Tea Partiez Will Save Us From Teh Scary Ppl We Totally Screwed Over! (Updated)
[W]hy did stocks collapse the moment the vote was tallied in Massachusetts?
It’s because the immediate reaction to the Brown election—in both parties—has been a dangerous lurch toward antibusiness populism. The Obama administration’s strategy has been to latch onto something that both parties can agree on: lynching Wall Street.
[…]
A recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed that Americans with college degrees, and with more than $50,000 invested, supported Mr. Bernanke’s confirmation. But those with only a high-school education, and with no money invested—the classic populist audience—opposed his confirmation.
These developments have been profoundly destabilizing for stocks not because some version of the “Volcker rule” would necessarily destroy America’s financial system, or because Ben Bernanke is utterly irreplaceable at the Fed. The crux of it is that it reveals a political process so dangerously narcissistic that it would use core institutions of the nation’s economy as pawns in its own power struggles.
It’s so dangerous because it potentially involves both parties, just when the Brown victory in Massachusetts holds out the hope of benign gridlock.
Don’t think that Republicans can’t be sucked in when an anti-Wall Street lynch mob gets its blood up. Recall that Sarbanes-Oxley, the devastating antigrowth response in 2002 to the Enron and Worldcom scandals, was passed with virtually unanimous support by Republicans in Congress, and signed by a Republican president. Recall that last year 85 House Republicans voted for a 90% tax on bonuses for any employee of any bank that took more than $5 billion in TARP money.
Investors got some good news last Friday. Stocks resisted following through on Thursday’s sharp plunge after it was announced that the Senate Banking Committee’s Democratic Chairman Chris Dodd and Republican ranking member Richard Shelby have reached an impasse on bank re-regulation. That’s a nice down payment on what investors need a lot more of now: proof that the GOP won’t join Democrats in a populist rush to seek revenge against Wall Street.
–Donald L. So Not A Stalker Luskin
The Wealthy Criminal Class Journal
As if Luskin and the rest of those scumbags have anything to worry about! But they are worried. Why? It’s not guilt — one must have a soul to feel guilt. So whazzit?
[From] one of Sir Robert Peel’s correspondents, a class-conscious clerical magistrate from Farningham….: “If this state of things should continue” (he wrote–and he underlined the final words of the sentence), “the Peasantry will learn the secret of their own physical strength.” Armed bands were to be expected “in the dark nights of winter” and “an organisation for far more desperate measures of plunder & revenge”; and, to avert these dangers, he begged the government to “sanction” the arming of the Bourgeois classes” by re-establishing the Yeomanry Corps or by other similar methods.
–“Captain Swing: A Social History of the Great English Agricultural Uprising of 1830”
Eric Hobsbawm & George Rude’
But wait, there’s MOAR. Eric the Red and rude Mr. Rude’ show that the “blackguard enemies of the people” of that era were also believers in Too Big To Fail crapitalism, i.e socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the poor, i.e. capitalism to the extent that it works for me but fuck thee, and that they, like Wall Street and its bought politicians, were congenitally unable to do anything but stonewall the reaction to their hypocrisy:
A fundamental contradiction lay at the heart of English agrarian society in the period of the Industrial Revolution. Its rulers wanted it to be both capitalist and stable, traditionalist and hierarchical. In other words they wanted it to be governed by the universal free market of the liberal economist (which was inevitably a market for land and men as well as goods), but only to the extent that suited nobles, squires and farmers; they advocated an economy which implied mutually antagonistic classes, but did not want it to disrupt a society of ordered ranks.
Never give a sucker an even break; never compromise; never concede even the principle of reform, lest the whole house of cards come down. That’s how the Rulers* thought in Captain Swing’s time; that’s what they think now. Since they are utterly ruthless men, ever ready to stomp a grandmother in the face if it means another penny in their pockets, they expect the same of others. This explains the fears of both Peel’s correspondent and Donald Luskin. For them, the opposition must be Leveler or Bolshevik or Progressive Transnationalist (whatever that means; perhaps “French”) or just spitefully nihilist; in actuality, populists — even proto-populists like the Swing rioters — simply want reform and correction.
Labourers’ movements were… likely to be localised, and they were always reluctant to believe — like most peasant movements of the past — that the King’s government and Parliament were against them. For how could the fount of justice be against justice? The men of Otmoor misinterpreted a legal declaration that their entire Enclosure Act was null and void, and immediately rioted. The men of Weston in the 1830 rising even thought that in some curious way they had the authorities on their side. We shall find other similar examples later, such as the men of Crowhurst who refused to withhold taxes because “it was the King’s money and it wouldn’t do”. There is no evidence that, in spite of a constant animus against the clergy and a growing one against the farmers and gentry… the movements up to 1830 sought any subversion of the social order. They sought its regulation.”
But of course even the mild, social democratic measures — like public option healthcare and a functional SEC — that most people who are angry with the system want implemented are much too much for the Rulers. Social contract? Fuck you. Hence the Tea Party, an astroturf leash, as it were, with which Wall Street and the Republicans hope to manipulate and divert the populist anger they and their policies have inspired. It’s clever, really. A Tea Party movement taps all the vague, inchoate resentment out there, pulls all the cranks out of the woodwork, co-opts the genuine (i.e., Ron Paul type) libertarians, and continues to sucker the culturally-conservative working class red stater upon whose vote Republicans have long depended; righteous and legitimate anger at a deserving target is thus turned into an irrational mob aimed by the original target; the result is an American Freikorps under the command of the empty-headed Sarah Palin rather than the legitimately Christian (and therefor untrustworthy to the Chamber of Commerce crowd) Mike Huckabee. The tragedy is that the stupidity and venality of the Democrats**, specifically of Hopey, allowed things to get this far: in allowing themselves to be bought, they sold out the left populists. When left populism’s crop is not harvested it inevitably rots; it turns into right populism, which is of course, umm, fascist.
MOAR: Cokefiend Kudlow must have just blown through a quarter-gram of the good shit, because he’s almost too explicit about the scam:
[W]e’re witnessing a growing tea-party revolt. I call it tea-party, free-market populism…
While voters may not love the Republicans, they do want political balance back in Washington. They don’t want any of this manufactured, left-wing, class-warfare populism. That’s why the anti-incumbency mood is so prevalent today and why there is going to be major change in Washington.What do I think voters want? Traditional, commonsense, center-right free enterprise, which basically says to the government, “Please, let me keep more of what I earn and, please, just leave me alone.”
Pro-Wall Street populists? Get a brain, oxymorans!
** Wikipedia on the Whigs’ (i.e. the corrupted “liberal”) response to the brokenness of the Poor Law (which inspired the Swing riots):
The ‘Swing’ riots were a big influence on the Whig Government, leading to the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, which made life for the poor even harsher, ending “outdoor relief” in cash or kind, and setting up a chain of grim workhouses across the country, to which the poor had to go if they wanted help.
Cf. the Democratic Senate’s absolutely awful, Villager pundit-approved health care “reform” bill in response to the brokenness of America’s health care system.
An HTML event? at 1:30 in the morning? Awesome.
Sadly, this will totally work. What the hell is wrong with the average American? srrssly. I know we’re not all morons. In fact, mostly not, but still, we manage to take the most moronic tack every step of the way. What is that?
“”A recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed that Americans with college degrees, and with more than $50,000 invested, supported Mr. Bernanke’s confirmation. But those with only a high-school education, and with no money invested—the classic populist audience—opposed his confirmation.”
I love how quickly the discourse changes on populism. Any other issue, the “only a high-school education” crowd would be cheered and supported as model Real Americans while the “college degree” crowd would be called elitist and socialist and evil. But when populism puts the elite’s money at stake, suddenly it’s out of bounds. Hmm.
“the result is an American Freikorps under the command of the empty-headed Sarah Palin rather than the legitimately Christian (and therefor untrustworthy to the Chamber of Commerce crowd) Mike Huckabee.”
Thanks for noticing that – too few people did. Yes, Huckabee scared the living shit out of the conservative elites, and the reason is that while he is a conservative (very much so, just to be clear), he seems to be a Christian (as he sees it) first. His religion and his politics mostly agree, but in those few cases when they don’t (i.e. commuting that one prisoner’s sentence, or his very mild outreaches to the Hispanic community), his religion takes precedence over his politics.
Or, more cynically, maybe he’s just playing his own game or maybe he’s just fucking crazy – but the bottom line is, he recognizes a higher authority than the GOP party line, and that’s the one thing they absolutely cannot tolerate. Which is why he’s been lambasted so viciously by various conservatives sources in the NRO, PJTV and other such rags.
(Palin, on the other hand, is a completely and utterly empty vessel. The fact that they chose her as their mouthpiece to Real America instead of Huckabee speaks volumes about how much contempt they have for even their own voter base).
”A recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed that Americans with college degrees, and with more than $50,000 invested, supported Mr. Bernanke’s confirmation. But those with only a high-school education, and with no money invested—the classic populist audience—opposed his confirmation.”
Mmm-hmm, nice false dichotomy.
So what if I have multiple college degrees, no money invested, and $50,000 in (student loan) debt?
(Possible answer: Screwed, and without representation in the government?)
HTLM, I always feel a whole lot more intelligent after reading your screeds….
How much of the nation has $50K invested?
Don’t you think, those who don’t have money invested aren’t still negatively impacted by monetary policy?
What a horribly fascile article.
So what if I have multiple college degrees, no money invested, and $50,000 in (student loan) debt?
How about a college degree, debt, no job, two cats, zero investments? I don’t oppose Mr. Bernanke’s confirmation; I merely wish to see him, Henry Paulson, Tim Geithner, and Lawrence Summers hanging from lampposts. Oh, and this guy, also:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/05/goldman-sachs-bonuses-ceo_n_451961.html
Does that make me a bad person?
Just so the spam/blam/troll Redstate continues and increases , I’ll abstain from voting for anyone or anything.
http://www.redstate.com/erick/2010/02/14/my-final-thought-on-the-birther-issue/#comment-56365
Copious good G’byes to come I hope.
ca, “does that make me a bad person?”
No! Now, if you had said “hung from a lamppost by the ankles” you still wouldn’t be a bad person.
Oh, you Elitists, with your cats and multiple graduate degrees, thousands of $$ in debt, living without health insurance, steady incomes, or legacies — why do you insist on being called Americans, when you know that the only REAL Americans are white, retired, baby-boomers, on medicare, socialism-hating, free-market loving, anti-big government pensioners.
OK, how about hung from a light standard by their ankles, fed an anti-coagulant, & sliced up enough that they bleed slowly to death?
AKA: Turnabout is fair play.
In general, people are pig-ignorant & stupid. Most Americans are functional illiterates, incapable of receiving & processing information via print (“Readin’s hard, wuzz this say, Glenn Beck?”) making what passes for “discourse” a game of telephone played by deaf mutes w/ their fingers & hands wrapped in duct tape. (Hey, that’s an example: How many of the fucks out there think it’s “duck tape?”)
Cynically yours, I remain,
Disgusted
That NYT article linked by HTML is fascinating and quite scary. Its a whole pick ‘n mix of nutters, stupid people, paranoids, led and manipulated by quite clever people, who have obviously read a bit of Trotsky, or Mein Kampf. I’m not sure if it will collapse into irrelevance, finger pointing and allegations of corruption within the year, or be co-opted into the Repubs, but the underlying violence with the movement must be a concern. I trust the FBI have a good number of plants in there.
Fuck it, Lurking Canadian said it a lot better in the last thread, damn you and your different time zones….
“Third…and I’m sorry to Godwin the thread so early, but do you suppose this is how it happened in Germany, too? A fringe group of weirdo nutcases starts yelling at each other, every sane person sort of looks on half bemused and half horrified and before you know it”
“…do you suppose this is how it happened in Germany, too? ”
No. Read a book before blurting, or at least a Wikipedia article.
Speaking of Wikipedia, it was “duck tape” before it was “duct tape”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duct_tape
And no matter what you call it, it’s still vastly inferior to gaffer’s tape for most uses.
I like how holding liars and thieves accountable is considered a populist rush to seek revenge against Wall Street.
Fuck you and the trust fund paying your salary Luskin.
I like how holding liars and thieves accountable is considered a populist rush to seek revenge against Wall Street.
liars, thieves, and Wall Street?
Not a ray of light between ’em.
“”A recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed that Americans with college degrees, and with more than $50,000 invested, supported Mr. Bernanke’s confirmation. But those with only a high-school education, and with no money invested—the classic populist audience—opposed his confirmation.”
I work at one of the TARP banks and have over 50k invested and want Bernanke and the rest who were supposed to be watching over the economy thrown out on their asses and charged criminally where possible.
1) I know a lot of good people who lost their jobs in the last year and a half – through no fault of their own.
2) I was almost one of them.
3) The money that I have invested used to be worth a lot more. I’ve got 30 years to earn it back – I can only imagine how it’s affected people who were hoping to retire in the next few years.
If anything, it’s the white collar middle class who should want these guys strung up for neglecting their duty.
It’s so dangerous because it potentially involves both parties, just when the Brown victory in Massachusetts holds out the hope of benign gridlock.
So getting nothing done while spending billions a year on campaigns is a good thing for America?
WHAT?!?!?!?!?!
And no matter what you call it, it’s still vastly inferior to gaffer’s tape for most uses
Yea, but you can’t buy gaffer’s tape at the Home Depot.
The reason those who are scared of a “populist” revolt are now controlling it and diverting that anger to the wrong target is simple:
Too many Americans are painfully and willfully ignorant to their absolute fucking core.
It’s why they can go to a site with Freedom Works and Fox and numerous other corporate logos, yet claim it is a grassroots effort.
It’s why they cheer the likes of Caribou Barbie and think she’d make a wonderful President.
It’s why they bitch about government spending, yet lose their shit if you cut a worthless program out of the DoD budget.
It’s why they protest against a 3% tax increase for the top 1% of wage earners right after getting a massive tax cut.
And it’s why they supported things during Bush’s term that they are magically against now.
They choose to be stupid and uninformed and easily duped because it’s easier that way. Learnin’ is hard and takes an effort, so they figure, “Hey, someone’s already done the thinking for me! I just have to listen and nod! Grab some cardboard and a Sharpie, Mabel—we’ll make sure the government doesn’t get involved in our Medicare!!!”
America gets what it deserves.
Ad it breaks my heart …
I can only imagine how it’s affected people who were hoping to retire in the next few years.
I’ve got a thriving eBay business selling Beanie Babies.
My dad retired in June 2008, after working 6 days a week for 45 years. Never took a sick day. Only took a week vacation every few years because he had to.
Forty. Five. Years. Six. Days. A. Week.
The man earned his retirement in ways few ever have.
And then …
He had to go back to work in Dec. 2009. He might be able to retire again in about six years or so. He’ll be 72 then.
It’s that, combined with my wife losing her job at a non-profit due to no funding, that gets me so goddamn mad about this shit.
People like Jonah, Malkin, the Villagers, the teabaggers … all of those rotten-cunt fuckholes think this is some sort of game, something to be won or lost, or that they can point to and say, “SEE! I WAS RIGHT ABOUT ONE PART OF ONE PIECE OF ONE PROPOSED POLICY!!”
It’s simple, really:
Politics have real consequences for real people. Policies matter. Progress matters. Basic human fucking decency matters.
Yet none of it really does, does it?
It’s all horserace and who will get the better of whom and who “won the week” in the media or who wasn’t given their magical bipartisanship pony and a bunch of fucking shit that doesn’t fucking matter.
Meanwhile, the rest of us have already lost the money we saved, the homes we loved, and the lives we knew.
May they all rot in hell.
See ya …
GAFFER-HVAC CONTRACTOR FLAME WAR
My money’s on the guy who runs the heating-cooling systems in a flame war, actually.
As an aside, it never fails to amaze that no amount of sheer idiocy, even about economic issues directly affecting their own parasitic class constituents, ever disqualifies dolts like Luskin and the Kudload from spewing their insane commentary. Any investors who actually listened to these assholes would be destitute by now; you’d think that alone would make these two disappear from the financial pages. Either no one really pays attention to them, or the investor class ain’t any different in their blinkered self-delusion from their teabagging inferiors.
George Rudé! Awesome!
[W]e’re witnessing a growing tea-party revolt. I call it tea-party, free-market populism…
While voters may not love the Republicans, they do want political balance back in Washington. They don’t want any of this manufactured, left-wing, class-warfare populism.
With this and the “the Brown victory in Massachusetts hold[ing] out the hope of benign gridlock” and yet the market still dropping on news of Brown’s win, it’s almost as if these guys are full of poop. Maybe the market is made up of a lot of actual human beings, and even the greedy Republican capitalist ones think these tea party guys are fucking nuts and are worried that the nuts seem to be able to call the tune?
I also wonder why, if regulation is so god-awful, the economy under the strict regulation scheme(and very high marginal tax rates) was so much better.
Either no one really pays attention to them, or the investor class ain’t any different in their blinkered self-delusion from their teabagging inferiors.
Or the smartest guys in the room have these guys on speed dial to create investment opportunities for them.
A smart guy figures, say, a play on orange juice. He’ll short the commodity.
First thing he does is call Kudlow and in the course of the conversation, he’ll mention how he thinks the weather forecasts call for a freeze in Florida or California. Kudlow won’t bother to investigate (and besides, it’s weather, so how accurate can they be?) but he’ll warn people about the freeze and how you need to buy it up now, in bulk.
OJ futures rocket because supply and demand laws really do work on a limited basis. Now you have millions of investors holding billions in overpriced futures contracts, looking to dump them as the temps hover in the 40s, and then inch back up.
The short guy strikes, makes his millions and tosses yet another kilo of Peruvian marching powder LK’s way.
if regulation is so god-awful
Ever read Adam Smith? I mean, really read him?
I was actually going to write a post on this, but when I saw Gonsalves had posted this, I felt I’d better wait a while, or link to his.
I also wonder why, if regulation is so god-awful, the economy under the strict regulation scheme(and very high marginal tax rates) was so much better.
The correct answer, of course, is that it would have been even betterer if it wasn’t for all those taxes and regulation.
Once again I am moved to admiration of the right-wingers. By making economics religion, they allow themselves to use quasi-religious arguments, and thus guarantee victory in all future debates. It is not necessary to prove that the Invisible Hand always makes things better; that is just a True Fact. Any evidence that seems to show the Invisible Hand withheld His Beneficence from us is clearly actually proof that we did not correctly worship Him. Any evidence that seems to show that we received Grace despite spurning Him just shows that we would have got even more Grace if we had done what He wanted.
this is some sort of game
Mark, I get the same feeling everyday. Also, with people like Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Really making hundreds of millions of dollars to perpetuate stupidity it seems as the game is rigged. There is no recourse for the normal, lucent-thinking person anymore.
I honestly believed that Obama would institute some change; not remembering that the GOP would still be involved in the governing process. The GOP has found their niche and those people are more than willing to collapse the country rather than aid any type of process.
The GOP is bitter folks. If anyone is to blame for GOP foot-dragging it’s the American people for not voting for them. They thought those 8 years weren’t that bad and now they are going to act as if we have personally slighted them (which I did) and in turn crash us into a mountain. Fascism doesn’t sound so bad. Although I look dreadful in brown.
Now that America has lost its manufacturing base, the poor can go ahead and die and decrease the surplus population (and quickly!) and it will only help the bottom line of our corporate betters.
It is not necessary to prove that the Invisible Hand always makes things better; that is just a True Fact.
May the S&P be touched by his Noodly Appendage.
Kudlow isn’t classy enough to do the good stuff (ya know, the type that comes in golf-ball-sized rocks that shimmer blueish). He’s more of a “downing prescription-level amphetamines with a Red Bull” type of guy.
If I hope for his heart to asplode one day, would that make me shrill?
I copied Mark D’s post for future use. Also the Commondreams link actor posted re Adam Smith. I’m ‘way too proud of the fact that I’ve actually read Wealth of Nations three times and painfully aware of how the gentle moralist has been abstracted by the self-serving.
But shit, what do I do other than copy, paste, blog, rant – after reading that NYT piece about the teabaggers, I longed to have the power to rain a plague of boils down upon select people. But that’s just it – it’s one thing to fantasize about hanging criminals from lamp posts and slapping teabaggers upside their chowder-filled heads, but I’m at a loss for how to actually accomplish something constructive. Write my congresspeople? Yeah, right.
Back to chewing Monkey King’s carpet…
I’m at a loss for how to actually accomplish something constructive.
If you persuade one other person, that’s a hundred percent increase in the number of people who agree with you.
That’s all it takes. Obama wasn’t elected by being the most popular candidate. He and his staff worked hard to get people to notice him and to proselytize for him.
Kudlow isn’t classy enough to do the good stuff
No, but he’s arrogant enough to pay thru the nose for confectioner’s sugar and think it’s the good stuff.
to pay thru the nose
Well played, sir.
I dunno … even a moran could sniff that out.
Well played, sir.
Thank you.
Martini?
Martini?
Two, please.
Martini?
Two, please.
“I’ll have a pint of your freshest port, my good man.”
Gives a whole new meaning to the idea of Swing Voters.
Awww … shucks.
::blushes::
And all this time I thought no one read my doctoral-thesis-length comments.
Speaking of Adam Smith, if people are still reading this thread, allow me to blogpimp: Adam Smith favored progressive taxation
Nice pick, bay.
And yes, we lurk these threads too.
Hold on to ya butts.
Some of the signatures include:
Glenn Beck, R!ped, Me
Donol D. Duck, Orlando, Florida
Lick MyHairyBalls, Austin, Tx
Heinrich Himler, TeaPartyNazi, NY
Afraid O\’blacks, White Flight, MS
GoF!ckYourselfNutjobs, Lafayette, Louisiana
Heywood Jablowme, Moose Scrotum, Montana
Bill Ayers, Chicago, Illinois
Empty, Gesture, Denial
Scott Roeder, Wichita, Kansas
Al Koholic, New York, NY
Kli Torus, Bombay, Haze
And my personal fav: Buzzwords That, MeanNothing, MD
But, don’t go to mountvernonstatement.com because they are conserving the “the.” LoLoRz
NO DICK HERTZ????
Amanda Hugnkiss was burned at the stake.
I always used Socca D’Aureole, but I grew up in a Sicilian neighborhood.
I usually sign those petitions as “Hugh Jorgan.” Sure, it may not be my name, but it’s not exactly inaccurate.*
On the more serious side, that piece of shit document is just like the GOP’s long-ago-revoked”Contract for America” — a bunch of empty PR slogans that don’t do a damn thing to actually address the very real problems we have as a nation.
Sadly, the media will see it as the greatest thing since … well, the Contract for America.
SSDY
(*Newsletter and/or website dependent upon interest.)
Benign gridlock?
Benign Gridlock??!!
Motherfucking hell, what is the matter with these dumbasses? That has got to be the dumb-fuck-assingest strategy for running a country in human history.
I must be missing something. I rather liked George Rude’s “Revolutionary Europe 1783-1815”
Could HTML, or ‘random leftist’, or *someone* fill me in on the joke? Honestly, I don’t get it.
Nobody’s cutting down Rude’. I made a lame joke about his name is all.
Yeah, got a real comforting ring to it, eh? Right up there with Childsafe Napalm & Therapeutic Shrapnel.
Reminds me of when Brian Mulroney (Canuck wingnut PM of yore) got called out for intentionally pursuing a campaign of “benign neglect” in regards to his reluctance to discuss details of the Free Teade treaty with the US, during the 1988 election that was a de facto referendum on said treaty.
Lyin’ Brian just put on his best patented shit-eating grin, went right on benignly neglecting the details of the FTA … & got a second majority (just in case you thought Canucks were any less prone to Galloping Dipshit-itis than Yankees).
HTML: Thanks for taking the time to explaing the Rude pun! (Also: As a Balti-Moron, I certainly appreciate your handle.)
Adam Smith is like Jesus–the people who invoke their names the loudest usually directly contradict what they tried to say.