All Things Bubba

If things aren't going well, carve a bigger stone head.
For once, I'm glad I live in a safe "blue" state. My vote doesn't matter. If the Empire State is in play, then the election is a blowout. So I'm free to vote for whoever I want, or not vote at all, and for the first time since I turned 18, I am going to do it. I find I cannot vote for either the Democratic or Republican presidential candidate. The reason? The bailout for billionaires.

As Karl Denninger put it:

America Has Died - To Thunderous Applause

The bill passed after Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke threatened Congress with the imposition of Martial Law. Yeah. Tanks in the streets stuff. Literally.

This was disclosed in the well of the house by a few brave representatives, including Representative Sherman.

Were you told this was how Congress was browbeaten into passing this law? Were you told that Congress was essentially threatened that tanks would be deployed into our cities and towns if Congress did not pass this bad law that Paulson and Bernanke demanded?

Well, yes you were. Representative Sherman disclosed this fact in an impassioned speech in the Well of the House.

Did CNBC or CNN report that? No, but CSPAN did carry it.

If you watched.

Glenn Beck, whom I used to think was a complete loony, is the only remotely mainstream journalist I've heard try to follow this up. He tried to get an interview, but Rep. Sherman's office said they would not speak to reporters about this issue.

Perhaps Mr. Sherman was exaggerating, or misunderstood. Regardless...the bailout was a shockingly bad idea:

See, buried in that bill was a nasty little catch-all "any other asset the Treasury says promotes financial stability."

One little sentence, with which you surrendered forever the principles of economic capitalism and replaced them with government totalitarianism.

Fascism.

And a week later half of that money was instead spent on a massive bailout of Wall Street through the injection of perpetual preferred stock, saving every single nickel of executive stock and options. No dilution of existing shareholders, nor any haircut for their bondholders, thereby preventing the capital structure of the firms from absorbing the losses as is intended and required under the law.

In other words, you, The Taxpayer, have been intentionally looted by the puppet-masters at Treasury (Hank Paulson) and The Fed (Bernanke, Geithner, et.al) to the tune of $250 billion dollars, while these folks in the so-called "private sector" keep each and every nickel of the money they stole from you while peddling their fraudulently-sold and packaged subprime and Option ARM mortgages.

This is why I cannot vote for either McCain or Obama. Both of them voted for this appalling ripoff of the American taxpayer. Both Mr. Maverick and Mr. Change turned out to be Mr. More of the Same. Both in the pockets of big business.

I should not be surprised, I suppose, but I am disappointed. Especially in Obama. He didn't just go along with it; he was reportedly instrumental in forcing it through. So much for Democrats being on the side of the little guy.

This article describes how TPTB were warned about the dangers of derivatives, and instead of taking heed, tried to silence the messenger:

More than a decade ago, a woman you're likely never to have heard of, Brooksley Born, head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission - a federal agency that regulates options and futures trading - was the oracle whose warnings about the dangerous boom in derivatives trading just might have averted the calamitous bust now engulfing the US and global markets. Instead she was met with scorn, condescension and outright anger by former Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and his deputy Lawrence Summers.

Rubin is on Obama's economic team.

I know many people, including many of my friends, think that Obama has the wisdom and character to be the leader we need in these tough times. His support of this ill-conceived bailout proves otherwise. Either he didn't understand what this bill meant, or did, and he went along with it, because it was expedient. Just another politician.

At this point, I honestly don't care which one of them wins, because I don't think it matters. As they say at one of my favorite non-sports blogs, The Oil Drum, "When things aren't going well, carve a bigger stone head." It refers to the Easter Islanders, who could see the end coming, but in the end, couldn't do anything except try harder at what they were already doing. Kind of like those high-paid Yankee sluggers who, when swinging for the fences isn't working, can't do anything except swing harder. For all his talk of change, Obama, like McCain, just wants to carve a bigger stone head.

And whichever of them wins may regret it. I suspect Ted Koppel is right: "The winners in this election are going to end up envying the losers."

Labels: off-topic, The Greater Depression