Rachel Maddow is pissing me off on financial reform, too. I strongly suspect some liberals have become so enamored of ‘winning’ politically after the passage of HCR that it’s become a drug to them. One of HCR’s unfortunate lessons was laden in that tiresome-the-second-time-it-was-uttered phrase, ‘The perfect is the enemy of the good.’ That lesson was essentially that it takes difficult compromise to win, and winning is good, so therefore we should start looking for compromises we can make in the next legislative battle to ensure another puff on that sweet, sweet victory crackpipe.

Well, again, financial reform isn’t the same as HCR. Compromise on any basic reform requirements — breaking up the TBTF banks, reinstating some modern version of Glass-Steagall and policing the shit out of any financial instrument that’s more exotic than a home loan — renders the whole exercise futile.

but….SECporn porn porn!!!!!

SEC investigator porn, as far as I can tell, is real estate listings in the more affordable belt just outside the mega-mansion zone of the Hamptons.

This whole bank bailout thing could have become a 9/11 for liberals–pass a PATRIOT ACT for investment wankers, then cart the bastards who caused the mess off to Guantanamo where they couldn’t unleash their destruction on society anymore.

Alas, too many Dems are in on the take for any of that sort of thing to have had a chance.

$14 trillion of wealth transferred to the financial sector ? Have a cite for that?

(The banks will fund their own bailouts.)

and mortgage securities investments had AIG insurance coverage

K in the O – if you like Camelot in space, you will LUUUURVE this:

http://www.amazon.com/Windhover-Tapes-Flexing-Warp/dp/0553229389

Personally, I want to flex my warp with the three-boobed alien lady …

Nothing to add, except America! Fuck yeah.

handy – too many Democrats are on the take and too many water-carriers like Ambinder are blowing each other in the most boring orgy in history, where everybody’s safe word is ‘be reasonable’ …

I’m sure this is a stupid question to ask, but what the hell;

Suppose the next time there’s a crisis that dwarfs 2008, the teabaggers have enough influence on the White House that no bailout of any kind gets passed and the economy goes into a complete 1930s style depression;

1) Is it at all conceivable that such a scenario would happen? and

2) If it did, is it at all conceivable that the grassroots fury calling for regulation, relief for citizens and all the other leftie goodies would finally outweigh the teabagger fury, e.g. finally shifting the political scene to the left like it did in the 1930s?

Young, naive and innocent minds want to know.

LOL. oh the mythical and legendary three boobs……
the hallmark of truly mind-bending Scifi

No, and it wouldn’t be worth it anyway.

I’m with you on Fuck the Banksters, and I think I’m with you on providing the Armageddon slush fund, but beyond that I don’t know what you’re saying. That $14 trillion in loans is also taxpayer money? (Is Fed money public money?) That the thing missing from FinReg is a big enough bailout cushion?

It sounds like you want to shout audit the fed, but don’t want to get behind Paultard slogans. Is that right?

Chris – I think your question amounts to, ‘could it get worse and then get better?’ … maybe, but I’d much prefer if it got better before it gets worse.

TBTF isn’t the source of moral hazard. It’s not like the shareholders got rewarded for their troubles. The problem is the compensation system, and I have no idea how to fix that other than some type of ‘Paths of Glory’ example setting.

The main thing missing from financial reform as it stands is a hard cap on size (that would incidentally force current TBTF firms to dismantle).

Forget the $14 trillion. Let’s talk about the $1 trillion in TARP loans. How is a $50 billion bailout fund enough to prepare for the next meltdown, given what we know about how much the last meltdown cost?

Ambinder and Benen are like, silly Conservatards! The banks PAY for their own bailouts, be reasonable and serious! But it’s not just Teabaggers who question whether this reform with its paltry bailout kitty would come anywhere near to preventing another taxpayer-funded bailout.

Audit the Fed? Eliminate the Fed? I don’t give a shit. Break up the TBTF banks and have some snoopy schoolmarm standing over every trader of securities whenever they so much as pick up a phone, is what I want.

Anthony – TBTF is the source of: ‘Oh shit the world’s going to go hell if one of these behemoths can’t cover its shit-stained paper in the overnight markets. We need to inject it with $75 billion yesterday or we’ll all be boiling shoe leather in a Mad Max dystopia tomorrow!’

That’s got to change, by force.

I think the 50bil is to make up the difference between the money we loan and the money we eventually get back. Not the actual source of the loan.

Why are we loaning them any money? They’re big boys, they understood the risk involved. We’re loaning them the money because they can essentially hold the global economy for ransom. Do you not think that is a fucked situation?

That happens when lots of small banks fail too. Every other developed country has only a few major banks, but we have no transparency because conservatives think every little thing is the triumphant return of fascism.

Yes, if lots of small banks all fail at the same time, we would get Armageddon. But what’s the likelihood of that? Breaking up the big banks into smaller entities is just common sense distribution of risk. The chances of five ginormous banks all failing at the same time are far greater than 10,000 small banks all failing at the same time. Am I wrong here?

It may only take a big bank to hold the economy hostage, but it takes a lot for a big bank to fail because of all the advantages of economies of scale. It has more capital it can use to make up the difference and other banks are more likely to trust it enough to make loans to it. When a small bank runs into trouble not only does it not have the resources to help itself, but it’s seen as riskier than the big one. All you have to do is look back to the great depression. One shock and you can wipe out a third of them. And now it’s even harder for the government to get the money to them, and impossible to do it transparently.

What is the reason given for NOT reinstating Glass-Stegall?

The purpose of the fund is not to “bailout” banks. It’s for banks to pay for their own liquidation. Viva resolution authority!

D. Aristophanes said,

April 24, 2010 at 7:38

I’m all for successful compromise.
On the one side, there’s the “Let the banksters do whatever the fuck they please and Rand us back into the stone age” faction.
On the other side, there’s the “I wonder if the banksters have any nice Chiantis in their cellars that would go nicely with their livers when WE STORM THEIR FUCKING HOUSES, COOK AND EAT THEM, AND TAKE BACK EVERY FUCKING CENT THEY HAVE EVER STOLEN” faction.

Compromise = Serious, heavy duty regulation and enforcement; including size caps, daylight for derivatives, and rational fiscal policy that won’t ass-auger us into another depression.

The problem here is that the “compromises” being looked at are between that first position and some other arbitrary position somewhere between that position and where we already were. This sort of thing doesn’t help much, until the repercussions of said compromises actually lead to the second position, of course.

Also, this belonged in this thread, and is awesome.

What is the reason given for NOT reinstating Glass-Stegall?

“SHUT UP! THAT’S WHY!” seems to be the main argument, just ahead of “SOSHULISTS ARE GONNA KILL YER DAWG AN RAPE YER CHILLUN, OR THE OTHER WAY ROUND!”

The chances of five ginormous banks all failing at the same time are far greater than 10,000 small banks all failing at the same time. Am I wrong here?

Depends. If you create the environment for thousands of small banks to fail, they will. I believe we called this the S&L Crisis of the 80s. Not to be confused with the SNL Crisis of the 80s, when the show stopped being funny.

If you tell people they can rob their banks dry without much, if any care for prosecution or other repercussions, they will do so post haste, regardless of the size of the banks. But yes, you are right in that if the risk is distributed it makes it much easier to A) identify problems before they grow to Brobdingnagian size, and B) rectify them, should the will exist to do so.

It is also considerably harder to hold the specter of 10,000 small banks failing, all at the same time and for the same reasons (None of which, of course, being the fault of the giants and geniuses at the tillers’ faults. Nobody could have forseen, dot, dot, dot.) over the heads of the country, threatening total collapse unless the whole Treasury is emptied into their pockets at once, all with a straight face and holding the drool at bay, at least until the cameras are off. With half a dozen big ‘uns? Well, cue ee motherfucking dee.

some type of ‘Paths of Glory’ example

Pour encourager les autres.

What is the reason given for NOT reinstating Glass-Stegall?

Greed and a deeply-held belief in “synergy.”

As usual, the Rude Pundit nails it.

the $50 billion isn’t set aside to bail out anyone. it is to wind down operations and hopefully sell off any banks that begin to fail. you can argue that this won’t be enough and it will ultimately fall on taxpayers to do the heavy lifting, but you’ll have to make that argument. not the one you just made.

On the one side, there’s the “Let the banksters do whatever the fuck they please and Rand us back into the stone age” faction.
On the other side, there’s the “I wonder if the banksters have any nice Chiantis in their cellars that would go nicely with their livers when WE STORM THEIR FUCKING HOUSES, COOK AND EAT THEM, AND TAKE BACK EVERY FUCKING CENT THEY HAVE EVER STOLEN” faction.

Compromise = Serious, heavy duty regulation and enforcement; including size caps, daylight for derivatives, and rational fiscal policy that won’t ass-auger us into another depression.

I’m for compromise. Hang on, what was option 2 again?

Nah, I don’t like liver. Compromise it is then.

I strongly suspect some liberals have become so enamored of ‘winning’ politically after the passage of HCR that it’s become a drug to them.

Um, yeah. And it’s pretty fucking coincidental that “winning”=”passing the most corporatist legislation possible without liberals realizing that the game is rigged.”

Similarly, the fact that nobody is talking about Glass-Stegall is interesting to me, especially since I think it’s partly due to the fact that it would fuck up the narrative that this was completely the fault of Republicans.

it would fuck up the narrative that this was completely the fault of Republicans.

…must…protect…clinton…

A shit load of small banks are still failing. Not too big to fail, but costing us shit load.

Linkedy:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/business/24bank.html

I’m for compromise.

What’s halfway between minimally acceptable and rat-shit insane? (The answer is not Blue Ball, Pennsylvania.)

You know what else is different between Fin Reg (as teh kewl kids are calling it these days) and HCR? <strikeYour mom That sense of optimism displayed everytime someone said this was a good first step and could be improved upon later.

Theoretically, had the House derivatives reform been in effect for the past decade then the whole CDO fiasco would have been avoided. And Blanche Lincoln’s bill is supposedly even more stringent than that. Does that not count as progress? Should we throw out a ban on speculative derivatives trading by “commercial” banks because they can still be fricking huge?

That said, totes agree that breaking up the TBTF fuckers is of primary importance – just pointing out that there’s inconsistency in the treatment of this vs HCR.

Tag fail, I hang my head in shame blame Obama.

You can’t format text

Next you’ll call this guy a queer.

And Blanche Lincoln’s bill is supposedly even more stringent than that.

I’d like to think that Bill Halter’s pressure from the left helped on that one, but Blanche got a two-fer out of that:

1) she gets to say she’s tough on Fat Cats (which she needs after kissing health insurors’ asses so much in HCR)

2) she “no longer” will take donations from Goldmann-Sachs, which Halter was gigging her over. Of course she’s already taken G-S for all they’re worth, so now she can put the screwosis to them.

TBTF isn’t the source of moral hazard. It’s not like the shareholders got rewarded for their troubles. The problem is the compensation system, and I have no idea how to fix that other than some type of ‘Paths of Glory’ example setting.

There is corporate governance reforms requiring a say-on-pay – doesn’t sound exciting but it helps with the principal-agent problem.

As far as the 14 trillion goes, that is not accurate. TARP will end up costing like 80 billion, but that doesn’t really matter. The Fed has expanded the monetary supply a lot, and that typically goes into the pockets of primary dealers, but that doesn’t really matter either.

The real crux of the problem is that Wall Street serves no purpose. The ostensible purpose of the financial sector is to allocate resources into the areas of the real economy where it can be most efficiently used.

They haven’t done that. I believe Krugman talked about banking being “boring” from the 30s to the 80s – because they did not have their own fun. They are not supposed to. Whining about the bailouts is effective politically, but it doesn’t really help us.

Banking needs to be boring and unprofitable. We need to have a huge excess profits tax on every financial institution. We need to have transactions taxes to curb speculation. We need hard leverage limits, and much smaller banks. We need to idiot proof the whole thing.

Whether taxpayer money is used, or can somehow be called a bailout, is nothing compared to what we are losing in the rest of the economy. It’ll cost us a few hundred billion, but we’ll get a few trillion more in real economic production, and it would be more equitably distributed. Talking about bailouts just confuse the whole issue.

TARP costs 80 billion, not 800 billion, because the markets have skyrocketed. Should we be happy that we saved money? Taxpayers got paid back by re-capitalizing the people who got us into that mess (just like we are doing to health insurers, ironically). I would prefer to lose money if it meant a healthy, ie boring and small, financial sector.

the $50 billion isn’t set aside to bail out anyone. it is to wind down operations and hopefully sell off any banks that begin to fail. you can argue that this won’t be enough and it will ultimately fall on taxpayers to do the heavy lifting, but you’ll have to make that argument. not the one you just made.

The argument is that there is no way a future government allows a failing TBTF bank or banks to go out of business at all. Not with this ‘reform’.

Could things get worse before they get better?

Absolutely. Could teabaggists win an election? Hard to say. They just had a VP candidate, and that scared enough of the normals to stop them, but they’re still setting a lot of the terms of the debate. If you call this horseshit anymore a debate.

Problem is, it’s not 1968 anymore. Protests in the streets and pandemonium? We’ve built a kick-ass police state and we know how to put people in prison like never before. Things could just get worse and stay worse.

Perhaps the challenge is for libs and leftists to speak to and convince blue collar and poorer folks… er, make that the white ones, esp, who are the common clay of the new west, simple people of the land, you know, morons … without looking like … uh, the snobs we are? Dang… Howard Dean was right, though, when you don’t even ask people for their vote, they take it as an insult.

OTOH, if ever I wanted to ignore some folks, it’s been these folks lately. They’ve become such tools in the literal sense of the insult, not just the VPR sense.

Okay, this 50 billion fund is a joke, but financial regulation CAN be done incrementally. Not everything has to be stuffed into one giant reform bill.

Infact, reform must be an ongoing process anyway. The financial world isn’t static. Even the strictest regulations are useless if they never get updated to take into account the latest loopholes and scams.

You could even argue that splitting all of the core reforms over several bills will help get things put into law. If a reform has to be compromised out of this bill so it can pass, then it can go straight into the next one, and be up for a vote again in a couple of months. The more votes there are, the less flack blue dogs are going to get for voting yes.

Think about it. The twats that kick up a fuss about this stuff LIKE the idea of having just one big bill to defeat. It’s easier to rally public opinion against one bill, than against an ongoing process.

Come on.. Think about how they REMOVED all these regulations without any fuss or publicity. Bit by bit. A gradual erosion over 20 years, maybe more. Granted, we don’t want to take quite that long to fix it all, but how about spread over the next 6 years, in a dozen or more bills?

After the first couple of bills go through, the media attention will be off. Financial regulation is an incredibly boring thing to most voters, and they will soon stop paying attention to the teabaggers when they keep insisting that THIS reform bill is going to be the communist takeover.

More importantly, don’t we want a political climate where regular beefing up of banking regulations is a perfectly normal thing? financial collapses tend to be at least a decade in the making. It takes long term thinking to prevent them. Longer than the election cycle anyway.

That said, totes agree that breaking up the TBTF fuckers is of primary importance – just pointing out that there’s inconsistency in the treatment of this vs HCR.

Well, that’s kind of my point – HCR and financial reform are different animals, deserving different stances on compromise. You don’t have to agree. I think there was value in getting even deeply compromised HCR through. I don’t there is any value in getting deeply compromised financial reform done.

Shit, there was a Weekly Standard child on Maher last night saying he agreed that we ought to break up the TBTF banks (then he tripped over his umbilical cord and everybody laughed, not least because I stole that joke from ‘In The Loop’). There’s actually a chance of getting parts of the Right on board with very tough reform. There’s no excuse for NOT doing this.

TBTF – Krugman keeps pointing out that it’s regulation, not size, that is the important thing. Canada has few, and large banks, and hasn’t had this problem. Just like the Germans & others have universal health care based on private sector insurance cos, but they regulate the shit out of them like a public utility.

Shit, our country is even dabbling with not regulating public utilities.

The Milton Friedmany sector is just too large and successful in our country’s politics.

And it’s our fault for letting it happen. There are very few liberals and hardly any leftists at all. By not existing in the public debate (be it MSM or local work break room (uh, if people are still allowed to take breaks…)) we’ve let down our side of the bargain. It’s why limp dick corporatist “reforms”, and candidates like Obama, are the best our nation can hope for. Eisenhower Republicanism is as good as it gets. It’s that, or a leader on a white horse (or shooting from a white Cessna), offering simple solutions that feel good for the S&M crowd and generally cause harm for normal people.

Our country needs a safe word!

Sockpuppet #47 – I’ve got no problem with what you’re saying. I also think that as usual, lots of pressure has to be put on the lawmakers and White House to get anything done. Lots of liberal blogs and groups did great work getting people to hound their Reps to pass HCR .. we need the same kind of ongoing effort to get real financial reform passed.

I see that Simon Johnston has started to play around with drumming up grassroots pressure on the lawmakers. We need more of that.

Small banks all failing at once? Check out the frequency these days vs. the bottom of the list.

http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/banklist.html

Well, that’s kind of my point – HCR and financial reform are different animals, deserving different stances on compromise. You don’t have to agree.

Well I’m glad for that I can disagree since I don’t understand the rationale for why the two issues should be treated differently.

Sub – well, yeah, there you go. Lots of little banks failing and we’re still on the road to economic recovery. But the world would have ended if BofA, Citi, Goldman et. al. were allowed to go the way of Lehman back in September 2008.

This shows that it’s better to distribute the risk.

There are very few liberals and hardly any leftists at all. By not existing in the public debate (be it MSM or local work break room (uh, if people are still allowed to take breaks…)) we’ve let down our side of the bargain.

I don’t agree with that. The reason that liberals hardly exist in the public debate is that our corporate media suffers from the same disease that our financial sector does: too much power in too few hands.

The so-called liberal WaPoo fired Dan Froomkinl; they’ve now got Bush spokesliar Thiessen to go with Bush spokeliar Gerson. Don’t think these events are go unnoticed by those who write/appear on TV for their living.

I believe the banks ought to be busted up. And the same goes for the corporate media.
~

P.S. D.A., Eric Boehlert just posted re: Ambinder.
~

“Nah, I don’t like liver. Compromise it is then.”

I am sure that we can find other cuts of meat more to your liking. Ribs anyone?

Bilo
“And it’s our fault for letting it happen. There are very few liberals and hardly any leftists at all. By not existing in the public debate (be it MSM or local work break room (uh, if people are still allowed to take breaks…)) we’ve let down our side of the bargain.”

Yeah, it’s our fault for the systematic murder of anyone on the left who started to look like they posed a threat.

Bilo
“Perhaps the challenge is for libs and leftists to speak to and convince blue collar and poorer folks… er, make that the white ones, esp, who are the common clay of the new west, simple people of the land, you know, morons … without looking like … uh, the snobs we are? “

This is very good but it’s extremely difficult to do this. My brother has become one of these deluded teabaggers but trying to even talk to him is next to impossible. His belief system is hermetically sealed and impenetrable. He actually believes that he is an intelligent independent and yet also believes that George Bush was a great president, that we never tortured, and that Obama is a socialist. He listens to Hugh Hewitt, the “smart” man’s conservative.

Yeah, it’s our fault for the systematic murder of anyone on the left who started to look like they posed a threat.

Yeah, I sorta made myself the No-Fun Guy at a family gathering last night by going off on a rant about just this very thing. These pampered motherfuckers lose a couple of elections fair and square and start bitching about “tyranny!” and wanting “mah countray back”. Yeah, try having every leader and rising star in your movement gunned down in the fucking street and then follow that up with a nationwide government program to marginalize, discredit, jail (and sometimes just outright kill) anyone who looks like they might replace them and then maybe I’ll take your complaints seriously. Show me a current program that even vaguely resembles even one of the FBI’s many black bag operations against “dangerous Leftists” and maybe you get to complain about oppression.

What uncorked me was a very simple thought experiment: “What if the Teabaggers were Black?” We already know the answer: a raft of hastily-constructed gun regulations and COINTELPRO.

Well I’m glad for that I can disagree since I don’t understand the rationale for why the two issues should be treated differently.

How about we compromise and treat them the same then — in the sense that we actually have a long and robust debate about what’s missing from financial reform instead of just declaring that it’s good to go and there are no serious objections, a la what Ambinder is doing here?

Also on the $50 billion kitty being a ‘bailout fund’ or a ‘wind-down fund’ … I’m going to argue that this is just semantics to obfuscate how woefully inadequate such a sum is as a rainy day fund for dealing with a future Wall Street meltdown.

Also on big Canadian banks – just because they haven’t failed yet doesn’t mean they aren’t at risk of doing so. Britain had big banks that failed despite stricter oversight by government than we have here in the US.

Also on big Canadian banks – just because they haven’t failed yet doesn’t mean they aren’t at risk of doing so.

In other words, just because they’re in the CCA does not mean they won’t fall through the ice.
~

“Imagine if the Tea Party Was Black” – Tim Wise

These pampered motherfuckers lose a couple of elections fair and square and start bitching about “tyranny!” and wanting “mah countray back”.

kingubu – Bill Maher had a good response to that bullshit last night – I’ve got the video posted over at my joint.

“Imagine if the Tea Party Was Black” – Tim Wise

Thanks for the linky, noen. Wise does a great job there, but I wish he would’ve at least mentioned that we have hard evidence from fairly recent history to answer his “what if”.

Bill Maher had a good response to that bullshit last night

Thanks, Jenn. Not a big fan of Maher but when he’s right, he’s right.

If Barney Frank (who has been on the side of the angels on this one since Bush was in office) thinks it’s not a bailout bill, that’s good enough for me.

“justme said,
April 24, 2010 at 10:53

What is the reason given for NOT reinstating Glass-Stegall?

“SHUT UP! THAT’S WHY!” seems to be the main argument, just ahead of “SOSHULISTS ARE GONNA KILL YER DAWG AN RAPE YER CHILLUN, OR THE OTHER WAY ROUND!”
”

Which is just silly, because everyone knows socialists like to kill children and rape DOGS. Duh.

“Imagine if the Tea Party Was Black” – Tim Wise

That’s pretty great. The Nugent quote is particularly shocking to me, especially considering how people went full throttle apeshit over the mild(and pretty fucking undeniable) thing Kanye West said after Bush’s Katrina fiasco. Imagine if West had instead said what Nugent did, he’d probably still be in jail.

#

BinMe said,

April 24, 2010 at 12:49

the $50 billion isn’t set aside to bail out anyone. it is to wind down operations and hopefully sell off any banks that begin to fail. you can argue that this won’t be enough and it will ultimately fall on taxpayers to do the heavy lifting, but you’ll have to make that argument. not the one you just made.

—

D. Aristophanes does make the arguments you suggest. He says “What you can’t do is say that the bullshit bailout kitty that the financial sector is supposed to pay into would in any way prevent another taxpayer-funded bailout of the banks should they — when they — reach the verge of collapse.”

Arguing with the phrase “bailout kitty” I suppose is useful. The language is “funding for orderly resolution.”

However there are at least three ways we can think of “bailout kitty” as a useful phrase.

1. the american economy in this theoretical crisis will need bailing out. Otherwise none of this matters.

2. the language in the bill appears clear about wiping out equity holders – sort of. Thye are placed last in line which is where the law places them anyway. But the creditor/bondholder language isn’t so clear leaving open the possibility for a backdoor bailout the likes of the aig->gs flowthrough.

3. in the absence of an international resolution authority the us govt will be hamstrung with how far it can wind down one of these corporations. What’s to say the resolution authorities efforts in an orderly wind-down do not in effect bailout the intl pieces of these corporations? This is another sticking point many have discussed.

Finally – if you aren’t convinced of my observations – you can reread the above piece and change every instance of “bailout fund” or “bailout kitty” to “orderly resolution fund” you will find that all the arguments stand as written.

I read the Wise piece. Good stuff.

#

Anthony said,

April 24, 2010 at 8:28

TBTF isn’t the source of moral hazard. It’s not like the shareholders got rewarded for their troubles. The problem is the compensation system, and I have no idea how to fix that other than some type of ‘Paths of Glory’ example setting.

—

TBTF is an example of moral hazard. Too Big Too Fail. This means that you get to be a business doing whatever you need to capture value and if you fuck up we wont let you fail. That creates precisely a moral hazard.

Be fair now–the Iraq War paid for itself through oil revenues, didn’t it?

How about we compromise and treat them the same then — in the sense that we actually have a long and robust debate about what’s missing from financial reform instead of just declaring that it’s good to go and there are no serious objections, a la what Ambinder is doing here?

Okay then, with respect to comparing American banking to what we have up in Canuckistan – SOSHULESM!!! Arglre Blargle!

DocAmazing said,

Be fair now–the Iraq War paid for itself through oil revenues, didn’t it?

The Iraq War paid for itself by further expanding the gap between Amurka’s tycoon class and the rest of us. That is, if you are one of the chosen.
~

the Iraq War paid for itself through oil revenues

Through some quirk of my neurons, this idea has, since 2003, always put me in mind of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6ZAktYiumc

On money, real money, it says “good for all debts, private and public”. If you want to pay $200. per month for a cellphone and service that dials Timbuktu and plays Donky Kong simultaneously, that’s your (retard) issue. If you then get a sad because you’re paying 24% interest on your credit card balance, why don’t you just consider it a “tax on stupidity” and STFU. Clearly, Geithner and Summers and Bernanke expected to be back to “business as usual” by this point in the election cycle. America has disappointed them by not groveling deep enough for stimulus funds. They would love it if even this weak reform would not pass. I want to see the audit of the Federal Reserve.

Here’s a couple of interesting linkies on the topic at hand …

An Economist blog mapping out conflicting views on what reform should look like:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2010/04/financial_reform_0

Nate Silver predicting way back in October 2009 what the political battle over reform would look like (a lot of spot-on predictions, actually):

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/10/issue-that-could-fracture-both-right.html

and mortgage securities investments had AIG insurance coverage

AIG also had AIG insurance coverage:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/189917

They’re big boys, they understood the risk involved.

Ah, there’s the rub. They understand that there is very little downside risk in their ever-more-complex financial instruments. They expect no downside. They believe they are entitled to it.

I would argue that risk be re-inserted into the equation. Real, manageable risk that has consequences that don’t bring the whole house down. Regulation on the size of banks (get rid of “too big to fail”) and then ensure that the downside risk for the participants is real and painful. They can lose their shirts if they act irresponsibly. Or go to jail.

That risk may be financial, it may be legal.

Right now, I don’t see it being a force in the markets.

it would fuck up the narrative that this was completely the fault of Republicans.

…must…protect…clinton…

Dude, do NOT get me started. I just can’t figure out why some of my friends whom I consider pretty liberal worship him like he’s the second coming.

“Coming.” Heh.

AIG also had AIG insurance coverage:

Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiice. Remind me again why these guys aren’t thanking the sweet baby Jesus and Alan Greenspan that they aren’t strung up from lamp posts?

Dude, do NOT get me started.

Oooh. A challenge.

Have I mentioned that the __B family game (similar to the Kennedys and touch football) is playing chicken?

If Barney Frank (who has been on the side of the angels on this one since Bush was in office) thinks it’s not a bailout bill, that’s good enough for me.

Barney Frank is wrong on this. Or at best, being misleading. Obviously the bill doesn’t enshrine giant taxpayer-funded bailouts as law. But it also doesn’t do much of anything to reduce the risk of a systemic meltdown occurring again.

So, yeah, maybe you believe that the US government is going to just let the global economy blow up when that happens all over again, because, well just because. I don’t believe that. I think Geithner or whoever goes Sept. 2008-style frantic with whoever is president and whoever is the Congressional leadership at that time, and along with Wall Street holds a financial gun to our heads and demands a taxpayer bailout.

But whatever. Either way the next crisis plays out, this so-called reform only gives us two bad possible outcomes:

a. Global economic meltdown, or

b. Another taxpayer bailout that leaves Main Street reeling for years while Wall Street fucks continue to take caviar-enriched dumps on the finest imported porcelain in their walled-off mansions

Oooh. A challenge.

Not really. I just don’t want to infect this thread with my anti-Clinton heresy. Trying to be, like, polite and shit.

polite and shit

Emily Post’s worst-selling book.

Ah, there’s the rub. They understand that there is very little downside risk in their ever-more-complex financial instruments. They expect no downside. They believe they are entitled to it.

That’s exactly it. Definition of moral hazard. Rather than saying they ‘understood’ the risks involved, I should have more accurately said, ‘they mouthed all the macho platitudes about how they were Randian superheros braving risks normal schlubs are afraid to take on, but really they knew it was all bullshit and they expected their downside to be eternally covered by the schlubs’.

Barney Frank is wrong on this. Or at best, being misleading. Obviously the bill doesn’t enshrine giant taxpayer-funded bailouts as law. But it also doesn’t do much of anything to reduce the risk of a systemic meltdown occurring again

Well, of course he is. They’re playing the short game, just like they did with healthcare. They know that things in general are fucked up and can only be fixed through a great deal of sacrifice from people they don’t want to piss off. (Warning, I am going to mix several metaphors next) They see the writing on the wall, and they’re just trying to avoid holding the bag when shit does go down.

KO:TBTF is an example of moral hazard. Too Big Too Fail. This means that you get to be a business doing whatever you need to capture value and if you fuck up we wont let you fail. That creates precisely a moral hazard.

Except the executives who fucked up would have made out like bandits anyway because of the structure of their payment. It’s share holders who got bailed out and I can tell you their not happy with the result. Banks aren’t sentient, they’re not buildings that will take on risk so long as they don’t die. It’s the people inside who take risks, and they’re taking risks because there’s a prinicipal-agent crisis on Wall Street.

‘they mouthed all the macho platitudes about how they were Randian superheros braving risks normal schlubs are afraid to take on, but really they knew it was all bullshit and they expected their downside to be eternally covered by the schlubs’.

Externalize risks, privitize rewards- the worst legacy of the ‘naughts.

Hell, how many people died for Halliburton’s bottom line?

Externalize risks, privitize rewards- the worst legacy of the ‘naughts.

Goes back further. The core of Ike’s military-industrial complex wasn’t the military or the military contractors, it was the symbiotic relationship between private industry and the government that is simultaneously using and regulating it.

Except the executives who fucked up would have made out like bandits anyway because of the structure of their payment.

So, are you saying that this issue can be addressed solely through executive compensation, or with a combination of regulations on banks and limits to compensation? Because I completely agree with the latter, but I think the former argument is off-base.

The core of Ike’s military-industrial complex wasn’t the military or the military contractors, it was the symbiotic relationship between private industry and the government that is simultaneously using and regulating it.

Wasn’t the original coinage “Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex”?

The best limit on compensation would be reinstating the ’50s tax rates.

Wasn’t the original coinage “Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex”?

Yeah. He took it out because he didn’t want to piss congress off.

Wasn’t the original coinage “Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex”?

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”

He took it out

Ah.

The best limit on compensation would be reinstating the ’50s tax rates.

I actually agree with this, and I think it would be a better choice than simply limiting compensation. First of all, I think that’s a little too micromanage-y for the government to be doing, and second of all, I’m not sure how much of an effect it will ultimately have on the system. It’s not that these guys “fucked up”; they either deliberately gamed the system or encouraged an environment where people gamed the system so everything *looked* good. Either one was with the intent of short-term gain, and I’m not sure that regulating executive compensation would have much impact on that. I mean, would we require that executives give the money back if something goes wrong?

To me, it’s better to level out the compensation playing field and reduce the attractiveness of earning as much as possible. At least the tax money can be used to help non-rich people.

OK, fess up. Which one of you is working for the Christian Science Monitor?

it’s share holders who got bailed out and I can tell you their not happy with the result.

Really? They’re not happy that their portfolios are now back to their pre-recession levels? Shit, they even got a nice little tax holiday while the market was in the tank …

Which one of you is working for the Christian Science Monitor?

Not me. I’m waiting for the Christian Engineering proselytizers.

Meanwhile, I’m working on a beautiful Saturday and my dinosaur rock radio station has just served up Radar Love.

I’m nearing the end of my work day and watching the clock. My dinosaur rock station just appropriately played this. My soul’s been psychodelicized!

I just got done listening to this song. In fact, I’m listening to the whole record which is, oddly enough, very prog rock-inspired (as was their last record).

It’s raining here, and a squirrel decided to climb up on the screen of our screen-in porch, which was a nice surprise for both him and the kitties. He was unscathed (really, they couldn’t do anything unless they ripped up the screen), but probably a leeeettle traumatized.

I just got done listening to this song.

I didn’t realize Hogath was a musician, too.

I didn’t realize Hogath was a musician, too.

I don’t get this reference. Should I?

Also, if you are making fun of my boyfriend, I will kick your ass.

Dinosaur rock? Interesting. I just checked my playlist from yesterday and saw the last thing I listened to was this.

OHHH YOU MEANT HOGARTH.

Never mind. I take it back. I will not kick your ass.

“considering how people went full throttle apeshit over the mild(and pretty fucking undeniable) thing Kanye West said after Bush’s Katrina fiasco…”

My suspicion is that the Bush Admin. tried to provoke the AA population into some sort of rioting or uprising, so they (BushCo) could install a police state run by Blackwater. The overreaction to Mr. West’s obviously true statement was another effort to incite violence.

Possibly a the refusal to allow rescuers into the NO area, the shooting of alleged “looters”, the deliberate abandoning of a couple thousand people in the superdome: they WANTED violence.

BTW, has anyone been following this conversation (re: dudes/rock/duderock/)? I find it really fascinating. I check back every so often to see what commenters are saying.

I thought Kanye was wrong. Missing the point, really. It’s not George Bush doesn’t care about Black people. It’s that he didn’t care about lower-middle-class and poor people.

My suspicion is that the Bush Admin. tried to provoke the AA population into some sort of rioting or uprising, so they (BushCo) could install a police state run by Blackwater. The overreaction to Mr. West’s obviously true statement was another effort to incite violence.

Whoa. And I thought I was a conspiracy theorist!

Not saying you’re wrong, though…

BTW, has anyone been following this conversation (re: dudes/rock/duderock/)?

OMFG I love Tiger Beatdown so much. I only read that guest post from the writer from Bitch PhD, though. I’ll have to check that one out.

OHHH YOU MEANT HOGARTH.

As I do, most of the time, when I say “Hogarth”… including when I misspell it because I am shaking with rage at redrawing a project for literally the seventh time because the reviewer for NYC (it’s a city-owned firehouse) is a lying incompetent.

he last thing I listened to was this

I don’t think he qualifies as a dinosaur. He’s more warm-blodded.

Maybe it would simplify things if we decided what financial reform’s primary goal is. I think it’s to significantly reduce the risk of a global economic meltdown caused by the financial sector.

Everything else is a means to that end.

So reform is NOT about outlawing any future taxpayer bailouts. If we construct reform to the best of our ability such that most economists and legislators agree that it’s the best possible package for reducing systemic risk of a collapse … and it transpires that there is an imminent collapse that threatens everything anyway, I would NOT be opposed to a massive transfer of public money to rescue the financial sector to prevent the worse scenario of a global meltdown. Just to make that clear up front.

Reform is also NOT about slashing Wall Street compensation, except insofar as that might help to significantly reduce the risk of a future Wall Street meltdown. Etc. etc. etc.

So my question, given this simplification of what I think reform should try to do, is this: do you think that the current reform on the table significantly reduces the risk of a future meltdown? If so, why?

“I don’t think he qualifies as a dinosaur. He’s more warm-blodded.”

Yeah, but the group he was covering certainly does. And how do you know Fatboy isn’t is a lizard?

T&U, I JUST discovered Tiger Beatdown and was riveted by all the ruminations of rock and dudes, etc. It was just so fascinating and resonated, even though I don’t recall having the same experiences as some of the other ladies.

vacuumslayer–As an indie rock chick who has also spent plenty of time around punk rockers, (non-racist) skinheads, and other subcultures dominated by men, I completely agree with what Amanda and Sady are saying (I haven’t read the comments yet). I had quite a similar experience as a grunge fan as Sady did, though I never learned to play guitar*; it was like I wasn’t good enough to hang out with the skater doods because a) I wasn’t hawt, and b) I didn’t have a penis.

I actually have quite a bit of anxiety around this whole thing, as I don’t really listen to any current female-fronted bands; in fact, I’m not sure that I’m aware of any. I listen to several bands that have female members, but other than Arcade Fire, they tend to be bassists or rhythm guitarists. Anyway, I actually think that the 90s were better for female rock artists, but it may be that I haven’t been as proactive about seeking out music by women as I was when I was a teenager.

*I still secretly wish I were in a band, but I’m a little busy right now, and probably a little too old to start learning to play guitar.

I am shaking with rage at redrawing a project for literally the seventh time because the reviewer for NYC (it’s a city-owned firehouse) is a lying incompetent.

Uuuuuuuuuugh, sorry to hear that.

Sleater-Kinney is the Moral Hazard of Liberal Fascism.

T&U, I JUST discovered Tiger Beatdown and was riveted by all the ruminations of rock and dudes, etc. It was just so fascinating and resonated, even though I don’t recall having the same experiences as some of the other ladies.

Ohhhhhhh, you need to go back into the archives and see the epic fucking beatdown of “Freddie.” It is a thing of BEAUTY.

I think it depends on the dudes you’re around, you know? When I was in high school, I went to a small, rural school, and the grunge/punk rock guys were immature dicks who didn’t want to hang out with me, even though we all basically had the same interests. However, my husband went to a fairly large school, and he and his friends hung out with punk rock/nerdy girls all the time. I can’t say that there wasn’t sexism, but at least women were accepted.

In college, I found it hard to break into a male-dominated subculture because I was brought in as somebody’s girlfriend and hadn’t known any of those people before. I really didn’t “belong” in that subculture, so that was definitely another factor, but I know that the fact I was female didn’t help anything, either.

And, yeah, the whole thing about cute chicks fucking really fugly dudes? (When I say fugly, I mean dudes who don’t shave or shower and are usually petty, dull assholes). Pretty much a staple of hipster culture, and pretty common in indie culture, too.

And, let me state, too, that I’m not particularly in any kind of scene right now, because a) I’m probably too old for it, and b) there really isn’t one in this town right now. There *was* 4-5 years ago, but this city is slowly turning from a college town into some sort of weird semi-suburban conservative enclave.

And, yeah, the whole thing about cute chicks fucking really fugly dudes? (When I say fugly, I mean dudes who don’t shave or shower and are usually petty, dull assholes). Pretty much a staple of hipster culture, and pretty common in indie culture, too.

I’m asking this out of pure ignorance: isn’t that phenomenon the hipster reflection of the mainstream trope of hot-chick-with-asshole? (How many bad sitcoms have a good-looking woman married to a fat slob? Excluding the Simpsons…but going back to the Honeymooners.)

I’m asking this out of self-interest: is there a problem with having (depending on the day) a 1- to 3-day beard?

In other words, things may have changed.

Also, too, I can’t wait to get the fuck out.

Done now.

“vacuumslayer–As an indie rock chick who has also spent plenty of time around punk rockers, (non-racist) skinheads, and other subcultures dominated by men, I completely agree with what Amanda and Sady are saying (I haven’t read the comments yet). I had quite a similar experience as a grunge fan as Sady did, though I never learned to play guitar*; it was like I wasn’t good enough to hang out with the skater doods because a) I wasn’t hawt, and b) I didn’t have a penis.”

I can’t tell you how distressing I find this. I always suspected this whole phenomenon was out there, but I never REALLY experienced it myself. As I said as “Beth” on TB, I recall my friends (who were an older, hipster college crowd with encyclopedic knowledge of music) being perfectly fine with my having opinions of my own on music. I don’t recall them being dismissive of me or female artists. I’m really glad I lucked out this way!

“I actually have quite a bit of anxiety around this whole thing, as I don’t really listen to any current female-fronted bands; in fact, I’m not sure that I’m aware of any. ”

I find my iTunes library pretty naturally divides into roughly a 50/50 mix simply because my tastes are so broad (I like everything from electronica to the occasional Top 40 song) and I often go song by song, rather than by album or artist. But honestly female artists have always taken up a large space in my music collections throughout the years.

Also, sorry if this is a thread derail…I just find this topic fascinating and tickled anyone wants to talk about it.

I’m asking this out of pure ignorance: isn’t that phenomenon the hipster reflection of the mainstream trope of hot-chick-with-asshole?

I think so, yeah. I also think guys have less social pressure to be attractive, where as women still experience it, even if they are in a subculture. I will say, though, that the hipster girls here tend to dress as unflatteringly as possible and are probably negligent in their bathing habits, too…it’s just that on the whole, they are more attractive and clean up well.

is there a problem with having (depending on the day) a 1- to 3-day beard?

No, not at all. And on the right guy, it can look hot. I’m talking about, like, full-on, gnarly, ungroomed beards. And/or ironic mustaches, which seem to be on the way out, thank GOD.

also think guys have less social pressure to be attractive, where as women still experience it

Yeah, of course. And several generations of non-mainstream (beats, hippies, whatever the fuck you call people of my age in that group, and hipsters) have pretended that they’ve done away with that bourgeois concept while not doing so. (FWIW, this was briefly addressed in the first season of Mad Men.)

hey are more attractive and clean up well.

Uh…women are in general more attractive, in my completely unbiased opinion.

on the right guy, it can look hot.

I typically am going more for “lazy and not bleeding.”

Females in Rock rawk!

Also, sorry if this is a thread derail …

No problem! It’s cool when chicks talk about financial reform and I’d totally hit some of them, but it’s kind of like the dudes who I talk with about moral hazard and shit don’t really talk about it like how girls talk about it … but it’s totally cool that you want to talk about stuff, but we’re kind of talking about our own thing here … not that you can’t talk about it with us, but it’s kind of like we’re into to doing our own thing.

I always suspected this whole phenomenon was out there, but I never REALLY experienced it myself. As I said as “Beth” on TB, I recall my friends (who were an older, hipster college crowd with encyclopedic knowledge of music) being perfectly fine with my having opinions of my own on music.

I’m just curious–how old are you?

I think it also depends on geography…when I say a small, rural school, I mean a town of 12,000 in southeast Kansas. If there was a college crowd, I would have gladly hung out with them.

I have found myself in that position for a lot of my life…I love women, I love hanging out with women, but a lot of the things I enjoy are more nerdy and are coded as male a lot of the time, so I’ve found myself to be one of the only women/girls in a group of guys. I’m not, say, a science geek, so I certainly haven’t experienced it as much as some women, of course. I guess the thing that always bothered me (and hurt me) most was that I expected smart men, men who seemed to share at least some of my values, to know better. It’s like, if the 14-year-old guy who listened to Nirvana wasn’t on my side, then what male would be? It was really alienating and kind of scary sometimes.

Uh…women are in general more attractive, in my completely unbiased opinion.

Ohhhhh, straight guys. You just have no idea.

on the right guy, it can look hot.

I typically am going more for “lazy and not bleeding.”

That works, too. As long as your clothes are clean and your hair is combed, you get a pass.

As long as your clothes are clean and your hair is combed, you get a pass.

So I’m okay for the first half of the day. Good to know.

Ohhhhh, straight guys. You just have no idea.

Isn’t that Nicole Kidman’s line in Eyes Wide Shut?

Also, and this is the last thing I’ll say until someone else posts–I think some of my reaction to it probably had to do with my confusion about my sexuality as an adolescent, as well as the fact that I am pretty sensitive in general, so other women may have reacted to the same circumstances in a different way than I did.

“I’m just curious–how old are you? ”

I’m 37.

I sort of understand where you’re coming from re: having interests that naturally seem to attract more men. I, for instance, am really into space travel, sci-fi-type shows about hypothetical planets, dinosaurs, pre-historic sharks, I’m obsessed with music, I’m a wanna-be stereophile and I purchase and set up all electronic-related things in our home. Hubby asked me to “speak for him” when we went to get him his iPhone…). But…I think this is all rapidly changing. One thing that concerns me, though, is the “novelty” factor of this kind of thing. I often thing that women who have similar “geek” tendencies tend be thought of as “cute” and “different” (better than the average boring bitch) and I find some women are often all too often willing to play the part of the accepted “cool girl.” Sorry for the abundance of quotation marks in this screed.

<i.OHHH YOU MEANT HOGARTH.
Could have been a veiled Stravinsky reference.

I don’t think he qualifies as a dinosaur. He’s more warm-blodded.
Someone is trolling for paleontology pedantry.

As long as your clothes are clean and your hair is combed
Hair??

“It’s like, if the 14-year-old guy who listened to Nirvana wasn’t on my side, then what male would be? It was really alienating and kind of scary sometimes.”

Yeah, that sucks donkey dicks and I totally get where you’re coming from.

But I’ve always lived life with a kind of “fuck you” attitude (but really cheerily) and it’s always worked out great for me. I find that if you like what you like and not give a fuck what anyone thinks about you…everything tends to work out fine. This is coming across as condescending. Which is irritating, because it’s really not to supposed to be at all. Judging from your posts here, you’d prolly be the last person I’d condescend to,

his is the last thing I’ll say until someone else posts

I’m probably not the right person to respond, since I was severely loner as a teen, but HEY! I’m here procrastinating.

Boys and young men (I’m thinking ~10 to ~20, but the upper limit is unfortunately flexible) are cruel to the girls and women of their age because of the male socialization they are experiencing. If you are told that you must be tough to be a man – at a time when you are desperately trying to show that you’re grown-up, that you’re a “man” – then you will be a jerk towards pretty much everyone around you. You will specifically be a huge jerk towards those who threaten your status as a man – women and gays. In order for this to not be true, you have to be capable of recognizing what your peers are pushing at you, and damned few teens can.

It’s a funhouse mirror of the way girls and women socialize, because it otherizes the opposite sex rather than attempting to explore it.

The biggest problem for society is that a lot of men never get it at any age. It’s depressing to see 50-year-olds who think that they’re real men if they shit on women and gays.

That’s so well-said, N_B.

That’s so well-said, N_B.

Thanks. Being a loner back when gave me a lot of time to plot mass murder to observe my peers.

One thing that concerns me, though, is the “novelty” factor of this kind of thing. I often thing that women who have similar “geek” tendencies tend be thought of as “cute” and “different” (better than the average boring bitch) and I find some women are often all too often willing to play the part of the accepted “cool girl.”

I know what you mean. I did that a lot when I was younger, actually. I think there’s also a fine line on the male end between being stoked that a woman has similar interests and objectifying her, you know? I’d like to think that most women put in that position will figure out where they want to be and stop giving a fuck about what the boys think. But, as a young woman, that can be an issue…I don’t know, I guess I trust geeky girls enough that I think they’ll figure out what’s up.

Also, I was just curious about your age because of where you might have been positioned in the riot grrrrl and third wave movements…I think our differences have less to do with age and much more to do with geography. I didn’t dare share that I was a feminist with anyone until I left high school. The closest thing those boys got to listening to music by non-straight dudes/women were The Pixies. Which, yeah…

Someone is trolling for paleontology pedantry.

You could tell by my Barney belly-shirt.

“Thanks. Being a loner back when gave me a lot of time to plot mass murder to observe my peers.”

I had (not in any way serious and I am the most teddy bear-type, harmless person in the world for realz) some somewhat violent fantasies re: my high school peers myself. So I totally get that.

I bet that if people had known the conventionally-attractive former cheerleader who dated two of the most popular boys (I was not popular. I didn’t have the money, plus I was a dour frowny-face.) in school had thoughts like that, it would have freaked them the hell out. Heh.

Chris said:

“If it did, is it at all conceivable that the grassroots fury calling for regulation, relief for citizens and all the other leftie goodies would finally outweigh the teabagger fury, e.g. finally shifting the political scene to the left like it did in the 1930s?”

I’ll tell you what, I was out canvassing in front of post offices on tax day with flyers about government spending priorities — how we spend so much to the military infrastructure, etc.

You’d be surprised how many people were receptive and the numbers that just came up and said, “Yes, I’m with you one hundred percent!” or even the guy who said, “I’m waiting for socialism to take hold, it will come and we need it!”

I think us lefties need to get out of the house a bit more and meet people on the street, I was surprised that day to find that it ain’t all what the media says it is.

Also, might I add, people seem a lot more receptive to the concept of public organizing/protest than they were when I last organized in the 90’s.

I’m sure Rupert really didn’t have in mind the idea that Tea Baggers would turn people all French and stuff, but it seems they are.

TO THE STREETS BROTHERS AND SISTERS!

“Also, I was just curious about your age because of where you might have been positioned in the riot grrrrl and third wave movements…I think our differences have less to do with age and much more to do with geography. I didn’t dare share that I was a feminist with anyone until I left high school. The closest thing those boys got to listening to music by non-straight dudes/women were The Pixies. Which, yeah…”

I was in a small town in Florida…and frankly, I had no idea I was a feminist back then.

I was not popular. I didn’t have the money, plus I was a dour frowny-face.

I was in a school full of geeks. But there’s always a pecking order, and some geeks have fans like Jobs and some smell like the pre-Melinda Bill G. I couldn’t stand the dominance games, didn’t want to talk to the other boys, couldn’t talk to the girls, and was big enough that no one wanted to engage me just to bully me. I was less unpopular than non-existant.

Just in case anyone was wondering what health care might cost in a Republican utopia.

TO THE STREETS BROTHERS AND SISTERS!

Allons enfants de la Patrie…

But I’ve always lived life with a kind of “fuck you” attitude (but really cheerily) and it’s always worked out great for me.

I wanted to, but it’s not who I was at the time. I guess I’m more relating what I felt, not how I feel about it now. I mean, I regret that I didn’t really have what I would call a “normal” adolescence for a variety of reasons (not completely because of social issues), and I really resent that I was put in that position by my parents, but, you know, I can’t change that.

I *mostly* don’t give a shit these days, and the shit-giving that I do have is more about not wanting to hurt people’s feelings, not regarding being “accepted.”

Judging from your posts here, you’d prolly be the last person I’d condescend to,

Thanks. I understand, and am not upset in the least.

“I was in a school full of geeks. But there’s always a pecking order, and some geeks have fans like Jobs and some smell like the pre-Melinda Bill G. I couldn’t stand the dominance games, didn’t want to talk to the other boys, couldn’t talk to the girls, and was big enough that no one wanted to engage me just to bully me. I was less unpopular than non-existant.”

Ugh. Well, I would have talked to you. I remember the nerds (are they really different from geeks?) from high school being extremely bright and kind. So it never occurred to be me to be anything but nice to them. God, was high school nightmare for EVERYONE?

“Thanks. I understand, and am not upset in the least.”

Yay! And I totally get you’re coming from.

remember the nerds (are they really different from geeks?)

To quote Millhouse van Houton, nerds are smart.

God, was high school nightmare for EVERYONE?

Of course. Puberty is an inherently suckful process.

Boys and young men (I’m thinking ~10 to ~20, but the upper limit is unfortunately flexible) are cruel to the girls and women of their age because of the male socialization they are experiencing.

Oh, I totally get that now. At the time, I did not, and it made me feel like guys would never, ever like me…which sucked, especially since, as I said, I was struggling with my sexuality and NOT OKAY with my sexual attraction to women.

And the idea of “manliness” in this culture is soooooo fucking toxic to both men and women. Defining yourself as a person is hard enough, but defining yourself as a “man”? I’m glad I never had to do it.

“And the idea of “manliness” in this culture is soooooo fucking toxic to both men and women. Defining yourself as a person is hard enough, but defining yourself as a “man”? I’m glad I never had to do it.”

Whenever i think about how rough I have it as a woman, I have to think about how sexism hurts men too. “Toxic” is a great word.

Defining yourself as a person is hard enough, but defining yourself as a “man”? I’m glad I never had to do it.

It should take 5 seconds. Drop trou, check that you’ve got a dick, say “I’m a man,” and move on.

It occurs to me that if Joe Biden were to do this while presiding over the senate, after addressing himself to the Repubs, it might do the country a great deal of good.

I was less unpopular than non-existant.

Yeah, me too. I had some unpleasant and uncomfortable encounters with people, but it wasn’t like I got my ass kicked or was treated horribly by most people.

I thought I kind flew under the radar…only to have people Facebooking me whom I couldn’t remember if they came up and punched me in the vajayjay. Go fucking figure.

Oh, I totally get that now. At the time, I did not

The first rule of fight club is not to talk about fight club. Which is why teenage girls have to figure out what’s going for themselves, because no boy will tell them.

“but it wasn’t like I got my ass kicked or was treated horribly by most people.”

In these days of Polly Prince (is that her name?) I can’t tell you how oddly happy things like this make me.

only to have people Facebooking me whom I couldn’t remember if they came up and punched me in the vajayjay.

Ha! A few people I went to high school with have friended me on Facebook, and I initially couldn’t figure out who the fuck they even were.

Which is why teenage girls have to figure out what’s going for themselves, because no boy will tell them.

Honestly, this is one of the reasons why I’m interested in high school librarianship. I mean, not just to be there for girls, but also anyone else who feels lost in high school.

“only to have people Facebooking me whom I couldn’t remember if they came up and punched me in the vajayjay.”

BTW, I respectfully request that any future Facebook friends not introduce yourself that way. It’s just rude.

[/thread officially derailed]

WOO-HOO!!!!! I WIN!!!!!!!!

WOO-HOO!!!!! I WIN!!!!!!!!

You break it, you bought it.

“God, was high school nightmare for EVERYONE?”

School from first grade on up was usually a nightmare for me. I was the shy child, picked on. My father made me wear these horrendous dresses my grandmother made (his need to get mama’s approval). She was a great seamstress, but a little out of date. I looked like little orphan Annie and had enough social issues already anyway.

Junior high was when the closeted rage and broke out at home and in school. I started smoking pot at 11 years old, sneaking cigarettes at 12, I was a voracious reader and hung out with the misfits who regarded me as the weird, shy “encyclopedia” kid with a bad temper and a rich daddy.

And I discovered that if I couldn’t be popular with girls I could be popular with the boys for other things. No one told me that girls weren’t supposed to get popular that way.

I hung out with the suburbanite nerds when they left their cloistered suburbanite junior high district and joined the commoners in the large center city high school. I was still regarded with disdain; the weird, wild girl with the punk-cut hair, provocative clothes and the ability to party sneak out and party all night, talk philosophy and politics with them and then ace most of my schoolwork.

It was hell, boring and I dropped out.

High school could have been much better, but probably two interested parents would have helped.

Ugh, kate.

I hear ya. My experience was differently bad, but still…I hear ya.

Two invested parents does help a great deal.

I was gonna get into my sob story but I think I’ve already turned this into the Debbie Downer Thread of the Century, so…

“I was gonna get into my sob story but I think I’ve already turned this into the Debbie Downer Thread of the Century, so…”

I’m sorry, I took the flag and ran with it.

“I’m sorry, I took the flag and ran with it.”

I know! This is totally my doing. I brought up that Tiger Beatdown article and lead everyone astray.

But…on a less downer note, isn’t it nice knowing that so many people had sucky-ass time in school?

isn’t it nice knowing that so many people had sucky-ass time in school?

That was pretty much the premise of “Buffy,” no?

“That was pretty much the premise of “Buffy,” no?”

I actually know that through osmosis, not having actually watched the show. But, yes.

Yes, its almost cathartic to spill it all out here amongst so smart a set of people, people I really wholly admire.

I was sitting and thinking looking out the window, remembering how socially clumsy I was even up into the end of high school. I’d either say nothing at all, sit in fear or when feeling more upbeat, just run over people because I didn’t know where to begin and end. Learning to listen to people, exercise empathy, took time, oh did it take time and painful times alone.

Firstly, let me clarify my position – on your mom I dig chicks. I dig women way more, but I’d be lying if I were to claim that they make equally good eye-candy.

That said, I’d like to address teh important bit: SOJALLASHISM
The goal of financial regulation reform. It’s important to get the terms of reference right, for example moral hazard? We are talking banksters, right? Oughtta be mortal hazard, amirite?

Anyways, I have to say that the current package (heh) does make things safer – if only due to teh treatment of derivatives. I also agree that it’s probably not enough, as teh financial industry has been breeding sociopathic jackwads for their mad skillz at subverting regs and passing camel-shaped money bundles throuh loopholes the size of the eye of a needle. Breaking the bastards up into smaller chunks helps because them psycho super finance anal-cysts lurve outdoing one another more than anything else. Thus if they have smaller piles (heh) to play with, they won’t be able to:
1) do as much damage individually, or
2) collude to make their multiple smaller pots into one mega AIGFP-sized bomb.

Still, teh risk of plain wide-spread crazy gambling still exists. Credit default swaps and BS mortgages were basically standard industry practice by the time it went sour.

So basically, I’m trying to say that I totes agree that a meaningful reform package needs both a break-up mechanism for teh two big too failures & some seriously ass-kicking oversight with sharper teeth than you can find in the vaginas of Freepi dreams.

“I was sitting and thinking looking out the window, remembering how socially clumsy I was even up into the end of high school. I’d either say nothing at all, sit in fear or when feeling more upbeat, just run over people because I didn’t know where to begin and end. Learning to listen to people, exercise empathy, took time, oh did it take time and painful times alone.”

I don’t think I felt like a fully-formed human being until I got to my 30’s.

“The goal of financial regulation reform. It’s important to get the terms of reference right, for example moral hazard?”

I was just assuming that D. was talking about some punk band I hadn’t heard of. (I’m only half kidding.)

Ok, Imma go make some salmon cakes now.

Seacrest, out.

1stly, FYWiiOpera. Eat another comment and… and… and I’ll be really sad.

Anyways, I just finished writing a brilliant comment about finishing reading the econoblog post.

I’m unfond of this whole pay-into-a-pot approach to moral hazard. It’s basically that “indulgences” scam the Church was running centuries ago.

Also, too, making a special bailout fund kinda defeats the purpose of designing a bailout-proof system.

that “indulgences” scam

Wait, you mean the ones I bought are no good?

I remember the nerds (are they really different from geeks?)

From what I recall of high school (another one of those things that I’ve since repressed), geeks and nerds are basically distinguished by the following.

Nerds are the very intelligent students who are outside the in-group. Geeks are everyone else outside the in-group.

Thanks for the fascinating discussion of the nerdy woman’s experience, all. I’d been sort of checking out the whole “dude rock” discussion but none of it was really registering.

One thing that truly pains me to see – and it always has – is intelligent girls and young women pretending not to be, because of the social pressure against it and not wanting to be threatening to the fragile male egos around and such. I hadn’t seen much of it in recent years, having grown into a turkeyneck old fart and all and being among an older peer group, but with my sorta recent job change I’ve wandered back to where I’m seeing it again.

One in particular is a first-year doctoral student in the department where I work; it’s a reputable department that doesn’t accept idiots, and I’ve talked to her some and know for a fact she has brains, but she puts on a sort of ditz act.

Is there some way I can let her know “hey, it’s OK to be smart around us geeks” without sounding like – or being – a total paternalist cobag?

That plus d00d thinks that economists disagreeing has any significance wotsoevar. As if it weren’t basically random.

Is there some way I can let her know “hey, it’s OK to be smart around us geeks”

By any chance, have you seen Oleana?

It’s not a bailout fund – it’s a liquidation fund. The purpose is to provide funds to liquidate a bank if it fails. It means no more bailouts: If you screw teh pooch you are done and we will break you up and sell off your remaining assets. It’s only to cover the cost of doing so.

No more bailouts.

By any chance, have you seen Oleana?

I have not.

Do you mean Oleanna? I haven’t seen that, just found it in teh IMDB and it sounds like it might be what you mean.

re: paternalistic cobaggery

Not to be too misogynistic but have you considered that she acts that way not to stroke egos, but to get socially ignorant dudes to do work for her?

Totes agree that lotsa girls act like chicks to go with teh flow – but there are some that do it because they’re lazy. [ps- I have no problem with laziness as anyone who has seen the rate of posting at my blog knows.]

Not to be too misogynistic but have you considered that she acts that way not to stroke egos, but to get socially ignorant dudes to do work for her?

In this case, no. I have seen that behavior too, and I find that both painful and annoying. Partly because I was a huuuuge sucker for it when I was young.

Do you mean Oleanna? I haven’t seen that, just found it in teh IMDB and it sounds like it might be what you mean.

I meant the play, but the movie has the same stomach-turning plot. I guess my point is that what you’d like to say – innocent and well-meaning as it is – may not go over well if you don’t already have a good personal relationship. It sounds, as you fear, like something a paternalist cobag would say or, worse, like a pick-up line.

It sounds, as you fear, like something a paternalist cobag would say or, worse, like a pick-up line.

OK, definitely not what I’m going for. Given the difference in our ages it could be very creepy-uncle. I’m more just hoping to spare her some of the difficulty adjusting to adult life where being who you are isn’t kicked as hard as it is when you’re a teenager.

OK, my suggestion is to get a female colleague to talk to her about it. Preferably one of them intelligent and hawt types. Then get them to wrestle each other in a pool of jello.

for example moral hazard?”

Like yeah, they’re pretty good, they playing Friday night?

“Breaking the bastards up into smaller chunks helps because them psycho super finance anal-cysts lurve outdoing one another more than anything else.”

Well yeah Kingman but the real thing is that the public is hooked on credit like poor battered woman stays hooked on her drunken, worthless husband. They hate eachother, them banks and the public, but after the fight, the love makin’ is the best around.

The 2000’s were a giant drunken credit fest and now that its all over and the rent ain’t paid, the baby’s outta diapers and mama’s got another black eye after that fight last night. There she goes again, giving that damn lazy sonuvabitch another fifteen bucks from her disabiltity check so he can go meet the boyz at the pool hall.

Where’s the damn po-po when you need ’em?

And no one will quit the love affair anyway.

If the banks didn’t have our money, they wouldn’t be able to do a thing and that’s all I gotta say.

I’ve trained a bunch of just-graduated engineers. A couple of the women acted significantly dumber than their grades and work, so I’d say that’s similar to your situation. I simply talked to them exactly the same way that I would talk to them if they didn’t put on the act or if they were guys (acting smart or dumb). It takes a surprising effort, going against the lizard-brain, but it was semi-effective.

Preferably one of them intelligent and hawt types. Then get them to wrestle each other in a pool of jello.

Fair enough. Film at 11.

Then get them to wrestle each other in a pool of jello.

Then post the video.

DOUBLE POST AT 000! WORLD TO END SOON!

Yup. Needs two parts- shrinkage of teh megabanks and serious watchdogs.

I simply talked to them exactly the same way that I would talk to them if they didn’t put on the act or if they were guys (acting smart or dumb).

OK, this, and then if that doesn’t work, the jello thing.

The real crux of the problem is that Wall Street serves no purpose. The ostensible purpose of the financial sector is to allocate resources into the areas of the real economy where it can be most efficiently used.

They haven’t done that.

Which is kind of a metaphor for capitalism as a whole. There’s an entire class at the top that does exactly jack fucking shit, whose rewards and punishment have nothing to do with their efficiency, who’ve done nothing to earn their place and nevertheless get to make all the decisions in the economy.

Now in Europe, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, that class more or less reached an accommodation with the rest of society… namely, they’re allowed to stay on top as long as their benefits trickle the fuck down to the people actually doing the work. In America, that social contract hasn’t been enforced, and the country’ll continue to get fucked until such time as it is.

“Is there some way I can let her know “hey, it’s OK to be smart around us geeks” without sounding like – or being – a total paternalist cobag?”

Listen, you said she’s smart right? So you don’t have to tell her anything up front and it wouldn’t mean anything anyway. If she’s analytical like the rest of us, she’ll just rationalize that youmust really be silly if you say something to her direct.

Praise her, praise her praise her when she is smart in front of others, praise her in front of others, nicely, not obvious, but clearly.

Then praise her for being smart when you are alone with her, but not swarthy-like, but non-threatening, cheerful, friendly like. “I’m not kidding and creepy, but you are really smart…you really nailed it when you said…”

She’ll begin to get good feelings for being smart, hopefully see that others will give her good feelings for being smart and all.

As the old “co-bag” like me, we have a duty to take the lead in matters like that, the young ones will take your subtle lead, I assure you.

As the old “co-bag” like me, we have a duty to take the lead in matters like that, the young ones will take your subtle lead, I assure you.

Sounds good.

I’m not used to being any sort of role model (and happily, my occupation doesn’t require me to be; I’m basically a professional research assistant.) But I do think it’s important to set an example for the young’uns.

I think my suggestion was best. It takes a village to make village themed pr0n.

Perhaps the challenge is for libs and leftists to speak to and convince blue collar and poorer folks… er, make that the white ones, esp, who are the common clay of the new west, simple people of the land, you know, morons … without looking like … uh, the snobs we are?

And the hell with that idea, too.

If someone’s trying to sell you on the flat-earth theory or the Jews-control-society theory and you call them ignorant pig-fuckers, you’re not being condescending. You’re reacting normally. It’s the same for people who think Obama was born in Kenya even after being shown his birth certificate and think he’s a Muslim even after Jeremiah Wright’s shenanigans outed his Christian church as, well, Christian. It’s the same for people who think universal health care leads to tyranny and ruins the health care system even though every other industrialized democracy in the world has been running on it for sixty years. It’s the same for people who refuse to believe in evolution, global warming or the Big Bang because no matter what facts are presented as evidence, it just don’t feel right.

Now, can our politicians express the same sentiments I just did? No, I suppose not. However, the fact remains that 1) calling an idiot an idiot when he insists on making an idiot of himself in public is not condescension. It’s journalistic integrity. 2) a democracy cannot sustain itself in the long run when such a huge percentage of the people who elect its leaders are as completely out of touch with reality as the conservative voting bloc is. Two hundred years ago, when no one knew any better, maybe it would have been – but not when everyone else in the running has a decently educated population and we don’t.

I wish I had something to name “Moral Hazard”, like a band, a cool car, a boat, a cat?

Naming my bike just seems way too far off the geek scale.

Naming my bike just seems way too far off the geek scale.

Well, remember, Flann O’Brien taught us all that after they’ve been used for a while, bicycles are part human (and their riders part bicycle.)

And there’s always the precedent of Marchant in the Robert Rankin books about Brentford; not at all geeky, that one.

Where does naming your weed trimmer lie on the geek scale?
I’m asking for a friend.

It’s like, if the 14-year-old guy who listened to Nirvana wasn’t on my side, then what male would be?

Your nerdy East Coast uncles love you.

Or maybe some sort of Drudge-esque siren that goes off when the banksters are playing too close to the line. A moral hazard light.

…just-graduated engineers…

Maybe they’re acting like that because they don’t want volume markers scored into their bodies again.

OT, and blog-whore-y, but I just got my first comment from a tightie-rightie. I doan wanna scare him off (even if it was most likely a drive-by). How should I respond without seeming like the uncivil, petulant, juvenile and fucking foul mouthed jerk that I am.

This thing on? Four bagger, as they say at Dr. Black’s.

How should I respond without seeming like the uncivil, petulant, juvenile and fucking foul mouthed jerk that I am.

Ask the wingnut to elaborate on his comment, especially on whatever points you want to nail him on–you need to set the hook before you can land the fish.

How should I respond without seeming like the uncivil, petulant, juvenile and fucking foul mouthed jerk that I am.

Tell him in no uncertain terms about how you shagged his mom.

Sockpuppet #47 said,
April 24, 2010 at 15:59

Exactly. All these things are valid and relevant and good ideas. The “one big bill” concept has always seemed to me like that blind guy in Clerks with the rubiks cube: he does one click, then shows it to his friend saying “Is that it?” click “Is that it?” It seems ludicrous to expect to get one bill that does everything right, especially given the bizarre nature of our (your) political system and the amount of buyout of pollies.

What would work a lot better is small, fast, incremental change: having lots of small bills that move through the process fast, instead of one gigantic bill that causes a massive blockage and gets hacked about before it’s released (not-so-veiled constipation reference).

For the sake of our poolitical process’ colonic health, people!

How should I respond without seeming like the uncivil, petulant, juvenile and fucking foul mouthed jerk that I am.

“My hovercraft is full of eels.”

And man, serious thread are serious.

Done. Will keep you posted in the unlikely event that he returns and I ever check on it.

Whups, sorry MB – didn’t get your suggestion in. Mostly ’cause d00d posted a link to some constitutionparti.whackjob thing – and I didn’t go look.

Tell him that, if social engineering involves criminality, you’ll help him to conduct citizens’ arrests of every clergyperson on the planet.

That’ll make his haid esplode.

I’d just like to point out that rich people are better than us because they are rich.

Thanks

I’d just like to point out that rich people are better than us because they are rich.

I’d imagine that you’d also point out that their soft, delicate persons are more susceptible to the judicious application of one’s noggin.

It’s a trap! I looked, and apparently “constitutionparti” is like “lemon party,” but nastier.

Damn trolls, leaving links to shock sites.

Oh you and the application of the noggin…I hear it’s like the fetish with no safety word

In October 1983 I lost my bus pass. On like, THE 2ND SCHOOL DAY OF THE MONTH!!!! I was all stressed out about having to tell my parents and had a really bad day at baseball practice and Brother Robert yelled at me afterwards. That day sucked but I just kept telling myself, “Keith Hernandez is a Met now, Keith Hernandez is a Met now, everything’s going to be alright.”

Well, as Mark Knopfler once noted, “Some days, you’re the windshield, some days you’re the bug.”

That certainly sounds like it was a “bug” day.

Mostly ’cause d00d posted a link to some constitutionparti.whackjob thing – and I didn’t go look.

That’s his own blog. He’s saying go check out this awesome commentary by someone called me. Actually, that’s one of his nine blogs (see the blogger profile).

“UKBristolDave said,
April 25, 2010 at 2:10

I’d just like to point out that rich people are better than us because they are rich.

Thanks
”

Listen… Noone’s debating that. Rich people are the shiz.

Did someone say “rich people”? I’d LOVE to be owned by one of those!

“I guess the thing that always bothered me (and hurt me) most was that I expected smart men, men who seemed to share at least some of my values, to know better.”

Just like nerdy/alternative girls, nerdy/alternative guys can often be awesome at some things and sadly backwards at others. Also, one of the biggest leftover-patriarchy symptoms to affect teen girls, is the subtle lesson to hold males as arbiters of meaning. As in, if Guy A does this, then it *must mean* thus-and-so.

Girls and young women are still seriously discouraged from deciding on their own interpretation of things, and from assigning things self-serving meanings. Leading to a situation where a guy who holds values they hold, and disregards them, leads them to feel excluded from those values–not like THE GUY should be excluded.

The thirties are easier.

(see the blogger profile)

Oh, I did. At first I thought it was one of you rummies trying to get my goat so you could give it to Kaus – but no one is going to fake up a blogger profile like that for a cheap trolling. Not without some obvious tell like something about my mother, so you could laugh about it afterwards.

no one is going to fake up a blogger profile like that for a cheap trolling

That would be some pretty deep and time-consuming cover for cheap trolling.

My name is Tatiana, and I come from the Moon.

I find it amazing that no one ever mentions the name of the former senior Senator from Texas, Phil Gramm (R- Aggie Economics Poseur). I mean, this is the wormy boxturtle douchebag who posed proudly with a friggin’ chainsaw and a stack of paperwork as he chortled about “streamlining gubmint reggalations on big bidness” as they gutted Glass-Steagall — from which you can connect the dots directly to the economic faceplant of the century.

Now his replacement, John Cornhole (R-Wall Streetwalking Skank), holds a private powwow with all his executive banker lobbyist con-men, charlatans, chuckleheads and thieves and comes out spouting the exact same rhetoric about “destroying the industry” if we were to return them to the exact same situation they were in before the great deregulation. Look — it’s not an “industry”. Industries make things. This is a parasite. The flesh-eating bacteria of the free market.

Oh, and while we’re reminiscing, whatever happened to the wife, Wendy Gramm? Last I heard she was still cleaning up on the board of UBS, a blatant conflict of interest she held even while her hubby was directly whoring out his services eviscerating the post Great Depression banking laws.

Why the FUCK aren’t these people in jail?

Latest developments on Neandertal contributions to the human genome.

There is a little bit of Neanderthal leftover in almost all humans, he says.

Just like there’s a little bit of Elvis in almost everyone. Even Joan Rivers (but he’s tryin’ to get out, man!)

Elvis needs boats!

Where does naming your weed trimmer lie on the geek scale?
I’m asking for a friend.

Is that what the kids are calling it these days?

You can name your weedwhacker whatever (or as often) as you want. What I can’t stand is naming your fashion bike. Fashion bikes shall not be named, or mentioned even.

Is that what the kids are calling it these days?

It’s only called that if you smoke a bit of weed first.

Latest developments on Neandertal contributions to the human genome.

My anaconda don’t want none ‘less there’s an occipital bun, hon’.

There’s an aspect to the Great Global Clusterfuck Of 2008 that needs to enter the public consciousness, one which I didn’t see noted here either (although I only skimmed the thread).

The standard version everyone seems to agree on is that bankers were equal parts myopic & greedy, created a non-viable system & then, after the inevitable crash, went to governments with cap in hand, not knowing that their “Imaginary Collateral” & “Magic Credit Pony” hijinx would create a massive recession & a global economic crisis, all sincerely believing against massive historical precedent – or even rudimentary common sense – that their latest ride on the BoomTimes Express was never going to end.

I just don’t buy it.

The global economy didn’t fall out of a window – it was defenestrated.

Recessions/depressions are AWESOME if you’ve got shitloads of money already – they drive wages into the dirt & free up enormous amounts of resources at bargain-basement prices literally overnight, precisely when you have crazy amounts of capital that needs to go somewhere & partay down – if you’re the Sultan of Brunei or Rupert Murdoch, would you rather see your billions making 5-9% gross per annum in a good economy, or netting you the equivalent of 20-60% per annum (or much, much more) on dirt-cheap payroll & infrastructure in a bad one?

I’ve got a pretty good idea what’s going to happen to most of these newly-foreclosed homes & businesses: they get mothballed until the market heats up again & sold at a “cheap” price that still nets their owners a mint, or insured to the hilt & mysteriously destroyed (check out the conviction rate for arson & tell me that’s not a major potential growth-industry right now) to artificially re-inflate demand.

A short-term hit to profits is fine & dandy if it comes with easy access to a lot of real-estate, labor & goods, all for pennies on the dollar … not to mention a bonanza of undervalued stocks ripe for the taking.

I don’t think Wall Street fucked up at all – this is how the con is SUPPOSED to go down.

Look, I know peoples’ shit is emotional right now … I just think that it’s probably not nearly emotional enough on this.

That genetic article is a bit groovy – light relief after the turgid denial-of-everything on Dan Blatty’s site.

And viz Marc Arminder’s name: I read that as “Marc’s a minda”. Y’see, from the wikipedia page: “Minda Inc, an organisation that runs a facility in Adelaide, South Australia, providing lodging and support for children and adults with intellectual disabilities. ‘Minda’ is a Kaurna word meaning ‘place of shelter and protection’, but has come, locally, to be used as a derogatory term for the intellectually disabled.” (Kaurna is the local indigenous group, kind of like the different native American nations).

So we chilluns grew up shouting at each other “Piss off, ya minda!”, and so I see an automatic slur in Marcy Marc’s name even spelt correctly.

On the serious finance topic: yes, regulate the bejeesus out of the fuckers. Tax compensation, break up the TBTF banks, enforce strict limits on lending as a function of assets – that fractional reserve nonsense just primes the system for crash after crash after crash. Bankers can’t be trusted – read that book by Mark Singer (Funny Money, I thnk) for a nice demonstration of how looney they are.

Oh, and re: ironic mustaches,

Kinna feller no go off an get completely FUKKIN HAMMERED an in hez absence NO FIND COMPLE FUKKIN BRILLYANCE layedoon enna coment thred whiles hes ben ABSENT … EzNOendedThisway 4 a Reezon

Financial reform isn’t HCR, where some painful negotiation (ditching the public option, etc.) was worth it for the comprised good of getting 30 million more people insurance coverage and outlawing the worst abuses of the health insurance industry.

Apologies, but it wasn’t fucking worth it, compinche.

Those 30 million now have to pay for insurance that will probably prove worthless when they actually file a claim, and the insurance industry has not ended recission. In fact, we now know that Wellpoint is still treating breast cancer patients as potential fraudsters, denying their claims and investigating them for the crime of having suffered from breast cancer while insured.

There’s no way that one could observe the maldecido process that produced that abortion of a HCR bill, and not see that the same process would play out in every major reform bill coming out of Congress for the foreseeable future.

When I think of the health care that bailout money could fund…if that isn’t a crime, along with the trillions in meaningless defense spending.

Chris said,

Suppose the next time there’s a crisis that dwarfs 2008, the teabaggers have enough influence on the White House that no bailout of any kind gets passed and the economy goes into a complete 1930s style depression;

Teabaggers having influence would mean a White House run by teabagging Republicans. If Republicans had won the election, they’d have bailed out Big Finance, no questions asked (carrying on from Bush who gave Wall St. $700 billion). Teabaggers didn’t give a rat’s ass about Bush bailing out Wall Street and they wouldn’t care about a Palin type bailing them out either. As long as it’s Republicans blowing money, they couldn’t care less. BECAUSE THEY’RE STUPID.

“You can name your weedwhacker whatever (or as often) as you want. What I can’t stand is naming your fashion bike. Fashion bikes shall not be named, or mentioned even.”

I ain’t got no fashion bikes brother, I have a Cannondale aluminum I bought at a pawn shop which was sprayed painted by some crackhead to look like a 90’s Klein. I switched the parts around and viola! The “rainbow bike” as my kids call it was born. Best bike I own.

That bike subsequently, I see, has a name.

My kids say I’m a dork, I gave up long ago and have embraced the label. Fashion and me mix like oil and water.

“Kinna feller no go off an get completely FUKKIN HAMMERED an in hez absence NO FIND COMPLE FUKKIN BRILLYANCE layedoon enna coment thred whiles hes ben ABSENT … EzNOendedThisway 4 a Reezon.”

Mama! He’s at it agin!

Don’tcho git near me Jimmy, I done had it wichu today!

Mama! Come git me, Jimmy done been out all night and come home…

Git away from me…mmmfhmm…you stink Jimmy…stop thait, no I ain’t makiin’ you no brikfist…

Jimmy….stop….it….

One in particular is a first-year doctoral student in the department where I work; it’s a reputable department that doesn’t accept idiots, and I’ve talked to her some and know for a fact she has brains, but she puts on a sort of ditz act.

I am quite late to this conversation, but I would like to pose another theory–is it possible that’s just who she is? I mean, I don’t know what you do, and I would wager that she’s smarter than I am, but I have been told that I come across as ditzy until people get to know me better. I don’t really come across as authoritative unless it’s something I actually give a shit about. I’m also, as my mother says, a complete space cadet, so a lot of things that are more practical fly right over my head because I’m not paying attention.

I would also say that if a man or even an older woman had that type of personality, it’s probably less likely to be viewed as “ditzy” as just absent-minded or socially impaired. Does that make sense?

Then again, I’ve found myself putting on, for lack of a better word, a sort of innocent and silly girl act without even realizing it. I’ve realized that it has less to do with thinking that smart isn’t attractive, but about not wanting to seem threatening to the boyz.

Also, if you’ve felt that males haven’t taken your intelligence seriously most of your life and you don’t have a lot of faith in your intelligence in the first place, it’s almost easier to put on a dumb act. You don’t have to worry about your input being dismissed and trying to sort out whether it’s been dismissed because you’re stupid or because your a woman.

Anyway, I would just tread carefully, because it may be that a) that’s just who she is, and/or b) it’s so ingrained that she doesn’t even realize that she’s doing it. Just give her the space to feel comfortable and make sure that she knows that you appreciate her intelligence and the work that she does.

I named my bike, but I have been abusive to her by leaving her out uncovered all winter and now her handlebars are rusty. I’M SORRY, FRANCINE!!!

I’ve also named our cars. And my iPod. I haven’t named my laptop, though. That’s just dumb.

T&U: I can see your point about how you come off as ditzy as a woman. I’m quite the other way.

Since I was raised by an aggressive, domineering man who married a very submissive, quiet woman, I have a tendency to be quiet until an idea burns in my brain. Then I can’t be shut up and can be quite annoying. I’ve learned to temper that tendency toward enthusiasm and expecting everyone to share in that.

I have to say that I’ve noticed some changes in my personality that surprise me lately. I raised my kids alone and I was too young and not ready and took a lot of hard knocks and then I went into a business on my own in construction.

I used to lament that I was too much of a push-over, tried too much to acquiesce; to please and be a nice girl and hide that pushy, aggressive person I modeled after my father.

I’ve noticed lately that I’ve become quite the opposite as I get older. I have little patience for indecision, want everything organized NOW, expect hard work from others and while I think I’m patient with all types and open to people I have a tendency to have less hesitation to get out in front to lead the pack when they all stand around not knowing what to do next.

“Damn it, let’s get going!” seems my constant mantra these days.

I’m going to be one mean old crone one of these days.

I still have my bike rack on my car, even though I only use it on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I’m at work today without going to school, so I didn’t need it today. I wish I had removed it from the car. I think it creates drag. Plus the velcro ties just flap around when I’m driving, if I don’t remember to tie them back up. I also noticed the other weekend when I was getting a car wash at the laser washer–doesn’t use brushes to I guess not to scratch your car–that the cushions on the bike rack have kind of smudged the clear coat or wax on the car. It’s kind of a bummer that, since it’s a new car. Maybe I’ll take it off the car…actually I will be shortly since the spring semester is almost over and I can park close enough to the building now that I don’t have to bike a mile. I just hope it doesn’t rain much more since it sucks to ride in the rain. And the banks’ size doesn’t really matter for the reform, since a whole group of evil business men are still able to scam en mass. As Sachs people have said so far, they were just doing the same thing everyone else. So I just hope the semester is over soon so that I don’t need to use the bike rack anymore. But then I won’t get the exercise. Maybe I’ll try to keep riding the bike more on my own, even though I don’t think I have time for such unproductive and boring things. And I need to buy parts for it. Which reminds me that on Monday I’ll have to get a replacement crank for my son’s bike. Somehow it has managed to bend pretty badly, and it keeps hitting the frame when it goes around. I just need to try to remember to do that on Monday after my lab final.

I ain’t got no fashion bikes brother, I have a Cannondale aluminum I bought at a pawn shop which was sprayed painted by some crackhead to look like a 90’s Klein.

I actually have a 1990 Klein Rascal. Put a lot of miles on that thing in its prime, and can’t bear to get rid of it. I have a new bike (BMC Trailfox) that I actually hit the trails on, but I do occasionally pull out the Klein for fun. Both purely functional and definitely not fashion bikes.

“I actually have a 1990 Klein Rascal.”

If you feel little tinge in your back, its my envy roiling into your skin all the way over from the east coast. Kleins are a thing of beauty, don’t get rid of it.

About ten years ago I bought an old Motobecane all outfitted with campy and professionally painted in the seventies a large-fleck purple paint. At first I thought it was just a neat artifact in bike history, but I guess the kids these days are getting into these old vintage bikes. But I won’t sell mine. Think I’ll get new tires on her and put her on the road.

I dream of affording a fancy cyclo-cross or something but not right now, too broke, money must go to business venture.

“Maybe I’ll try to keep riding the bike more on my own, even though I don’t think I have time for such unproductive and boring things.”

Biking is good for the body and soul and gets you places too.

I’m a mechanical nut, so I can’t get enough of things with wheels, gears and shit anyway.

If Republicans had won the election, they’d have bailed out Big Finance, no questions asked (carrying on from Bush who gave Wall St. $700 billion). Teabaggers didn’t give a rat’s ass about Bush bailing out Wall Street and they wouldn’t care about a Palin type bailing them out either. As long as it’s Republicans blowing money, they couldn’t care less. BECAUSE THEY’RE STUPID.

Well, they do, though. At least in my experience. Oh sure, they didn’t give a rat’s ass as long as the GOP was blowing our money in wars, but plenty of them turned livid when the bailout came around – the couple of teabaggers I know actually voted third party in 2008 in order to “send a message” to the GOP. (And that’s also when they started saying “Bush was a liberal.”)

Don’t get me wrong; I have no doubt that if no money had been spent on the economy and Great Depression 2.0 had actually rolled around, most of them would have been mad at that too. Probably would have found a way to blame it all on the liberals, or the Jews black people Muslims or something.

In response to responses to my stuff:

Uh, Fred Hampton was 40 friggin’ years ago. Only nerd patrol folks like us even know what COINTELPRO was. How many young potential leftists or ultraliberals have been deterred by the examples made of…

OTOH, 40 years ago sounds like a long time ago, but George Wallace as 40 years ago, and his spirt has returned in 4″ heels and now has a show on Fox. Some things never change, and these folks will always be with us.

Yes, the dangerous side of the Howard Dean strategy is, Gee, all we have to do to win back the Southern white male rural vote is… abandon all progress, and turn on all minorities? Er, no thanks. We stand for what we stand for. And a bunch of those folks despise us for that. (They say “small government”, but… you know the real deal.)

So, no, I’m not willing to sell out like that.

OTOH, they can’t all be Republicans. A shitload of repetitive messaging has captured their brains… for now. We need to take advantage of reality crashing down around the fantasy world and not fight back with Luntz-like sophistry, but truth-telling. Bah, I’m not saying anything novel here.

Saw the documentary “1929” last night. You know who else needs a normal name? Amity Fucking Shlaes, that’s who.

P.S.
WHO BUILT THE PYRAMIDS? ELVIS!
WHO BUILT STONEHENGE? ELVIS!

P.P.S.
Elvis is in your mom.

Well, these arguments were used to pass HCR (the need to compromise, don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good, etc), so of course they will use them again. And while they are not they same type of crisis, I would argue that what was passed was worse than doing nothing on HCR, so they will apply the same logic here.

People put up with it on HCR, so they will on financial reform. It’s a trend, not a bug.

What a shock.

kingubu said,

April 24, 2010 at 17:55

Yeah, it’s our fault for the systematic murder of anyone on the left who started to look like they posed a threat.

Yeah, I sorta made myself the No-Fun Guy at a family gathering last night by going off on a rant about just this very thing. These pampered motherfuckers lose a couple of elections fair and square and start bitching about “tyranny!” and wanting “mah countray back”. Yeah, try having every leader and rising star in your movement gunned down in the fucking street and then follow that up with a nationwide government program to marginalize, discredit, jail (and sometimes just outright kill) anyone who looks like they might replace them and then maybe I’ll take your complaints seriously. Show me a current program that even vaguely resembles even one of the FBI’s many black bag operations against “dangerous Leftists” and maybe you get to complain about oppression.

What uncorked me was a very simple thought experiment: “What if the Teabaggers were Black?” We already know the answer: a raft of hastily-constructed gun regulations and COINTELPRO.
_____________________________________________________
For the win.

Dear D:

Regarding “no bill” being better than impossible ultralib fantasy bill that will never happen in our lifetimes.

No.

Love,
Parrotlover77