The coming financial crisis

[shorebird]

Obama Pissed

Obama, his vice president and chief spokesman all fired off statements voicing outrage after the New York comptroller reported $18.4 billion in 2008 bonus payouts at a time when taxpayers' money was shoring up a financial system in crisis.

"That is the height of irresponsibility. It is shameful," Obama told reporters while meeting new Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Vice President Joe Biden.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said: "We're not going to be able to do what is needed to be done to stabilize our financial situation if the American people read about this type of outrageous behavior."

In office nine days, Obama said he and Geithner would send a message to Wall Street that "there will be time for them to make profits and there will be time for them to get bonuses. Now is not that time."

Interviewed on CNBC, Biden said: "I mean, it just offends the sensibilities ... I do know what they're thinking. And they're thinking the same old thing that got us here -- greed."

Well, really, what the farg did they think was going to happen? Thats OUR MONEY they are fattening their pockets with. OUR farging money. How can it not be our money if over 35 billion was lost, three times as much as last year??

[shorebird]

I'm telling you, I can't really put to words how I feel about Wall Street Bankers right now.

18 motherfarging billion...

[shorebird]

In a meeting with congressional leaders last Friday, Obama criticized companies receiving bailout money who had been "renovating bathrooms or offices."

That was a reference to reports that former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain had spent $1.2 million fixing up his office last year, including $35,115 on a commode and $1,405 for a trash bin.

Thain subsequently wrote to Merrill employees that he planned to reimburse Bank of America Corp, which acquired Merrill and then ousted Thain. He called the spending "a mistake in the light of the world we live in today."

In light of the world we live in TODAY!! Somebody needs to tell this man that 35 grand for a farging toilet is a mistake in the world we live in today, yesterday, and tommorrow. Out of touch bastiches.

[rjs246]

Suppression of liberties also includes the redistribution of wealth and confiscatory tax rates.

Empty talking points. The tax code has 'redistributed' wealth for a very long time. People who make more money are asked to pay a higher tax rate. farging get over it.

[Diomedes]

More to the point... will someone please outline the Republican Party's platform right now? Any conservative belief that they haven't defiled? I understand what being 'conservative' means but I really don't understand how the current Republican party even begins to represent what conservatives stand for...

For now, they are happy to set themselves up as the opposition party.  However the democrats move will define the Republicans because they will stand opposed to it.  In the meantime, they'll have to rediscover fiscal conservatives and find a way to gain some traction outside of Redneck America and Filthy-Rich America.  The Southern Strategy is dead, and with it the Republican party as we have known it since Nixon.  The country is less white, less rural, and less racist by the day; they need to find a new way of defining themselves if they want any chance of regaining power again.  It should be interesting to see how that goes,  because there are no moderate Republicans in the House and very few in the Senate.  With a bunch of fundie, anti-immigrant, anti-city, race-baiting leaders in office, it's going to be real interesting to see how they adapt.  Right now, it's a big gamble to place their hopes on Obama failing, but since they've got nothing else, they're sticking to it.

I know that doesn't really define their platform though.  If they return to a platform that is fundamentally conservative, it would shock me.  Despite campaign rhetoric to the contrary, they haven't shown any real fiscal conservatism in ages.  To all of a sudden rediscover that in this bunch of kooks seems to me unlikely.  It doesn't seem like a conservative view point for instance to support the federal prohibition on state's setting their own laws regarding emissions...isn't this the state's rights party?  I suppose they see that an issue of business vs. regulation, and of course they always side on business.  But when that stance brings them to the point of arguing against the freedom for the states to govern as they please, then you're not looking at  a conservative, you're looking at a federal corporatist or something like that. 

They have talked a lot of small government, but done nothing to reduce or reform government when they've had power.  In fact, it's increased.

Yeah, I'm rambling.  I'll stop.

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

Suppression of liberties also includes the redistribution of wealth and confiscatory tax rates.

Empty talking points. The tax code has 'redistributed' wealth for a very long time. People who make more money are asked to pay a higher tax rate. farging get over it.

Why does past precedent automatically make something not count?  You're reaching.


By the way, I think pretty much everything Dio said in his rambling is true.  I would have to read more closely to say that he's 100% spot on, but if not, he's close.

[rjs246]

Suppression of liberties also includes the redistribution of wealth and confiscatory tax rates.

Empty talking points. The tax code has 'redistributed' wealth for a very long time. People who make more money are asked to pay a higher tax rate. farging get over it.

Why does past precedent automatically make something not count?  You're reaching.


By the way, I think pretty much everything Dio said in his rambling is true.  I would have to read more closely to say that he's 100% spot on, but if not, he's close.

I may be reaching, but a tiered tax system is fair and used throughout the world. I don't see why people have such a huge problem with it. The IRS is farged and the tax laws need to be massively overhauled, but a tiered tax system is not enough of a burden to make it the sole foundation for voting republican.

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

No, but it's a hugely valid concern, especially when the government is going to create a majority of people in the country that pay no income tax whatsoever.  That's the gift that keeps on giving for all the rest of us.

[Diomedes]

I'm fine with the poorest Americans not paying an income tax.  They are taxed plenty in myriad other ways.

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

The various methods we're all taxed only points to the inefficiency and redundancy of the system.

[Diomedes]

Yeah well until the whole thing is revamped, poor Americans pay enough taxes and rich Americans and corporations pay too little.

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

Keep on keeping on, Dio.  The more you reduce the incentives to grow wealth, both corporate and individual, the less wealth is grown.  It's a very basic concept, but it's hard for people to grasp.  Who do you think drives our economy?  Who do you think pays salaries and buys the most goods?

Anyway, we will soon find out the ramifications of the rah rah bashing of all things corporate and wealthy.  Punishing irresponsible use of wealth or dispersion of money?  Yes.  Punishing wealth to punish wealth?  Ha.  Should be fun.

[Diomedes]

Keep on keeping on, Dio.  The more you reduce the incentives to grow wealth, both corporate and individual, the less wealth is grown.  It's a very basic concept, but it's hard for people to grasp.

We could reduce what you call the incentive to wealth drastically and suffer no reduction at all in people who are eager to chase the almighty dollar.  Plenty of people are still going to work hard, innovate, hire and exploit employees, etc because despite higher taxes the system in America will always allow people to accumulate more wealth than they could possibly spend in their lifetime.

You like to paint my position as fascho-socialist, that I'd take all rich people and reduce them to 50k per year employees, but that's not what I'm talking about and you know it.

Who do you think drives our economy?

Workers.  Hundreds of millions of normal working people.

The rich scum at the top are sucking off of workers as badly as the ne'er do wells who sit on their asses in trailer parks and ghettos everywhere.

Who do you think pays salaries and buys the most goods

Again, workers.  You can't make anything to sell, and you dont' have anyone to sell it to, without workers.  Wealthy capitalists in their private jets aren't saving us all by providing jobs, they're stealing from us.

No one earns 10 million dollars a year.  In our farged up markets people are "worth" it, but they don't earn it.

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

Workers pay workers salaries.  Got it.  Doesn't seem circular at all.

[Diomedes]

Yeah, pretend I don't have you bent over with my meatcicle in your ass, it helps to distract from the pleasure you're guilty for feeling.