"Watcha Doin', Barney Frank?"... "Aww, Nothin', Just Savin' The World."
You may not have noticed, because the Congressman is a modest man, but today Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced that brilliant, gay, cute li'l Representative Barney Frank (D-MA), had saved the world.
Aww, that's sweet. Look at Barney keeping the world's financial system out of the clutches of right-wing maniacs. Looks like he's about to give Paulson a big kiss, doesn't it? And Paulson almost deserves it today - and not just for showing that John McCain is a tragi-comic liar. After all, how hard is that?
Note this moron McCain saying he will make Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac "go away". He also says that "There are lots of banks, savings and loans, and other financial institutions that can do this job.
Where are these institutions, Senator McCain? In space? In Heaven? What an imbecile. The private banking system is in near collapse and this fool is saying they can take on trillions of dollars more debt. What a shameless fraud is this McCain. Back here on Earth, many of you will not remember that in January I wrote this:
What this all means in the short term is that markets of all kinds are going to drop and governments are going, once again, to have to step in to rescue financial institutions - probably in the form of creating a public bond insurance agency. And that is exactly what happened today. It's my own fault. The post was much too long and it had no videos, or pictures, to give you a little rest and entertainment while you took in the possibility of total financial doom. And I know that it's an uncomfortable world when Dlaw starts getting things right. Believe me, I know. I am Dlaw, after all. A Tale Of Three Cramers When I'm getting things right, the world tends to sound a little like this:
This happened when Jim Cramer came on television, burdened with the knowledge that huge "fixed-income" markets even CNBC audiences didn't know about ("fixed-income" = Wall Street for "bonds and things like bonds") were blowing up, crashing, freezing and the Federal Reserve was talking ideology.
In case CNBC is not your thing, here's a little more translation from Wall Street to human: Ladies and Gentlemen - Comrades, if I may - the danger of this present financial crisis is that rare situation which, because it resides in a place far from most people's consciousness, actually cannot be overstated. That's a strange situation for me. Clearly, I'm used to being able to overstate things all the time in both style and substance. I'm sure it even is for Cramer who certainly enjoys overstating in style, but if you listen carefully, not in substance. So when - just a couple weeks ago and a little more than a year after the meltdown that finally embarrassed the government into action - Cramer said: "They're trying to destroy the ecomony" More people should have taken note. Cramer was much, much calmer this time, but ultimately more rueful and even more dismissive of the insane foolishness of the Administration. I urge you to take a look at the video. "It is mind-boggling how wrong they are and how wrong they've been...," he says, bluntly, "...they're reckless and they're radical...they're trying to destroy the economy in order to be able to re-invent the economy, that's their plan... that's a radical right-wing thing to do...it's like 'Leviathan', it's like the Hobbesian Dream." Wow, you don't often hear a financial commentator invoking Hobbes. It's a searing political critique made be a person who usually talks numbers and "booyahs". Please watch it.
Just a bit more translation here: "overlook oil...overlook grains" means Cramer is suggesting people should not consider the bubble-peaking price rise of oil and commodies this summer to be real inflation. "CPI" is the Consumer Price Index, which does not include real estate. Also, "Dick Fisher" refers to Richard W. Fisher, yet another right-wing ideologue Federal Reserve President. Maybe people did take note, because on Friday, however, things changed. After the rescue package for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac became common knowledge on Wall Street, Cramer was ebullient with optimism. He knew, and we all later found out, both that something had finally been done and that the right-wing radicals in the Administration - who, Cramer took a moment to remind his readers, had been "lazy, wrong, intransigent and foolish" - had not been able to destroy the effort. The tragic failure of the Administraion moved Cramer (and many others) to hysteria and then to abject misery. This huge step has Cramer bull-headedly hopeful and if we don't take a cue from that we should, again, take note of it. In the coming days, you'll hear and read a lot of criticism of the "GSEs" - Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The vast majority of it will be ideologically-inspired and without any sense of proportion. Unlike normal corporations, Fannie and Freddie had their own government regulator. If there were shenanigans at Fannie and Freddie - and there were - just imagine what they probably are at Washington Mutual. Actually, the problem is you can't. Right-wing ideologues undermined regulation and made sure financiers in the non-GSE world could get away with almost anything they wanted to. Now they're whining that Fannie and Freddie didn't have enough regulation? What a bunch of hypocrites. Six months ago - when it was convenient for them - Republicans pushed a measure to REDUCE the capital cushion at the GSEs. In the coming days, you'll also hear a lot about the cost of the plan. Whatever it is, it's a pittance compared to the cost of default. Capitalism as we know it is struggling for its very solvency. This is a good plan - or at least it's a really, really good step. I think I'm less sanguine about the package in the short term than Cramer is, but I think I'm even more hopeful about the long-term changes that will ultimately stem from it. This is a huge, Progressive change. This is a signal defeat of laissez-faire. There's risk, yes, but the potential is enormous. In January Web Sherpa and extremely smart person Microveldt gave me this piece of wisdom:
If this Web 2.0 financial world has been about an explosion in access to information, the next phase of Web 3.0 must be an explosion of meaning. We the taxpayers and citizens are going to have to rescue the financial system at a huge cost, so we better get some meaningful change out of it. I think we will. If not for the 2006 election, by which I mean if not for all your hard work this immensely important step would not have happened. You put Barney Frank into the position to save the world economy. It's just that simple and it's no over-statement. As a person who is well left of the Democratic party, I sometimes toy with the notion that catastrophe might be what America needs. But that's a bit irresponsible so, for your sakes, I hope three things happen:
3) I even hope the bulk of the American people never realize how close they came to disaster.
"Watcha Doin', Barney Frank?"... "Aww, Nothin', Just Savin' The World." | 4 comments (4 topical)
"Watcha Doin', Barney Frank?"... "Aww, Nothin', Just Savin' The World." | 4 comments (4 topical)
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By WA Spirit Matters (2 comments) Related Links+ saved the world+ John McCain is a tragi-comic liar + http://en. wikipedia.org/wiki/Discount_window + "They're trying to destroy the ecomony" + the video + ebullient with optimism. + dlaw's Diary Washblog RSS FeedsPolitical ContactsLocal MediaCoastal/Grays HarborAberdeen Daily World Chinook Observer Montesano Vidette Pacific County Press Willapa Harbor Herald KXRO 1320 AM Olympic Peninsula Peninsula Daily News Bremerton Sun Bremerton Chronicle Gig Harbor Gateway Port Orchard Independent Port Townsend Leader North Kitsap Herald Squim Gazette Central Kitsap Reporter Business Examiner KONP 1450 AM Sound and Islands Anacortes American Bainbridge Review Voice Of Bainbridge San Juan Journal The Islands' Sounder Whidbey NewsTimes South Whidbey Record Stanwood/Camano News Vashon Beachcomber Voice Of Vashon KLKI 1340 AM North Puget Sound Bellingham Herald The Northern Light Everett Herald Skagit Valley Herald Lynden Tribune The Enterprise Snohomish County Tribune Snohomish County Business Journal The Monroe Monitor The Edmonds Beacon KGMI 790 AM KELA 1470 AM KRKO 1380 AM Central Puget Sound King County Journal Issaquah Press Mukilteo Beacon Voice of the Valley Federal Way Mirror Bothell/Kenmore Reporter Kirkland courier Mercer Island Reporter Woodinville Weekly Greater Seattle Seattle PI Seattle Times KOMO TV 4 KIRO TV 7 KING 5 TV KTBW TV 22 KCTS 9 UW Daily The Stranger Seattle Weekly Capitol Hill Times Madison Park Times Seattle Journal of Commerce NW Asian Weekly West Seattle Herald North Seattle Herald-Outlook South Seattle Star Magnolia News Beacon Hill News KIRO 710 AM KOMO AM 1000 KEXP 90.3 FM KUOW 94.9 FM KVI 570 AM South Puget Sound The Columbian Longview Daily News Nisqually Valley News Lewis County News The Reflector Eatonville Dispatch Tacoma News Tribune Tacoma Weekly Puyallup Herald Enumclaw Courier-Herald The Olympian KAOS 89.3 FM KCPQ 13 KOWA FM 106.5 UPN 11 Cascade/Okanogan Ellensburg Daily Record Levenworth Echo Cle Elum Tribune Snoqualmie Valley Record Methow Valley News Lake Chelan Mirror Omak chronicle The Newport Miner Spokane/Palouse The Spokesman-Review KREM 2 TV Spokane KXLY News 4 Spokane KHQ 6 Spokane KSPS Spokane Statesman-Examiner Othello Outlook Cheney Free Press Camas PostRecord The South County sun White Salmon Enterprise Palouse Boomerang Columbia Basin Herald Grand Coulee Star Walla Walla Union-Bulletin Yakima Herald-Republic KIMA 29 Yakima KAPP TV 35 Yakima KYVE Yakima Wenatchee World Tri-City Herald TVEW TV 42 Tri-cities KTNW Richland KEPR 19 Pasco Daily Sun News Prosser Record-Bulletin KTCR 1340 AM KWSU Pullman Moscow-Pullman Daily News |