March 12, 2010 archive

Timmy “sizzle chest” G, also known as “Timmy the Moocher,” “Two-timing Tim,” “Hey, you little bastard, where’s my wallet,” “Timmy the Stress Test,” “Timothy the Treasury Mouse,” “Hey, who stole my cheese?” “Geithner the Purse Lightener,” “‘T’ that rhymes with ‘P’ that stands for ‘pool,'” “Gangsta Rap,” “Who stole the cheese?  I wanna know who cut the cheese!” “The Invisible Regulator,” “G is for Growth,” “Fake it ’til you Make it,” “Tricky Tim,” “Humbug Jive,” “Shell Game,” “Dirty Trick,” “Swindler’s List,” “The Fiddling Fed,” “The Treasurer’s Measurer,” “Bill O’Goods,” “The Two-Fer Spoofer,” “Run Around Tim,” “Too Money,” “Fictional Assets,” “Mark T. Fantasy,” “Timmy Too Bigs,” “Turbo Tim,” “Timmy the Greek,” “Fail-safe,” “Don’t Stop Me Now,” “Chopper Pilot,” “Flim-Flam,” “Shock Doc,” and “Jelly, You Broke My Heart, Geithner…”  Smack!  Smack!  You wanna fresh one?  –  was apparently over-seeing financial fraud at Lehman before they went kaput.

Tangled webs make us sad and frustrated.  And vengeful.

Update

Oh, fun.  A plug for Yves:

Update 2: Hell, just go read bobswern for content:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

Open Thread

This has been a very good week.  My brother and nephew were shot and lived (there is an essay about that that you can find if you follow my name here), my son got very good news about his legal status, the former Mrs. Translator is getting a nice tax refund, and so all is well.

I am happier than I have been in months, if not years.  To celebrate it, I am playing The Who at high volume presently.

How bizarre.  About 8 in 10 Americans want to clamp down on Wall Street’s fraudulent behavior?  

Someone needs to help me understand what in blazes is going on here.  82% is a scary big super-mega-majority.  Where does a really big percentage, like 80% plus, come from?  Did someone pull it out of a hat?  Did someone conjure it from a lamp?  A crystal ball?  Ouija boards?  Playing cards?  Who in the heck is reading the coffee grounds around here?  Where on gawd’s green earth does a number like that come from?

I am appealing to you, the inside dopesters having a strong strain of frustrated idealism and just the right touch of hard-boiled cynicism, to lend me a hypothesis, a conspiracy theory, if you will, of who “we,” the 80% are, and who “they,” the other 20% might be.  Please try to cast your theory in a form that makes it virtually impossible to disprove.  

This could have implications for democracy, and who rules America.

Well, bless my stupid little heart!  Simon Johnson says what we need is  a good speech:

For nearly two years now we have waited for a speech. We need a simple speech and a direct speech – most of all a political speech – about what exactly happened to our financial system, and therefore to our economy, and what we must do to make sure it can never happen again.

So, Senator Ted Kaufman delivered a speech.

It was the speech we have been waiting for – Financial reform, repeal of old regulation, the growth of mega-banks, the failure of regulators, fraudulent securitization, recipes for disaster, too big to fail, the concentration of wealth, Wall Street versus Main Street – yep, pretty much what we needed, simple and direct, and political.

I’m sure the Wall Street lobbyists are totally blown away, like that pigeon that flew in front of Ted Nugent’s Marshall stacks.

Thanks also to Senator Shelby for issuing a statement.  I’ll put that political repartee on my dinner plate next to Ted Kaufman’s speech.

Ladies and Gents, the corridors of power have been foundationally shaken.  You folks living near the coast are on a tsunami alert.

I say this with all the passion, moral rectitude, and foresight of Ben Stein: There will be justice.

I don’t have the wherewithal to report the crucial information I think all American citizens should know.

So I have to limit myself.

I think about the endless politics of the health care so-called “debate.”  What American citizens are being asked to settle for by both our representatives, the Democratic Party, and all the party activists thereof.

Compared to the uphill battle to pass the Dream Act, wow, we’re being offered pure HCR paradise.