I was just watching the Ed Schultz show today, as Senator Bernie Sanders, once again had his finger directly on the pulse of our political body, and stated, that.....and I am para-phrasing, that the direct reason, we as Democrats are facing such a huge defeat, is not because of the insane tea party candidates.......I mean, we all know they are insane, but because President Obama refused, to dig down deep, and clean house, the way that FDR did.
Meanwhile, the fake tea party members' which are nothing more than Republicans on Acid, or worse, than that, as someone said recently, make George W. Bush look like a liberal, is the exact reason, we are now facing this deep, deep reactionary times in our nation. Blame who you will, but let us not forget when great leaders, refuse to lead, there is always a price to pay, and that price was AND STILL IS the cover up and fraud that is being allowed to continue in our nation.
The anger in our nation, did not just 'come out of our ass' like a magic rabbit one day, it happened specifically, because the most basic fiscal rules, that allowed the 'public trust' between government and the people was thrown to the wayside, and then, on top of that, when the Great Heist of 2008 happened, guess what? That international catastrophe, was not only NOT ADDRESSED, it was covered up, and that people, is why we are, where we are today, and Elizabeth Warren knows this.
Indeed, the only way to call TARP a winner is by defining government sanctioned financial fraud as the main metric of results. The finance leaders who are guilty of wrecking much of the global economy remain in power – while growing extraordinarily wealthy in the process. They know that their primary means of destruction was accounting "control fraud", a term coined by Professor Bill Black, who argued that "Control frauds occur when those that control a seemingly legitimate entity use it as a ‘weapon’ to defraud." TARP did nothing to address this abuse; indeed, it perpetuates it. Are we now using lying and fraud as the measure of success for financial reform?
Virtually all of the goals of TARP could have been achieved via regulatory forbearance, rather than government bailouts. Money was "repaid", not because the banks were accumulating massive profits as a consequence of their revival, but largely as an outgrowth of the accounting tricks sanctioned by Congress and the White House in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Why did the governments simply not temporarily suspend capital requirements? A government can always keep a bank in operation without bulldozing it. You can keep them functional via government control (i.e. the FDIC) and get rid of the corrupt management before you undertake anything else. There is no numerical limit to the amount of available bank capital. It’s about price, not quantity. In any event, inadequate capital didn’t cause the financial crisis. Lying and corruption did.
And Ben Smith seems to forget that Congress adopted unprincipled accounting principles that permit banks to lie about asset values in order to hide their massive losses on loans and investments, which allowed them to raise the capital. Well, I guess you can say that this is good, but it basically entrenches lying as a legitimate tool for economic policy. When we lie about accounting and leave zombie banks in the hands of those that looted them and caused trillions of dollars of losses we eviscerate our integrity and our efforts at economic recovery. And lying does not work very well – look at Japan. As Bill Black has argued, it prevents markets from clearing, it leaves failed banks under the control of failed bankers, and it leaves banks twisting slowly in the wind and unable and unwilling to fund the recovery. The problem is that the policy was not shaped by finance or sound economics, but by politics. Both administrations have sought to keep the American people from knowing about these cover-ups and secret subsidies because they know that we would not tolerate either policy. The cover-ups and secret subsidies are not simply awful financial policies; they are also a betrayal of democracy. And our press has gone from cluelessly enabling this treachery to actively promoting it.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/...
I love to think as DailyKos as perhaps the 'highest form or informed voters on this planet,' so my appeal to all of you, is that we must recognize why we got here, and what that has 'cost our nation' when President Obama chose to hire the Rubin crowd, that are in a state of complete denial, because let's face it folks:
Who's taking over now? the fucking insane tea party members..........the Sarah Palin 'fetuses' that were dropped in our laps by the like of John McCain, and who is to fucking blame for this?
We either have an honest government or we do not, and what part of that, do we not understand? Apparently Bernie Sanders does, so does Elizabeth Warren, and Niel Barofsky, but somehow, our own President does not get that.
The rage that people are feeling, is because most of the are the ultimate 'stupid low information voters' so they are going to go to the polls and vote out of anger, instead of trust...
When we elect a President, we give them 'our trust'........do you get that yet?
No, I did not want a pony. I did not even want a tiny little doggie to ride on, I wanted a return to 'trust in our financial markets' and why is that all of a sudden.........
OMG...........how dare you Badabing, demand such a thing?
The idiots, who are now coming into being..........as Joe Biden, dares to tell the progressives, to 'get a grip' and get on with it........are the exact same people,
like you and me who have:
Lost their jobs
Lost the equity in their homes
Know the jobs are not coming back
Know that both parties have turned on them,
Know and understand that who got bailed out was Wall St/the Banks and still, they are now hearing, that Mitch McConnell wants another $ 700 billion.......
What did we expect, when, our own President refused to step up to the plate and stop the corruption? It was a once in a lifetime chance, don't you get that yet?
Know that President Obama, could have cleaned house, but he refused to do so, and signed on the dotted line, and you know what, that is the best thing that ever happened to Darrell Issa....
He can't wait to impeach our President, and you know why?
Issa doesn't give a shit about the American Middle Class, but the truth is neither does our own party. Let's go over what we gained recently with Elizabeth Warren, shall we?
Conservatives are already calling her a banking "czar." The Obama administration is suggesting that she'll help "get the new federal agency standing." But there's still a great deal of confusion, both on the Hill and in the Obama administration about what Elizabeth Warren's new role as consumer protection adviser will be. Will she be a de facto director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau? Or will her powers be limited and subservient to the Treasury Secretary? Nobody seems to know. After a Senate vote today, three key Senators -- including Warren supporters and detractors -- admitted to not knowing what Warren's new job will entail.
Asked by TPM whether he knew what Warren's role will be, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd answered simply, "No." Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) -- a strong Warren backer -- is cautiously optimistic. "That is a very good question," Sanders said when TPM asked if he understood what Warren's new job really is. "And the answer is no. And that is not insignificant." "The real question is: Will she be in a powerful position to protect consumers against Wall Street greed?" Sanders said. "And if she is, it will be probably the very best appointment that President Obama has made...but you're right, the devil remains in the details." After calling Warren "the czar of all czars," Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) acknowledged, in response to a question from TPM that he's not sure what her authority will be. "Maybe we ought to see," Corker said. "It appears to me that exactly the things that many of us thought were going to happen have happened. We'll see. Maybe there are some details here that we're missing." Aides on the Hill are equally perplexed -- unsure whether Warren will truly be running the show or simply advising the White House and the Treasury on the Bureau's functioning until a full-time director is confirmed.
Looks like we'll have to wait to see if Warren is given a great deal of discretion in her advisory role, and whether or not Obama officially nominates her to head the new Bureau.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/...
Meanwhile on his way out to work for Goldman Sachs or someone else, Chris Dodd is putting her down, as fast as he can, shit bag that he is, but then, what does it matter, when President Obama has refused, like he has done for most of those that mattered most to him:
THOSE THAT WILL TURN OUT IN DROVES IN NOVEMBER, FOR OUR OWN PARTY, that all of a sudden matter so much?
Trust is a strange beast, it can turn on you in a skinny minute, but once you have turned on those that did trust you, do not expect the same in return.
Do you actually think you have lost all the equity in your home yet, because of Greenspan's/Rubin/Clinton/Bush/Bernanke/Geithner Playbook yet? Well think again folks, and stop asking why the tea baggers are going so crazy...........I hate the fucking tea baggers, but what I do get is why people are so fucking pissed off, the bubble, is not even about to burst, it is going down like the fucking Hindenburg disaster...I mean when almost 70 percent of homes in almost 10 states are underwater, what does that tell you?
What it tells me is this: The toxic debt that has been allowed to stay on our nation's sheets, is leading our entire nation into a state of accepted 'FRAUD' and the most horrible part of this, is that we elected a President who promised to clean up Washington DC. He did not, and because of this, what are we seeing?
Republicans, that are like fucking Nazi Christians, that have no right being in our political body, but here they are:
RIGHT IN OUR FUCKING FACE.
This is known as a political moral hazard. You either stand up for honestly in government and the people, or you do not.
Please, I am so tired of people on Kos telling me, that I just do not understand how 'politics' work, because I do, after 40 years of working as a volunteer for this party, I fucking get it.
What I do not get, are those, that do not understand, why we should fully accept 'fraud' in our markets, and call it ' the price we must pay to stay in office' when none of that works, for those, that are now living in tent cities, which means to me this:
What happens to a Democracy, when the people of this nation, are starving, and still, we do not have a leader, who will stand up for the starving?
Thinking about buying a home? You might want to proceed cautiously. The housing market may continue to decline, potentially for at least three more years, Bloomberg reports today. There is some evidence that a double-dip in housing may be looming. According to data released by CoreLogic today home prices remained flat in July compared to the same period last year, the first time in five months without a year-over-year increase. Compared to June of this year, prices in July declined 0.6 percent.
But the housing market's biggest concern is an excess of housing inventory, which continues to grow as mortgage-holders default and more homes hit the anemic market Bloomberg estimates that 12 million homes will flood the market over the next three years, as lenders put the "shadow inventory," or homes with delinquent loans, up for sale. Citing analysis from Moody's, Fannie Mae, Barclays and Morgan Stanley, Bloomberg reports the housing market has already tanked 28 percent since 2006. It's been a fairly dismal summer for housing, as July saw a 25.5 percent drop in existing sales from the same period in 2009, according to the National Association of Realtors. It was the lowest number of existing home sales since 1995.
As long as prices continue to fall, the conventional wisdom goes, sales won't rebound, as potential buyers wait on the sidelines. Making matters worse, a whiff of recovery could send prices right back down. A survey by online real estate search company Zillow shows that 3.8 million homes, or five percent of the nation's total, would hit the market within six months of any housing market improvement, as their owners try to take advantage of higher prices.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
We in a nation, are in a deep, deep downward spiral, and President Obama, had an rare opportunity, to stop that. He did not. Do not pretend that he did.
And because he did not, we are faced with all these horrifying little Sarah Palin clones, that are going to give us the most reactionary government...........or none government, we have ever seen........
Only stop pretending it did not happen on 'his watch'........it did.
But know this, I am dyed in the wool loyal Democrat, and I will vote all the way, this year, and in 2012. All I really wanted to get out here this evening, was a touch of the truth, as to why we are where we are today.
It is the corruption, it is in fact the 'Institutionalized Fraud', and the Republicans, despite the fact that they were part and parcel of why we are here today, so are the Democrats, but all we've got going here, is the horrifying stupid ping pong game, where the same shit happens again and again, and again.
The late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan coined the memorable phrase, "defining down deviancy". Journalists who seek to justify TARP (and Smith is not the first), are symptomatic of the way we have come to define down financial deviancy, even since the days of Enron, in the manner in which they are willing to attempt to justify an abomination like TARP. Both the Bush and Obama administration followed a three-part strategy towards our zombie banks: (1) cover up the losses through (legalized) accounting fraud, (2) launch an "everything is great" propaganda campaign (the faux stress tests were key to this tactic and Ben Smith perpetuates this nonsense in his latest piece on TARP), and (3) provide a host of secret taxpayer subsidies to the systemically dangerous institutions (the so-called "too big to fail" banks). This strategy is the opposite of what the Swedes and Norwegians did during their banking crisis in the 1990s, which remains the template on a true financial success.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/...
To big to fail, is the reason we are failing as a nation, and as a party, I am sorry to say.
After Reagan and Bush, and Bush, and Clinton sold us out, we were on the precipice of a great time in our party..... We were in desperate need to turn our nation around from the 'sell out of complete globalization, and to return to the most basic and decent platform of the Democratic party', the party that was always known as the WorkingMan/Woman's party.
Instead, we find ourselves in a fragmented party, that has indeed, turned one against the other, but that is not the party that I grew up with, it is the party, where we must return to the basic principals and platform of our party. What are they?
Here is a reminder, in case you forgot:
http://www.ontheissues.org/...
It's easy, these days to forget, who shed their blood on the streets of this nation as immigrants, to be able to find a living wage, to have a union, to be able to find a decent way of life. Most of these good people, would never dream of being a robber baron. All they really wanted, was a change to own a home, without getting screwed by the banks, to have a job, at a decent wage, to have health insurance, without being seen as a liability to be torn off of corporate American, so that they were just another 'death by spreadsheet' person, yet, when I ask for these things on Daily Kos:
Honestly and transparency in government, by the Obama Administration, I'm called a troll.
Amazing, that it has come to this. As Thomas Jefferson said:
'Dissent is the most patriot form of government'.......and so it is, and so it is...
Thanks as always...