Whatever
This will never work:
UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called for a new “social contract” with the world’s banks to make them more responsible to society.Mr Brown told a G20 meeting in Scotland it was not acceptable that banking success was reaped by the few but failure was “borne by all of us”.
He called for a fund for future bank bailouts to be considered, possibly paid for by a tax on transactions.
Brown seems to fail to understand a few things. First, contracts, social and otherwise, are for the little people. That is why the bankruptcy bill was passed a few years back at the behest of the industry- to keep the proles in line and to guarantee the banks can bleed you dry- while trillions in unmentioned loans and guarantees and bailout bucks are thrown to the banks when they shit the bed. They screw up, we give them trillions, they lavish themselves with bonuses. It is the circle of life in our own global corruptocracy.
Second, privatizing the profit and socializing the costs was not an accident, it was the plan. Go read McClatchy’s recent series on this.
Third, the fund will not work, because the banks will just buy off enough Senators and congressmen to waive the rules as they did for fees during the last decade. And should they actually be required to put some money in a fund, not only will the charges be passed on to us so we can get hit both ways with higher banking fees and taxes spent on propping these robbers up, but then once the money is in the “fund,” you can;t just have it sitting there, can you? You will have to invest it in something! And then you can write unregulated CDS on that, and then you can write some more CDS on the CDS, and you see where this is going, with the inevitable next round of hoocoodanode. Goldman and a few others, with their tentacles deep into the higher reaches of government, will no doubt survive and prosper, and we will be treated to months of sycophants and useful idiots explaining we just don’t truly understand how smart the Goldman guys are. “Best of the best! They know what they are doing!” They sure do…
Nothing short of breaking up all the large banks, executing the credit ratings agencies, and then a strict and ruthless enforcement regime will help, and there simply is no willpower for that. Not only is there no willpower for this, as both parties are bought and paid for in full, but if there was any movement on this front, wingnut teabaggers would scream about socialism and tyranny, Reason magazine would scream about government involvement in the private sector and the free flow of capital and the glory of the invisible hand, moderate Democrats everywhere would worry about such public involvement, Joe Lieberman would spend months posturing in front of cameras with a furrowed brow, and whoever was tasked with enforcement would be found in bed with a hooker or whatever else is required to destroy them.
In short, we’re just screwed. Learn your place, deal with it, and learn how to grow food. Watching the way the big money boys have shaped the debate, whipping people who would be helped into a froth about socialism, it just seems so clear to me now after spending the last two decades in a haze. “Sorry unemployment is at 10 percent and you are losing your health insurance while I give myself a couple million dollar bonus, but socialism and Hitler and abortion on demand and death tax oh my God two gay men want the same rights as you! SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE! SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE!”
Such a joke.
/dirtyfuckinghippy
4tehlulz
If health reform is like Dachau, does that make bank regulators are like the Einsatzgruppen?
Edwin
You’re growing up. Soon you’ll stop watching TV.
jeffreyw
Same as it ever was.
Aimai
Jeesus John what did Terri schiavo’ s best friends do to you? You’ve gone alll the way over to my side with barely a pause.
Aimai
Little Dreamer
@Aimai:
Shhh! Watch and be amazed, HAL is learning. ;)
Vince CA
Wow. I want to tell all will be alright, but all I can think of is offering you tomato and basil-growing tips. Save your seeds!
Seanly
John – welcome to the dark side. I try not to get too worked up about the banking/financial industry. Figure I’ll drown from the quickening global warming first…
HRA
Absolutely right.
What really gets me is the example of a relative and his spouse who have recently begun bankrupcy #4. Granted #4 says they have to pay all creditors and can keep their home and cars. Yet, they failed to keep up their mortgage payments for the last 3 months. The SOS has been sent out to family to no avail. Everyone has been there and done that. The lesson learned is they need to change their ways and no one can do it for them. It’s a lesson for everyone.
cleek
show me on the doll where Goldman Sacks touched you.
Leelee for Obama
@cleek: Evil! Aproposm but evil.
Leelee for Obama
Apropos! not m, it was supposed to be a comma. Edit, where art thou?
Leelee for Obama
@Seanly: This is pure gold, seanly. I just can’t believe how much things just completely suck. And, mind you, I never really thought there was a chance I’d be rich, so this is a let-down from I always thought I’d just get by.
Not gonna happen, is it?
General Winfield Stuck
I want a short wave radio for Christmas
Cat Lady
This is great news for conservatives. Really.
khead
G Fund. I trust the govt’s imaginary numbers more than the bankers’ imaginary numbers.
And the HOA police would go batshit if we tried to grow some food next to the townhouse. So, that’s out.
Poopyman
Bravo! Like everyone else said,welcome to the dark side. Only thing I would change is drop the slash-dfh, ‘cause there will be no end to your attitude.
Trust me on this one.
Poopyman
Yep. An endless supply of red meat, so at least they’ve got that.
PeakVT
Bring back the Eis…. oh, it’s futile, isn’t it?
/grump in need of coffee
Svensker
@cleek:
Ha ha ha. FTW.
GReynoldsCT00
@cleek:
coffee meet monitor… LOL
dmsilev
Come over to the Dark Side, John. Let the anger flow through you.
It’ll be fun. Haven’t you ever wanted to strangle someone with your thoughts?
-dms
GReynoldsCT00
We’d probably have a lot more peace of mind if we did live this way… yeah, yeah, commune, hippie… but it would be a winger-free zone
tripletee
@cleek:
Win.
clone12
cleek wins
Seriously, if this does not become a BJ meme then there is no justice in the world.
Chad N Freude
@clone12: Total agreement! Beyond total! This must happen, and I will carry a sign with a photograph of hundreds of dead bankers who jumped from skyscraper windows to the rally where we demand this be done
Just Some Fuckhead
@cleek: lolz
Poopyman
And another Internet Tradition is born.
Little Dreamer
@cleek:
I would like to nominate this for Comment of the Year.
cleek
i am flattered, y’all. but i can’t take complete credit for that.
it’s already a meme.
General Winfield Stuck
@cleek:
An honest man./ You’ll never get elected that way.
Freem & Moxy 4 eva
Spot on JC.
Cerberus
Living in Europe has really brought home how critical an energized socialist or communist presence in politics is for everyone’s better. It’s not even they are right, but that they serve as a check against massive corporate greed so that at least basic rights and necessary measures can be taken without the airwaves drowned in the whine of libertarians.
In America, I still think the most brilliant action by the right-wingers wasn’t buying the media post-Nixon, but successfully dismantling socialism in America by black-lists and propaganda to the point that people will bend over backwards to avoid being called a socialist.
The liberal smear, the liberal media campaign, the capitalism is always right, free market breeds freedom, and etc… campaigns would never have succeeded if they didn’t dismantle the socialist infrastructure that in every other nation counters these insane grabs for power.
I’m not sure what can be done short-term, but if we can manage to survive that long, in the long-term, this problem will be solved about as organically as the gay marriage issue. More and more kids are born in a post-Soviet world and thus random appeals to the evils of socialism are bizarre to them, thus more and more kids are willing to call themselves socialist or leftist or at least not flinch when something is called socialist or cheer just because something is capitalist. Eventually the old people who are still traumatized by their duck-and-cover drills will be all dead and it’ll start getting a lot harder for the money interests to rile up a prop base.
Royston Vasey
Some relevant quotes for John:
I sense something. A presence I’ve not felt since…
The Force is strong with this one.
The Force is what gives a DFH his power. It’s an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.
plus this one from an old wise creature:
“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
RV
“People do not care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
Cerberus
ah balls, moderation.
aimai
No, but really Cleek, you still deserve all the credit for the sheer timing of it. I agree that it should become an instant Balloon Juice entry tag.
aimai
Chad N Freude
@cleek: Too much modesty. It’s the Goldman Sachs reference that makes it special.
Michael
Time to send around recipes for how one can properly prepare banker meat for cooking.
cleek
@aimai:
ok. if you insist.
sfHeath
Love to read this. Really interested. Link?
General Winfield Stuck
Twenty years ago, if someone had told me I’d be watching C-Span on a Saturday afternoon some day, I would have busted a gut laughing, then punched them in the neck.
Ya just never know which way the worm will turn.
Steeplejack
@sfHeath:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/77791.html
superking
The problem with the “best of the best” argument is that the best people aren’t motivated by money. People who are strongly motivated by money will do anything to get it. I hope I’m not the first person to point this out.
Genine
John, that was a great rant to wake up to.
Cleek, that comment at #9 had me laughing so hard, it took me a while to be able to type. And while it was already a meme, I have to agree with Chad that the Goldman Sachs made it a win!
Just Some Fuckhead
@Michael: First, with the banker face down, and using a sharp knife, make an incision down the length of the banker’s back being sure to cut all the way through the tough fabric of the Kiton suit. Remove the expensive outerwear..
General Winfield Stuck
Looks like the House wingnuts are invoking the Land Shark Rule for debate. I Object.
mogden
Banks are the most hated companies in the land, and yet, their remorseless consumption of our resources via their cronies in government continues apace.
Michael
Here’s a fun thought from a drunken muse last evening – if the lazy way is the way to go and markets rule, why do we even need the executives around? It isn’t as if they add any value…..
b-psycho
@Cerberus: “Airwaves drowned in the whines of libertarians”? What have you been listening to? All I’ve heard is corporate-statist ball-lickers.
Then again…shit, if the association of libertarianism with these contradictory morons is so tight that anyone who is skeptical of the State because it inevitably is and will always be used as a tool by the well-connected & wealthy to fuck the rest of the population—when not committing murder, of course—has to explain the distinction or be lumped in with reverse-soshulists and dismissed, then maybe we should drop the term & stick with “anarchist”.
Mike G
The problem with the “best of the best” argument is that the best people aren’t motivated by money.
Big money attracts the biggest assholes.
phantomist
Lets see here.
Buy small island and stick a flag and a P.O. Box on said island. We call it Taxfree Havenasia. Secretly stash all money in an offshore account there.
Market falls 1%, boo hoo, we’re broke. Claim all OUR fucking money from Brownies fail safe fund.
Next Monday in a surprise announcement Taxfree Havenasia decides to put all it’s money in Goldman’s high-net-worth private client services unit for them use as it will.
Getting the flag will be the hard part.
gypsy howell
John, can you make cleek’s comment a tag?
Sean
-Molly Ivins, July 2006
Molly, where are you when we need you?
-S
Rick Taylor
Yesterday at the community college I teach at, the science department got together at the request of administration to discuss possible proposals where we could cut. What quickly became obvious was there wasn’t much fat, and everything we proposed to meet the targets legislature is asking for seemed unthinkable. I think the best idea was to just close the campus for the summer; we’re running numbers on it, but of course we lose income as well doing that.
The right wing has successfully brainwashed the public into thinking that government is full of fat. We can cut our taxes, and it’s only the obstinacy of the legislature that would prevent us from losing services as a result. That’s what drives movements like the one that passed prop 13 here. And yet, at the same time we here cries of porkulus, we look over to the lean highly efficient capitalist big businesses, and there they’re lavishing multi-million dollar bonuses on themselves. . . and now we’re all paying for them. And the media elite who love to talk about “sacrifice” and living within our means opine how this is necessary for them to run efficiently.
I’m slack jawed that through all this, when you think you’d be seeing the populace carrying torches and pitchforks through the streets, somehow they’ve managed to keep the anger focused on Acorn and health care.
Alan
That’s a feature, not a bug. The Teabaggers considers ignorance to be the highest possible virtue, and the corporate overlords depend on an uneducated populace. Any policy which undermines the public education system that the proles depend on is considered a net benefit in Rightwingistan.
And looking back over the language in the previous paragraph, I am once again amazed at how radicalized I have become over the last 10 years.
William
This is the most righteous screed to ever scree on a screen. I am in slack-jawed awe.
Later on I will be scared that you are entirely right, but for now I’m just going to sit hear and appreciate your craftsmanship.
Dr. Morpheus
True, but when confronted about where the supposed waste is Rightards inevitably point to (on the State level, that is), any and all social services.
From their perspective the government should only consist of law enforcement bodies and absolutely nothing else.
So, you see, there is a lot of fat to be cut yet. /snark
chrome agnomen
if we could just convince the rednecks that the bankers are all running abortion clinics, maybe they would shoot them.
chrome agnomen
@Michael:
after you trim off the waste, there’s really nothing left.
MNPundit
@Cerberus: Your team over there isn’t covering itself in glory either you know.
And it wasn’t hard, there was never a real socialist presence in the country to kick down.
R-Jud
Cole: “Brown seems to fail to understand a few things.”
Understatement of the century.
Calouste
@R-Jud:
It won’t work in the States, but Europe, and specially countries like France and Germany have a somewhat different relationship between the government and the private sector, and the FIRE sector isn’t as big there compared to the US and the UK. Germany and France came out of the recession a few months ago, the US and the UK aren’t really close yet.
Xecky Gilchrist
privatizing the profit and socializing the costs was not an accident, it was the plan.
Thank you for not using the “feature, not a bug” cliché.
Nathanael
What you forget is that Gordon Brown is in the UK.
Their politics is pretty messed up but not NEARLY as messed up as in the US. So he may actually be able to pass everything he described—in the UK.
Nathanael
“I think the best idea was to just close the campus for the summer; we’re running numbers on it, but of course we lose income as well doing that.”
How about running “teach-ins” about unionization, cooperative forms of ownership, and methods of lobbying the state government? :-) That might be the most productive response. And damn, you know that’s what business would do.