Seen on the street in Kyiv.

Words of Advice:

"If Something Seems To Be Too Good To Be True, It's Best To Shoot It, Just In Case." -- Fiona Glenanne

“The Mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” -- The TOFF *

"Foreign Relations Boil Down to Two Things: Talking With People or Killing Them." -- Unknown

“Speed is a poor substitute for accuracy.” -- Real, no-shit, fortune from a fortune cookie

"Thou Shalt Get Sidetracked by Bullshit, Every Goddamned Time." -- The Ghoul

"If you believe that you are talking to G-d, you can justify anything.” — my Dad

"Colt .45s; putting bad guys in the ground since 1873." -- Unknown

"Stay Strapped or Get Clapped." -- probably not Mr. Rogers

"The Dildo of Karma rarely comes lubed." -- Unknown

"Eck!" -- George the Cat

* "TOFF" = Treasonous Orange Fat Fuck,
"FOFF" = Felonious Old Fat Fuck,
"COFF" = Convicted Old Felonious Fool,
A/K/A Commandante (or Cadet) Bone Spurs,
A/K/A El Caudillo de Mar-a-Lago, A/K/A the Asset,
A/K/A P01135809, A/K/A Dementia Donnie, A/K/A Felon^34,
A/K/A Dolt-45, A/K/A Don Snoreleone

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Money Talks

Which, when you get right down it it, is why Congress has done jack shit about restoring regulation to the financial industry. The banks are still ginning up and selling the same bullshit "securities" that damn near brought on another depression and that brought us the worst recession since 1941. Congress could repeal the Gramm-Leach Act of 1999, which had repealed parts of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, but they haven't moved to do anything.

It doesn't matter that millions of Americans were thrown out of work. It doesn't matter that by creating and selling all of those bullshit "liar loan" mortgages, the banks set up the housing bubble. Congress doesn't give a frak about that, because all of those shenanigans hurt the middle class and the poor. The rich didn't make out so badly, the bankers rode it out, thanks to over a trillion in Federal aid, and it is the rich and the bankers who give the huge bribes campaign donations to the Congress.

By "Congress", I am blaming both Democrats and Republicans for doing nothing to correct the conditions that lead to the Bush-Gramm-Greenspan Recession.

And friendship also plays a role, as anyone who expects Ben Bernanke or Tim Geithner to crack down on their friends on Wall Street is smoking crack.

In 1933, the laws to regulate the banks and prevent another banking crash took just months to pass. They worked, even if the bankers hated them. Phil Gramm, the senator from UBS Bank, got the law changed in 1999 and it took only nine years for the banks to collapse the economy.

It will take even less time for another collapse, because now those fuckers all know that if they break the economy again, the Treasury Department will show up with a few trillion dollars to bail them out.

One would think that Congress might actually give a shit about what happened and work to fix the problem. But sadly, no.

Money talks.

2 comments:

Phil said...

Money talks, alright, but it speaks a language only the greedy can understand.

BadTux said...

I haven't posted a whole lot this past week because I keep saying to myself, "what's the point?" It's clear that the U.S. political system has become completely dysfunctional and incapable of serving anybody other than the wealthy oligarchs who pay its members bribes (oops, "campaign contributions") to serve their needs. It's clear that the whole edifice is set up to drive us to the Mexico North scenario, of hoards of desperate starving peasants willing to work for peanuts for a handful of filthy rich oligarchs who control the economy and the nation. And, sadly, it has become clear that the majority of Americans are too stupid, too bought, or too apathetic to do anything about that until we have utter national disaster that makes the Great Depression look more like the Sorta Bad Economic Downturn. So why bother?

- Badtux the Depressed Penguin