Epic Fail

Odd that the conservatives I occasionally hear from have gotten so quiet. Plotting the fascist overthrow of the newly elected government, or are you putting "country first" these days?

Well, at the risk of saying "I told you so" yet again about the Bush "administration" I'd like to point out that the looting of the US Treasury, of our children's and grandchildren's tax dollars, is going on at break neck pace in Washington. And all you Bush voters should be even more ashamed. This isn't capitalism. Hell, it's not even conservative. The fascist corporate right wing of America has taken control of your money, and I hear nary a peep out of you. Not one single, hey, that hard left liberal lunatic Supak was actually right about these Bushies! They're robbing us blind!

Ah, well, all the better to drown Obama's government in a bath tub. Where is Grover Norquist on this bailout issue? Where are the true conservatives who should be first in line demanding that there be transparency in the bail out?

Could it be that it was never conservatism that interested you? Could it be that you only care about pouring the next generation's tax dollars into paying off the credit card bills accrued during these heady days of Christo-Military-Corporo-fascism? As long as you get your private Blackwater armies and Halliburton support services paid for in perpetuity with stolen pallets of cash, right? As long as you hand out more free money to the CEOs who robbed their companies and their investors blind, right? As long as that fucking socialist Obama doesn't get to spend it on health care for a bunch of lazy welfare queens, right?

As I write this, the financial world is abuzz with this news:

The financial world was fixated on Capitol Hill as Congress battled over the Bush administration's request for a $700 billion bailout of the banking industry. In the midst of this late-September drama, the Treasury Department issued a five-sentence notice that attracted almost no public attention.

But corporate tax lawyers quickly realized the enormous implications of the document: Administration officials had just given American banks a windfall of as much as $140 billion.

..."Did the Treasury Department have the authority to do this? I think almost every tax expert would agree that the answer is no," said George K. Yin, the former chief of staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation, the nonpartisan congressional authority on taxes. "They basically repealed a 22-year-old law that Congress passed as a backdoor way of providing aid to banks."

And which banks specifically benefited from this centralized, fascist takeover of our financial system? None of your damn business, that's who.

Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would comply with congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system. Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that in separate rescue programs that didn't require approval by Congress, Americans have no idea where their money is going or what securities the banks are pledging in return.

I find it astounding that many of the conservatives who have insulted my over the last 8 years are sitting on their hands right now, lest they type something a little, shall we say unflattering, about their hero president?

Well, maybe this will help:

Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Let’s say you were the chief risk officer of the former Bear Stearns Cos. in the two years preceding the bank’s collapse in March.

And let’s say, just for argument’s sake, that the postmortems revealed Bear to have had too much risk and too little management of it. The only way JPMorgan Chase & Co. would agree to acquire Bear was with a $29 billion sweetener from the Federal Reserve for some of the less-palatable assets.

Following the acquisition of Bear Stearns by JPMorgan, you would expect said chief risk officer to:

a) Retire quietly to his country home;

b) Open a "consulting" business, allowing him to deduct the costs of a home office at the country home;

c) Land a plum job offer from another Wall Street bank;

d) Land a job as a bank supervisor at the Federal Reserve.

If you picked a, b or c, you would be incorrect. The correct answer is d.

Michael Alix, chief risk officer at Bear Stearns from 2006 until its demise in March, was named senior vice president in the Bank Supervision Group of the New York Fed on Oct. 31.

It’s not unusual for Wall Street to reward its own, offering rogue traders -- the ones who escape criminal prosecution -- new jobs at different firms. But the Fed? At a time when its balance sheet is exploding with increasingly risky assets?

I'm not the least bit surprised by a lack of accountability in the Bush Jr. "administration." I am surprised that more conservatives aren't waving some torches and pitchforks right now, as this lack of transparency, lack of accountability, and apparent lack of competency (unless they are competent crooks) reveals the depths to which Bush and Cheney will sink in order to reward his cronies who have epically failed us all.