The Militant Liberal
Monday, 10 May 2010
Hope Emerges From Hopelessness: Change You CAN Believe In
Financial Regulation Reform (FINREG) v. Insurance Monopoly Expansion:
How the facade of FINREG reform while still bad can't be as bad as the health insurance debacle
Those of you who have been taking notes on FINREG and understand even a fraction of it must think I'm nuts by the title of this piece. Because, those taking notes already know that the House version already passed by Chairman Frank's committee and passed by the Democratic Majority in the House and triumphed as more historical "reform" by House Democratic Leadership has loopholes so big on the "reform" aspect of the bill that you could drive the entire $600 Trillion derivatives market and "Too Big To Fail" right through it because that's exactly what the loopholes in the House bill does. Likewise, that's exactly what Senate Chairman Dodd's bill does. There are some reforms like the political death bed conversion of Sen. Blanch Lincoln and her Agricultural Committee with their derivatives reform bill, then you have Kaufman-Brown and Senator Dorgan on Too Big To Fail and the Sanders Amendment to audit the Fed but most of these, in particular the Sanders Amendment, are opposed by the Obama White House. We know what happens to reform items when the Obama White House doesn't support something or says they support it one day in public and then abandons it in private to appease certain Senators, Blue Dog House Democrats or union presidents but outright and fervent opposition to something that is popular with the people? I guess that depends on what you believe and how well you remember late July and June 2009 before the Teabagging Town Hall August recess as to whether or not the latter is a cleverly placed bad analogy... with purpose. If we're still waiting and hoping on "change we can believe in" am I crazy to imply that there's hope as we go down the path of yet another lobbyist-led exercise in Orwellian Newspeak and doublethink where the status quo is again protected as the people are yet again sold on the facade of "reform" on Opposite Day yet again? How is that a cause to hope?
Ladies and gentlemen, here's your hope:
The facade of FINREG "reform" will be BETTER than the health insurance monopoly expansion "reform" because it would be very politically UNPOPULAR to pass an individual mandate forcing all Americans, rich and poor alike, to buy CDOs from Goldman Sachs and the like under penalty of IRS fine as they did with the health insurance monopoly expansion's individual mandate.
*cure choir of angels*
There you go, Democrats. It's not hope, it's a punchline. The bar is barely off of the ground so go ahead and trip. We know, we know, the bar for political donations is high along with expectations the people are suckered and propagandized into believing in but the bar stays low with regards to actual success because the latter is not subject to change no matter what your coupon says. The only way the Republicans are any different is which pimp they're working for on that day and there's less daylight in between Democrats and Republicans on this point than most people think. So, there's your bight spot in the universe from your friend, Mr. Sunshine. It's still "the lesser evil" right, Democrats? It's still better than Republicans because.... suddenly Sen. Bernie Sanders is evil because more Republicans support his amendment to audit the Fed than Democrats?
Fuck ending Too Big To Fail with six "Too Big To Fail" banks controlling 63% of our GDP, naked CDOs and the $600 TRILLION dark and over-leveraged sometimes 3,000-1 derivatives market, millisecond trading on big bank supercomputers make up 60% of our market's volume (think last week's "flash crash") and restoring Glass-Stegall because THE OBAMA WHITE HOUSE OPPOSES ALL OF IT!!! Robert Reich is hardly an uber-liberal anymore than he's a Teabagger but he's someone most mainstream Democrats can absorb information from as he's on "The Preferred List" and this is how he is calling it. But Reich isn't alone by any means as you have MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan not pulling any punches as well as people like Cenk Yuger, Paul Krugman, Matt Taibbi and many others who aren't wearing rose colored glasses trimmed with DNC logos who have platforms like radio and TV shows and columns to share their findings.
We all cracked jokes at fmr. President Bush when he botched the "fool me once" line but I'm wondering who knows how the line he fucked up actually goes and if they're willing to compare it to themselves?
Congratulations... we know we won't all be forced to shop at Goldman Sachs with another individual mandate in yet another "reform" facade bill protecting the status quo. Well, hot damn. Everything more or less stays the same as before, we won't be forced to buy derivatives with another mandate, and we get to call it "groundbreaking" when the ground actually broke as the Democrats and all of their Wall Street campaign donations crashed into the ground like a meteor after tripping over that fucking bar, we can get to call this one "historical", too, yes only about twice; once as it passes and we celebrate another victory for Country, for Obama and for Part and then the next time will be less celebratory... precedent showing in the neighborhood of 9 years from now... when another historical recession beating the previous ones after another historical crash beating the previous ones leads to another historical inquiry as to why nothing was actually fixed with the last historical "reform" showing more corruption than the last one which necessitates more "historical" bailouts, "historical" stimulus packages, and "historical" free money handed out by the Fed which know one will know fully about because the Fed stays in the dark with CDOs ONLY what WILL BE "historical" is we won't have the capital nor the credit next time our political corruption makes its way into future world history books because the next "historical" even will be repeating history in a "historical" fashion that makes the past event we've refused to learn from pale in such comparison future history teachers won't even use "Great Depression" in the same sentence with the "historical" event that will be should the Democrat Party deliver more "reform" instead of reform. My wager is on being forced to buy Goldman, Citi and AIG garbage before they are forced to stop selling garbage and, yes, that bar is set really damn low, too. It has to be... I'm limping through sometime in 2014 from a pre-existing knee condition thanks to the last time Democrats tripped and busted my ass instead of busting their asses.
Financial Regulation Reform (FINREG) v. Insurance Monopoly Expansion:
How the facade of FINREG reform while still bad can't be as bad as the health insurance debacle
Those of you who have been taking notes on FINREG and understand even a fraction of it must think I'm nuts by the title of this piece. Because, those taking notes already know that the House version already passed by Chairman Frank's committee and passed by the Democratic Majority in the House and triumphed as more historical "reform" by House Democratic Leadership has loopholes so big on the "reform" aspect of the bill that you could drive the entire $600 Trillion derivatives market and "Too Big To Fail" right through it because that's exactly what the loopholes in the House bill does. Likewise, that's exactly what Senate Chairman Dodd's bill does. There are some reforms like the political death bed conversion of Sen. Blanch Lincoln and her Agricultural Committee with their derivatives reform bill, then you have Kaufman-Brown and Senator Dorgan on Too Big To Fail and the Sanders Amendment to audit the Fed but most of these, in particular the Sanders Amendment, are opposed by the Obama White House. We know what happens to reform items when the Obama White House doesn't support something or says they support it one day in public and then abandons it in private to appease certain Senators, Blue Dog House Democrats or union presidents but outright and fervent opposition to something that is popular with the people? I guess that depends on what you believe and how well you remember late July and June 2009 before the Teabagging Town Hall August recess as to whether or not the latter is a cleverly placed bad analogy... with purpose. If we're still waiting and hoping on "change we can believe in" am I crazy to imply that there's hope as we go down the path of yet another lobbyist-led exercise in Orwellian Newspeak and doublethink where the status quo is again protected as the people are yet again sold on the facade of "reform" on Opposite Day yet again? How is that a cause to hope?
Ladies and gentlemen, here's your hope:
The facade of FINREG "reform" will be BETTER than the health insurance monopoly expansion "reform" because it would be very politically UNPOPULAR to pass an individual mandate forcing all Americans, rich and poor alike, to buy CDOs from Goldman Sachs and the like under penalty of IRS fine as they did with the health insurance monopoly expansion's individual mandate.
*cure choir of angels*
There you go, Democrats. It's not hope, it's a punchline. The bar is barely off of the ground so go ahead and trip. We know, we know, the bar for political donations is high along with expectations the people are suckered and propagandized into believing in but the bar stays low with regards to actual success because the latter is not subject to change no matter what your coupon says. The only way the Republicans are any different is which pimp they're working for on that day and there's less daylight in between Democrats and Republicans on this point than most people think. So, there's your bight spot in the universe from your friend, Mr. Sunshine. It's still "the lesser evil" right, Democrats? It's still better than Republicans because.... suddenly Sen. Bernie Sanders is evil because more Republicans support his amendment to audit the Fed than Democrats?
Fuck ending Too Big To Fail with six "Too Big To Fail" banks controlling 63% of our GDP, naked CDOs and the $600 TRILLION dark and over-leveraged sometimes 3,000-1 derivatives market, millisecond trading on big bank supercomputers make up 60% of our market's volume (think last week's "flash crash") and restoring Glass-Stegall because THE OBAMA WHITE HOUSE OPPOSES ALL OF IT!!! Robert Reich is hardly an uber-liberal anymore than he's a Teabagger but he's someone most mainstream Democrats can absorb information from as he's on "The Preferred List" and this is how he is calling it. But Reich isn't alone by any means as you have MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan not pulling any punches as well as people like Cenk Yuger, Paul Krugman, Matt Taibbi and many others who aren't wearing rose colored glasses trimmed with DNC logos who have platforms like radio and TV shows and columns to share their findings.
We all cracked jokes at fmr. President Bush when he botched the "fool me once" line but I'm wondering who knows how the line he fucked up actually goes and if they're willing to compare it to themselves?
Congratulations... we know we won't all be forced to shop at Goldman Sachs with another individual mandate in yet another "reform" facade bill protecting the status quo. Well, hot damn. Everything more or less stays the same as before, we won't be forced to buy derivatives with another mandate, and we get to call it "groundbreaking" when the ground actually broke as the Democrats and all of their Wall Street campaign donations crashed into the ground like a meteor after tripping over that fucking bar, we can get to call this one "historical", too, yes only about twice; once as it passes and we celebrate another victory for Country, for Obama and for Part and then the next time will be less celebratory... precedent showing in the neighborhood of 9 years from now... when another historical recession beating the previous ones after another historical crash beating the previous ones leads to another historical inquiry as to why nothing was actually fixed with the last historical "reform" showing more corruption than the last one which necessitates more "historical" bailouts, "historical" stimulus packages, and "historical" free money handed out by the Fed which know one will know fully about because the Fed stays in the dark with CDOs ONLY what WILL BE "historical" is we won't have the capital nor the credit next time our political corruption makes its way into future world history books because the next "historical" even will be repeating history in a "historical" fashion that makes the past event we've refused to learn from pale in such comparison future history teachers won't even use "Great Depression" in the same sentence with the "historical" event that will be should the Democrat Party deliver more "reform" instead of reform. My wager is on being forced to buy Goldman, Citi and AIG garbage before they are forced to stop selling garbage and, yes, that bar is set really damn low, too. It has to be... I'm limping through sometime in 2014 from a pre-existing knee condition thanks to the last time Democrats tripped and busted my ass instead of busting their asses.