Monday, March 17, 2008
Dear wingnuts: Don't talk to me about "welfare."
Dear right-wing, free market capitalist: The next time you start whining to me about parasitic leech "welfare bums" who end up at the public teat because of their irresponsible financial decisions, I will kill you.
Feel free to interpret that metaphorically if you want.
DEAN BAKER SPEAKS: You listen.
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I love this line:
By the way, Mr. Greenspan is still at it: accepting no blame, he continues to insist that “market flexibility and open competition” are the “most reliable safeguards against cumulative economic failure.”
Ignorant wankers. I suppose gasoline is good for fires, too.
Oh it is. And fiddling helps ships stay afloat!
Greenspan has a funny idea what a free market is...I mean he seems to think its "internalize the profits, socialize the losses" kind of corporate welfare.
Or corporatism, if you prefer. That is the proper name for it.
I thought the "free market" meant you were supposed to suffer losses too.
I would like to point out something that you apparently have not thought of or did not know.
The ultimate reason the state regulates the business of insurance is not to keep rates low, but to keep rates high.
The key word is "adequate." The rate has to be high enough to pay losses when they occur.
If you let insurance companies compete for business on the basis of price, there is a danger their rates will not be "adequate." In the US, we learned this lesson the hard way.
The reason insurance companies could not bail out homeowners who lost homes from Katrina floodwaters is that flood damage was not included in the rate base, since flood insurance, in the United States is a separate product, sold only by an agency of the US Government. If regular insurance companies had paid damages for flood damage post-Katrina, the companies would not have had the assets to indemnify for future covered losses.
Okay, we thought we had learned the lesson. What we have today, as in "Monday, March 17, 2008," is a US Government insurance program covering losses — BareSterns — outside the rate base. Thirty million here, thirty million there, it's nothing. But if you have money in a US insured bank, take notice that the rate base, as of today, is inadequate to cover the projected losses, i. e., when consumer banks start going under, there isn't going to be enough left to hold consumers harmless. In Bushland, we call that "restoring confidence in the banking sector."
Damned welfare queens in their welfare mansions with their welfare private jets, islands and yachts!
I guess it's just a question of time before the ReichWing starts yelling "George Soros, George Soros...
sorry - that was me - I screwed up my previous comment...
Paladiea: "Oh it is. And fiddling helps ships stay afloat!"
I thought that's what deck chairs were for.
Crabby! How was Mexico? I believe you still owe me ...
I thought that's what deck chairs were for.
Yes rearranging deck chairs also works!
Does anyone know if the Boyz@Bear Stearns have to give up their trillion dollar bonuses?
"You know the reason they did it this way was because, if Bear Stearns had to declare bankruptcy, you'd realize that Bear Stearns paid out billions of dollars in bonuses in January - six weeks ago. If he let them go into bankruptcy, they all would have had to send back their bonuses."
Found the answer out myself...
There's nothing that fascinates me more than the psychology of the economist. Apparently, they're the most self-interested people among our professional class.
I find that interesting.
Anyway, instead of killing anyone, maybe we can just dig up the corpse of Milton Friedman and do a macabre puppet show with it, or something.
LuLu, Mexico was great, thank you. I even got to meet a policeman.
On the way home I managed to leave my moderately nice camera on a plane. It hasn't been recovered yet, at least not by anyone interested in talking to me about it.
I will do my best to honour the tag very soon, but must warn you that I really am a lazy bastard.
Hey, that's one item already! WOOT.
A policeman? Crabby, you weren't doing anything that required police intervention while in Mexico .... were you?
Hey, that could be another item on your list.
I find it more than a little amusing that all the laissez-fairies in BT-Land are willfully avoiding this story… Curious that, isn’t it?
Heh. Laissez-fairies....have to remember that. I'm thinking the economists should stop referring to it as "the invisible hand" and just call it "God." I'm not sure that's not what most of them mean, anyway...
Patsy will probably accuse me of being "homophobic" for that little play on words.
But yep, you got it... Adam Smith's "invisible hand" does indeed translate into... GOD! (aka MAGIC!) in the minds of people who thoughtlessly use that expression.
As I've tediously pointed out before, it actually appears but once in The Wealth of Nations and only then as a reference to a sort of protectionist imperative. Not quite as sexy... but that's the fact.
southern quebecc sez:
"Bear Stearns paid out billions of dollars in bonuses in January - six weeks ago. If he let them go into bankruptcy, they all would have had to send back their bonuses."
It's far, far worse than 90-day preferential transfers. For insiders, the period is one year.
Furthermore, a trustee in bankruptcy could just go through BareStearns books for the year preceding the filing in bankruptcy and start setting aside transfers right and left, wherever it appeared BareStearns gave someone a sweetheart deal to STFU.
It's almost like the US Government is trying to conceal criminal fraud.
I'm shocked! Simply shocked, I tell you...
bs top execs slashed bonuses for '07, and forewent any for themselves. here's an interesting take on how the deprival was spun.
KEvron
Those recommending a bail out hardly believe in "free markes", I don't care who they represent. It is essential in a free market that people bear the costs of their mistakes.
"how the deprival was spin" might be more accurate....
KEvron
It is essential in a free market that people bear the costs of their mistakes.
You mean like these folks? Apparently, they made "mistakes"... So piss on 'em, the lousy, stupid fuckers. God bless the "free market"!
Ensnared in the dodgy legal system of another country? Well, YOU went there! Nobody forced you. Get suckered into a sub-prime mortgage with the glowing media hype that housing prices couldn't possibly do anything but continue to rise... More fool YOU!
Compassionate Conservatives '08!
Oh, and remember... Caveat emptor!
It is essential in a free market that people bear the costs of their mistakes.
I'll be sure to remind you of your oh-so-sympathetic attitude should you ever find yourself in a perilous financial situation, Rabbit. Which no one, including you, is immune to should the economy take a nose dive.
As Red said, compassionate conservatism at its best.
It was a perfect plan. Most of these borrowers are in the 18-35 age group.
Now they have their pool of draftees for the attack on Iran.
Recall that it only took 8 months from inauguration to get a war going. They still have oh, 8 months till the election, and 10 until inauguration.
LuLu: "A policeman? Crabby, you weren't doing anything that required police intervention while in Mexico .... were you?"
No, no, of course not. But oddly, the policeman had a different take on it, and thought that intervention was required. And then I learned that talking to a policeman and coming to an agreement in Mexico is a lot like buying a silver bracelet with turquoise inlay, or a genuine Cuban cigar or a sun hat with a party theme. The price is to a large extent a function of what you actually have in your wallet, or maybe more correctly what you say you have in your wallet.
But I digress. Oh, no, wait. I actually don't.
But now I have to go help my daughter with linear relationships.
And I still owe six fun facts.
You mean you Cadman'ed the cop?
Yes, totally Cadmanned him, but you know he wanted it.
As I am growing fond of saying, WOOT. Or perhaps better, WÖÖT.
"Cadmanning" only refers to a bribe offered that is not called a bribe. Whether accepted or not is outside the scope of the definition.
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