The mortgage meltdown is a perfect opportunity for the left to use the shock doctrine. It has real people scared and angry, and it's a chance to leverage that fear and anger and direct it at the right targets. It's an opportunity to re-balance the financial markets and our economy in more worker, consumer friendly ways. Of course, that wouldn't necessarily be very unifying with Republicans. But it would be good for the country.

A gardening blog, that's the ticket. Lots of root vegetables. So I can eat, next winter...

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

January 2009 can't come quick enough, can it? Will it even matter who sits in the White House? I don't see much spine on the Senate Banking Committee and House Committee on Financial Services, do you? Where's the uproar? Maybe we are getting all bipartisany...

Chris Dodd: http://banking.senate.gov/public/index.c...

The Blueprint plan will receive a thorough review by the Congress, as do all efforts to make government more efficient and effective. But on first glance, it has serious flaws:

On the one hand, it would allow the Fed to examine all financial companies -- not just banks -- to be sure they are not posing a risk to the overall financial system. On the other hand, it fails to realize that the Fed helped create this crisis by ignoring the red flags as far back as five years ago. It does not make sense to give a bigger shovel to the very people who helped dig us into this hole.

Similarly, on the one hand, it would reduce the fragmentation and balkanization that has often encouraged regulators to compete with each other by weakening rather than strengthening regulation. ON THE OTHER HAND, IT WOULD CREATE WEAKER STANDARDS TO PROTECT INVESTORS AND CONSUMERS. Again, that does not seem sensible in light of the beating investors and consumers are taking at the moment.

Barney Frank says: http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/fin...

"We have not yet analyzed the proposals in detail, and I have disagreements with some specifics—e.g. the plan goes too far in diminishing the role of the states, and not far enough in conferring needed new powers on the Federal Reserve over non-bank financial institutions for which they now have greater responsibility.

"But given the fact that is a contribution to a profound national discussion that cannot be concluded in the months before the election, Secretary Paulson has performed an important service. By rejecting the argument for the status quo; by making it clear that new regulation done properly enhances the function of the market rather than detracts from it; and by explicitly including consumer protection among the core functions of the system he proposes, he has narrowed, albeit by no means removed, the differences between his position and that of many Democrats.

I want to see some outrage!

I used to represent broker/dealers before the SEC and that was before the Bush administration. The industry is capitalism on steroids. I used to refer to it as economic darwinism, if some broker you've never met cold calls you and tells you if you send him $5,000, he'll make you a millionaire and then you send him the $5,000... Well, either you think he's a crook, but he's a crook who will make you money or you're too stupid to have the money (and by stupid, I mean you know less about markets and investing than the broker). The result, of course, is that money moves away from the weak, those less sophisticated about markets and to the predatory, not because of any contribution to society or because they need it. They take it because they can. We used to believe - and some of us still do - that a good culture, a decent society doesn't allow the strong to come through and use all of their advantages to mug the weak. And we used to think - and some of us still do - that evening out the playing field was the job of the government.

The interesting thing about the Big Shit Pile is that the predatory behavior that is normally reserved for suckers like us, has spread to other industry members. Sure, it starts out mugging home owners or other borrowers, but then those loans get repackaged into "complicated financial products" - e.g., something even other professionals can't figure out - and sold to a firm, now playing the role of sucker, down the Street. That's one of the things causing the credit crisis - none of the financial institutions trust each other, they're afraid their colleagues are going to stick them with Big Shit pile.

They're eating their own. Which is why it's an excellent time for a liberal shock doctrine - there will be some on Wall Street who will support at least some of it, because they're afraid this time they're in the sucker class and because they desperately want and need to be bailed out. In theory, we're in a pretty good negotiating position. The problem is that our chief negotiators, the Administration, want to give the store away, not protect it.

So, yes, fucked again. It would be funny if it didn't have such tragic real life consequences.

The only "good" news is that the potential exists for a collapse of such proportions that the people will demand their liberal shock doctrine.

That's what "jingle mail" is all about.

Imagine! These guys thought the suckers were to be trusted!

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

for you lambert:

some inspiration for your gardening this summer.

See you on the farm!

snow-moon

Yes, I know it's originally a Leonard Cohen song. But I'm a Gen Xer, baby, and this is the version I first heard.