Would It Be News If Someone Told You The Mafia Opposes Laws That Punish Criminal Behavior?

Predators DuPont & Ryan, cut from the same cloth

Something about Ryan's tempest in a Echezeaux Grand Cru bottle that most got to me was how-- like many over-privileged, self-entitled millionaires-- he and his 2 reactionary buddies were sitting around grousing about how normal people don't like millionaires and how unfair it is. Poor babies! But they have it all wrong. It's selfish predators-- not always the same thing-- that normal people don't like.

Now, there is some sense of unfairness that a good-for-nothing clod like Ryan, who's never accomplished a thing in his life and has never had a real job or done anything to merit his great wealth could be sitting around bitching and swilling French wine with 2 sleazy and avaricious hedge fund managers while [t]wo years after the Great Recession officially ended, job prospects for young Americans remain historically grim, primarily due to the policies being pushed by Ryan and his cronies. "More than 17 percent of 16-to-24-year-olds who are looking for work can’t find a job, a rate that is close to a 30-year high. The employment-to-population ratio for that demographic-- the percentage of young people who are working-- has plunged to 45 percent. That’s the lowest level since the Labor Department began tracking the data in 1948. No double pops of Echezeaux Grand Cru for them!

But that kind of natural envy isn't the real problem, of course-- for as much as Ryan and his sleazy pals want to whine about it in their wine. Wall Street's billion dollar unending campaign against regulations are why normal people hate millionaires. It's their relentless activities in rigging the system, activities that include the buying of weak and self-serving political hacks like Paul Ryan. Let's remember what "free enterprise" evangelist and notorious American fascist Lammont DuPont told the National Manufacturers Association in 1942: "We will win the war by reducing taxes on corporations, high income brackets, and increasing taxes on lower incomes, by removing unions from any power to tell industry how to produce, how to deal with their employees or anything else, by destroying any and all government agencies that stand in the way of free enterprise." Free as in free to exploit and cheat everyone else. Yesterday Josh Boak poked around into how Wall Street is continuing DuPont's work today.

Wall Street’s epic battle over financial reforms didn’t end when the Dodd-Frank law was enacted a year ago. It simply shifted from Capitol Hill to the regulatory agencies, with banks claiming the new rules will cripple a hurting economy.

In the first quarter of this year, a record number of companies were lobbying the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

The financial sector shows no sign of retreat, even after suffering a blow last month when Congress refused to delay new limits on “swipe fees” that banks charge to merchants for debit card transactions. That defeat may be less about Wall Street’s weakened political muscle than about the strength of its foes on the issue-- such as Wal-Mart and the National Retail Federation.

“If you want to go after Godzilla, you need to have King Kong,” said Nick Nyhart, president of Public Campaign, a nonprofit that tracks special interest money.

But the banking industry isn’t taking chances. It’s bulking up to take on regulators tasked with enforcing the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The 848-page law approved in response to the financial meltdown mandates a sweeping set of changes-- from stronger consumer protections to new rules on trading derivatives.

...“I think if you listen carefully, the large banks are complaining much louder,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner recently told the House Small Business Committee. “They’re spending a huge amount of money trying to undo, shift the burden and delay the reforms that are targeted at them and their risk taking. They’re spending a huge amount of money trying to block, delay, erode, weaken and walk back.”

Ryan, although a relative newcomer to politics has taken more money from the finance sector than any other politician in the history of Wisconsin. This year, so far, he's added $715,052 in legalistic bribes from the very people he's supposed to be protecting us from. In all, he's taken $2,349,822 in direct cash from banksters, insurance companies and the real estate industry. Is it any wonder that he slavishly serves their agenda even if it means shafting his own constituents in Kenosha, Racine, Janesville and Muskego?