e.j. dionne and me
in case this editorail did not run in your newspaper today, let me give you some excerpts from e. j. dionne's piece.
"never do i want to hear again from my conservative friends about how brilliant captalists are, how much they deserve their seven-figure salaries and how government should keep its hands off the private economy.
"the wall street titans have turned into a bunch of welfare clients. they are desperate to be bailed out by government from their own incompetence and from the deregulatory regime for which they lobbied so hard. the have lost "confidence" in each other, you see, because none of thes oh-so-wise captains of the universe has any idea of what kinds of devalued securities sit in anothers's portfolio.
"so they have stopped investing. the biggest, most respected investment companies threaten to come crashing down. you can't have that. it's just fine to make it harder for the average joe to file for bankruptcy, as did that wretched bankruptcy bill passed by congress in 2005 at the request of the credit card industry. but the big guys are "too big to fail" because they could bring us all down with them.
"enter the federal government, the institution to which the wealthy are not supposed to pay capital gains or inheritance taxes. good god, you don't expect those people to trade in their bmw's for saturns, do you?
"in a deal the new york times described as "shocking", j.p. morgan chase agreed over the weekend to pay $2 a share to buy all of bear stearns, one of the brand names of finance capitalism. the federal reserve approved a 30$ billion, that's with a B, line of credit to make that deal work.
the article goes on, google it up.
one more quote from the article and it is a quote from john kenneth galbraith talking about the era leading up to the great depression. (you know, when the capitalists all went belly up and the big old bad government had to bail their and our asses out) nasty old government, why can't they just leave us alone?
"the threat to men of great dignity, privilege and pretense is not from the radicals they revile; it is from accepting their own myth. exposure to reality remains the nemesis of the great---a little understood thing."
once again, i knew about the coming bear stearns disaster over a year ago. but all these oh-so-wise people on wall street didn't. go figure.
i knew that the housing market was going to crash and wrote about over two years ago but all these oh-so-wise capitalists didn't.
i guess the rich can have the government bail their ass out but fuck the little guy huh?
and for the people who wrote me and said that if we increase taxes on the corporations they will just pass it on to the people......we gave the oil companies, under bush and the republicans, tax breaks and so did the price of gas go down? hmmm. exxon/mobile is making 73,000 per minute in PROFITS and you think we shouldn't tax that? give me a break. get a grip on reality. when clinton RAISED taxes on the rich and the oil companies, gas stayed down and we ended up with peace and prosperity and a SURPLUS. duh. never let facts get in the way of republican thinking. government bad. capitalist good. deregulate. that is the answer. right. like here in nevada where our republican governor and republican congress cut funding for medical inspectors leaving the doctors and clinics to "police" their own. great idea. tell it to the people with aids and hepatitis c.
it is not a level playing field out there. if you are born with an inheritance of say, 800 million dollars, you have such an incredible head start over me who was born with an inheritance of a baseball bat, a world war two pistol and some photos from years gone by that i start so far behind your starting line as to be in another universe. put another way, by never lifting a finger but letting your money draw interest at say, an average of 8% per year, you make 64 MILLION DOLLARS PER YEAR WITHOUT GETTING OUT OF BED! but hey, let us not tax that inheritance, why, what would the poor little rich guy do? level playing field my ass.
my first wife, rusty, (God rest her soul) had 4 children when i married her. she was 18 years older than i and so, of course, we had another child. (i was exceptionally stupid at the time but i had been in prison and the army and rusty fucked me day and night .....) we were so poor that electricity and water would periodically be cut off. we went a year without a phone. when the water was cut off, we, the kids and i, would hop a fence into a cemetary and have a bucket birgade back to the house. when the electric power went off we cooked on the bar b quer. we collected newspapers and sold them. i worked three jobs and rusty worked two. we never got a cent from the government and by our third year of marriage we had turned the corner, bought a new house, drove new cars and put our financial house back in order. how, by hard work and some luck. but i never made 64 million dollars per year. level playing field my ass. just another poor white boy trying to make it in america but i knew that bear stearns was going down. how come they didn't? i didn't go to harvard. didn't get past the 10th grade. but i knew the housing market was going to collapse. how come they didn't?
that paragraph was for those of you who think i live in a fairy tale land. yeah right. i overcame no education and a prison record to become a vice president of sales of two of the largest publishing companies in the world. i know what it means to work hard. to work long hours. to scrape by. to work my way up the ladder. i am still a liberal. and fucking proud of it.
i have been beaten, shot, stabbed, stomped into pulp and still think that people at heart are basically good.
i am a christian, though i go to no church and think that almost all preachers and priests have it all wrong. i believe that to do unto others as you would have them do unto you is the absolute best advice anyone could recieve.
i have a million flaws but not caring what happens to my country is not one of them.
i have to go now. dogs need to be fed. poker needs to be played. a camera needs to be bought.
have a good day, get high, have a good time, don't hurt anybody, see ya later.
"never do i want to hear again from my conservative friends about how brilliant captalists are, how much they deserve their seven-figure salaries and how government should keep its hands off the private economy.
"the wall street titans have turned into a bunch of welfare clients. they are desperate to be bailed out by government from their own incompetence and from the deregulatory regime for which they lobbied so hard. the have lost "confidence" in each other, you see, because none of thes oh-so-wise captains of the universe has any idea of what kinds of devalued securities sit in anothers's portfolio.
"so they have stopped investing. the biggest, most respected investment companies threaten to come crashing down. you can't have that. it's just fine to make it harder for the average joe to file for bankruptcy, as did that wretched bankruptcy bill passed by congress in 2005 at the request of the credit card industry. but the big guys are "too big to fail" because they could bring us all down with them.
"enter the federal government, the institution to which the wealthy are not supposed to pay capital gains or inheritance taxes. good god, you don't expect those people to trade in their bmw's for saturns, do you?
"in a deal the new york times described as "shocking", j.p. morgan chase agreed over the weekend to pay $2 a share to buy all of bear stearns, one of the brand names of finance capitalism. the federal reserve approved a 30$ billion, that's with a B, line of credit to make that deal work.
the article goes on, google it up.
one more quote from the article and it is a quote from john kenneth galbraith talking about the era leading up to the great depression. (you know, when the capitalists all went belly up and the big old bad government had to bail their and our asses out) nasty old government, why can't they just leave us alone?
"the threat to men of great dignity, privilege and pretense is not from the radicals they revile; it is from accepting their own myth. exposure to reality remains the nemesis of the great---a little understood thing."
once again, i knew about the coming bear stearns disaster over a year ago. but all these oh-so-wise people on wall street didn't. go figure.
i knew that the housing market was going to crash and wrote about over two years ago but all these oh-so-wise capitalists didn't.
i guess the rich can have the government bail their ass out but fuck the little guy huh?
and for the people who wrote me and said that if we increase taxes on the corporations they will just pass it on to the people......we gave the oil companies, under bush and the republicans, tax breaks and so did the price of gas go down? hmmm. exxon/mobile is making 73,000 per minute in PROFITS and you think we shouldn't tax that? give me a break. get a grip on reality. when clinton RAISED taxes on the rich and the oil companies, gas stayed down and we ended up with peace and prosperity and a SURPLUS. duh. never let facts get in the way of republican thinking. government bad. capitalist good. deregulate. that is the answer. right. like here in nevada where our republican governor and republican congress cut funding for medical inspectors leaving the doctors and clinics to "police" their own. great idea. tell it to the people with aids and hepatitis c.
it is not a level playing field out there. if you are born with an inheritance of say, 800 million dollars, you have such an incredible head start over me who was born with an inheritance of a baseball bat, a world war two pistol and some photos from years gone by that i start so far behind your starting line as to be in another universe. put another way, by never lifting a finger but letting your money draw interest at say, an average of 8% per year, you make 64 MILLION DOLLARS PER YEAR WITHOUT GETTING OUT OF BED! but hey, let us not tax that inheritance, why, what would the poor little rich guy do? level playing field my ass.
my first wife, rusty, (God rest her soul) had 4 children when i married her. she was 18 years older than i and so, of course, we had another child. (i was exceptionally stupid at the time but i had been in prison and the army and rusty fucked me day and night .....) we were so poor that electricity and water would periodically be cut off. we went a year without a phone. when the water was cut off, we, the kids and i, would hop a fence into a cemetary and have a bucket birgade back to the house. when the electric power went off we cooked on the bar b quer. we collected newspapers and sold them. i worked three jobs and rusty worked two. we never got a cent from the government and by our third year of marriage we had turned the corner, bought a new house, drove new cars and put our financial house back in order. how, by hard work and some luck. but i never made 64 million dollars per year. level playing field my ass. just another poor white boy trying to make it in america but i knew that bear stearns was going down. how come they didn't? i didn't go to harvard. didn't get past the 10th grade. but i knew the housing market was going to collapse. how come they didn't?
that paragraph was for those of you who think i live in a fairy tale land. yeah right. i overcame no education and a prison record to become a vice president of sales of two of the largest publishing companies in the world. i know what it means to work hard. to work long hours. to scrape by. to work my way up the ladder. i am still a liberal. and fucking proud of it.
i have been beaten, shot, stabbed, stomped into pulp and still think that people at heart are basically good.
i am a christian, though i go to no church and think that almost all preachers and priests have it all wrong. i believe that to do unto others as you would have them do unto you is the absolute best advice anyone could recieve.
i have a million flaws but not caring what happens to my country is not one of them.
i have to go now. dogs need to be fed. poker needs to be played. a camera needs to be bought.
have a good day, get high, have a good time, don't hurt anybody, see ya later.
posted by Ron Shock | 9:27 AM
12 Comments:
Do onto others,get high,love of country, get high. Good thoughts.
Early in the piece the banks would not turn up to the Fed. to get the finance they need because of the stigma their word not mine associated with it. Reminded me of a kid who smashed his car the week before the prom and was upset because parents wouldn't let him use their car but offered to drive him and his date.
Capitalist Jim Rodgers also has a good take on the mater, calling it socialism for the rich. Fed cut rates today, and so risks higher inflation for us all. Why? Did not want to disappoint the market.
The mortgage crisis isn't due to pure capitalism. It is in part due to the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 where the government essentially required banks to make risky loans without adjusting interest rates enough to compensate. The crisis was obvious--My brother, a small-time mortgage broker was talking about it at least 4 years ago.
I'll agree that the government shouldn't be bailing out business--part of the Savings and Loan crisis was made worse because the bailed-out ones suddenly had lower costs, putting more pressure on the remaining companies. We shouldn't have bailed out Chrysler (or Harley Davidson), but we also shouldn't have changed the CAFE standards when Chrysler was the only one meeting them...
But government shouldn't be bailing out individuals who made stupid mortgage decisions, either. I bought my house just before the crisis became news. I was offered ARMs with lower initial payments, and I refused. I will be pissed if they get bailed out for making stupid decisions.
When you look at Exxon's profits, you should look at the rate, rather than the absolute amount. Their rate of return as a percentage isn't out of line with other businesses, it is just that they do an astounding amount of business.
Ron, I respect you greatly for working your ass off to succeed. If more were like you, liberalism might work...
i know nothing about the cra of 77 so i can't comment. however, you are right in that regular folk making incredibly stupid decisions should not be bailed out. companies that used misleading sales techniques to get them into those bad loans are another matter.
exxon/mobile rate of return is much higher than they let on, so to speak, due to special deals cut for them by the congress of the good old usofa. the financial waters are very, very murky when you start dealing in oil from foriegn countries and all the enities involved...shipping costs are deducted but ahh, you see, they own the ships. i could go into more detail but take my word for it on this one, they hide a lot of money from the tax man and they still made billions that they had to show. how much did they really make? more than you and me.
oh well.
Ron you and i have been friends for quite a while now and this is the first time i've read what you had to say. i know we talk and joke about different things but i never realized how truly deep you are probably because you have me laughing so much and these are things we talk about every time i see you. Now i will pay more attention to things going on instead of just why black people are the only one who have to work on mlk's birthday\holiday. I know you remember that one hahaha talk to you soon friend as you say rock and roll
Love the irony here
Rice has repeatedly said there is too much power concentrated in the Kremlin and that outgoing President Vladimir Putin's government has rolled back democratic freedoms.
The gist of the CRA--Certain neighborhoods had higher default rates, but if banks took this into account in a minority neighborhood they were accused of racism. The law required certain percentages of loans in these neighborhoods, regardless of risk. Banks had little choice--Their best option was to make sure they had a reasonable chance of getting their money back, so they looked more at what they'd get in a foreclosure rather than the ability of the borrower to pay. This wasn't a problem (for the banks) as long as property values were rising.
This sort of law--Passed with the best of intentions, but with severe unintended consequences decades later--is why I am not a liberal.
sevesteen,
surely, unintended consequences of a law that was meant to do good is so much better than illegal and immoral wars begun under republican administrations. much better than the horrible deficits of republican administrations, better than the recessions of republican administrations. (see my blog on recessions through the last 100 years).
let me list why i am not a republican.
el salvador
hondorus
panama
chille
vietnan (i know about kennedy but he was going to call it off and it really started under ike and nixon kept it going but i will allow a draw on this one)
granada (we invaded a resort!)
iraq
afghanastan
ronnie's arms for hostages
ronnie's allowing pakistan to get nuclear bomb, which now can REALLY have unintended consequences like oh, millions dead.
and you worry about us making a law to help minorities that lead to investment bankers making incredibly stupid decisions and equate that to the policies both foriegn and domestic of the fools we have had in under the guise of republicans...you know, smaller government, fiscal responsibilty, non intervention in foriegn affairs. but they give us bigger government, no fiscal responsibility, foriegn wars and constant meddling.
if you can't be a liberal, sevesteen, how about becoming a democrat? you are intelligent, it shows in your posts and your thinking. however, you have some flaws in the process. re-exmine. come on over to the side of light. leave the darkness of war. leave the darkness of greed. leave the darkness of division. come on, you can do it. vote democratic this year, see how it feels. and for god's sakes don't listen to rush and don't watch fox news.
hey lady,
welcome aboard. post what you want when you want. read as much or as little. i do, however, recommend reading the comments, some are quite good and some interesting people join in every now and then.
hey to dennis. rock and roll.
I suppose if those are my only options, I'll take wasting money on well-meaning but counterproductive social programs rather than killing foreigners. If you turn this into fill-in-the-blank instead of multiple choice with limited options, I'll pick libertarian. Let me decide what I do about my own health and what goes on in my bedroom, Don't force me to financially support either unjustified welfare or unjustified war. Let me keep my privacy and my guns.
sevesteen,
okay, we are getting somewhere. lol. don't have a problem with any of those with the exception of a single payer national health care. (everyone else in the world can't be wrong we pay too much as it is.) guns, privacy, do in your own home, no unjustified welfare, no wars except really to defend ourselves. a libertarian vote is wasted brother. give the demos a chance at it; fuck, they can't be worse than the last 8 years.
I'd be careful making predictions--Politicians are good at fucking things up, and I'm afraid they will find a way. Don't clean up Bush's fuckups, add a few of their own...
And as far as health, I was thinking more about stuff like smoking bans, and the busybody "you might hurt yourself so we won't let you" rules, rather than healthcare. I still haven't figured healthcare out. The current system is fucked because it is neither single-payer nor free market--Either would be an improvement, but stuck in the middle like we are means we get the worst of both ways with none of the benefits.
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