Obama Threatens to Nationalize All Banks; Investors at Orange Alert
The Investing Class has been thrown into a state of sheer panic. Terror! According to that commie in the White House, they might not get bailed out and coddled and wetnursed by taxpayers the next time their companies are on the brink of collapse.
Panic in the Suites!
Obama’s financial reform agenda has some eerie similarities to that three ring circus formerly known as Health Care Reform. During this yearlong circus, HMO lobbyists and rightwing inbreds were screaming “Freedom!” and “America!” and “the death of this once-great nation!”
And from the other side we kept hearing that the health reform bill is nothing but a billion dollar giveaway to insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry. It does absolutely nothing for consumers except force them to buy health insurance — which may or may not actually cover them if they have the nerve to get sick.
And now the financial reform proposals are generating this same hysterical point-counterpoint.
Warning to all investors! Government bureaucrats meddling in the economy. Etc. You know the drill.
And:
These new proposed bank rules are completely empty. Toothless. Phony. Just more smoke and mirrors.
[sigh] So which is it?
And now, this exclusive report: A copy of the Pittsburgh Police Department’s job application form has been leaked to the press.
“Looking for a few good bigots. If you never got past the fourth grade, you’re White and your parents are first cousins — We Need You!” Perverts, psychopaths and ex-convicts welcome.
There must be a few lurid jokes in here somewhere. Go ahead — insert your own.
posted by Tom Harper @ 6:28 PM
15 Comments:
This proposed financial reform should go down well with most voters, the only naysayers will be the usual crowd. Democrats and Independents have to be as one on this, don't expect 80% plus approval, those 20%-ers are not going to say "yes" to anything Obama suggests, but let Congress try and block this and see what happens, Wall Street needs to be taken down a peg or three.
I doubt anything will be done to take Wall Street down even half a peg...
No matter what regulations President Obama pushes through, the banksters and corporate goons will just eliminate when they buy Congress this November.
Agree with both Holte and Bee. Good post. I am going to blog roll you Tom.
I think this is all new rhetoric and nothing will be done. That poor little boy being beaten like that. I hope this does not turn into one of those, they police get off cases.
I guess the priesthood blogging, will give them access to all the porn they want, so it will leave real live children alone. NOTHING pisses me off more, than child abuse, being a survivor of it myself. If I believed in heaven and hell, crimes against children would be an automatic, get thee to hell card from me.
Holte: Unfortunately, the naysayers include those Wall Street barons who will simply hold up a bag of money and tell their congress pets "I know you'll do the right thing."
Bee: Unfortunately you're probably right.
Lew: It'll be an easy choice for our "representatives" when the public wants one thing and Wall Street wants something different.
MadMike: Thanks. I'll link up to your site.
Jess: That Pittsburgh incident is just too revolting for words. A college musician walking from his mother's house to his grandmother's house, getting jumped like that. I hope those 3 cops get long sentences and become somebody's bitch.
If real financial reform is to go anywhere, Obama and congressional Democrats are going to have to get the public behind them in ways they utterly failed to do with health care reform. They can't assume because they're trying to help and protect the average American that they will automatically earn AA's support. Too many AAs are political knownothings, scoffers and dittoheads.
Obama and Democrats have to make a solid, damning case about who the bad guys are, what they've done, what they're doing now and what they're capable of doing in the future. They have to scare the bejeesus out of Granny Cratchett and her nose-breathing dittohead son and grandson. They have to rally the millions stuck in low-pay, no-benefits jobs, the temps and part timers who need good full-time jobs, the millions out of work with no job in sight. They have to get middle-class paycheck workers who still have a job to put the Wii aside, switch from American Idol and tune in to why there's so much misery all around them — and how they could any day wind up miserable too.
Of course, Obama will be reluctant to make that case to people in the blunt, no-holds-barred terms required because it will seem to him as too much like demonizing, dividing and making an ugly scene.
Congressional Democrats will suddenly lose their voice at the prospect of ticking off some actual or potential deep-pockets campaign contributors. Especially after the Supremes set our already damaged democracy up for the coup de grace.
OK, maybe if we put the above to our president and senators, telling them their core supporters won't stand by them if they start caving in, bending over and backing out, they will decide for once to summon some courage, show some resolve and actually do what's required of them.
Maybe.
While I share your hope that they get long sentences Tom, I can't that they will be "somebody's bitch". Prison rape is a terrible thing, as is any rape and I wouldn't wish abuse like that on anyone, no matter how horrid they are. I do know, from doing a few jail visits with female inmates when dad was alive, that child abusers(those police officers) are not thought of highly and will be promptly dealt with in a general population, if they ever end up there that is.
Actually, I have to cautiously disagree with the assessments.
The President seems to have finally discovered that the Rushpubliscums are going to do everything they can do to sink him. They are basically leaving him free to attack whoever he wants to attack, and it is a politically good move right now to attack the bankers.
I actually expect that he'll not only propose scaling down their activities, but that he'll actually push for it himself, instead of leaving it up to Congress to do.
SW: Obama's "leadership" style, if you want to call it that, is not very conducive to getting things done. He has as much charisma as Bill Clinton and Reagan, but they used their personalities to get things done. Obama seems content to just let Congress do whatever they're gonna do, and then once a week he gives a stirring speech that motivates everybody, and everyone is thinking "All right, now he's really focused. He's on top of it now; I think we're going to go places."
And this seems to be the cycle. Dither, give a rousing speech, dither some more, give another rousing speech...
If Obama and the Democrats don't start taking your advice -- excellent comment by the way -- I don't have much hope for any of his agenda.
Jess: You're right. I should change my comment to just hoping those 3 cops get some massive beatdowns when they get to prison. I hope it's when and not if. They need a strong dose of their own medicine.
JR: I hope you're right in your optimism. If Obama actually gets out in front of these issues instead of just being a figurehead, that would be great.
A copy of the Pittsburgh Police Department’s job application form has been leaked to the press.
The mind boggles that, in the fracking 21st century, a boy can still get beaten up by plain-clothes officers, who refuse to announce who they are, over a bottle of Mountain Dew!
they SHOULD have nationalized all those banks in the first place. and spent those many, many billions on helping to keep people in their homes.
as it stands now, even people who have been good buyers, but are suffering because of layoffs, etc.. cannot get the banks to even talk to them to help re do their loans. We know someone exactly like this. Their income was slashed in half when the husband was laid off. they've tried calling the bank, writing, etc.. and nothing. They are talking about simply walking away from the fucker. And I don't blame them.
Kvatch: This is the worst case of rogue cops I've seen in a long time. It's bad enough when police use unnecessary force on a suspect, or when a suspect is in the wrong place at the wrong time. But when somebody's only crime is walking from his mother's house to his grandmother's house -- that police dept. needs to raise its hiring standards.
Mike: I don't know about nationalizing, but they never should have eliminated that firewall (in 1999) which had been preventing these financial meltdowns since the 1930s. Phil Gramm pushed for that law, after he was through spreading his legs for the finance industry; and Clinton signed the law because Congress had more than enough votes to override his veto.
Obama needs to bring back those regulations, but it won't be easy.
Mike is so right about nationalizing the banks a year ago. I favored that approach, even though it seemed unlikely Obama would do it.
Had Obama done that, the only people calling for his head on a platter now would be the same ones who've called for his head on a platter all along. Meanwhile, the left and probably most independents would be behind him instead of full of resentment about a setup where the banks and Wall Street are getting richer and more powerful, while the rest of us go on being screwed, blued and tattooed.
I see nothing wrong with bringing back all the New Deal Laws the Conservatives trashed and then putting teeth into the Laws that still exist.
That should do it
Erik
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