To those that have more shall be given

[FluffyMcDeath]

What happened is simple. Congress members were invested in the Wall Street Firms behind the Mortgage-Backed Securities Fraud; the biggest financial swindle since the Great South Seas Bubble of 1721. Congress passed an $8000 first-time home-buyer credit to lure more suckers into the scam, to front load the fraud with fresh mortgages of questionable worth, and raked in huge profits from the "tulip mania" sales of the MBS.

Then the scam fell apart. Foreign banks and investment companies (and indeed entire nations) were brought to the edge of ruin by the fraud and demanded that Wall Street refund their money. Wall Street does not like to surrender profits, even ill-gotten ones, and neither does the Congress. So Congress voted for the "bailouts", which are actually buy-backs, to use public money (and more funds borrowed from the Federal Reserve) to purchase back the bad paper and cover the credit swaps, dropping the costs of the scam onto the American people. This was done despite 90% of the American people opposing the use of tax money to save the bankers form their own reckless behaviors. (Can you say "Taxation without representation?")

At the same time, in 2008, the White House set a policy that nobody on Wall Street was going to be investigated or charged for this fraud, because inevitably the scandal would envelope all the members of the Congress who had their personal fortunes tied up in the swindle. Obama had Tim Geithner go up to New York to intercede with NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to make certain no Wall Street CEOs were investigated in connection with the mortgage-backed Securities scam. (That is obstruction of justice).

During the Bush administration, and accelerating under Obama, tax incentives were created for corporations that encouraged the offshoring of high-paying jobs to other countries. Americans, stripped of their ability to pay their mortgages, became easy prey for banks, who needed the entire value of the foreclosed homes on their balance sheets to stay solvent as the cash flowed out the door to buy back all the fraudulent investment bundles.

In other words, the government took your jobs so the banks could take your homes to save themselves from going to prison for the crimes that made themselves and Congress incredibly rich.
Any questions?

Michael Rivero

 

[redrumloa]

Lays it out well.

I hope you didn't miss the fact that the dems are far more crooked here. The party supposedly of the people are the ones ultimately far more worried about themselves.

 

[faethor]

I hope you didn't miss the fact that the dems are far more crooked here. The party supposedly of the people are the ones ultimately far more worried about themselves.

BOTH parties are crooked and then some. BOTH need to go.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

Lays it out well.

I hope you didn't miss the fact that the dems are far more crooked here. The party supposedly of the people are the ones ultimately far more worried about themselves.

And yet Republican Americans still don't want the Bush tax cuts to expire and make Democratic crooks pay their ill gotten gains back as taxes?

 

[Dammy]

And yet Republican Americans still don't want the Bush tax cuts to expire and make Democratic crooks pay their ill gotten gains back as taxes?

Why would you, a Canadian, care about it? Why aren't you more worried about fixing your national health care system so people stop suffering from long waits to be treated?

Down here, why should some small to medium business owner be lumped in with the likes of Soros as far as taxation? Why should we tell someone trying to make it from middle income to upper income they will be punished for being successful? Why do we tell off shore investors that they will be screwed if they invest in the US? Why do we tell corporations that are not the GEs of the world that they have to take the brunt of massive regulations, second highest corp tax in the industrialized world and a Marxist-lite in the White House who has no clue on how to make money, that they shouldn't move (business and jobs) somewhere where it's sane to do business? Lower the tax rate on the rich so they come back and invest which will make jobs. But that's not on Obama's agenda, quiet the opposite actually.

 

[Dammy]

BOTH parties are crooked and then some. BOTH need to go.

I think the Tea Party will agree with you for the most part. Salvage operations are currently on going with the GOP with infighting from the progressive Republicans trying to hold on to power against the Tea Party members. Dems are hopeless enslaved to the world elite as they seek a massive centralized government to control us all. More centralized the authority it is, the greater threat to individual liberty.

Listening to the far left is like listening to a sock puppet. It's telling you to give them all your liberties (which is also money) in order for them to protect you from the elite, while it's the elites operating the sock (Democrat) puppet. Then the sock puppet says those who want individual liberty and a deminished centralized authority are the real enemy since that is playing into the hands of the elite. Looking at the extreme wealthy, they are few GOPers, funny that.

 

[faethor]

I think the Tea Party will agree with you for the most part.

Tea Party has been part of the Republicans for quite a while. The Tea Party is simply a rebadging campaign.

Dems are hopeless enslaved to the world elite as they seek a massive centralized government to control us all.

Too much conspiracy nuttery to have any actual basis in reality.

Listening to the far left is like listening to a sock puppet.

Far Left is basically non-existent. Dems are what Republicans were in the 60s, slightly right of center. Republicans are approaching the far right Fasicists.

 

[redrumloa]

Republicans are approaching the far right Fasicists.

Good lord have mercy, did you really just say that? Looking at what the Dems in Congress and Obama have pulled in the last few years and you really have the rocks to say the far right is fascists?

 

[cecilia]

Republicans are approaching the far right Fascists.

yup, i have indeed heard this from other incisive, intelligent people. and it does not make me happy

 

[Dammy]

Tea Party has been part of the Republicans for quite a while. The Tea Party is simply a rebadging campaign.

Wrong. Tea Party is less then half Republicans (43%), the rest are independents and Democrats.

Too much conspiracy nuttery to have any actual basis in reality.
Far Left is basically non-existent. Dems are what Republicans were in the 60s, slightly right of center. Republicans are approaching the far right Fasicists.

Wrong. The Democrat Party had a massive civil war in the 1950s with Dixiecrats vs Progressives which the Progressives won. JFK/LBJ were the last of the old school to be elected from the Democrat Party. JFK was a financial conservative, who would have thought? To be a fascist, one has to have a highly centralized government for control of industry and people. Who is building a massive federal government via laws and regulations and who is frightened by such centralized power growth? It's clearly not the Tea Party wanting more government. They are afraid of such naked government grab of power (taxation and regulation) that impacts in corporate America making corporations an extension of the US government by direct and indirect actions of the federal government. It is the Progressives who crave such centralized power grab and are pissed at Obama's growth of the power for being too slow.

One can not have tyranny unless there is a very strong centralized government authority. That is the battle, the Progressive want to grow government to massive scale (which Obama has done) while the Tea Party wants to starve the beast and shrink it.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

Now that we can see "The List" it looks a bit ... well, like gibberish. For example:

Louis B Gohmert Jr. (R-Texas) has a net worth in '04 of -$110k and a net worth in '08 of -$250k which somehow works out to 127% "growth".

It's a bit of a mixed bag between low rollers and high rollers too. Methinks there is a need to go and look at better figures.

 

[the_leander]

Wrong. Tea Party is less then half Republicans (43%), the rest are independents and Democrats.

And you have a citation for that, right? Because from this side of the pond, I see lots of headline republicans going out of their way to put their names to the teahadists, haven't yet seen any dems however.

To be a fascist, one has to have a highly centralized government for control of industry and people.

Err, no, you merely need a blending of corporations and government. For the repubs it's the oil and defence industries, for the Dems, the media industry.

It's clearly not the Tea Party wanting more government. They are afraid of such naked government grab of power (taxation and regulation)

Not to mention ethnic minorities, gays, women and non Christians...

One can not have tyranny unless there is a very strong centralized government authority.

Somalia just called, they said to tell you you're full of it if you genuinely believe that.

 

[the_leander]

Good lord have mercy, did you really just say that? Looking at what the Dems in Congress and Obama have pulled in the last few years and you really have the rocks to say the far right is fascists?

To be fair Obama has been basically doing whatever the Repubs have demanded of him from day one, even with the majority in both houses. Turns out that far from being the instrument of change many had hoped for, he's a spineless coward who caves at the first sign of trouble.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

Here's a better place to go to see who's got what. Check out OpenSecrets.org.
You can see all representatives and executive and you can download CSVs for each year too. Plus you can also find out what representatives favourite investments are (and I presume those are the ones they least like to hurt when they legislate).

 

[faethor]

Good lord have mercy, did you really just say that? Looking at what the Dems in Congress and Obama have pulled in the last few years and you really have the rocks to say the far right is fascists?

Just because the Dems are getting there doesn't mean the Republican's aren't. Republicans beat them to the punch.

 

[Robert]

To be fair Obama has been basically doing whatever the Repubs have demanded of him from day one, even with the majority in both houses. Turns out that far from being the instrument of change many had hoped for, he's a spineless coward who caves at the first sign of trouble.

To a certain extent, that's how it's looked from here too. On top of that is the fact that he was pretty much bought and paid for before he was even elected.

That's why the idea that he's some sort of socialist-lefty-liberal is absurdly hilarious to me.

 

[cybereye]

To be fair Obama has been basically doing whatever the Repubs have demanded of him from day one, even with the majority in both houses. Turns out that far from being the instrument of change many had hoped for, he's a spineless coward who caves at the first sign of trouble.

Obama is Leaderless and Pathetic. Here the proof. He worst than Jimmy Carter.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

Here the proof.

Citing the opinion of David "Axis of Evil" Frum is only proof that David "Axis of Evil" Frum is a git.

 

[Robert]

Obama is Leaderless and Pathetic. Here the proof.

That's not proof of anything, I'm afraid. (Well, perhaps it's proof that you're prepared to take an opinion piece as fact but not much else.)

 

[faethor]

And you have a citation for that, right? Because from this side of the pond, I see lots of headline republicans going out of their way to put their names to the teahadists, haven't yet seen any dems however.

As I made the charge that they were Republicans I'll show some of my cards and if he can support his 43% Republican charge he can be next. Gallup polls showed 80% Republican involvement and 15% Democratic involvment. http://www.gallup.com/poll/141098/Tea-Party-Supporters-Overlap-Republican-Base.aspx?version=print All the candidates they've supported are Republicans, for example Armey, Bachmann, Palin, and Paul. The local chapter's lead lives semi-close to me. I know him indirectly but enough to get a personal invite. Back when they called themselves Tea Baggers I went to a couple of meetings. All were far right-wingers. And interestingly Gay Pride events I've been to have more women representation than the Tea Party Rallys.