both that field and for automakers?
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Great question, patricksartor, because it goes to the heart of the issue: what could we have done differently, besides doing nothing?
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I’ll let some knowledgeable folks answer it, like one of the guys who predicted the meltdown, an economist by the name of Nouriel Roubini:

http://www.roubini.com/roubini-monitor/253783/is_purchasing_700_billion_of_toxic_assets_the_best_way_to_recapitalize_the_financial_system_no_it_is_rather_a_disgrace_and_rip-off_benefitting_only_the_shareholders_and_unsecured_creditors_of_banks
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Is Purchasing $700 billion of Toxic Assets the Best Way to Recapitalize the Financial System? No! It is Rather a Disgrace and Rip-Off Benefitting only the Shareholders and Unsecured Creditors of Banks
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Nouriel Roubini
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Sep 28, 2008 10:03AM
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Whenever there is a systemic banking crisis there is a need to recapitalize the banking/financial system to avoid an excessive and destructive credit contraction. But purchasing toxic/illiquid assets of the financial system is not the most effective and efficient way to recapitalize the banking system. Such recapitalization – via the use of public resources – can occur in a number of alternative ways:
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purchase of bad assets/loans;
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government injection of preferred shares;
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government injection of common shares;
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government purchase of subordinated debt;
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government issuance of government bonds to be placed on the banks’ balance sheet;
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government injection of cash;
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government credit lines extended to the banks;
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government assumption of government liabilities.
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In the Scandinavian banking crises (Sweden, Norway, Finland) that are a model of how a banking crisis should be resolved there was not government purchase of bad assets; most of the recapitalization occurred through various injections of public capital in the banking system. Purchase of toxic assets instead – in most cases in which it was used – made the fiscal cost of the crisis much higher and expensive (as in Japan and Mexico).
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Thus the claim by the Fed and Treasury that spending $700 billion of public money is the best way to recapitalize banks has absolutely no factual basis or justification. This way of recapitalizing financial institutions is a total rip-off that will mostly benefit – at a huge expense for the US taxpayer – the common and preferred shareholders and even unsecured creditors of the banks. Even the late addition of some warrants that the government will get in exchange of this massive injection of public money is only a cosmetic fig leaf of dubious value as the form and size of such warrants is totally vague and fuzzy.
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So this rescue plan is a huge and massive bailout of the shareholders and the unsecured creditors of the financial firms (not just banks but also other non bank financial institutions); with $700 billion of taxpayer money the pockets of reckless bankers and investors have been made fatter under the fake argument that bailing out Wall Street was necessary to rescue Main Street from a severe recession. Instead, the restoration of the financial health of distressed financial firms could have been achieved with a cheaper and better use of public money.

Dude, this isn’t some shill from the American Enterprise Institute, nor some guy hawking a Socialist Workers’ Party newsletter.
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This is Nouriel Freaking Roubini:

In 2008, Fortune magazine wrote that: “In 2005 Roubini said home prices were riding a speculative wave that would soon sink the economy. Back then the professor was called a Cassandra. Now he’s a sage”.[1]
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In September 2006, he warned to a skeptical IMF that: “The United States was likely to face a once-in-a-lifetime housing bust, an oil shock, sharply declining consumer confidence, and, ultimately, a deep recession”.[2]
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He also foresaw “homeowners defaulting on mortgages, trillions of dollars of mortgage-backed securities unraveling worldwide and the global financial system shuddering to a halt”.[citation needed]
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The New York Times labeled him “Doctor Doom”, whereas, in hindsight, IMF economist Prakash Loungani has called him “a prophet”.[2]
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As Roubini’s descriptions of the current economic crisis have proven to be accurate, he is today a major figure in the U.S. and international debate about the economy, and spends much of his time shuttling between meetings with central bank governors and finance ministers in Europe and Asia.[2].

So, when you say
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If you really know of a viable option I do not know about, you know that I am open minded enough to contemplate it long after the fact and change my mind.
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, I know this very well, which is why I’m suggesting that you read Roubini’s 2008 post carefully, and look up each of the suggestions he makes.
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If you research even a quarter of these solutions, or just peruse some relevant pieces at Yves Smith’s blog, you’ll find that it’s not merely Roubini who makes these claims. There are many, many credible voices calling for a different path than the government purchasing bad debt with tax payer dollars and Federal Reserve loans, Joe Stiglitz and Paul Krugman among them. On the other side, the “TARP is ingenious” side is Brad DeLong and the Obama Administration.
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The main thing is for you to ask yourself “How do I know that TARP was the only option apart from doing nothing? Do I really know that, or am I confidently repeating something I’ve heard a lot from mainstream Democratic sources, just the way Joe Klein does?,” and then don’t take my word for it: find out for yourself what the deal is.
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Thanks so much for reading and considering this, patricksartor, I know you mean this argument in the best possible way.

Okay Joe… I do understand TARP and I still opposed it and oppose it. I also think there’s a pretty rational way to be “anti-big” these days, as in… I’m anti socializing Wall Street’s losses while letting them keep their profits and live larger than the rest of us. What’s annoying about that?

Actually, what’s annoying is seeing politicians claim that their critics don’t understand what they’re talking about — what an easy way to dismiss dissident voices from the public.

Jeez, I meant to say: since it requires an explanation of the unique problem with health care in the US,
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, but @lovely_bride http://twitter.com/lovely_bride just walked in and wanted to talk, so I didn’t properly proofread.

“the successful bank bailout plan”

Successful in what way?

The banks haven’t resumed business lending in any meaningful way. They still have plenty of toxic assets on their books.

The investment banks did use their billions to play the stock market. And that flood or money raised stock prices, even though companies sales and future prospects aren’t as good as they once were because of the credit crunch and waning consumer demand.

That’s why Goldman Sachs was able to pay $100 billion in bonuses.

btw, if you claim it is successful because Geithner, a former Goldman Sach’s executive said it was, you should consider he also said in June that TARP will likely cost taxpayers $109,000,000,000.

In short, many people know TARP was a transfer of wealth from the lower classes to the elites, who have bought off the politicians.

They are tired of it and are making their voices heard. Anyone who calls them stupid for doing so is…stupid.

“You said that date was offered in an “article” from the Wall Street Journal. That too was a lie. Not only was it not an “article” from the WSJ,”
==

WSJ Saturday/Sunday July10-11,2010 Section A pg 11 Bottom half.

The rest of your tirade is just more lunacy from someone who has not reality in years. But then again every response you have is idiocy.

Call mom have her bring the meds and lie down. You are just too stupid to live.

Rev Jim:

Wow you got all the looney left’s talking points into one post. You must be exhausted. What you do point out is the fallacy that government is competent enough to regulate anything. You hate defense but live grandly under the blanket of safety it provides.

Remember the lies of the WMD were agreed to be a threat by HR Clinton and other Demos. So they must also be liars and just gutless. You choose

I don’t care if Palin or Beck was right then or now. The TARP as written was wrong. Many firms were given money who did not need it and in fact were forced to take it all with strings attached. Of course with the exception of Fannie and Freddie who continue to put our entire financial system at risk. Now Democrats are using it as a checkbook to do other misdeeds

You are exactly right. While the financial system did need an input of capital, TARP was not the needed mode of action. The toxic asset remain and no lending truly exists. One of the major reasons is that government overstepped their bounds and now banks fearing choking regulation and higher fees hold tightly onto capital.

Much of the TARP and Stimulus plan was nothing but a poorly disguised transfer of wealth from taxpayers to the politically connected. That re-distribution continues through other programs to the continuing detriment of the taxpayer.

All this talk of free pizza is making me hungry. I think I’m going to get some now.
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See what you corrupt liberals did to me! You’re destroying the Constitution of my body!
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has been seized upon by populist fools–mostly of the right, but some on the left as well
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Name two.
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And while TARP may have been necessary to keep us from total collapse, I think we needed to have a hell of a lot more transparency in the matter.
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Huge sums of money got shifted around, and we don’t have any idea who got what.
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And now we’ve got this financial reform bill that fixes things just well enough to keep us chugging along the tracks for another few years, but which doesn’t do much to actually fix our system’s underlying problems.

Thank you so much for responding to commentary, Joe Klein, it is greatly appreciated.

Well, because of it’s failure and the overall failure of the Hoover Administration I am prone to doubting the viability of the first option.
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The remaining ones remain very interesting and sound very probable as solutions, especially the Scandinavian solution.
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Here, as most places, it was considered a just up or down vote.
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Objections from the left were, usually, that it looked like Bush was trying to give as much money as possible to his own kind, failed and incompetent CEOs at the cost of taxpayers – which was overly simplistic.
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Objections from the right, with the convenient amnesia that this was most the actions of the Bush administration a secret communist plot to have permanent government ownership of everything starting with the banks and ending with your local pizza shop.
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So much to look into! I was not tracking the news as carefully when the meltdown was happening and never heard of these options.
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Thank you.
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However, it does seem that we are getting repaid very rapidly right now. Ideally the federal government could have made profits as investors, but, it seems as if, instead, these companies are just headed back out there, hopefully, with a new more reasonable business plan.
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Of course financial reform has not been completed, but, most of the Glass-Stegal act has been put back as well as regulating derivatives. So, I think this can be called a success. It may well be the only success which can fairly be attributed to the GWB administration and, ironically, to the ire of conservatives.

An “article” is something written by the regular reporters for the newspaper, and has professional standards and an impartial tone.
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An “op-ed piece” is an opinion/editorial piece written for the opinion-editorial page, and usually advocates a personal viewpoint without any pretense of objectivity.
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What you cited was an opinion piece, from the opinion page (page A-11), written by a summer intern who has already racked up a series of right-wing internships (National Review, WSJ) to promote his opinion. It was not, by any stretch of the imagination, an article.
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Please, keep digging, moron.

Here’s the online version of what you cited freeinpa:
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111704575354870221777334.html
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Notice the words at the top: “Opinion Journal.” “Top Stories in Opinion.” And at bottom “More in Opinion.”
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It’s an op-ed piece, not an article. If you don’t understand the difference, you may be dumber than you seem.

Stuart: Unfortunately, Jon Stewart has Roubini tied up in his closet. Towards end of video.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-july-6-2010/america-s-got-nothing

Oh, and here’s the acclaimed author whose opinion you’re relying on:
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http://www.iop.harvard.edu/Political-Internships/Director%E2%80%99s-Internship-Program/Past-Recipients/Brian-Bolduc
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Agaun, I’ll rely on facts from the expert who’s active in North Carolina public policy and industrial development. You can rely on the opinions of Doogie Howser, GOP.

The toxic asset remain and no lending truly exists. One of the major reasons is that government overstepped their bounds and now banks fearing choking regulation and higher fees hold tightly onto capital

Note the misdirection. The banks are still holding toxic assets, mortgages are still defaulting at an alarming rate, leaving banks holding worthless collateral relative to the outstanding balances, and yet freep wants us to believe that its a fear of regulation that’s preventing them from loosening credit!

“…yet freep wants us to believe that its a fear of regulation that’s preventing them from loosening credit!”
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If you ask 3X, Freeper, Rusty or Earl, they will be thrilled to tell you that all business owners do day and night is hide in fear of the government. They never have problems when unemployed would-be and former consumers are not buying anymore, suffer from the events of natural disasters or struggle with the high costs of private sector health insurance costs.
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Nope, if you want to run a business according to wingnuts, get nervous about government and you’ll make millions.

“…Unfortunately, Jon Stewart has Roubini tied up in his closet.”
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If I am not mistaken, that is, also what the MSM does when they want to discuss economics, which is better than Fox who just hanged nine economists for being unpatriotic.

The banking system not only failed financially, it made the head of BP look like a public relations giant in comparison. Handing out billions in bonuses, as if nothing had happened, is like going on TV to say you are leaving Cleveland. However, if all the funds are paid back, plus interest, what’s the big deal.

The real failing is the banking system is still not flowing funds out to the kinds of businesses that create jobs, small and medium size businesses and there hasn’t been any startup capital for a long time. TARP should have been accompanied by 3 or 4 trans-formative infrastructure projects. Projects with high multipliers, not road construction. TARP doesn’t really justify itself, on it’s own. It should be seen as one part of a strategy to bring demand back into the system. TARP on it’s own does look like just a bailout of the rich. In fact, the banks may be more than interested in getting into the new industries that flow from changing the structure of society.

This is one of those wow threads that I have to come back to more thoroughly read later because I don’t have time now. Thanks to all.

“Never in the history of the Republic has the public really understood the intricacies of legislation: it’s too complicated, sadly, even for many of the people who legislate it…” pretty much describes you centrists and your entire approach to governance, doesn’t it, Joe Klein?
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The public is stupid, much too febrile and illiterate to understand how the workings of their betters should affect their lives.

Funny, I took it as damning, if unintentional, admission. FISA sprang instantly to mind, for some reason.

“…we’ve reached the point now where skeevy bloviators–Beck, Limbaugh et al–have created an entirely false knowledge base, which seems to be driving the narrative this year. Totally depressing.
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…we’ve reached the point now where skeevy bloviators–Beck, Limbaugh, every self-identified “conservative” or Republican, FOX, CNN, et al–have created an entirely false knowledge base, which seems to be driving the narrative this year. Totally depressing.”
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(Partially) fixed.

apr2563:
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“Somebody get the economist some water!”
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LOL, thanks!

“An “article” is something written by the regular reporters for the newspaper, and has professional standards and an impartial tone.”

==
Let’s leave aside that “regular reporters” have an impartial tone for now. But let’s focus on your entire defense at this point is a redux of “what the meaning of is is”. Whatever the printed piece was I referred too still leaves the point that you avoid by merely attacking me (typical of liberals) that you provided a response with a link that you misrepresented what it said and lied about what it said.

No surprise, when caught in a lie obfuscate and attack.

And to believe that “regular reporters” have an impartial tone is equally ridiculous. To offer that the WaPo, NYT, USAToday or LAT have impartial reporters is at best stupid and at worst just another lie to support a weak position that you keep pushing in where you want to attack me and not admit, as Bluto said in Animal House, “You F**k up Flounder”

did somebody say free pizza? I’m poor!
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also, It’s not the world being rigged against liberals that will keep this panel finding from being as big of a deal as the infamous emails. it wasn’t that some conservative group just told everyone that they had studied the problem and decided that top climate scientists had been dishonest in their attempt to control the dialogue about global warming. the ACTUAL EMAILS were made plain for everyone to see, and those who saw them concluded these scientists were not to be trusted. its what a lot of people wanted to conclude anyway, but still, it wasn’t really a stretch. How can you really expect a panel finding to change the minds of people who saw the emails from themselves?

Excellent thread. I think the financial world is an embedded figure puzzle to solve and I have the utmost confidence there are bright, dedicated economists on it… and hopefully an equally dedicated press corps that will do more reporting on this oh so very important issue.

“why don’t they impose a huge tax…”
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ummmm because its both impossible (it isn’t literally sitting around, its invested in cautious short term stuff) and a bad idea (taxing $ investments because they’re low risk?)

Never ceases does it. Everytome the looney left gers called on their insanity they avoid the issue and attack the questioner.

You have joined Rev JIm, IQ53 and Flounder (Kevin) in a make believe world inhabited by its always them and not us.

You take an arrogant professiorial tone but in reality it is just another version of the false intellect the left put forth.

So Professor, Rev Jim IQ53 and Flounder keep trying but you will not get away with impunity with the crap you peddle.

Another prime exhibit. You say the Tobacco companies were “vindicated” Rather than respond– you attack.

Flounder you f**k up, AGAIN

Rev Jim

“So, Freepizza is telling us that tobacco is health food or he has totally lost his mind”

Please show me where I said this. No wonder you are a college dropout (My guess is flunk out) and a failed cab driver and used car salesman.

You become a bigger loser by the minute an dI am not merely referring to your gelatinous girth

”
Clearly he is referring to middle class workers who are putting in the same number or more working hours than the wealthiest and who badly deserve a tax break to take good care of their families.”

Yep Rev Jim you had to flunk out. In America people earn money— it is theirs. The left has kad this delusional mentality that it is the governments and only they (meaning the left) know whats best and who deserves what.

For all the incoherent yammering th eleft does about overpaid executives why do we never hear aobut the exorbitant dollars paid to the dimwits in Hollywood?

“Incompetent or Big Spender. Good grief – why didn’t he add a third, has he stopped beating Michelle”

Because only 2 of the 3 were true. Even Chris Tingles has his limits

Misdirectrion? Hardly. The only financial institutions still in the lending business is Fannie & Freddie. Coincidentally they are absent from any reform bill. If they stop where will Democratic political hacks get millions for fraudulently destroying an institution?

They also have the taxpayer on the hook for the largest amount of money and they are a quasi-government agency under the Oversight of Congress. Yeah that’s what we need more of— to completely destroy our financial infrastructure

Alzheimer’s is a terrible disease, Freepizza and I hope there is a cure for you.

I dont think Freepizza has Alzheimer’s.. for that, you would need a brain in the first place. Unless Alzheimer’s affects your kidneys too.
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Also wonder why Freepizza’s conservative heroes like Ronald “The One” Reagan and Margret “The Messiah” Thatcher went crazy later on in life? Must be because they watched all their conservative ideas drive their respective countries into the ditch.

Uh, freeinpa, it was not the New York Times that vindicated the climatologists. If you had bothered to read the article as posted you would have seen it was the National Academy of Sciences (among others.) Or are you accusing them of being in the tank for that “liberal” climate change thingy, too. I think science deals in verifiable facts, not what it wants something to be.

Oh, you mean this fake Republican objection facts?
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http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2010/2010-03-31-02.html

How about this;
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/07/climategate-review-clears-scientists-dishonesty

Oh, yeah, that right wing lie called “climategate”:
.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/conspiracy-theories-finally-laid-to-rest-by-report-on-leaked-climate-change-emails-2021222.html

Ooops see 4.9
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The facts are overwhelming.
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Unless you stick your head in the sand or refuse anything but right wing media, you will know that climeatorlogists were exonerated and the hackers had no idea what they had actually seen was about regarding the reliability of rings on a particular type of tree, not anything which would impact the overall facts.

“The left has kad this delusional mentality that it is the governments and only they (meaning the left) know whats best and who deserves what.

For all the incoherent yammering th eleft does about overpaid executives why do we never hear aobut the exorbitant dollars paid to the dimwits in Hollywood?”
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If you weren’t severely brain damaged, freepizza, you would realize that the tax is not on particular professions. It is reducing taxes for those who can least afford it.
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This is simple math of who can least and best afford to pay taxes, but simple math that somebody making one million a year can more easily afford taxes than one making $30,0000 per year.

“The only financial institutions still in the lending business is Fannie & Freddie. Coincidentally they are absent from any reform bill.”
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Really?
.
I’ll have to tell commercial real estate buyers and everybody I know in residential real estate this.
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They’ve been going through mortgage brokers and getting loans from private banks. But, if the right wing tells us that these private banks are just a secret front for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, I guess the world should find out.
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You have no idea WTF you are talking about.

For all the incoherent yammering th eleft does about overpaid executives why do we never hear aobut the exorbitant dollars paid to the dimwits in Hollywood?”
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You’ll get no argument from me about Hollywood people being dimwits, but this is an odd argument for an alleged conservative to make — there is perhaps no industry in America that is more of a true free market exemplar than the film industry.
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They make a product, the public decides what it wants and pays for it accordingly, and the people involved are rewarded or punished accordingly. There’s no government involvement at all, just the invisible hand of the free market letting winners rise and losers fall.

Put another way — the left complains about the exorbitant dollars paid to CEOs because in most of their cases, their pay is completely divorced from the results of their work.
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Carly Fiorina destroyed Hewlett Packard, dropping its stock price from $52 a share to $21 a share (losing 60% of its value) and laying off thousands of workers in the process. And yet she was given $20 million in severance.
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There’s nothing comparable in Hollywood. You perform well, you get paid well. You have a bomb, and you’re history.

What did I lie about? You keep saying that, but you have yet to identify the lie.
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It’s all an attempt to misdirect from your typical lying and your clumsy ape-like grasp of the facts.
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You lied about the date. You lied about the role of public money. You lied that the date was in “an article” in the WSJ. You lied that it was an article to begin with.
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You can call me names all you want, but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re a serial liar and a thorough moron.

“No surprise, when caught in a lie obfuscate and attack.”
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“WSJ Saturday/Sunday July10-11,2010 Section A pg 11 Bottom half.
The rest of your tirade is just more lunacy from someone who has not reality in years. But then again every response you have is idiocy.
Call mom have her bring the meds and lie down. You are just too stupid to live.”

“Rev Jim:
Wow you got all the looney left’s talking points into one post. You must be exhausted. What you do point out is the fallacy that government is competent enough to regulate anything. You hate defense but live grandly under the blanket of safety it provides.
Remember the lies of the WMD were agreed to be a threat by HR Clinton and other Demos. So they must also be liars and just gutless. You choose”
“Never ceases does it. Everytome the looney left gers called on their insanity they avoid the issue and attack the questioner.
You have joined Rev JIm, IQ53 and Flounder (Kevin) in a make believe world inhabited by its always them and not us.
You take an arrogant professiorial tone but in reality it is just another version of the false intellect the left put forth.
So Professor, Rev Jim IQ53 and Flounder keep trying but you will not get away with impunity with the crap you peddle.’
.

“Flounder you f**k up, AGAIN”
“No wonder you are a college dropout (My guess is flunk out) and a failed cab driver and used car salesman.
You become a bigger loser by the minute an dI am not merely referring to your gelatinous girth”
.
So, liars obfuscate and attack while those telling the truth do not.
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Then you must be a pathological liar.
.
BTW: Remember that I was medically disqualified (no, at 217 at six feet two inches tall I was not overweight – I gained some weight later, unfortunately to go to a 40 inch rather than a 38 inch waist) from the Army when I was 32 years old. I never said that we should shut down our armed forces. I said that there are many non-combat related things we do not and will not need ever including many bases both abroad and stateside which do not actively serve a defense function in any known, realistic scenario.

When brutal dictators worldwide look for reasons to forbid free speech, all they need to make an argument for it is a mental patient like freepizza for an example of what an extreme waste of time it can be to listen or read the speech or text of the truly deranged and uninformed.

“The Worst are Filled With Dispassionate, Detached, Disinterested Contempt.”
.
stuart, thanks for dealing w/ that Yeats quote. a beautiful way to conclude your moving, but IMO overwrought and grandiose battle-cry speech. (“Be honest about your contempt for everyone else who doesn’t have the good fortune to spend their fortnights in the best salons…” – this over JK being upset about people screaming at legislators over stuff they clearly don’t know anything about)
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“This way of recapitalizing financial institutions is a total rip-off that will mostly benefit – at a huge expense for the US taxpayer – the common and preferred shareholders and even unsecured creditors of the banks”
.
I found the Roubini citation inadequate to deal w/ Patrick’s main question. when the recapitalization plan was conceived, the huge POTENTIAL cost could have been an argument against it, but now w/ funds repaid, and inflation unaffected by the temporary extra debt its clear the taxpayers didn’t get screwed. also, creditors and shareholders were obviously going to benefit enormously by ANY government action saving the banks other than seizure, and that wasn’t even on the list of possibilities.

what a miserable match. on paper it was bullet-proof, but it turns out the new “pass the ball off to Spain so we can get back to blatantly fouling them” strategy wasn’t quite ready

“Move over, commercial lending and home foreclosures. The falling number of bank loans is emerging as the No. 1 economic concern of 2010. But while many expect the credit crunch to continue”
=
According to a Wall Street Journal report ($) Wednesday, bank lending in the U.S. saw its sharpest drop since 1942.
=
July 10, 2010 – I need to correct an article I wrote last month stating that banks are lending again. Total bank loans have indeed grown as I reported, but not because banks made new loans. Instead, the increase was a result of pure accounting.

On April 1, 2010, the accounting rules for banks changed. Credit previously extended in the form of derivatives booked off bank balance sheets now has to be accounted for on a bank’s balance sheet. Thus, in accordance with rule FAS 166/67, banks brought about $300 billion of assets and liabilities onto their balance sheets in April. This was credit already extended.

Dumb fat and stupid is a pathetic way to go through life, especially after you get rejected everywhere

soooooooo clever. keep working and people might end up accidentally calling you textee

You’ll get no argument from me about Hollywood people being dimwits, but this is an odd argument for an alleged conservative to make — there is perhaps no industry in America that is more of a true free market exemplar than the film industry.
.
They make a product, the public decides what it wants and pays for it accordingly, and the people involved are rewarded or punished accordingly. There’s no government involvement at all, just the invisible hand of the free market letting winners rise and losers fall.
==
Not odd at all for a conservative to point out the hypocrisy of the looney left again. You seem all gung-ho for letting the free market decide Hollywood but corporations are greedy bastards. And why should the government be involved in every other business but not Hollywood?

And for all the left rantings including the boobs in Hollywood about taxing, they have tax credits, avoid union wages at every turn and ship filming to non-US locations to lower costs. All the reasons corporate America gets vilified by these same boobs.
=
And yet she was given $20 million in severance.

There is a little thing called an employment agreement. Yeah I know laws are inconvenient to liberals unless it concern illegals.
.=
There’s nothing comparable in Hollywood. You perform well, you get paid well. You have a bomb, and you’re history.

=

Slight problem with your impeccable reasoning. They sign contracts get millions then the movie bombs. They still get millions. Hmm sounds like HP.

Of course is you commit fraud running Fannie Mae you collect hundreds of millions then just go into retirement. Some how the Demos lost their will to indict over that one.

And hopeless losers like you are the ardent follower of those that wish to strip our rights and re-distribute wealth because your failures that lead to your pathetic life you naturally blame on someone else.

College drop-out, failed cab driver, used car salesman and NYC public servant reject. You are an inspiration. Every time someone thinks there life is horrible they only need to look at you. When they are done LAO, they can get up, go on and fight another day thanking God they are not You!

“Not odd at all for a conservative to point out the hypocrisy of the looney left again. You seem all gung-ho for letting the free market decide Hollywood but corporations are greedy bastards. And why should the government be involved in every other business but not Hollywood?”
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First, the first amendment protects free speech which includes movies.
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Second, you will not die or become ill without a movie. You will become ill if your water and/or air supply are polluted and you will not recover from being ill if you do not receive medical care.
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Your concept of Democrats wanting to punish businesses by regulations to protect consumers, the environment, workers or investors is insane.
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Is the speed limit on the road outside of your house 25 mph because you and your town believe all drivers are evil or to protect pedestrians and children to make sure that they do not get killed by people driving 70 MPH on your street?
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“And for all the left rantings including the boobs in Hollywood about taxing, they have tax credits…”
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I never liked it when cities and towns subsidize any – any – company to film in that town of to open a business in that town. It is called by liberal “corporate welfare” or “welfare for the wealthy”. It’s you conservatives who give away tax breaks like candy, not liberals.
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“… avoid union wages at every turn and ship filming to non-US locations to lower costs…”
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Liberals have always disliked that and never said that Hollywood was an exception.
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Of course you hate all unions so, you should be sending thank you notes to MGM and others for making sure that there are fewer union jobs able to make good money for men to support families and more money for shareholders and CEOs. You thank them since you are the conservative.
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“And yet she was given $20 million in severance.

There is a little thing called an employment agreement.”
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Yes, there is and if you are investing with a company run by a moron, it sucks sht when the board allows those kinds of agreements. Bad CEOs belong on the unemployment line until the fine jobs that they are good at.
.
“Yeah I know laws are inconvenient to liberals unless it concern illegals.”
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No, liberals just prefer to have the child molester who grew up in your town and who is eager to rape your daughter put in jail before Pedro washing the dishes and, also, not harass Ivan, who may not have it with him all of the time, but came to the US legally.
.

“Slight problem with your impeccable reasoning. They sign contracts get millions then the movie bombs. They still get millions. Hmm sounds like HP.”
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Only when top stars and/or proven winners make it in film do they command large up front sums. A first time screenplay only gets $100,000 up front and about 10% of all sales. The biggest of the biggest actors and writers make the most up front and are less likely to bomb and are paid up front for that reason.

“Of course is you commit fraud running Fannie Mae you collect hundreds of millions then just go into retirement. Some how the Demos lost their will to indict over that one.”
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I think I know where that fraud took place. It was up your butt where most of your so-called facts come from.

You were totally exaggerating and, in my sub-field, there are no Fannie Mae or Freddie Macs for commercial condos, commercial coops or stand alone commercial buildings.
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Yes, lending in below where it was, but, your statement was totally ridiculous as usual.

So, what you are saying with a slew of personal insults after you said that liars are the ones who toss out personal insults is that you are a pathological liar.
.
Also, note that there is wealth and income.
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Wealth is property. Communists redistributed wealth when they took control over every private business and home and then had an unelected body choose who lived and/or worked where.
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A very limited redistribution of income is to take a small sum in taxes from businesses and high income individuals to provide the poor with food and shelter and, in the really advanced countries – basically every developed country outside of the US – education beyond high school so that they may go out and become high wage earners themselves.
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Also, during recessions this is important to maintain consumer spending where, at the end, the high income individuals through their businesses making more end up getting the difference back and then some.
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So, I am glad to know that you admit to being a liar.
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Now, stop lying and insulting people.

The Worst Are Filled With Passionate Intensity right-wing trolls on Swampland.

“A very limited redistribution of income is to take a small sum in taxes from businesses and high income individuals to provide the poor with food and shelter ”

When one comsiders 39+% as a “small sum” those are insults I posted about you but a glaring reality you refuse to face.

==

Here is Jesse still slingin mud fo rthe cause

His feelings of betrayal personify a slave master mentality. He sees LeBron as a runaway slave. This is an owner employee relationship — between business partners — and LeBron honored his contract

So, I am glad to know that you admit to being a liar.
.
Now, stop lying and insulting people
==
Well once agian you make up your own conclusion without any fact.

Its an insult when its not true. You are a college dropout, failed taxi driver and used car salesman and a reject from piublic service. Its may seem insulting but all true.

Now stop lying to yourself.

PS income becomes wealth when it is not spent or taxed

“did somebody say free pizza? I’m poor!”
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If you’re poor, you lack personal responsibility!
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Why, when I was fifteen years old I had made my first 40 million dollars from selling off my first lemonade stand. I put myself, my parents, grandparents and great grandparents through college.
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Then people like you want to eat pizza.
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How dare you!
.
(Swiss, you know that I am mocking the wingnuts here.)

“When one comsiders 39+% as a “small sum” those are insults I posted about you but a glaring reality you refuse to face.”
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Not knowing math, you do not understand that only about one quarter of your money goes towards “redistributing” towards SSI, transitional assistance, housing and urban development and other services.
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When one considers 10% of incomes over $200,000 per year the right amount of money to drive you into poverty is somebody totally incompetent with money.

“PS income becomes wealth when it is not spent or taxed”
.
“wealth
Also found in: Legal, Idioms, Encyclopedia,
wealth (wlth)
n.
1.
a. An abundance of valuable material possessions or resources; riches.
b. The state of being rich; affluence.
2. All goods and resources having value in terms of exchange or use.
3. A great amount; a profusion: a wealth of advice.”
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Nope, not in the English language.
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Wealth is property and most often referring to an abundant amount of non-disposable goods, investments and/or real estate.
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Well, you believe that all people in America should be required to speak, read and write in English, then go back to school before you start making up your own definitions.

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2008/09/24/as-wall-street-is-transformed-a-reminder-from-aaron-russo/

Too Big to Fail …

The moral of the story (this thread), people need to keep shouting out “TARP TARP TARP” to those in Washington as they pass by their “booths”.
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Keep challenging the media-types like Joe Klein, and express your concern about how they are so in bed with these crooked politicians and not dong their jobs to expose them.
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This is exactly why the government is so concerned about having a kill switch for the internet. They will shut down the internet as things get more and more out of their control.
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Fight on fellow Americans. We must hold them accountable here and at the voting booths.

Here you go kevin, you might find this an interesting article about “climate-gate”.
.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/10/climate-panel-struggles-with-media-plan/?emc=eta1
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Controlling green house gases might come down to simply, “Controlling the information given out to the media”

Swissarmy,
.
Very good points regarding the climategate investigation. Having read many of the E-mails, it is quite obvious that the so called investigation was a whitewash. It did not explain many of the inaccuracies stated in the e-mails.
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A good article by the Liberal “Economist Magazine” concluded many errors were made and that the so called independent scientist definitely were pushing their personal views rather reporting on actual scientific principals.
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http://www.economist.com/blogs/newsbook/2010/07/bias_and_ipcc_report/print

Newfreedom,
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“For those of us who have taken the time to read about the proposed bills, who have taken the time to research and read the opinions of credible sources to fully understand what is in the bill, your lame comments are nothing more than the blowhard bloviation of a self-avowed liberal hack. You are nothing shy of disgusting.”
.

Your points on JK are very well made. He continuously tries to put down Conservatives such as Beck as Bloviators, but he is the one who does most of the Bloviating. Beck gives more real facts in his comments and reporting then Joe ever gives.
.
Joe is truly a Liberal Hack. I think he’s just jealous of the success of truthful people like Beck.
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Joe is the epitome of the Elite Liberals that are the core of the problems related to the current Administration and its efforts to push our country toward Socialism over the wishes of a majority of our citizens. These Liberal Elitists do not believe in Democracy. They believe they know what is best for the rest of us and they are going to force it down our throats whether we like it or not.

I really have to laugh at the way some of these so-called bloggers toss the words “free” and “freedom” around. With these folks in charge, you’d be free all right – free to starve. They actually mean freedom on *their* terms, sort of like the freedom they had in the Third Reich.

No thanks, boys & girls, I prefer to just let ‘em keep talking – - then watch as the psycho-faux-populist movement backfires in November, taking the tea-perps and the Palins of the world with them.

- – True heroes never speak of their deeds.
- – True patriots never use the word.
- – True traitors hide their hate behind the flag.

@freeinpa

*Everytome the looney left gers called on their insanity they avoid the issue and attack the questioner.*

if you read the rest of your 2.7 post you will note that all you did was avoid the issue and attack your questioners.

Stuart,
.
Excellent Post.
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It isn’t often that comments on this site bring agreements from both the Left and the Right. Maybe there are bridges that can be built. That might be a great idea for your blog. No one else appears to be trying to bring the two sides together and come up with ideas to make the world a better place.

swissArmyBrainBETA:
.
Thanks for the response.
.
overwrought and grandiose battle-cry speech
.
Criticisms of grandiosity duly noted.
.
this over JK being upset about people screaming at legislators over stuff they clearly don’t know anything about
.
Well, that’s an interesting point, although Klein really says that even legislators have little clear idea of what they’re doing (but that this is somehow fine), and uses a complexity dodge to avoid explaining to people exactly what’s being done. I’d say in response to you that it can work both ways. In other words, people “screaming” like babies (or, you know, objecting angrily as adults, like we’re supposed to do in a democracy) over stuff that doesn’t make sense to them might be better than people sleeping soundly like babies, because the adults who know everything have soothed them to sleep.
.
Case in point would be your assertion –really your repetition of Tim Geithner’s assertion– that “now w/ funds repaid, and inflation unaffected by the temporary extra debt its clear the taxpayers didn’t get screwed.”
.
Do you remember how, during the Bush Administration, there was a constant repetition of the phrase “Coalition forces?” Remember that?
.
Remember how that was literally, technically true, and yet not accurate in portraying the composition and nature of the occupation of Iraq?
.
Remember how the Administration used that phraseology to its fullest effect, in order to rhetorically legitimize the invasion? Remember how the US press corps dutifully wrote that term down in its descriptions, and how many Americans became confused as to international support for our actions?
.
Here’s Yves Smith on this Administration’s language of “repayment,” and how similarly mis-representative it is:

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/06/geithner-yet-again-misrepresents-tarp-performance.html
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Geithner Yet Again Misrepresents TARP “Performance”
.
The problem with propaganda is that it is generally effective. Utter the Big Lie often enough and most people will come to believe it.
.
The Obama Administration has engaged in persistent misrepresentation of the outcome of the TARP equity injections, which is a manifestation of its early decision to reconstitute as much as possible, the banking industry that had just driven itself and the global economy off the cliff….
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…One place that frequent repetitions of the Big Lie might not work so well is relative to the TARP, where the overwhelming majority of Americans were so opposed to bank bailouts with no pain inflicted on the recipients that any attempts to call the effort a success might simply serve to reopen a festering wound. But let’s not take any chances.
.
Today, a New York Times headline extols, “Banks Have Repaid 75% Of Bailout, Geithner Says.” Their summary:

The Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, said on Tuesday that taxpayers were recovering their investment from the financial bailouts as the program was wound down. But he acknowledged there would probably be a loss from the rescue of the insurer American International Group.

From his testimony:

We closed the Capital Purchase Program, under which the bulk of support to banks has been provided. To date, banks have repaid approximately 75 percent of TARP funds they received, and TARP investments in banks have generated taxpayers $21 billion in income from dividends, sales of warrants and stock, and fees from cancelled guarantees. We expect TARP investments in banks to generate a positive return on the whole

Yves here. Let’s debunk the two overarching messages:

1. Taxpayers got a good deal
.
2. “Paying back” the TARP is a sign of success of the program

Start with the “good deal” myth. Note that while Geithner does use the word “investment” from time to time, he and Obama when talking about the TARP have most often used the turn of phrase “pay back.”
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Some members of the public might hear the “pay back” and assume the funding had been via debt . Instead, the Capital Purchase Program program was senior preferred stock plus equity warrants .
.
The Treasury did build in some mechanisms to encourage return of the funds (preferred dividends increased from 5% to 9% after year 5, for instance). But there was no immediate pressure in the deal terms to lead a quick return of the funds to necessarily be a good thing.
.
Most important, the key metric as to whether the deal was a good deal is not the speed of repayment , as the Administration’s boosterism implies, but whether the deal was a good one given market conditions as of October 2008. Answer: not at all . The deal was lousy on its face, and it did NOT serve to advance what should have been the overarching objective, namely, putting the industry on sounder terms, say by using the leverage to extract key concessions. Instead, this was another manifestation that the officialdom has adopted through the entire crisis: patch the system up with duct tape and baling wire, and if it looks even remotely operational, tout it as tremendous success.

I urge you to read and investigate the entire piece.
.
These banks didn’t “pay back” Treasury with money that can be used to, say, repay the Social Security Trust Fund’s IOU’s taken out when the Bush tax cuts were enacted. Instead, the government allowed itself to be complicit in the propping up of these banks’ artificially high stock prices and inflated equity warrants, as Smith goes on to note:

Technically, the accounting isn’t fraudulent, since the banks have gotten so many variances (it’s called regulatory forebearance). But the profits and equity levels banks are reporting are more than a tad misleading.
.
Extend and pretend is rampant. Not only are asset values inflated by super cheap funding, which is not going to be with us forever, but there is considerable evidence that banks are making assets at utterly indefensible levels.
.
We’ve pointed repeatedly to Mike Konczal’s quick and dirty analysis of second mortgages, which suggests the four biggest banks are overstating their equity by roughly $150 billion. We have also had readers who work at dealer banks tell us of wildly unrealistic marks on CMBS. And the big banks, per Chris Whalen, are reporting unrealistic earnings and equity levels due to taking insufficiently low loan loss reserves.
.
But Geithner would have you believe all is well in bank-land.

.
So, when you start with Joe Klein’s poetic premise, i.e. that the “worst” can somehow be identified by their “passionate intensity,” and then dutifully parrot the Administration’s financial “Coalition forces” line, and then tell those of us who are trying to make objective sense of the situation –that a bailout happened, assets were “returned” tax-payer cash, and yet there is still obviously a credit crisis going on– that it’s just too complex or that “creditors and shareholders were obviously going to benefit enormously by ANY government action,” and that, via some circular reasoning, Resolution Trust-style seizure “wasn’t even on the list of possibilities,” it starts to sound like a politically-motivated apology, not analysis.
.
I’m not pointing these things out because I have some irrational hatred of the Obama (or Bush) Administration or of Geithner’s (or Paulson’s) Treasury, and I certainly don’t pretend to know more than I do about High Finance. I do know “Coalition forces” rhetoric when I hear it, though.
.
I also know that Joe Klein has no business pontificating about the success or failure of policy he doesn’t even attempt to understand and explain, and that it’s up to us to figure these things out for ourselves –not merely taking the Treasury Secretary’s word for it– with as much “passionate intensity” as we can muster for what has to be one of the driest subjects on earth.
.
In other words, despite Joe Klein’s contempt, anger isn’t the enemy here –complacency is.

The questioners *are* the problem, the real *issue* is that a bunch of scared, selfish soreheads and crybabies are dragging the Republican Party down the looney path, from which it may take years to recover.

I guess when the only tool you have is a hammer (bitterness, negativity, aggrieved sensibilities) every difference of opinion or alternate political philosophy looks like….that’s right, a nail.

Besides, what are all you con-scared-atives (con-slave-atives?) doing reading Time in the first place? Shouldn’t you be off somewhere studying Soldier Of Fortune or Der Angriff?

@freeinpa
*Everytome the looney left gers called on their insanity they avoid the issue and attack the questioner.*

if you read the rest of your 2.7 post you will note that all you did was avoid the issue and attack your questioners.

3xfire3:
.
Maybe there are bridges that can be built. That might be a great idea for your blog.
.
That’s an interesting idea I hadn’t thought of.
.
Thanks very much for the compliments.

So, ho, Joe (thinking of Poe’s “X-ing A Paragrab”) … anent this phrase of yours:

“…TARP, the successful bank bailout plan,…”

Just how to you define “success”?

IMHO, it was, for We the People, who did “ordain and establish” this whole shootin’ match, completely inconsistent with adjuration #5 of the Preamble, “…in order to…promote the general Welfare…”! “We” lost.

Have “we” made a profit on the transactions?

Have the Wall Street Casinos reformed their Mammondizing ways?

Has (or Have, if you’re affecting Brit-speak this week) the 4th Estate (I’m now inclined to call it “The 0.25 Estate,” given its severely diminished abilities to “get it right”) given up referring to “stock exchanges” and “investing” and “investors” and instead given ‘em their real names, namely “casinos,” “gambling” and “gamblers,” respectively?

Really.

Think about it: after the very first transaction between corporate-person (formerly known as corporations before Untied Citizens [sic; very sic] vs. FEC) and person-corporate (formerly known as people, citizens, etc.) can accurately be characterized as an “investment.” The person-corporate, you or me, takes money out of his/her wallet and gives it to the corporate-person, and the corporate-person responds by handing the corporate-person his/her IOU (stock or bond).

Any other transaction that “sells onward” (is this the knock-on on-offer effect?) these IOUs is gambling. In fact, the first transaction, when it involves stock and not a bond, is itself as much of a gamble as the subsequent third-party transactions.

Because the IOU-issuing corporation-person gets none of the money changing hands AFTER the first transaction. So there is, in fact, no “investment in the corporations” after the very first transaction, the IPO or direct purchases by persons from corporations (to revert to a simpler time when the duality of corporations as persons, and concomitantly, of persons as corporations (see http://wilt4congress.blogspot.com on the Domestic Domestic Corporation (DDCs) topic) was not officially recognized).

What there is instead, is essentially a bunch of rowdies from the ‘hood rolling dice out on the sidewalk. Except they’ve moved it inside, where the rubes can’t see what’s going on as the rowdies (thugs, con-artists, pick your “pro” noun) fleece the rubes, hicks, hayseeds, hooples, as they extract money from every third-party transaction. How can so many otherwise intelligent folks be hoodwinked for so long, I wonder.

If we all were to use RealSpeak (the language used by the little boy who announced that the emperor had no clothes)–which would be the lexicon of aleatory activities (gambling)–then people would already be keyed into, and on the lookout for, all the touts, shills, promoters, con-artists, aware that “the house always wins,” and demand that the house “take” be clearly marked (like unit pricing in the grocery store) on every slot machine, craps table, stock bet, roulette wheel, lottery ticket, off-road 4WD gamblers’ vehicle, insurance bet, book lay-offs (aka ‘credit the fault’ swaps, or in ‘hood-speak,’ “credit duh-fault swaps, Joey, yuh got me?”), bingo night, 3-card Monty, shell game, sports bet, etc.

Tell me the difference between Roger Clemens putting a bet for (or against, which he said he didn’t ever do) his team when Lloyd Blankfein and his fellow Mammonites bet long (and short?) on their own teams.

It’s time to give up the horse-hay that there’s any difference between one form of gambling and another. There is, substantively, no difference. But for the fact that the advocates of one form of gambling have succeeded in getting their form of gambling legalized and other, competitive forms of gambling, made illegal. Ahh, the cost of legislative elections. Ahh, the attraction of the princely way of legislative life, and ahh, the power of money.

And the Wall Street Casino operators have figured out how to take more and more of the money out of general circulation to line their own pockets, pool rooms, swimming pools, yachts, Maseratis, hot tubs, saunas, wine-cellars, vacation- and other on-season/off-season-retreats. While we poor sailors molder in the bilge/and the casino-lubbers bask on the quarter-deck.

bw