I like Sen. Claire McCaskill.
She's tough, she's smart. She won a Senate seat in GOP leaning Missouri. She backed Obama early. She was my favorite darkhorse VP choice (though I knew no woman other than Hillary had a shot).
I love the fact that she's mad as hell and called the bank CEO's idiots for their post bailout behavior.
I love the fact that you want to introduce legislation to limit salaries for bailout recipients to $400k.
But the fact remains, Senator, that you too, are an idiot. And so is every Representative and Senator (including Obama) who voter for the TARP.
What did you think was going to happen when you gave the Bush administration a huge blank check?
Did you think the people running the banks were fiscally responsible? If they were, we wouldn't be in the mess we are in.
For that, you are an idiot too.
Just a bit more detail on why I think that you are an idiot also.
You are the one gave Secretary Paulson an $850 billion dollar blank check with taxpayer money. With no transparency, no oversight, no accountability, and no strings.
I mean, did you think a Bush administration official was going to be open and forthright about anything they do? Did you think Paulson, Bush and Cheney were going to use that money to benefit Wall Street or Main Street? Or use it effectively?
My god. For anyone to conclude that Bush and Paulson were competent (or possessing of the requisite good intentions or sound economic philosophy) to spend that money without guidelines and oversight is an idiot. Where have you been the last eight years?
For anyone to conclude that Bush/Pualson would do the right thing or do the smart thing is just unbelievable to me. There is a word for them, idiots.
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Furthermore, the idea that the banks were then going to use the money in a responsible manner is idiotic as well. And appears not to be able to grasp the whole "securitization" problem.
Just to review, these are the people that had no qualms about selling billions of dollars worth (or is it trillions) of bad mortgages (or potentially bad mortgages) to people who they knew couldn't pay or might have trouble paying?
Why were they willing to do so? Well, they didn't have to worry about the homeowners paying the mortgage back, because they turned around and sold "shares" of the mortgage to 3rd parties. At this point, the lending bank has its money back, they are off the hook.
Who is on the hook? The people who are holding the shares in the mortgage. But wait, they too can sell to another sucker (buyer), thus making their money back, and passing the buck, and the hook, on down the line.
Of course, this is both stupid and shady.
Stupid because anyone with an IQ over 60 can tell that eventually, when the mortgages go bad, the whole thing collapses. It's a house of cards.
It's shady because the banks knew that many of the mortgages were not worth much (likely to be defaulted), but they didn't care, because they got their own asses covered and made their money. No regard for the purchaser's well being (they sold them a lemon) or the possible long term impact on the housing sector, and the economy as a whole.
So, what do you think happens when you give $850 billion to the stupid, shady people who engineered this "securitization" scheme from a policy perspective, and those who carried it out? They screw it up. Shocking!
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Yes, while I'm happy that Obama and McCaskill are outraged, it is inexcusable that the didn't have the simple foresight to put some oversight, transparency, and accountability into the TARP bill.
The fact is, the money is already out and it is too late to add in such accountability now. Yes, we hope Obama does a better job with his half then Bush did (and no doubt he will).
But the from the banks end, there is really nothing he can do, other than apply political pressure. There is nothing in the LAW requiring the banks to account for or even say what they spent it on. All this "outrage" from Obama and McCaskill, and others amounts to impotent bleating. They can't do anything (or very little) about it now.
Putting conditions on money given is meat and drink for legislators and part and parcel with the spending power of Congress. There is no way the didn't know how to do it. They chose not to. With $850 billion in taxpayer money. To people with a horrific track record.
There is one word for people like that. Idiots.