Bush Era Financial Scandals Still Have Plenty Of Legs
>

Another absolutely direct legacy of Republican economic policies and conservative political ascendancy: so far this year 72 banks have failed, costing the taxpayers of this country $16.58 billion. But watch the shiny object over there making strange noises and drooling on herself. And the latest bank to fail, Alabama-based Colonial Bank, was raided last week and is being investigated for criminal accounting irregularities.
A friend sent me a blurb from yesterday's NY Post: "Harry Markopolos -- the whistleblower on Bernie Madoff who proved to be much smarter than the SEC -- says there are evildoers out there who will make the Ponzi scum "look like small-time." Markopolos gave a speech to 400 of the faithful at the Greek Orthodox Church in Southampton and predicted major scandals will soon be revealed about the unregulated, $600 trillion, credit-default swap market. 'To put it in simple terms, it is like buying fire insurance policies from five different insurance companies on your neighbor's house and then burning down the house,' he said."
I have no reason to believe that the criminal activities at Colonial Bank and the criminal activities Markopolos is describing in relation to the very shady credit-default swap market are related directly. How they are related, however, is by the excesses of purposefully unregulated, market-worshipping predatory capitalism foisted on society by... predatory capitalists via the media outlets and politicians they own (and the 'tards who get suckered in by the combination). As president of a division of AOLTimeWarner, I ran a large corporation. As part of the massive rip-off that was the Bush Era, the CEO and his cronies pillaged the company and absconded with as much as $6 billion, leaving the company, essentially, well down the road to failure and bankruptcy. It is an extremely convenient and self-serving tenet of conservatism that government can't do anything right. [Please see update below.] Government may indeed get things wrong-- especially government run by conservatives themselves, as the Cheney-Bush Regime just proved-- but government is not necessarily less competent than private industry. And the motivation of selfish and unbounded enrichment is not a tenet of government, the way it is of predatory capitalism.
Let me turn to the book I've quoted from so much this summer, Mike Lux's The Progressive Revolution:
The only big arguments remaining for conservatives are their old standbys, fear and the contention that government doesn't work, for which, ironically, their own failures provide the most powerful evidence. In fact, ever since the Katrina disaster, conservatives have said that what Katrina proves is that government is incompetent. They cynically use their own ineptitude to argue their philosophical point. When your most powerful argument is your own incompetence, you don't have a very strong hand.
One of the overarching themes in the teabagger demonstrations is that government can't get anything right. They are demonstrably wrong and simply mouthing propaganda from the self-serving corporatocracy. If you want to look for society's villains, regulators under Bush's conservative and purposely incompetent government may not have found Bernie Madoff stealing billions from investors, but it wasn't government stealing the billions. Like in the case of Colonial Bank unfettered greed is what has brought our economy to its knees, not Big Government.
UPDATE: Government Can't Do Anything Right
Have you ever argued with a dittohead or brother-in-law about this oft-repeated canard. This sweet refutation came in the mail this morning. Pass it along if you'd like:
This morning you were awoken by your alarm clock (powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy). You then took a shower (in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility). After that, you turned on the TV (to one of the FCC regulated channels) to see what the national weather service (of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration) determined the weather was going to be like (using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration). You watched this while eating your breakfast of (US Department of Agriculture inspected) cereal and taking your blood pressure medication (which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration).
At the appropriate time (as regulated by the US Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory), you get into your (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved) automobile and set out to work (on the roads build by the local, state, and federal departments of transportation), possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel (of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency), paying in cash (legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank). On the way out the door you deposit any mail you have to be sent out (via the US Postal Service) and drop the kids off at (public) school.
After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work (thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration), enjoying another two meals (which again do not kill you because of the USDA), you drive your (NHTSA) car back home (on the DOT roads), to your house (which has not burned down in your absence because of the state and local building codes and fire marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all it's valuables thanks to the local police department).
You then log on to the internet (which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration) and post on www.freerepublic.com, www.redstate.com and fox news forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right.
The only reason government doesn't work is because conservative Republican administrations defunded and/or patronage staffed them with people with ties to special business interests: to wit the last FDA, Dept of Interior and Agriculture under Bush. No one seems to have a problem with pumping over $500Bil to the Defense Department, which last I heard is a socialized entity.
Labels: credit-default swaps, Harry Markopolos, Madoff, predatory capitalism
6 Comments:
They want it all. We don't matter, as long as we let them bleed us.
One can only hope that Nazi Bastard Jeff Sessions had his slimy fingers in Colonial Bank...and it comes to light.
Whenever the fox is allowed to run the hen house, there will be a few hens missing...in this case all of our S.S. money has been stolen and the country's financial system is left in ruins.
But the, like minded, idiots cannot fathom such a catastrophe being caused by ideology (idocracy)and refuse to acknowledge this failure.
eDWARd
nike dunk low dark obsidian voltage light charcoal light 1280
nike dunk low flint grey white dark obsidian varsity red 1278
nike dunk low hemp pinkfire ii gum light brown 1301
nike dunk low hulk 1259
nike dunk low light melon citron bright peach vivid pink 1264
nike dunk low medium grey white black 1251
nike dunk low natural carrot natural gum light brown 1247
nike dunk low sail metallic platinum ice grn glacier ice 1310
nike dunk low sail sail metallic chino splash 1311
nike dunk low splash yellow ochr powder blue dark mrn 1272
nike dunk low sport red white white black 1273
nike dunk low university blue obsidian white 1241
nike dunk low varsity purple white black 1252
nike dunk low varsity red varsity red metallic silver 1256
nike dunk low varsity red varsity red white black 1291
nike dunk low varsity royal varsity maize white 1312
nike dunk low white black midnight fog 1263
nike dunk low white light chocolate berry solar orange 1248
nike dunk low white metallic silver 1267
nike dunk low white perfect pink obsidian metallic silver 1266
nike dunk low white pro cyan tour yellow vivid pink 1268
nike dunk low white white black neutral grey 1282
nike dunk low white white varsity red university blue 1265
nike dunk low wicked purple black metallic gold 1239
nike dunk low cl anthracite abyss black alabaster 1288
nike dunk low cl baroque brown vivid pink white 1287
nike dunk low cl black electrolime white 1285
nike dunk low cl black sail 1286
nike dunk low cl dark obsidian newsprint mrcry grey ml 1302
nike dunk low cl dark obsidian white 1279
nike dunk low cl hyper blue hyper blue voltage metallic platinum 1255
nike dunk low cl medium grey white aster pink 1240
nike dunk low cl medium grey white 1315
nike dunk low cl olive khaki nbl green black alabaster 1299
nike dunk low cl reed boulder chile red cly green 1293
nike dunk low cl tar boulder cocoa vivid blue 1292
nike dunk low cl tar orange blaze varsity red sl 1269
nike dunk low cl tweed anthracite tourmaline gum med brown 1318
nike dunk low cl urban haze baroque brown anthracite 1317
nike dunk low cl varsity purple anthracite medium grey 1313
nike dunk low cl white dark obsidian metallic gold 1245
nike dunk low cl white sail 1289
nike dunk low cl white team red black 1316
nike dunk low cl white white hoop orange 1308
nike dunk low cl hemp edition ironstone army olive lt bone 1260
nike dunk low halloween edition white bright cactus black 1290
nike dunk low nke dark cinder black 1300
nike dunk low nke khaki light bone new redwood 1306
nike dunk low nke medium brown light bone lt chocolate 1307
nike dunk low nke midnight fog volt white metallic silver 1277
nike dunk low nke white new redwood anthracite 1305
nike dunk low nke white walnut black industrial blue 1304
nike dunk low pemium notebook edition black black white university blue 1295
nike dunk low premium black black sail 1276
Post a Comment
<< Home