Bank reform and Golden Sacks of crap

Too big to fail is just what it means: any financial reform that leaves standing commercial institutions that are "too big to fail" is doomed.

Any reform that fails to bring these monsters down to a size where they can be controlled, instead of them controlling us, fails to protect the American wage earner.

And just to be clear, breaking up the giant oligopoly banks is about as "free market" a policy as we can envision. Government is not the enemy of business, but it is a referee and protector of the market. When one player, like Goldman Sachs, becomes so powerful that it can successfully manipulate the economy in which it plays, the market is broken and needs reform.

Large investment banks command an horrific percentage of corporate profit in the U.S. (as opposed to our beleaguered and important community banks, the ones that would provide loans to you and me if Chase and company had not sucked up all the dollars). Read more here.

They buy and sell politicians of each major party with a stroke of a pen. They send their minions to work for the regulators. They profit from our hardship.

It is time to recognize that, like the oil and rail monopolies of the past, large investment banks need to be brought down to a size that would allow for greater competition, more transparency, and to allow the market to punish any them, even with failure, for bad decisions. They need to be broken up and a stable, competitive market restored.

The current proposed legislation does not go nearly far enough.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Yes, the heavy lifting of health care reform had to be tackled first. Not cap and trade, not financial reform. Thank you for the vision, the effort, and the guts. Only a few of us believed.

But now, there is some business that HAS to be next. Jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs.

We need oxygen out here. Our local employers who have not already fallen are hanging on by their fingertips. Capital needs to flow again, regardless of it's source, be it relaxed requirements, government spending at a community level, housing subsidies. As quickly as possible, and don't worry about nuance or endless debates about what is "fair."

While you and congress try to figure out how to staunch the wounds caused by the behemoth banks, our local banks are being buried by the weight of Washington's indifference. It's a crisis, even if you don't hear much about it back there where you are all employed.

This needs to be tackled NOW, for the health of our communities, our economy, and frankly, for the Democratic Party.

"Faggot, nigger, baby killer"

These are the words thrown at Congressmen of the United States by Tea Party activists on the day of the health care vote. This is what was encouraged by Republicans from the balconies of the Capitol with hand lettered signs, words actually spoken in the chamber.

Republicans could have helped craft a bill that included their principles, brought more accountability, insisted on limitations to malpractice, increased competition, provided rationale instead of irrationality. Instead, they decided to vilify and destroy.

This is the new language of the Republican party.

Right wing gasbag

Paul Broun is a despicable political hack.

After the health care vote, Broun said to Democrats: “Are you so arrogant that you know what’s best for the American people? ... Are you so ignorant to be oblivious to the wishes of the American people?”

According to Broun, only HE knows what's best for the American people.
Broun, listen up: You LOST the last election. Obama WON the last election. So did the democrats. THAT is the will of the people. Not you, and your posturing morality.

Broun tried to prevent soldiers over seas from buying Playboy. In a stunning display of ignorance, he said that wages paid to soldiers still belonged to the government which should have a say in how those soldiers spend their money. This man is not qualified to be in government at ANY level.

Paul Broun is a gas bag. That he has stolen a coat of red, white and blue just makes him a gas bag and a thief.

Drop abortion insurance.

The abortion issue in the health care debate is divisive, unnecessary and wrong. It is time to drop it and move on to getting health care for more Americans.

Including abortion as a health care entitlement in this country at this time is simply a mistake. It was always an over reaching, an example of the hubris of the left, a bit of Bush-like "we won, get over it." They thought they had the votes to ram it through. Then they didn't.

Aside from the vitriol it was bound to inflame, we can not afford to be a nanny state, taking care of every misstep any individual is likely to make. It is time the left recognized that consequences are as important in reforming the health care system as universal coverage.

That is another use of the word "choice." Enabling every individual we want to insure to avoid any consequences of choices they make is to guarantee a system we can't afford.

It would be nice to increase premiums on people who have too many Big Macs and Big Gulps as well. If they choose to skate the thin ice of obesity, heart disease and diabetes, they and not we should pay the higher price. No, I don't know how to separate life style choices from inherited traits.

But those issue are not hot button issues like abortion. On that we also have to recognize we live in a pluralistic society, and there are some things we just can't ask our neighbors to pay for.

Otherwise they won't pay for anything at all.

The lies of Fox "News."

They lie with numbers. They lie with "facts." Sometimes, they just lie.

Fox News is right wing propaganda. Watch this video.

Free markets and health insurance

I've written before on why the "market model" fails when talking about health care. Read that here.

But an even more interesting sidelight on the debate is that Republicans favor a "market defeating" exemption for insurance companies.

According to a story last October on NPR, Rhode Island Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse has "noted that in 39 states, two health insurers control at least half the market, while in nine states, one insurer controls at least three-quarters of the market."

What is the inevitable result of these monopolies? Higher prices, and a system designed to benefit the insurance companies.

According to the NPR story, it was in 1945 that lawmakers "passed the McCarran-Ferguson Act; the law has ever since shielded insurance firms from federal prosecution for price fixing, bid rigging and carving out protected markets."

Let the "free market" Republicans stand up now and vote to repeal the McCarran-Ferguson Act and return their beloved competition to the insurance market.

Yes, while we are at it, we need to let insurers offer insurance across state lines. Democrats should embrace tort reform, and put limits on outrageous awards. Medicine in difficult and complicated and outcomes are not guaranteed.

Small steps, indeed, but necessary nonetheless.

Republicans hijack America

Republican Mitch McConnell can't say a thing without claiming to speak for "American people."

To begin with, there is not one "American people." There are many people of many different views out there. Some them actually read.

Secondly, Mitch McConnell doesn't speak for the "American people." He speaks for special interests, and the Republican party. If he claims polls prove he speaks for a majority, he is lying with a truth: yes, Americans have been scared by his lies into thinking health care and banking reform is bad for them.

But that doesn't mean he is right, nor that an informed public has made a thoughtful decision. It just means that they have been lied to and are scared.

By claiming to represent "The American People," he has hijacked my voice. I want it back. He doesn't speak for me.

McConnell, and other right wing nuts like the snide Sarah Palin ("How is that hopey, changey thing working out for you?") are going to destroy the economy by advocating for greed, and the day has already come when the real voters are about to cast their ballot.

No, not voters in Florida or Pennsylvania or Massachusetts or Oregon. Voters in Beijing and Abu Dubai and Germany. Those who vote with their money. They can see clearly that the United States is riven by special interests and has entered a state of paralysis, unable to face problems honestly and undertake the voluntary hardship of fixing them. They will move their money elsewhere.

The result will be ugly for a nation addicted to debt and easy solutions. And it will hurt all of us not insulated by a life in Washington or on Wall Street. When we need statesmen and women of courage, we get hacks like McConnell, Pelosi, Palin, and others. Panderers, pundits and populists.

It is probably because the system itself is broken, that corruption always wins because special interests always triumph over public good. Doesn't matter whether it is Rome or the British Empire or America. A society becomes decrepit, lazy, content with a strong self image rather than building actual strength, or even maintaining it.

The big lie has succeeded. The goal in bringing to a halt reform that might benefit the other party because it could benefit America has probably won the day.

Despite clear warnings from the business community, victory by the right in blocking reform, and by a left that is arrogant and disconnected, the farce continues. We are now probably out of new acts to play.

We have run through most of our inherited wealth. We don't make anything. We are not at the cutting edge of new technology. And soon, people will stop lending us money.

The Chinese middle class is now larger than the entire population of the United States. They are now the largest market for cars. Brazil makes airplanes. Taiwan makes computers. India writes software. They really don't needs us much anymore, and are probably a better place for future investment.

In the mean time, the right wing tells us that everything will be just fine if we go back to what it was like four years ago when they were in charge. And most of you believe them. They have hijacked America and they will fly it into the ground.