On The Teaparties

I’ve refrained from commenting on the ‘teabag’ movement up to this point, but now that the day of reckoning has come, I’ve decided to say my piece.

What you will witness today is a pathetic display from a conservative ideology lost in the woods yet still bent on making its voice heard by shouting the loudest. The conservative movement saw the writing on the wall on November 4th, and instead of reflecting inwards, it channeled its loses into an angry-at-anything expressionism that forces it further to the unpalatable right. After taking such a beating since the elections in November, it is empowering for the rage-aholic Limbaugh/Beck-devotee to make symbolic stands against various scapegoats for their irrelevance. But the relationship between the Limbaugh brand and the Republican party, exemplified by the Tea Bagging movement, is increasingly parasitic, benefiting only the pocketbooks of the apostles of xenophobic and Christian-hate hustle. In this manner, Fox News, Limbaugh, Beck, et. al. are all to happy to push the ultra-right line, even if it means the demise and irrelevance of the Republican party.

If reports and video of Teabag Meetups hold true (exhibit A), the Teabag parties will quickly degenerate into fringe protests against disparate and neurotic subjects of disdain. Varying by locale and geopolitical tendencies, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Southwest parties turn into protests against immigrants (dey took der jobs!!), the Midwest parties against homosexuals (dey took der marriage!!), the East coast against taxation and socialism (dey took der salaries!!), and the South against all of the above. However, no matter how many boogiemen the Right creates, it’s lack of influence and power can only be blamed on itself.

See Also: Kind Of Sad, The peasant mentality lives on in America, Failsauce, Right-Wing Extremism: The Absurd And The Obvious, Republicans: The Really, Really, Really Stupid Party, Fox News’ Promotion Of Tea Parties Shatters Their Credibility, O Frabjous Day! Callooh! Callay!, Tax Day Protestors — Time To Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is, FreedomWorks Behind Tax Day Tea Party Protests, Tea bagging, The rich buy the stupid and manufacture a movement…, and How To Understand The “Tea Party” Phenomenon.

[tags]tea parties, teabag party, tea bag protests, tea baggers, republican party, conservative movement, rush limbaugh, socialism, boogiemen, liberals, socialism, april 15th, april 15 2009, glenn beck, fox news[/tags]

What Does “Too Big To Fail” Mean?

“What do we do? Exactly the opposite. We forget about the debt, let it explode. We reduce interest rates to zero to stimulate the economy. We pour money into the economy to get even bigger debts. We don’t privatize; we nationalize, except we don’t call it nationalization. We give it some other name, like “bailout” or something. It’s essentially nationalization without control. So we pour money into the institutions. We lectured the third world that they must accept free trade, though we accept protectionism.

Take the “too big to fail” principle, which the House committee is discussing today. But what does “too big to fail” mean? “Too big to fail” is an insurance policy. It’s a government insurance policy. Government means the public pays, which says, “You can take huge risks and make plenty of profit, and if anything goes wrong, we’ll bail you out.” That’s “too big to fail.” Well, that’s extreme protectionism. It gives US corporations like Citigroup an enormous advantage over others, like any other kind of protection.

But we don’t allow the third world to do that. I mean, they’ve got to privatize, so that we can pick up their assets. Now, these are happening side by side. Now, here’s the instructions for you, the poor people; here’s the policies for us, the rich people. Exactly the opposite. Is there any reason to think the IMF is going to change it?”

See Also: Three Possible Financial Narratives for the Obama Administration, Ideas and interests, Goldman CFO Viniar “Mystified” by Probes into Relationship with AIG, Taxpayer Funded GS Profits, Punishing The Successful Update, Democracy and Capitalism, The Quiet Coup, The Nationalization Argument, U.S. Taxpayers Raped Again, and The Banks’ New Business Model.

Tea Party Fail

From Tea Party protests in Hartford, Connecticut.

See Also: Tax Freedom Day: 8 days Earlier Than In 2008, The Highjacking Of The Tea Parties, Fox News’ Promotion Of Tea Parties Shatters Their Credibility, Spring fever, Gallup Poll Apparently Says Us Teabaggers Are Out Of Touch (?), Tea Parties and the “Fringe” Who Are Not Welcome, There Is Reason To Fear The Tea Party Movement, Are the tea parties “a sham and a fraud”?, MSNBC devotes 13 minutes to “teabagging” puns, The Looney Right & The Tea Parties, Addressing some Tea Party concerns, Time to Party Tomorrow, St. Louis News Links Tea Party Protesters to “Extremist” Group, Correctly Political: Tea and Sympathy for the Devil You Know, and Played for Fools.

[tags]tea party fail, obama protest fail, protesting fail, misspelled words, idiots, competency, barack obama protest, tea parties, morons[/tags]

Change Your Corporate Overlords Can Profit From

Goldman Sachs, in another sign that banks may be turning around, beat Wall Street’s earnings expectations as it reported a profit of $1.66 billion for the first three months of this year. The bank also said it planned to raise $5 billion in stock to help it pay back government bailout funds.

The New York-based bank said it earned $3.39 per share, easily surpassing analysts’ forecasts for profit of $1.64 per share. This compares with earnings of $1.47 billion, or $3.23 per share, in the quarter ended Feb. 29 of last year, and is a huge improvement over the $2.29 billion Goldman lost in the fourth quarter.

Hey, who knew that having all of your executives involved in the Obama administration could be so… PROFITABLE:

One has to love the sequence of events here. Back in 2004, Goldman chief Hank Paulson goes to SEC chief William Donaldson and petitions to have lending restrictions relaxed for the top five investment banks. Donaldson rolls over, the restrictions are relaxed, and it’s a disaster, as the top five banks immediately overleverage themselves — two of the five, Bear Stearns and Lehman, would actually collapse, at least partially as a result of being insanely overleveraged.

In the midst of this disaster, Paulson is named Treasury secretary. He does nothing about the worsening financial crisis until it is far too late, then allows one of Goldman’s biggest competitors, Lehman, to fail while at the same time intervening on a huge scale to save AIG, which just happens to owe Goldman a ton of money.

When AIG is bailed out, its government regulator is not in the room, but the new chief of Goldman, Lloyd Blankfein, is. In fact, Goldman Sachs ultimately receives about $13 billion of the money paid to AIG by the government in the bailout, reportedly getting paid 100 cents on the dollar for its AIG exposure, despite the fact that the bank claimed it wasn’t going to suffer severe losses if AIG collapsed.

See Also: Is TARP Investigator on Collision Course With Treasury on Bank Assets?, Goldman reports $1.8 billion profit, Afternoon Reading: Should Goldman Pay Back the Government?, The Corporate Borg, The Coming Siege of Austerity, Taxpayer Funded GS Profits, Time To Breakup Goldman Sachs, US Economy: You Think You are the Consumer, But You are Really the Product, and The Criminal in the Bank Next Door.

[tags]aig, goldman sachs, record profit, 1 billion profit, goldman sachs profit, profiteering, money making, bailout, socialism, federal bailout, TARP funds, aig, nationalization, profit from tax payers, rent seeking, corruption, larry summers, barack obama, change doesn’t mean shit, democrats are as corrupt as republicans, democracy is a fucking sham[/tags]

The Washington Post Board Room

BoRev does an admirable job of doing a mock up of the Washington Post editorial board (in peep form):

Unfortunately for their contest they had lame shit win. Personally, I think he woulda gotten in the top 40 if he had made sure to reference how good Rubinomics is and what a good idea it is to bail out AIG.