1600 Butt Hole Road November 15
“Heckuva job Hank, and Congress, and Commander Crapweasel. Heckuva a job giant corporations, and Barak, and John. Heckuva job people who borrowed more money than they could pay, the putrid CEOs who enticed them, and the greed-headed stockholders blinded by juicy dividends.” In hindsight, Brownie - the original “heckuva” job guy - was positively brilliant with his handling of hurricane Katrina compared to those who organized our Million Man March to PovertyTM. Can the Rescue Package be rescued?
The original idea of a bailout wasn’t great, but it made the best of an abysmal situation. It was clear we were in for some terrifically bad financial juju. Let things go and there would be financial ruin for hundreds of companies and thousands of people, pass the money bucket and we’d be paying for it for decades to come and the financial ruin would happen any way. As they say, “All the king’s limos and all the king’s economists couldn’t put Humpty back together again.”
Evil Simon Bar Sinisters
Nothing about this crisis was handled well. George the octogenarian bank guard of Mayberry National Bank slept while evil Simon Bar Sinisters looted the vault. An over-compliant Congress was perfectly bipartisan in regulating nothing and overseeing even less. Greedy CEOs, who just had to have one more $1 million pedicure, kept lending money to people with the mistaken impression that credit was free and no one would ever want it back - with lots and lots of interest. And double damn the CEOs for treating the bailout money as a windfall profit. You are beggars and beggars can’t be choosy. Just ask one of the people who won’t have a place to live after you repossess their now worthless home.
Clearly the current package is worse than worthless. It’s time to stop handing out new handouts until Congress can create actual rules for who lives, who perishes, and exactly what they should do and not do with the money. Not a single lobbyist should be involved in this exercise and the new bill shouldn’t have single crumb of pork on it. The Bushies should give up on the idea they are majestic monarchs who can do whatever the hell they like whenever they like. The recipients must agree to adhere to all the rules stipulated in their bailout payoffs and if they spend one nickel on something not authorized, demand the money back whether it sinks them or not. And the first politician who starts to play partisan games should be taken out back of the Capitol and summarily shot. If you’re not helping, you’re part of the problem. That means you Hank Paulson.
Not Even Paper Clips
There will be hard choices. Fair or not, innocent taxpayers will get the shaft. Some mortgage holders will be homeless through their own poor decisions and the lenders’ complicity. Some companies, possibly entire industries, will fail. Stockholders won’t get a penny and companies will buy nothing, not even paper clips, with the money.
If anyone thinks this problem will go away or be significantly lessened within the next few years, hire a shrink - you’re flying one too many times over the cuckoo-cuckoo’s nest. And for those in the throes of rapture with The Anointed OneTM, don’t expect him to walk on any water. He ain’t God, despite what you think, and the man might drown in the process. And the next time someone whines that zero regulation is the answer to all problems great and small, fling the silly bastard off the rim of an active volcano before they further drain an already shallow American gene pool.
I’m a rational sort, so I know little to none of this tough love will happen and that leaves me with only one hope. Even though I’m not a believer, there better be a God willing to put some thunderbolts up some well-cushioned asses. If not, there’s only one thing left to do.
Buy butt-loads of Vaseline, because we are well and truly screwed.
The Poobah is a featured contributor at Bring It On!
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CV Nov 15
I find it irritating that we, the media and the government’s talking lackeys, seem to be measuring the success and health of our economy by what the DOW Jones is doing. Not only that, but now every one else who is struggling is lining up looking for a piece of the big government give away. Great article.
William R. Barker Nov 15
A most excellent and on-target rant!
Basically, you hit the nail on the head with your sure to be proved accurate analysis that “none of this tough love will happen.”
Nope. No hope at all. Bush and the RINO former Congresses 2001-2007 created a huge mess and Obama and the Left wing Democrats who will be in control of Congress till at least 2011, more likely 2013, and perhaps longer than that will steer the American Ship of State full speed ahead - in the wrong direction.
Hey folks… Republicans and Democrats, liberals and Conservatives… how’d ya like the past two “Pelosi/Reid” years? Did switching from Republicrat government to Dempublicanism work out as Nancy, Harry, and their allies in the MSM told us it would back in 2006 when men and women of good will were willing to cut our noses off to spite our faces? (Which I did btw - re-registered as a Democrat in the spring ‘06 and voted to fire my RINO congresswoman in November of that year.)
So, seriously… anyone think we’re better off after having moved from the frying pan in ‘06 to jumping into the fire in ‘07?
Here’s the problem: Pretty much everything that Bush and the RINO contingent did wrong - Obama and the Democrats will accelerate counterproductive actions.
Bush and the RINO Congresses spent like drunk’n sailors… (What can I say? I’m fond of cliches!)… you ain’t seen NOTHING yet!!!
So, yeah… we’re screwed.
BILL
daveawayfromhome Nov 15
Unfortunately, spending is precisely what the gov’t needs to do right now. Not on the stuff it’s currently spending on, but it definitely needs to spend.
That means a bigger deficit. It also means that when things finally get better, taxes will have to go up.
For Everyone.
Too bad Republicans didnt save when times were good, but what are you going to do?
Too bad also that Pelosi and Reid arent actually Democrats (or are Democrats that are actually working in league with Republicans; either one), because otherwise they might have done something different from what BushCo wanted, which is the last place a sane person would turn to for any answer.
My current paranoid theory: Republicans allowed the Democrats to win this election, but Congress (under the same leadership that has stood up so valiantly to the Bush Administration during the last year and a half) will make sure that Obama is shackled against any real progress, assuring a Republican sweep in 2012, after which Pelosi and Reid will retire to cushy lobbying jobs and reap the millions they “earned” by betraying the wishes of the Democrats who voted for them.
Or maybe we could just wait and see what happens.
* * *
As a side note, Pooby, where’s your pet troll? Did it get bored and run off already?
Omnipotent Poobah Nov 17
Dave,
He’s still yammering away on the original post. I like to poke him with a stick, but this one’s so easy there’s no sport in it.