Did we learn anything from 9-11? Apparently not. Here we are in a financial 9-11 and everyone in Washington is reacting the same way. Is it possible that future candidates will wish they had refused to join the herd? Will they say that they voted for it but now are against it?
All of a sudden Henry Paulson is the smartest man in Washington. He used to be the smartest man on Wall Street. He said no bailouts. He was the smartest man. He said a small selection of bailouts. He was the smartest man. He said $700 billion. He is the smartest man.
Hank very well may be the smartest man in the Executive Branch. That’s really not a major bragging point. The problem is that we are all in uncharted territory.
Many conservatives are objecting. Why? Because of their simple-minded ideologies. Oh, how terrible it is for the government to intervene. Well, maybe it’s only terrible for the government to intervene while giving the taxpayers a modicum of consideration.
My concerns are not basically partisan. We seem about to give a Republican Secretary of the Treasury a large pile of money to play with. In four months it could very well be a Democratic Secretary of the Treasury. And, we have no idea who that might be.
I may appear partisan by saying that this pile of money is at the disposal of Phil Gramm if McCain is elected. I am not partisan. I am scared shitless.
If Paulson is so smart, why is he only now willing to show it? He was sworn in on the 28th of June 2006. Were there sub-prime loans back then? Were there hints of total disaster in June of 2006? The simple answer is yes. Any answer is yes.
Given the choices we had, Biden was my first choice for president. Dodd was my second choice. Edwards was third. Among those we had to pick from there were no others. The fact that they are all Democrats does not make me a Democrat. I said it was from the possible choices.
International relations are of great interest to me and of great importance to the country at this point in time. Biden is the Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations committee. And, he very well may be the smartest person in Washington. He also has a sense of humor.
Although it started in the 1980s, this mess is in large measure the result of rescinding the Glass-Steagall Act. That took the restrictions off of the banks. Of the candidates available, who had the best understanding of the banking industry? The chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Chris Dodd.
Being a populist, whose rhetoric and positions were closest to mine? John Edwards. He never had the real weight needed in the Oval Office but neither does the present occupant. Forget the indiscretions. Unlike the media and a large segment of the population, I base my positions on the issues. Just in case there are any more like me out there, the remaining contenders for the job are spouting populist sentiments as fast as they can memorize them.
My selection of candidates was based on the problems I saw when the campaigns began 20 months ago. Am I the smartest poster in the blogosphere? Well, okay, but the problems I saw were not hiding. They were large enough to block out the sun.
How important can something as dull as finance be? Ask Mr. V. Putin. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, we moved in. We made nice with countries in what would have been Russia’s sphere of influence. We even scored lots of points in countries that once were part of the Soviet Union. Vladimir has said that the dissolution of the Soviet Union is the greatest catastrophe of the 20th Century. Greater than WWII? Yes, according to him.
So, we put up at least a dozen straight wins to Russia’s zilch. But we made a terrible mistake. We overextended our military and began its destruction. Putin saw that we could not act to stop him. We weren’t militarily or politically powerful enough to stop him. He didn’t like the fact that we had good relations with Georgia, which has an important pipeline to the West. He also wanted to give an object lesson to the Ukraine and other former suzerainties.
He got away with it, he thought. He was strutting around as the cock of the walk. Then he found out who really holds power. Would you believe that Vladimir stopped strutting and got on his knees to the financial institutions? The Russian market dropped about fifty percent. They wouldn’t loan him any money. He cried big crocodile tears. He said that he was provoked into invading Georgia.
Who holds the power? We must realize that the bankers wield far more power than those little perverts hiding in the Pakistani mountains. They wield far more power than those little perverts hiding in the halls offices of Congress.
We must move quickly to address these problems. That does not mean giving exceptional powers to the Secretary of the Treasury. The power of the purse belongs in the House of Representatives, at least according to the Constitution. That does not mean permitting the financial institutions to retain so much power that they can jeopardize our economy and our security.
Power is a result of size. Congress will not but should break up all of these banks that cross state lines. Back to the way it was. Make them manageable.
There should be no blank checks. Any institution that receives taxpayer money should fire the senior executives forthwith, with no severance packages. Any company stock they own should be forfeited to the company. Management should not be allowed to own stock in the company they work for nor the industry in which they work. The government, on behalf of the taxpayers, should take majority equity positions in all companies that they salvage.
Who do they turn to when those masters of the universe get in trouble from their ideology of greed? Us little ol’ taxpayers are here for the fleecing. It is critical that we understand how this financial crisis is tied to our security. The greed of these miscreants puts our nation at risk. We need to release all of those people in prison for drug use to make room for those who have stolen billions from consumers and taxpayers.
We don’t have a spare $700 billion lying around. I’m sorry. I thought you knew. We have to borrow it from the Chinese. Are they stupid enough to buy bad mortgages? No. They are smart enough to know that they can’t let their biggest customer tank. They also know the leverage it gives them. Only on relatively rare occasions will they try to strong-arm us but they know that we know to not get on their case for every act of barbarity they commit.
I hope I have made my point that this is at least marginally more important than Britney Spears and lipstick. Remember, any candidate who distracts you from this crisis and the wars knows he deserves no loyalty from the voters.
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