House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., said banks were acting "stupid" and making it harder for lawmakers to defend them.
"People really hate you," he said, imploring banks to do everything possible to avoid offending people. "And they're starting to hate us just for hanging out with you."
Yeah I would say that pretty much pegs it. Meanwhile in other financial news, Obama's decision to cap CEO salaries at $500,000 for any company taking a future government bailout has been lauded by those on Wall Street as draconian. Are you freakin' kidding me? If that is draconian, maybe they should just give the CEO's a 10th of that, a salary that the average American would consider themselves damn blessed to have.
Meanwhile, the Senate Democrats can't seem to grow a pair and force the Republicans to actually filibuster Obama's proposed stimulus package. The Dems have 58 seats so it seems logical that they could come up with 50 votes to pass the thing. But no! They would rather lie down and roll over while the GOP forces them to meet the 60 vote threshold a filibuster demands without working for it. What is going on here? Is this some sort of bizarro version of battered spouse syndrome? The Democrats are so used to being whipped by the Republicans that they can't stand up and take charge, rather they continue to cower and submit? Today my party of choice is making me sick.
Adding to my general feeling of malaise is the fact that Cheney has decided to re-emerge. (Is this like the groundhog? A Cheney sighting means we will have eight more weeks of fear-mongering or some other Bush Administration-related bullshit?) And what tender morsel of glee does the Dark Lord have to convey to us today?
"When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an Al Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry," Cheney said in an interview with Politico. He added that protecting the country is "a tough, mean, dirty, nasty business... These are evil people. And we’re not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek."Right Dick. It is so much better that we inter people without cause or reason indefinitely. Cheney talked about the recidivism rate of the Gitmo detainees at 11%. Alrighty. But, maybe you ask, what is the recidivism rate of a normal U.S. prison? That would be 65%. Just go away Cheney, sane people do not care to buy the crazy that you are peddling.
You know, I don't know what the answer is to our current economic nightmare (aside from wishing this was an episode of Dallas and we will wake up and find out it was all a dream), but I do know that no one—meaning the politicians—seem to be talking about the credit card debt that faces most Americans. Only my boyfriend Jon Stewart seems to be pushing for this to be acknowledged. Twice in the last two weeks, he has questioned guests (newscaster, Gwen Ifill, and economist, Lawrence Lindsey) as to why the government can't give the American people a bailout to pay off their debts, thus giving the banks liquidity and giving the consumers cash to spend and/or save—preferably both. (Isn't it ironic that just last year everyone bitched about how Americans weren't saving and now they are bitching that we aren't spending? Make up your minds already.)
Admittedly I am no economist, but sounds like a fine idea to me. Maybe we all need to start contacting our Representatives and Senators asking why this idea isn't on the table?
4 comments:
Okay - you know I'm a fan of your blog, but I particularly loved this post. Partly because the topic is inherently timely & interesting, but also because I'm a big fan of your boyfriend Jon, and I had not seen either of those episodes. Now I'm also a fan of Lawrence Lindsey, and Gwen wasn't so bad, either. I was impressed on the Lindsey clip what a credible interviewer Mr. Stewart was. He has fine ideas (I think) and was presenting them with no hint of comedy or irony, and sounded very knowledgeable and articulate on the economic situation. I even though it was ironic that the Comedy Central logo was in the corner, because it was [for the most part] a serious and on-point dialogue. I'd like to hear more disourse about Stewart's ideas - is anyone else out there proposing anything similar?
Not that I have come across. To your point about Stewart's interview abilities, the spouse mentioned that someone called in on C-Span this morning and said the Daily Show should be required viewing for everyone to get perspective on the GOP double talk (esp. in regards to their previous eagerness to spend without question and now they are SOOO concerned about leaving the next generation with major debt).
I for one am concerned about the debt. Yes Broad, I, the conservetive in exile am back. I must say that when we talk of fear tactics, I was amused that President Obama said that if this Pork bill that he wants passed, does not do so immediatley that the economy would be beyond recovery. Wow, this from the man that spoke of hope over fear. I challenge anyone, Repub, Demo. Conservative or Lib to actually look at this bill instead of taking these people at their word. Even many of my Lib friends that have looked at it are saying WTF. This thing is pure political payoff, and will stimulate nothing. If nothing else look at the numbers. They say it will create 4 million new jobs.(It will not, but lets give them that.) The cost averages out at $200,000.00 per job created. How do you improve your situation if you are drowning in debt by spending more money that you dont have. As far as Barney goes, I would kiss a bankers ass before shaking his hand. The very people that passed the legislation that got us in to the mess that we are currently in have now passed the blame to others and are trying to convince us that they will save us. This is about as smart as letting Bill Clinton babysit your teenage daughter. It is a sad day when we look for gov. to get us out of the mess they created. But then again maybe we can save some money if Princess Pelosi takes a few less trips in her private jet while telling the private sector they need to scale back. Or, perhaphs if the Dems would pay their back taxes the defecit would not be as large. I wonder if it had come out that Bush had not paid his taxes if the big guys in the Dem. party would have called it an honest mistake
The scandals with Dems and taxes is a bad, bad thing. no doubt, i won't like, but something tells me that the GOP has their own bunch of offenders.
My take on Obama's statement about the recovery is that he is stating fact more than trying to scare people. let's face it things are dire. we know people who have been laid off and most likely that is not the end of it. i don't like the idea of debt either, but bush created a lot of the debt we currently have with his wrong-headed tax cuts for the wealthy and now for the republicans to think that doing more of that is going to solve the situation is laughable. obama's plan may not be the answer, and he admits this, but doing the same is equivalent to doing nothing, and that is something we can't risk.
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