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Looper's Delight
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(Oh Gawd, can't this be taken to LDOT instead? Puh-leeeeze? Sheesh! OK. One MORE time and then I am DONE with on the LD list.) On Oct 6, 2008, at 9:19 AM, SP Goodman wrote:
"It's all CLINTON'S fault!" "It's all CLINTON'S fault!" "It's all CLINTON'S fault!" (neocon noise machine echo-chamber loop set on "infinite"...) (And in pre-Clinton times, it was "It's all CARTER'S fault!" "It's all CARTER'S fault!" "It's all CARTER'S fault!". Sound familiar? Zzzzzzzz...) Right out the Karl Rove Ministry of Propaganda playbook. (and / or just more parroting from Reich wing neoconartist "talk" shows) Yup. This is what it always boils down to when the 'cons are losing, and their "arguments" and "talking points" start to get *so many holes* in them that they simply cannot successfully spin-float them any further. Can't you 'cons come up with something new and more original anymore? I guess not. Must be some reasons for that. BTW, the 'thugs and 'cons were also saying this same blame-Clinton stupid crap back in *2005* with the *deficit*. Hmm...last I recall, when Clinton left office, there was a *surplus*, and one that The Chimp Who Would Be Dictator *wiped out* in something like 6 months. I guess that was some more of that (in)famous "fiscally conservative responsibility!" that the 'cons and the "talk" show mouthpieces like to go on so much about. But hey...blame Clinton for *that* too! Ah yes! "Clinton" (trademark)! The One-Size-Fits-All-Blame! CONvenient! Pick up yours today at your local Wal-Mart! (OK, now it must be time for the 'thugs to turn to the next page of the KRMP playbook which is the chapter on "Fear and Smear". Oh wait. I forgot. McSame and Caribou Barbie are already in the process of doing so. Stay afraid! Stay VERY afraid! But, keep on shopping at Wal-Mart....) Not to really want to belabor the LD list anymore with this (why didn't ya just send it to LDOT instead in the first place? sigh.) but that article you furnished the link for "conveniently" left out a number of other details (along containing some blatant lies and innuendo, etc. Gee....imagine that, eh?) in the historical Big PIcture of how we got into this mess, and which the 'thugs had a *big* hand in bringing about. But hey...those are just some more "insignificant" and "unnecessary " details that would have taken up too much time and space in the article, right? But, I am not gonna, and don't wanna play yer personal "history teacher" here, so you will just have to do yer own more in-depth research. (If ya can get beyond those "talking points" and "spins", and also turn off those "talk" shows, and read something other than The National Review, and The American Spectator, et al, and get away from the deification of Milton Friedman, Leo Strauss, and of course, Ronnie "Mourning in America" Ray Gun.) I'm done with that "job". BTW, it would have been even more educational to have read many of those who gave their own personal comments after this article that tell much more of the real story. Did you bother to read any of those? You should have. For your reading CONvenience, I have provided one of the better ones below. Read the facts, jack. "Mi tio es infermo, pero el camino est verde" (Mad Magazine) -Rev. Fever PS- What is missing from this article is that Clinton never encouraged banks/finance & mortgage providers to: Aggressively sell loans/undercut each other; Take on "CEO's" with obscene amounts in bail out packages/short term bonus payments; Lend people more money than the house they were buying was worth; Managers neglecting the fundamental principles of lending that they were taught in economics/finance at university through greed/hubris/stupidity; Provide ever more finance to developers when it was evident that buyers were defaulting on mortgages. All happened under the current Republican Administration. Then there is the ultimate in financial/fiscal irresponsibility. The SEC decision to allow a certain five firms to legally violate existing net capital rules that, in the past 30 years, had limited broker dealers debt-to-net capital ratio to 12-to-1. Instead, the 2004 exemption, only given to these five firms ,allowed them to leverage up to 30, even 40 to 1! Who were the five that received this special exemption? Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley. And the result? Three of the five broker dealers have gone to the wall! The SEC should shoulder the blame itself for the current crisis. An allegation being made by Lee Pickard, a former SEC official,, who says that rule change in 2004 led to the failure of Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch. "The SEC allowed five firms,the three that have collapsed plus Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley , to more than double the leverage they were allowed to keep on their balance sheets, and remove discounts that had been applied to the assets they had been required to keep to protect them from defaults." Making matters worse, according to Pickard, who helped write the original rule in 1975 as director of the SEC's trading and markets division, is a move by the SEC this month to further erode the restraints on surviving broker dealers by withdrawing requirements that they maintain a certain level of rating from the ratings agencies. "They constructed a mechanism that simply didn't work," Pickard said. "The proof is in the pudding — three of the five broker dealers have blown up." Fiscally responsible Republicans? Nah! Fiscally Risible Republicans! |