We're Fucked

Back at relentlessly avoiding work again. I plan on being here until later tonight, about 6 or 7 or thereabouts.

I've commented on Balloon-Juice where I go to just get my fair share of abuse when I come out opposed to the current in any possible form that could be passed by the current (or any possibly imagined) federal legislature within (unfortunately and apparently) my life time (even given the fact that my grandmother lived to be 101) Health Care Reform (which is incidentally really Pharmaceutical, Insurance, and Private Hospital bonuses).

Then I go by Hullabaloo and Sadly No to read about the push for the new bankster (not really) controls being proposed by the administration and democrats.

After that, a swing by Greenwald for a depressing discussion of our very own Hope and Change Guys complete kind of defense of what he is doing with the underpants bomber 'cause it really isn't any worse than what the last Torturer in Chief did with the shoe bomber anyway, but no principal involved (on the other hand it does have some nice videos).

It think that I have to get over this kind of feeling I am having concerning the fact that I am unable to quite get my mind around the complete 180 this guy has done since taking office.
The other part of that is that it is really difficult to figure out how he isn't about to figure out just how people are responding to him. Yes, I know that the people at Balloon-Juice are desperately fighting to get the votes to pass this abortion (which has no abortion rights for the poor or even lower middle class in it, incidentally). It is an amazing flip concerning that he is completely going out there giving the various industries just what they want without any protection for the working or middle classes or women and the other people who really went all out for him.

On the other hand, it does appear that there are enough people who supported him who will simply back him because they believe him (I suspect that there are a number of them who are a little too embarrassed to publicly come out against him at this point, but I would guess that most of him believe him).

Well how about a little Dennis to take us out?

Our Slightly Liberal[?!] President

So OK it is possible or maybe even probable that we won't have a sort of decent public option (we already don't have the possibility of single payer, the best option) almost solely based on the fact that the president doesn't want one.

It looks like there is a good chance that there will continue to be a rape exception for all the corporations that are getting fat off our never ending colonial wars, in large part because the president doesn't want to remove it.

OH, by the way we did not get any real oversight of the various financial institutions we bailed out because the president didn't want it, in fact he insisted that it not be there.

On the plus side people who are dying and would like to smoke dope are allowed to if they have a doctors prescription in the few states that is permitted. Oh yeah, polar bears, some little protection. Big Whoop.

It is like there are three elevators; two that g0 down to a hell of our own making and only one that goes up. The two that go down are labeled republican, which is the express, and democratic, which is the slower more local run, but they are both heading in the same inexorable direction. To the same place. The third one which goes up? That is one the DFHs are trying to operate, but we just can't figure out how.

There is no progressive movement or legislation that conservative democrats, the president and republicans will not gut.

Trying to Push the Obama Rock

So let's see, Daily Kos provides a little back ground on our great leader's actions, working closely with the industry to be regulated and with the senator to do the regulating we get the destruction of any possibility of reform once again.

It appears as though today the guy has finally figured out that he has got to be confrontational and to provide something to his supporters if he expects to be anything more then the first african american president. My wife insists that is all he thought he would have to be. Me, I personally have a much worse impression of the guy. I think that he's in the pocket (and has been all his public life) of the oligarchs that really run this country. I suspect that he might be finally coming around to the realization that if he doesn't give us little people something he or at least his party is toast. I also suspect that he and his backers may be starting to become aware that if they screw the people who really worked and voted for him, the real crazies will come to power. Not because there are more of them, but because the rest of us will simply sit on our hands and watch it happen. That may scare the oligarchs more than any faux liberal movement. So the minimum that can be done might be health care reform at this point. The massive battle that has been necessary to get anything may just wear everybody out. Not enough energy left to accomplish anything after that? Hmm?

New News, I Think Not

So only about seven months into our new president's administration and things already fall apart. And we are back where we were. No health care, and cover up of torture for which we are to blame Rahm? I think not. Then news that well maybe we need to put our troops back into harms way in Iraq. Of course why would they be in the country if they were not to be put into harms way again?

Not having as much invested in the black guy as many, I'm not as unable to point the finger where the real blame lies as are others. Although I've said it before and I'll say it again: I really didn't believe that I would be voting for a continuation of the Clinton presidency in slightly (and by the way that is only slightly) darker hues, with no sex involved.

Apparently the democrats are even dumber than the French Aristocrats of pre-revolution fame who "learned nothing and forgot nothing." The democrats apparently learn nothing and forget everything.

I listened to the "smart" (scare quotations) people who told me that Rahm was conservative, but he knew the way infighting was done in Washington and would get Obama's programs through for us.

Ooopsie. Unless Obama's program was to give a lot of money to the very wealthiest people and to the people who have been completely wrong for the last several decades (and I'm not sure it wasn't) he hasn't really accomplished a lot.

Keynes said that in the middle of a depression if you buried money in bottles and paid people to dig them up, it would be better than nothing. Although he added there were much better ways of doing things. Apparently Obama only learned the first part of that admonition.

Has there ever been an American president who didn't love him some colonial wars? I mean once we'd managed to kill off most of our own indigenous people?

Meanwhile, no health care reform for the rest of us. The amazing election machine overwhelmed because the Obas didn't expect, what? They didn't expect that the insurance industry would fight to their last dying breath to keep their obscene profits. They forgot what Mencken said about underestimating the American public? Then they cave.

Jesus H. Christ. How come I live in East Dirt Bag, Ohio and I know all these things and the people who get big bucks don't?

Hey meet the new boss:

Need

I Could Use a Laugh

Well I certainly hope that Marx (Karl not Groucho) was right about history repeating its self because I could use a great big laugh. Although I'm not sure that the first time with the Clintons wasn't farce, so I don't really know what this time will be, but I'm wishing for some more of that farce, since it really looks like that's where we are headed. Since Obama apparently wants the union contracts broken at the automakers. The insurer for the pension system in this country is busy gambling (badly) with our pensions. And it looks like Obama is planning on following the Soviet Union down the rat hole that is Afghanistan.

I know I have explained why I voted for Obama, but please remind me why again.

A Couple of Brief Blogger Thoughts

I am a little delayed in getting the animals up, but I've had a couple of thoughts.

First, one reason I voted for Obama instead of Clinton in the primary was because I didn't want a Clinton II presidency. By that I mean that I believe that Hilliary and Bill are peas in a pod. Whatever their personal relationships are, their political beliefs are (I think) very similar. Particularly their economic thought. So, I figured that Obama would at least be a little different.

I did not think that Obama would recycle all these old Clintonistas as his economic advisers and appointees. I figured that he would have at least a few new faces, at least some people who did not parrot the Wall Street line. I guess not.

(By the time the general election came around I thought I had no choice. I figured the republicans were going with bat shit crazy. No matter how rational it seemed to let the worst be elected so the general public could feel the results of their own stupidity...........I live here. I do not really want to spend the last few years of my life under a bridge eating the apples I couldn't sell. Now I'm no so sure that isn't what is going to happen anyway.)

Second, this is just bullshit. All the complaints about anonymity in today's world seem like a wilful (one hopes it is wilful and it is not that they really don't know) refusal to know and understand our very own history and the importance of the anonymous pamphleteer. As Mudflats says Ben Franklin used a pseudonym in some of his writings. Also, the fellows who wrote the Federalist originally wrote anonymously. Outing someone like that is really kind of pricky. And one hopes it will come back to bite the ass of the asshole who did it.

Of course, given they way the world works, probably not. I would think that is probably the reason people believe in the afterlife. There everybody gets their just reward. Unless of course you are a fundie. In which case you can be the biggest asshole in the world as long as you believe in the correct way. Which might explain the incredible number of fundies in the world.

All Your Tarps Are Me

Let me see if I can say this right. If we do what Krugman and others like him want and they are wrong, what happens? We get rid of bad debt, we get rid of bad and stupid bankers we put the country back on the road to recovery quickly. Then we also nationalize some very large banks (we are already nationalizing small and medium banks weekly) for a short time. We then get rid of banks that "are too big to fail" so this kind of economic melt down will be much less likely to happen again. Essentially, nothing bad will happen if we go the Krugman route and we find it is unnecessary.

Now what happens if we go the Geithner route and he is wrong? Continued recession going into a possible depression. More money to the bankers and speculators and less to the "middle" class and working class (anymore the phrase middle class must be put into quotation marks as there is little real middle class left). The people who caused the recession left in power to do it again. The government buying these people out giving any loses to us the tax payers and any profits to the speculators. Finally, a continuation of the war against the middle and working classes by the wealthy and their minions. And those who got us here left in power to do it again and to profit from their mistakes (not at all like real capitalism). In other words: screwed.

What we have here is a failure of imagination. The people with the power simply are unable to look beyond their little area of muck. It is unfortunate, isn't it?

More of the Fucking Same

I couldn't think of a single funny thing.

So the best of the economists of the left, the ones who predicted the collapse, have jumped all over Obama's leaked (should that be in quotation marks?) new (that should definitely be in quotation marks) economic plan. For those who have been asleep for forty-eight hours, they panned it.

Basically, as I understand it we, through our rulers, by giving money to the people who originally screwed up will buy bad assets at way over the market prices and take the hit if they stay down, but not get the profit if they go up. That will be because we've loaned the money to these assholes to make the purchases, not made them ourselves.

It truly amazes me that these people (the ones running the companies, the ones making the trades, the ones who used to run the companies and now run the Treasury and government in general) seem to have absolutely not one second of self doubt. It was beyond their control, no one could have foreseen this problem (it doesn't matter that people did, of course)(including a Noble prize winner). It will correct with a "little" help from the government.

The government's position: It will all be over by next year. And when it isn't, it won't be the conservative assholes who get blamed.

Nuts

Well, after just posting about lying republicans I get to post about not exactly lying democrats, but democrats who are taking us down the long dark road to national bankruptcy.

Krugman is pretty unhappy and so am I. It looks like the Obama boys are dead set on saving their buddies' (and you know the old military definition of a buddy) financial asses. One of the most interesting things about FDR was how he would get information from all sorts of people. People who had various points of view and who came from different backgrounds. Of course, the fact that he was married to Elinore couldn't hurt either. I looks to me that Obama only listens to the people who matter. You know the bankers and economists who got us into this situation.

That does correspond with the bonus issue. No matter what they've done they can't be wrong. And they deserve extra money for it, don't ya know. Nor can the system be wrong, nor can the theory be wrong. Therefore, what you see is an illusion. Everything is really OK don't you know.

Epic Fail

I don't think that Obama has permanently failed, but I do think that he has up to this point on the two most important issues out there right now.

The bailout package and the war in Iraq. His positions are in lock step with the completely repudiated positions of Bush and the republicans. The only reason he isn't getting reamed on Iraq is that it is relatively quiet right now and the bailout has pushed it off the front pages.

They screwed the pooch on the bailout bonuses and now they are trying to blame Dodd. Apparently, that is not true. In fact Dodd tried to put limits on the bonuses and Geithner and the rest of the administration were able to keep limits out of the bill.

It is difficult to understand just what he is doing and why he is doing it. I would like to believe that there is some really clever concept here rather than think that the guy I voted for is a complete idiot. But right now he and his administration are acting like complete idiots and they were idiots when they forced the bailout bill through. Of course we're not even talking about the most expensive provisions of the bailout bill. And you do not really think that they are any more fair in the long run, do you?

Quite simply, I doubt if he has the desire to force anything other than variations on what he has already do through the congress. Therefore, we're fucked. Now where have I heard that before?

But to get back to my first point, I do not expect Obama to change his policies or the people he listens to which means: EPIC FAIL!!!!!

The First African American Hoover

You know I always thought that Obama wanted to be the first African American FDR, not the first African American Hoover. But I would not be surprised to begin seeing some Obamavilles around soon, if this ass hole doesn't get his act together.

I am having the same sinking feeling I had with Carter and Clinton. Perfectly good republicans.

As usual Greenwald has some interesting stuff about who put the protection for bonuses into the bailout bill. His piece and the links are very interesting. In one of his updates he states the the Times has changed it story to reflect the reality of who (the administration not Dodd) insisted protection for bonuses be put into the bill.

I find it interesting that the Times would change its story after being confronted by outsiders with the truth. I would be encouraged by this, but I am reminded that we do have a "democratic" president, no matter how incompetent he is turning out to be. Perhaps just because he is turning out to be incompetent they will be more willing to pile on.

Blind Pig?

Do you suppose this Fox (yeah I know) article is right? I find the graphs at the bottom very interesting.

Do you wonder about the Cuomo thing? At least he apparently got to look at the work by the [unnamed] law firm. Why do you think they are not named. It might not be a bad deal that he wasn't appointed to Clinton's seat.

Well clearly some democrat helped move this little thingy right along. Be it Geithner or Dodd. However, my money is on Obama. He is the president. He is the guy who hired Geithner. He is the guy who is responsible. Or at whose desk the buck stops to quote another democrat. He is still ridding high and his numbers are good. But I think that he just is (as mom used to say) buying trouble. He might ride this one out, but then again something will come along that will blow him out of the water. The media would love it. The wealthy would love it.

He can think that he hitched his wagon to that conservative democratic star, but it did neither Carter nor Clinton any good in the end. I did think that Obama was smarter than he now appears. I hope he is a lot smarter than I think he is. Cause otherwise we're fucked.

Of course a few hundred million is I guess less than 1% of the money we've already given to AIG. Still, it is good to get outraged over something involved in the bailout. Do you think it is just a way to distract us? We pour mass amounts of money into their (and a lot of others) pockets with little or no oversight. Hell, oversight. We should own them but because of our ideological rigidity we let the same people run them who ran them into the ground and/or stole from them and us. So now we are upset because they play the scorpion? No one could have predicted.

So we get this money back and all is well, we just go on as before pouring 1000 times that much money into the shit pile.

Deep Thought -- AIG Contracts

You know I wonder if our president, who happens to be a constitutional law professor has seen these unbreakable A.I.G. contracts.

Does It Strike You As Strange or Where Are The Fucking Contracts

Now I've got you by the short and curlies

Does it strike you as strange that we have not seen any of these unbreakable contracts?

OK, maybe Clinton would have been better. Maybe (heresy) McCain would have been better. It is hard to imagine someone being worse. I would have expected that anyone would have tried to buy their friends out of this trouble. Anyone would/could have thrown money at the banks as easily as our Democratic friends are. Although I'm hoping that the Republicans would have had more fun (oh, that Henny Youngman).

As I said his brilliant political skills will only work if he produces. You can run and you can get elected, but then you have to produce --- if you are a Democrat I mean. For the most part Republicans still get a pass.

I would like to see the contacts, though. It is one thing to leak to various news media that the contracts are unbreakable, knowing that the "reporters" (scare quotes) we have now wouldn't even try to see them. It is another thing for congress and the white house to buy into it without looking at the contracts and then letting us see them. Unless they are all in on it (says that little voice in my head).

The more I think about this story the fishier it gets. All those people who are getting the bonuses are probably working at will. All can be fired. And replaced with people who are competent. Let us see these unbreakable contracts. Another question, do you think that given the choice of losing their jobs and foregoing a bonus most of these people would choose to lose their jobs? Aren't bonuses by definition dependant on doing something special? I would think at the vary least you would have to make the firm money not lose the firm money before you get a bonus.

Where are the fucking contracts?

Oh here they are:

So I guess this is what we now own.

I've Got Something Else to Complain About

This post by Creek Running North, is kind of depressing. Mostly because he is so right: about how progressives aren't holding Obama's feet to the fire about getting out of Iraq. Not about: "It all happened before, with Clinton, and it will again." At least I hope he isn't.

I don't think I've been blogging a lot about that specific busted promise. And male no mistake that is a busted promise, perhaps the most obvious of all his busted promises. That is now just gone away as if it wasn't ever there. "Hey, I said we'd get out, but golly gosh, the people who got us into that, and whose reputations require that we stay there want to stay. So what can I do?"

"Yeah, I mean once it is explained to me by the people who have been wrong about nearly everything for as long as I can remember (yeah, Clinton too) well I guess I'll just have to go along them."

It is another WTF moment. But to get back to the link, I haven't been blogging much about it because, well I guess because the immediacy of its effect isn't there. Or perhaps because it isn't right in front of my face all the time, like the economy. Yeah, yeah I know about the negative effect it has on the economy.

Perhaps I should go to Code Pink a little more.

Aw Shit

So what do I see as a headline in the paper today: Administration is open to taxing health benefits. What kind of horse shit is this? The best way to balance the budget is on the backs of those least able to pay for it?

Well gee, I guess it would be an easy way to make sure that unionized workers didn't price themselves out of the market, since they would not be able to afford health benefits and would, what? I guess that they'd have to go out buy their own with what I would guess would be their increased salaries. Sure.

I'm not sure what Obama is trying to do. He keeps doing things that seem to be designed to piss off those who (however misguided they were) were his strongest supporters. Yeah, I did vote for him, but completely understanding that he was hopefully the best of three (counting Clinton) not particularly good choices

Of course that comes in on top of this shit. Giving some insight into what our unelected rulers continue to do. That is they take our money and then spit in our faces. I don't think that people (well at least not good old U.S. American patriot people) are willing to get out their pitch forks and tar and take these assholes out. But it would be nice to see Madam Guillotine up and operating on Wall Street. Not that I would ever seriously encourage something so awful, really. No really.

I am continuously amazed and how little these people seem to understand about what they have done and how little they care about getting it right this time.

UPDATE: Perhaps I was wrong about the health, stuff. On the other hand I am beginning to have a hard time trusting Obama.

I Just Do Not Understand

This makes no sense in any way at all. Not even the floating of the idea. Of course Bush did cut veterans benes in the middle of a "war." So my concerns from the previous post appear to be being answered and not in a good way.

Economics? Eh

So reading again about Obama who is not, it appears, doing enough. I say it appears because those who knew what was coming and just where we are are now are calling him on his "too little, too late." There is also the seeming willingness to throw tons of money into holes that have been dug by the wealthiest (the money coming, of course, from the rest of us). Add to this little or no oversight and we have a disaster, and who knows if it would be as big or bigger or smaller than if nothing were done.

Well, OK the people I mentioned earlier know, and they seem to say something is better than nothing economically. But in political terms probably doing a little something, is worse than doing nothing. Why, you vouchsafe? Because it will turn people off to government action and progressive politics for the foreseeable future. (Obama a Randian sleeper cell?)

Obama is a brilliant politician. But eventually even a brilliant politician has to produce on the most important political issues of his (or her) time. In this case it is the economy. He is doing half assed things, along with his continuing to dangle Social Security out there as a ripe grape for his wealthy buddies. This is not brilliant politics, this is not even competent economics.

I started to write "Once again," but I don't think it is again. I think it is "still." It hasn't changed in at least sixteen and probably more like thirty years. Our rulers allow us enough liberty (read my rants!) and toys (did I show you my new computer?) to keep us occupied.

I suspect now, that the only change that will be allowed through is a sort of cosmetic one, which will look like, what? I don't know, but not like the place I grew up, with expectations for the children being better than those for their parents. A few very wealthy. Their most important minions working hard for them.................. and the rest of us. Probably being given enough to keep us from going crazy and killing those in power. But then it is always easy to convince the vast majority of the underclasses that they really do not deserve anything more and the upper classes deserve all they have and more.

Well, I voted for Obama because of hope (is that word already owned?) and because I knew what both the others stood for. He was zit.

Social Security Again

Not quite dead yet.

WTF is it with Obama and Social Security. No place (other than right wing rags) is there any intimation and no place is there any real evidence that Social Security is in any trouble before 2042. And then all the information currently available is that a minor shift can fix it at that point. Yet Obama puts it on the table again and again.

I suspect that his butt and his coalition were saved by Pelosi and (of all people) Reid when they let him know that they would not allow an up or down vote for an extra legislative committee's recommendations. This is particularly true since the committee would be heavily larded with the economists who did not foresee the current crisis and those Wall Streeters who also lost trillions.

I mean really WTF?

A Quick Social Security Moment

I'm always willing to let somebody else do my work for me. Check out Hulabaloo on what it appears that Obama is ready to do to Social Security.

I think that she is right, if he moves forward on this, essentially paying off people who voted against his stimulus package he will probably crack his coalition. I hope he's smarter than that, but we will see. He was willing to give the republicans billions in unnecessary tax cuts so we will see what else he is willing to give them.