Republicans Oppose Stopping No More Bail Outs

Hummm, is your mind still teetering a little after reading this post's title?  If so, you have been infected with the latest salvo of 1984 style "war is peace," "wealth is poverty, "happiness is sadness" contagion from the Right Wing Talking Points Factory.

The logically perplexing and incomprehensible "elephant in the living room" in this case is just the latest GOP political tactic.  Although the gambit might seem frighteningly zany for such a bunch of cranky old neo-cons, a closer examination reveals just enough actual fact to make sense of the whole matter.

Let's "fact check" a little recent history.  MeanMesa, with the advantage of just a few facts, will be able to painlessly walk you right through this maze.

Senator Dodd has proposed a banking regulation reform bill, one which generally pursues goals set out by President Obama.  One central feature of the legislation was to be the creation of a bank financed $50 billion dollar fund which could be used INSTEAD OF MASSIVE FEDERAL BAIL OUTS to more gracefully buffer our economy from the failure of giant banks.

The money in the fund would allow Federal Bank Regulators to avoid the necessity of nationalizing gigantic financial institutions (which we, of course, did last time) when their crooked investment practices finally grew so nasty that they were faced with going bankrupt.  The last time this happened was in the fall of 2008.  Then, the banksters hid behind the ruse of being "too big too fail."

This claim, craftily nestled in among all the other lies they were promoting through their wholly owned media frauds at the time, was just credible enough to provide the necessary justification for the TARP.  The whole affair was so stinky that there would simply be no other way to "ram" the $875 Billion idea though the Senate short of scaring the living hell out of everyone who might oppose it.

No problem.  "Ramming" and Scaring" were among the autocracy's most accomplished talents.

By the way, it may be important to interject yet another fact at this point.  By carefully utilizing the fraudulent corporate media, the neo-cons have now convinced the "hill billies and bigots" comprising their political base that the TARP was an Obama plan, even though it was already firmly in place -- gobbling up tax money like a giant neo-con dragon -- when he was inaugurated.

Now, however, the neo-cons in the Senate were left in a bit of a pinch.  

A larger, and perhaps more generous, view of the economic disaster eight years of unbridled looting had left for the country was the feverish hope that there would simply not be enough money left for any sort of economic recovery plan, let alone any tangible progress in the other areas of our national culture which were also reeling from the looting.

It was a neo-con wet dream.  Unemployment would sky rocket.  Wages would collapse.  Social programs would be gutted to resuscitate the banks and hedge funds.  Teachers, firemen, police would be fired or face salary and benefit cuts.  Most importantly, the whole thing would unfold under the new administration's watch.

On the "bad side" -- at least "on the bad side" as seen by power hungry neo-cons who were eagerly willing to sacrifice the entire country for a win in the next election -- the Obama administration was still armed with a powerful Democratic majority in the Congress.  Consequently, even though we were essentially broke, without friends and over-committed to the Bush Oil Wars, the neo-cons were horrified when international conditions improved,  health care was passed and, even though there were only the barest scraps of the treasury left after the looting, the Obama administration was successfully resurrecting the economy.

The Republicans had to move on.  They quietly dumped all the old talking points and plunged into a new set.

Their first stop on this new "Destroy America at Any Cost to Win the Next Election" program was the banking regulation reform bill.  Their first target was to dislodge the Obama idea that Wall Street should start paying for its own bail outs with a fund full of their own money -- not ours.  Their approach?  Convince their base that avoiding future bail outs meant having more future bailouts.

Hence, the title of this blog posting.

Okee-dokee.  If the banksters and the hedge hogs had to put the $50 Billion into this new fund, that meant that they would have $50 Billion less.  Because they had already invested so heavily in the purchase of Republican Senators, that idea had to go.

And, it looks like it may have, in fact, gone.  The "fund" provision in the new legislation is either gone or wandering blind folded along the edge of a cliff, a precarious dilemma bound to please the Wall Street "owners of the Senate."

Further, because the neo-cons continued to entertain the idea that voting "NO" on every piece of legislation proposed by the Democrats would eventually win the next election, voting against one more thing wouldn't really matter that much.

The neo-cons second target was a Consumer Protection part of the reform bill.  Still inebriated from their success at squelching the "fund" idea, they, once again, dug in their corrupt little "wholly owned" heels and threw yet another tantrum.  Unhappily for them, this one ran squarely into the face of the new President.

Although we don't know exactly how this will finally turn out, MeanMesa visitors have a serious stake in the outcome.  If the neo-cons, emboldened by the success of a campaign of deceptions and other lies, are finally able to emasculate the Dodd bill, we should patiently plan for another Great Republican Recession in about four to five years.

Is it worth a quick email to your Congressmen?

The drama continues to unfold.

For more reading on this topic:


from Reuters News Service
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6430I920100505

and, from Bloomberg Business Week
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-06/fed-s-plosser-says-dodd-bill-would-encourage-excessive-risk.html