drklassan—Hmmm…wouldve worked.

A real bailout would have been easy and cheap: have the Fed refinance any home of anyone who was in, or nearing, arrears to a low, fixed-rate mortgage so long as the original purchase price of the home was no more than, say, five times the owners’ income at the time of the loan.  Done.

Geithner and Summers are as crooked as they come. This new bailout for the rich wont work any better than the last one..oh, what? You say, “it wouldve been worse if we hadnt”? BS! That sounds like Bush and Cheney with “we kept you safe for eight yrs”!
You cannot prove nor disprove it. How convenient.

This new “toxic assets” scheme is just buying up more trash. The avg person should NOT have to participate.

How can people on the Left NOT complain when Pres. Obama does what Bush did??

Maybe Pres. Obama is listening to the stock mkt. He said he wasnt, but, watch him come forward and talk about how it has gone up…that is ALL that the DC crowd cares about.

Public/private “effort”...gimme a break…

They don’t call Wall St and the stock market ‘the casino’ for nothing. It’s such a casino you can actually bet on the fact that others at the blackjack table might lose. I see very little mentioned about Wall St’s crime of the century, the ‘betting’ on stocks that were bound to fall after 9/11. All of it indicating clear foreknowledge of the attacks. Not hard to understand when you realize that most of the CEos of banks have been the CEOs of the CIA and the CIA knew every last detail of the 9/11 attacks in advance. A put option is a bet that a stock will fall in value, a call option is a bet that a stock will rise in value. In the weeks leading up to 9/11 there were:

1.Huge surges in purchases of put options on stocks of the two airlines used in the attack -United Airline and American Airlines.

2.Surges in purchases of put options on stocks of reinsurance companies expected to pay out billions to cover losses from the attack.

3. Surges in purchases of put options on stocks of financial services companies hurt by the attack- Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America.

4. Huge surges in purchases of call options on stock of a weapons manufacturer expected to gain from the attack-Raytheon. Raytheon makes Patriot and Tomahawk missiles. Raytheon has also been fined millions of dollars for inflating the costs of equipment it sells to the US military. Raytheon has a secretive subsidiary E-systems,whose clients have included the CIA and NSA.

5. Huge surges in purchases of 5 year US treasury notes.

On September 6-7 2001, when there was no obvious reason for it, the Chicago Stock Exchange handled 4,744 put options for United Airlines stock but only 396 call options. On September 10 the volume for UAL was 4,516 put options and 748 call options. The Bloomberg News reported that put options on the airlines surged to the phenomenal high of 285 times their average. As long as the people behind this can treat war and peace like a roll of the dice or a winning hand at cards, working people’s children will be sent off to fight in futile, unwinnable wars and these people will make huge amounts of money out of all of it. This is why Americans can’t have decent pay and conditions: not because of the threat of socialism, which has always been a literal ‘red’ herring.

re: Outraged

For myself, perhaps the most disturbing part of President Obama’s position is his loyal support and “faith” in Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers. Just this morning, the Washing Post reported that the Treasury Department is expected to finance plans to purchase $1 trillion in “toxic assets” (what does that mean in OldSpeak? worthless?) from ailing financial institutions. This is so bloody wrong, and all of Obama’s courtiers can not change the reality that this action has been taken by people he puts his trust in.

Re: thebeerdoctor

Your comment: “Barack Obama’s nice guy cheer-leading simply doesn’t cut it. Just how intelligent is the President when he places faith in the economic wisdom of Summers and Geithner?”

It’s not a matter of intelligence, lots of “smart” people are crooked.  On the upside, crooks eventually and often get CAUGHT in their deceit and wrongdoing because it never can…. nor will, stand up to scrutiny.  And this is why accountability is so significant.  The less accountability we see…. the more corrupt the enterprise, the more fraudulent the deeds and the harder we need to push for it.

I agree, “nice guy cheer-leading simply doesn’t cut it”.

“ClassicalLiberal”??WTF do you think that that is??

WORMS—-the fact that people of color , as well as some women, have joined the Dem WORMs, has not made things one bit more in line with justice.

It is really odd to me that, having finally elected an Af Am president, we have elected one who, remarkably, refuses to discuss (and acknowledge) poverty and economic inequality. How wierd!

There are no poor people here—just those “striving for middle class"ness!

That shitty underfunded school, with underpaid teachers, and half the money going to private charters didnt let you down, kids—-you are LETTING DOWN YOUR ENTIRE COUNTRY! It is all your faULT!

You, who wanted a place to live, or, insisted on chemotherapy, and then, had to file bankruptcy—you were “living beyond your means”.

There is a dr with Drs Without Borders, who was working in NO last year, said that, the poverty there (and in southerm Miss., ) is far WORSE than what he sees in India or rural China.

A ‘government of laws, not men’ is one of the cliches of American ideology, which is a tissue of bullshit from beginning to end.  All laws are made and enforced, or not enforced, by men, the grouping of men whoe form the ruling class.  In the West and in the US this has been White Old Rich Men (WORMs).

A particular law enacted by WORMs can institute slavery or freedom, equality or inequality, oppression or justice.  It is always made in the interests of the WORMs.  Criminal laws in the US currently imprison a larger percentage of the population than any other country, all under the guise of Freedom in American ideology.  Nearly ten million Americans are in prison, or on parole or probation in the US.  Under Amereican Law enaced by WORMs.

Actually, “Liberal”, it’s the LIBERAL Blue states that are carrying the freight for all the “independent” Red states?  Don’t believe me?  Check out how them GOPer states pay IN to the government and how much gets SPENT in them!  You won’t believe it!  The redder the state, the more it’s subsidized, the blue the more it’s ripped off. I live in New Jersey—#50…the Feds spend $0.62 in NJ for every $1.00 we send them!

Here’s the link:

http://taxfoundation.org/research/show/266.html

This mess can be best dated as follows:
1980 R. Reagan is elected and gets a Senate majority.
1984….Ditto.
1988 GHW Bush is elected
1994 Newt’s revolution House and Senate go GOP.
1999 Bill Clinton is wrongfully impeached.
2000 Dumbya Bush is elected…Senate swings to Dems by 1 seat.
2002 Senate GOP again
2004 Dumbya re-elected with GOP House and Senate

So, from 1981 to 2009, there’s only 2 years where the Dems hold the Presidency and both houses.  There’s NO year when the Dems hold the Presidency and one house.

IOW, for 26 of the last 28 years Republicans have run things and they have F***ED IT UP royally!  Now, after 2 months, they are bitchin’ that Obama hasn’t fixed the last 28 years…..

Yesterday marked the 6th anniversary of the American and gang terrorist attack on Iraq. I was hoping that Truthdig will post a thread related on this topic. However, since the Iraqi Holocaust is an inconvenient truth that criminal America would wish to forget, someone needs to remind us all about all the blood we have on their hands! Most of us, never even cared about keeping a count on the Iraqi victims, but someone did, and here is the account!
==============================
Iraqi Holocaust: 2.3 Million Iraqi Excess Deaths
By Gideon Polya

http://www.countercurrents.org/polya210309.htm

“March 20, 2009 marks the 6th anniversary of the illegal, utterly unjustified, war criminal invasion of Iraq by US, UK and Australian forces. Post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths total 2.3 million and refugees total 6 million in a continuing Iraqi Holocaust and Genocide..”

“Look….up in the sky!  It’s a bird!  It’s a plane!  It’s SUPERMAN!!!!”

Wait.  Is that really The Ground being yanked from under your feet?

HokaHey!

It’s not liberal vs. conservative, or Dem vs. Repub.  As from the founding, it’s the rich vs. the rest of us.  The tree of liberty cries out for manure.

Apparently the feeling of entitlement is not just for the welfare recipients. Welfare is touted to be socialism and the other is called stimulation?

Disconnect between main street and wall street was, is and will be.  Until blue collar workers are accepted as equals to white collars, nothing will change, four hundred percent differences in pay is insane. 

Looking down on fellow humans because because of the work they preform has never made sense.  It may still be true, I remember reading about professionals and blue collar workers respected each other in Sweden and appreciated their jobs equably.

Yes, entitlement at the so called top has been, is and will always be. So we are back to the trikledown theory?

Our ancestors are Spinning in their Graves. Logos and their Top brass are now the Crowns and Nobles.
“For the People and By the people” ahs been converted politically and econimically to ‘For the Corps and By the Corps’ (and their foot soldier Red Coated Repugs & CEO’s).
Worst yet is the Fact we have even fallen under the oppression of a Church- ‘America is a Christian Nation’...It says ‘In God We Trust’- Not jesus: ‘Under God’ , Not ‘under jesus’. God is not the Sole Property of the Christian evangelicals. If you don’t conform to their doctrines they’ll assasinate you (MD’s) or Tie you to a fence post in BFE Wyoming. And if you still do not comply- they start bombing national events (Atlanta) or Shooting up your kids church recital. Can’t Burn you at the Stake, but they have alternative methods for forced compliance.‘Warriors (soldiers) of God’ is not only an oxymoron, it’s heretical (‘thou shall Not Kill’).
And lets not forget our ancestors who put their asses (and heads) on the line to end sweatshop labor practices- afford our kids the ability to be kids and go to school instead of having to labor everyday for 12+ hours. Who afford US all the right to a fair days pay for fair days work, safe working conditions, a Middle Class. 
How must our ancestors being crying, not only for US having lost everything they worked for, but everything they had dreamed of for their descendents. We’ve not only screwed our Kids, we have essentially spit on our forebearers Graves.

re: ClassicalLiberal

With remarks such as “damned steel workers” and “your crappy factory job”, I wonder what bee started buzzing around in that spiteful bonnet? I guess if a Chinese worker ‘chucks steel like a slave’ at slave wages, it’s alright as long as the price is right? The U.S. steel industry suffers from the same mismanagement and greed that prevails throughout the United States economy, but the solution is to blame the worker? The preprogrammed contempt of labor goes unabated in this country, and it is a bipartisan effort. Neoliberalism, like the conseverative counterpart, is no friend of working men and women.

Fadel, etc are quite right; it is always a power structure of men who make laws in their own interests.  In the US under the guise of Freedom and Democracy.And sooner or later, as Jackpine suggests, we must reject the two parties that serve them.

I’ve been following the AIG saga with the curiosity and intensity of taking a Wharton class on the subject. I watched the entire House hearing Wednesday with Edward Liddy, AIG CEO, and found it incredibly enlightening on many fronts, including that the congressman and women don’t know what the hell they are talking about and don’t know what real questions to ask other than expressing their outrage at the bonuses. Liddy was very impressive. I think all the commentary about the bonuses completely misses the point: it isn’t about whether they are fair (they are not) or whether the contracts could be broken (they probably could), but whether giving them as proscribed last March makes it more or less likely that the government will get its $78.8 billion (no, it’s not $178 billion) back and close down AIG in an orderly manner without causing a further international economic meltdown. Liddy, after consultation in extensive meetings since last November with the New York Federal Reserve bank representatives (the government’s appointed overseer), made a judgment that not paying the ugly bonuses and having the remaining employees walk out of winding down $1.6 trillion of risk remaining on the AIG book of derivative business, that requires daily management to wind it down, was too great a risk to the overall goal he was brought on to reach: pay back every cent, and then some, to the government. Liddy felt the risk of a total unraveling was too great compared to giving the bonuses.

Liddy receives $1 a year to run AIG and was asked to do this public service because he knows insurance and is the retired CEO of Allstate. He was brought on to use his best judgment to wind down the company and repay the government. He believes he is on target to do that. While his judgment is fair game for questioning, he hasn’t made any decisions unilaterally, and if I were him, I would walk away from this mess and go back to a more contented retirement. His life has been threatened as well as his family, and his employees safety has been put at risk. He read some of the threatening letters he has received that made what little hair I have stand on end. Being strangled with piano wire; another stating I know where you and your family live and will make sure justice is done, etc. Makes Timothy McVeigh seem like a nice guy! As Liddy said, “I personally gain nothing from this and the only skin I have in the game is my reputation.” If the government no longer has confidence in his acumen and judgment, they should have the balls to replace him. The feigned outrage from Obama on down and members of Congress, while understandable, is disgusting. If the bonuses are withheld, given back or confiscated through the tax code, and the remaining AIG Financial Products employees managing the last $1.6 trillion of outstanding risk walk out, and the whole thing then blows up as Liddy fears, will all the anger be worth it? Will Obama say “I’m sorry”? Will all those in Congress and the pundits then do a mea culpa? And who will then handle the ensuing mess?

And is there a new revelation by titling this piece as “A Government of Men, Not Laws.” And since when it was otherwise?!

And even in the cases of the countries that brag most about the so-called “rule of laws,” weren’t these laws made by recalcitrant, erring, and mortal human beings?!

Wasn’t the Constitution made by backward humans who owned slaves?! And what kind of meaningful and civilized laws were these that allowed for the annihilation of the majority of natives and the enslavement and suffering of the millions of Africans, just to mention the most notorious atrocities!

A government totally ruled by fair and progressive laws is indeed a fairy tale. All governments are oligarchies, not matter what label they stamp them with!

Anyone who is a blue collar worker could have told you that a long time ago. The only “change” we’ve seen is a different face behind the podium. Big Business still runs the country. The rich are still screwing everybody else. The government is letting their campaign donors get away with damn near anything. Yadda yadda yadda. We’ve heard all of this before.

Larry Summers leaves a putrid slime trail in his wake, wherever he goes.

What the Left does not appear to understand is that Bill Clinton’s did much of the work to put us in the position we find ourselves in today.  He built the foundation of sand upon which G.W. Bush erected a house of cards.  And his foreign policy (if he actually had one) was/is a disaster of the worst magnitude.

And Sirota’s right, the power players and Capital Crusaders have been stomping on we of the post-work shower for a very long time.  Someday we might get our act together and reject both parties; let them win elections on the votes of CEO’s and investment bankers if that’s their constituency.

I think Obama is quite intelligent, although he is not empathetic for the Amerikan worker.
The cabal he has chosen to be his buddies are the union-busting fascists of this new century, much smoother than the union-busting rogues of the last century. Break the unions than use that opener to disseminate the Bill of Rights. It is sad to see the wall street shill groveling on the Leno show to the Amerikan people.. What a man must do to assuage the voters.. Tsk. Tsk.
Good writing David..

The bill creating a special tax on executive bonuses is a bit of a sham—-but it is a step in the right direction.  Here’s an even better idea: make this REAL. Create tax bracket for those who are given obscene compensation (unless you actually believe anyone really *earns* those multi-millions?!).  Make a 50% bracket at $2M, 75% at $5M, and 90% at $10M.  That would go a long way to assuage the public belief that Congress is merely a government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich and would actually help shore up the federal budget.

David Sirota’s comments about L. Summers, reminds me of the times I watched him on television, offering snide comments that barely disguised his utter disdain for the millions of people he considers beneath him.
President Obama attempted to get folksy but professorial with Jay Leno last night, explaining that AIG was an insurance company that also became a hedge fund. But never once did he mention that his big economics guru, Larry Summers, was one of the chief architects and advocates for repealing the regulations that prevented this from happening in the first place.
Barack Obama’s nice guy cheer-leading simply doesn’t cut it. Just how intelligent is the President when he places faith in the economic wisdom of Summers and Geithner?