Category: Wanker

Great Googly Moogly: Larry Summers Wants to be Fed Chairman

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It appears that Barney Frank and Chris Dodd have differences in the future course of regulation.

Specifically, Frank favors giving the Federal Reserve the job of managing “systemic risk” under any new regulations, and Dodd thinks that the Fed, with its history of unresponsiveness and opacity is ill suited to the task.

Well, it now appears that much of the smear campaign against Dodd may have come from Larry Summers, who would be first in line to be Federal Reserve chairman if Obama does not reappoint Bernanke, and so he went after Dodd in order to strengthen Frank’s hand in making the Fed the chief regulator.

I’m beginning to think that anyone who has “friend of Robert Rubin” on their resume should be barred from any position of authority.

Un-dirtyword-believable.

What Prima Donnas

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Well, it appears that Senator Evah Bahy’s (DINO-IN) new moderate caucus is getting some pushback from their constituents, and they are crying like a bunch of “girlie men”, to quote the governator.

It appears that Rachel Maddow covered this, and called them “conservadems”, and they are getting some calls from voters in their states telling them to get with the program.

How many calls are they getting?

Maddow’s five-minute “conservadem” segment last Thursday provoked at least 20 calls Monday to Udall’s office and more than a dozen e-mails to Democratic Party headquarters in Colorado.

So now they are crying about how awful people are to them.

Seriously, these folks are used to obstructing progressive programs, and then getting a pat on the head from villagers inside the beltway, but now, with someone pointing them out as trying to stifle change, they get 20 phone calls and more than a dozen emails, and they are whining about how people are mean to them.

Listen, if you suck up to Wall Street, who destroyed our 401(k)s, and you suck up to large food processors, who put poison in our peanuts, because they contribute to your campaign, you deserve whatever flak that you catch.

Cry me a fracking river.

Self-Important Wankers

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It appears that the members of the Washington, DC press corps are miffed because Barack Obama won’t be attending their annual Gridiron dinner:

But some Gridiron veterans make clear they don’t understand. Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page said, “People feel uncommonly saddened, miffed and burned.

“I don’t think he understands the implications of not coming to the club in the first year. It’s not your ordinary state dinner. I think it would be helpful for him and his relations with the Washington establishment to come to the club.”

Mr. Page, by “some people”, you mean “Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page,” and you need to get over yourself.

Beyond bruised feelings among the pundit class, Obama’s snub is a revealing cultural moment.

Gridiron has for decades been an inner sanctum of Washington’s political press corps. The club’s mostly aging members were considered highly prestigious because they said so — and because they had the ability to summon the capital’s political elite to a spring frolic of skits and songs.

But if a young and glamorous president decides he can afford to blow off an august and tradition-bound institution, one has to at least entertain the possibility that this institution may not be quite as august as its members assumed.

It never was anything but a mutual masturbation society.

Obama decided that spending spring break with his girls was more important, so good for him.

What a Little Whiner

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Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase:

Jamie Dimon, chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co., said the U.S. can rescue its banking system by the end of the year if officials start cooperating and stop the “vilification” of corporate America.

“If we act like a dysfunctional family and we don’t finish these things and we’re forever debating them, I think this will go on for several years,” Dimon, 52, said at a conference hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington. “It’s completely up to us at this point.”

Awww…The poor liddle baby…..Someone hurt his feelings.

If I had the power sir, you would be in jail awaiting trial right now, because you are more dangerous than Osama bin Laden.

Not only did you loot this country, but you continue to do so.

Neel Kashkari Shut the Hell Up!

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It appears that the last member of the association of bald white incompetents, Neel “Cash & Carry” Kashkari is warning against excessive “micromanagement” of banks by the government.

Kashkari, the Assistant Treasury Secretary for Financial Stabilization, and a hold over from Hank Paulson, because no one wants to be tarred with the brush of Timothy “Eddie Haskell” Geithner, has decided that it would be a bad thing for US officials to 2nd guess senior bank executives.

Because, you know, they’ve already done such a bang up job in managing their banks…..not!

Greenspan: Fed Didn’t Cause the Housing Bubble

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So, Alan “Bubbles” Greenspan is trying to claim that while he was Fed Chairman, he did nothing to create the housing bubble.

Well, even if it weren’t a Wall Street Journal OP/ED, we would know that this was a lie.

He lowered rates to the bone, endorsed things like CDOs, but he is claiming that since mortgage rates (lending long) drove the home price bubble, and not the Fed Funds rate (lending short), it’s just not his fault.

Except, of course, the good monetarist he is, he always claimed that the Fed Funds rate did have an effect on home mortgage rates, and the low short term rates drove people to real-estate backed securities in search of a decent return.

Furthermore, this had a worldwide effect, because it forced other central banks to lower rates, because otherwise their currencies would have appreciated against the $US, killing their exports.

Then there was his endorsement of ARMs, because housing never went down, and his steadfast refusal to “take away the punch bowl” in bubble markets, because he believed that the markets were perfect….A policy which the Federal Reserve has now explicitly disavowed.

How stupid does he think we are?

I don’t have a degree in economics, and even I get that he is simply spouting gibberish in an attempt to obfuscate his leading role in creating an economy of bubbles, arbitrage, and criminal fraud.

Seriously, did Alan Greenspan get his PhD from a cereal box or something?

Oh…I forgot….He DID get his PhD from the back of a cereal box.

Do Not Reward the Incompetent

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While I’ve heard complaints about the people who campaigned against Proposition 8 in California, I’ve not followed it closely, but the following is unbelievable. Anyone who had anything to do with the “No on 8” campaign should never be hired as a political consultant ever again:

At the forum, Kors said turning the campaign over to the consultants was “a huge mistake.”

Smith also acknowledged that the campaign should have used then-presidential candidate Barack Obama’s stated opposition to Prop 8. Instead, little use was made of Obama’s opposition in a letter last June to the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club, and right before Election Day the Yes on 8 campaign sent out a mailer featuring Obama’s image and quotes that he is opposed to same-sex marriage.

“That was a close call,” Smith said. “Maybe we should have.”

Maybe you should have? Maybe you should have?

This is so phenomenally stupid it beggars the imagination.

Smith said that people outside the Bay Area wouldn’t know what the Alice Club was, but club Co-Chair Susan Christian spoke up and said that in fact, Obama’s letter to the club been widely reported, including in the New York Times.

Win or lose at the California Supreme Court, and the indications are that it will be a lose, this will be on the ballot as an initiative petition in 2010, and job 1 is to ensure that the folks who ran “No on 8” don’t get into positions of authority on this.

See here, here, here, and here for better written outrage.

Enough with the DINOs

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Specifically, Senator Max Baucus (DINO-MT), who thinks that making people pay income tax on their healthcare benefits is preferable to raising taxes on the well-to do:

Currently, the portion of health benefits that are covered by a person’s employer is tax-free income. Baucus said last week that taxing those benefits should be considered. That way, health care reform would be funded with health care dollars.

Baucus says taxing health benefits wouldn’t necessarily be harmful to lower- and middle-class Americans.

If it won’t be harmful, then I’m Karl Rove’s secret love child.

Of course this will harm “lower- and middle-class Americans”. That’s what its intention is: Tax the poor to keep a tax break for the rich.

I understand that you won’t find a flaming liberal representing Montana. I get that, and if he were low on the seniority totem pole, I might let it slide, but he’s 7th in seniority, and so is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

Unfortunately, his next election will be in 2014, but this guy needs to be kept away from the machinery of government to the maximum degree possible.

There is a reason that Baucus is whoring for rich people from one of the poorer states in the nation, as the Wiki notes, 91% of his donations in 2008 came from out of state, so his money comes from bankers, insurance companies, etc., and he is offering them a return on his investment.

Timothy “Eddit Haskell” Geithner and His Evil Minions&trade Have Lost

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James Baker, “chief of staff and Treasury secretary for President Ronald Reagan and secretary of state for President George H.W. Bush,” on his management of the problems of America’s banking giants.

When you have James “Evil Capitalist” Baker saying that you are placing too much faith in private ownership, you have not just jumped the shark, but you have jumped Carcharodon megalodon, and probably an entire school of the prehistoric giant shark….

on a Big Wheel tricycle….

Naked…..

While blowing a slide whistle….

With a clown nose on….

While giving yourself a tattoo…

On your own genitals.

Belgium*, Just Belgium

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Rod Blagojevich gift that keeps on giving, Roland Burris, has launched a web site dedicated to his reelection.

Great googley moogley, please make it stop.

Roland Burris not only thinks that he can win a primary, but that he can win a general, but at this point, I think that Dick Cheney is more likely than he is to win a state wide election in the state of Illinois.

*I mean this in the meaning of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:

Less offensive words have been created in the many languages of the galaxy, such as joojooflop, swut and Holy Zarquon’s Singing Fish.

The use of bad language can have unforseen circumstances. One example is the war between the G’gugvunts and the Vl’hurgs, caused by a casual remark made by Arthur Dent being mistaken as a terrible insult.

Simultaneous Babel Fish translation also means that any being can be rude to any other being without the need for extensive explanations. This has also started many wars.

The reason the Earth has been shunned for so long is also due to a language problem. On Earth, Belgium refers to a small country. Throughout the rest of the galaxy, Belgium is the most unspeakably rude word there is.†

†Rumor has it that this came from Douglas Adams’ experience hitchhiking across Europe. He got where he needed to generally, but not in Belgium, so he had to walk across the whole country.

And Now Republicans Come Out in Favor of Giving AIDS to Children

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If you ever wondered just how immoral the Talibaptist wing of the Republican party is, look no further than state Senator Dave Schultheis (R-Colorado Springs), who is opposed to testing pregnant women for AIDS, because it would lead to treatments to reduce the chance of their children catching the disease, and their children having AIDS is appropriate punishment for their promiscuity.

The frightening thing is that coming from Colorado Springs, home of James Dobson’s Focus on the Family, a significant portion of his constituents likely agree:

  • What he said during the debate: “This stems from sexual promiscuity for the most part and I just can’t go there. We do things continually to remove the consequences of poor behavior, unacceptable behavior, quite frankly. I’m not convinced that part of the role of government should be to protect individuals from the negative consequences of their actions.”
  • What he said afterward: “What I’m hoping is that yes, that person may have AIDS, have it seriously as a baby and when they grow up, but the mother will begin to feel guilt as a result of that. The family will see the negative consequences of that promiscuity and it may make a number of people over the coming years … begin to realize that there are negative consequences and maybe they should adjust their behavior. We can’t keep people from being raped. We can’t keep people from shooting each other. We can’t keep people from jumping off bridges. People drink and drive, and they crash and kill people. Poor behavior has its consequences.”

For all those wankers (that’s you Lord Saletan) who think that we can engage in meaningful negotiations with the abortion criminalization crowd, understand that they want to eliminate all forms of birth control, and re-institute criminal penalties for “fornication”.

In fact, they want to give children AIDS to punish their parents.

You can no more find common ground with them than you can with al Qaeda.

Not This Sh&% Again

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Yes, it’s the gifts that keep on giving, courtesy of Roland Burris and Rod Blagojevich, and not it appears taht Burris “forgot” to mention that Blago’s brother hit him up for a donation before his appointment:

Senator Roland W. Burris of Illinois acknowledged in documents made public Saturday that the brother of former Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich sought campaign fund-raising help from him in the weeks and months before his appointment to succeed Barack Obama as the state’s junior senator.

Mr. Burris said he provided no money to Governor Blagojevich’s campaign in response to the brother’s request.

The disclosure was different from Mr. Burris’s earlier descriptions, including one under oath, of his conversations with those closest to the former governor. It raised new questions about events that preceded Mr. Burris’s unusual appointment in late December and prompted some Republican lawmakers in Illinois to immediately demand an inquiry into whether Mr. Burris committed perjury.

Please, just make it stop.

If Burris had any illusion about running for office in 2010, this needs to stop right now.

On a more personal level, please, just make it stop.

NPR Ombud Sick of Fox News Juan Williams

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Well, the NPR Ombudsman has taken to completely disavowing anything Juan Williams says when he is on Fox News, and has notified her readers that, “NPR’s Vice President of News, Ellen Weiss, has asked Williams to ask that Fox remove his NPR identification whenever he is on O’Reilly.”

You see, when someone says that Michelle Obama has, “this Stokely Carmichael in a designer dress thing going,” people tend to think that he’s not a functioning journalist.

The truth is that he hasn’t been one for a long time, when he led the lynch mob against Anita Hill, and neglected to mention that he had repeated allegations of sexual harassment against him, he stopped being a journalist.

Currently he’s a freelancer, as the ombud made abundantly clear:

His “Stokely Carmichael” comment got the attention of NPR’s top managers. They are in a bind because Williams is no longer a staff employee but an independent contractor. As a contract news analyst, NPR doesn’t exercise control over what Williams says outside of NPR.

When he wasn’t, he was for a brief period on Talk of the Nation, but proved too damn stupid to handle the interviews….The show is on today, and it can still be lame, but he was painful to listen to.

The problem here is not that he’s on Fox News, so is Mara Liasson, it’s that he’s on O’Reilly, and he’s stupid, and he’s very eager to please, you could use Dr. Boyce Watkins term to describe him, but that brings in race, and I think to Fox and O’Reilly, it’s more important that he’s “NPR” than that he’s black.

Not Enough Bullets: The Whole Damn Banking Industry

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Tom Randall, Alex Nussbaum and Peter Robison at Bloomberg News talk about how awful the Obama salary cap for bank executives on the Federal dole is. Their lede:

Eric Langan could run a U.S. bank, based on his $494,713 salary last year, according to President Barack Obama. Langan would rather stay in his job, overseeing 18 strip clubs as chief executive officer of Rick’s Cabaret International Inc.

Well, Mr. Langan actually made a damn profit in 2008.

So they are claiming that $½ million, “may not buy a seasoned executive for a major U.S. financial institution.”

These are the folks who bankrupted the United States, and continue to pay themselves obscene bonuses.

Wanting to hire one of them for your bank is like betting on the Washington Generals when they play the Harlem Globetrotters.

I would also note that Mr. Langan’s job is a lot harder than your senior bank executives. He has to deal with people who stalk the dancers, and how to handle security, and hiring responsible bouncers, etc.

Besides, who is hiring in banking right now.