Recovery is Underway–Quit the Bank Before They Cap Pay–Happy Days Are Here Again!

Oh yes, the Dow hit 10,000 and the GDP was up 3.2% last quarter. Time to Celebrate–the Great Recession is OVER. Happy Days are here again! The skies above are clear again–So let’s sing a song of cheer again–Happy days are here again!
What’s that? Your bank just closed? Oh, don’t worry, the FDIC will cover THAT. Oh, you didn’t have any money in it anyway? So, what do you have to worry about? You’ve been out of work for two years, your unemployment has run out and the only job you can find is part-time trash cleanup at McDonalds? Well, be thankful for Mickey D’s, some people don’t even have that. Oh, and your mortgage is being foreclosed and you’ve been evicted from your house and are living in your car. It could be worse! The repo man could be coming for your car! Oh, you park in different lots every night because of just that. Hey, not to worry, all that will be over soon! The Dow is up, the GDP is up, Happy Days are here again! Let’s Party like it was 1927! After all, we got our bonuses–and left our jobs before the government capped salaries! It doesn’t matter that the rise in GDP was because of tax break for new house buyers and the Cash for Clunkers program–we’ll worry about that NEXT quarter. Altogether shout it now–There’s no one who can doubt it now–So let’s tell the world about it now–Happy days are here again! So long sad times–Go long bad times–We are rid of you at last! Howdy gay times–Cloudy gray times–You are now a thing of the past! Your cares and troubles are gone–There’ll be no more from now on! Happy Days are here again! The skies above are clear again–So let’s sing a song of cheer again–Happy days are here again!

Change We Can Believe In–Sure, I Got Four Quarters…

(PANAMA CITY, PANAMA) A curious beast was found this weekend on the beach of Panama. Four teenagers first saw it and when the beast appeared to charge them, threw stones at it until it died. Resembling the Montauk Monster or a space alien, the creature had markings that amazingly seemed to spell out the word “REFORM”. “Of course, that is merely an illusion,” Professor Noitall said. “It seems to be some kind of stillborn animal fetus,” he continued in contradiction to the teenagers’ story. While some have suggested that it was the product of a sloth, Professor Noitall opined that it actually came from north of Panama, possibly the United States. “I’ve heard Reform is still-born up there,” he joked.
But it’s no joke for us. President Obama’s change we can believe in appears to be limited to four quarters on a dollar, since a dollar is about all the average citizen has seen from the bank bailout. “We’re going to close the loopholes,” the president said. And as Jon Stewart (congratulations on the two new Emmys) said, “You gave away 700 billion dollars BEFORE you closed the loopholes???” Steve Keen wrote a searching criticism of the bank bailout whose rationale could be summed up as “If the banks have the money to lend, more people will take out loans.” What people? The Unemployed or Underemployed? Fat chance, they only need the money to stay alive, not to run some risky investment scheme, they’ll never get a loan approved. The up-to-their-ears-in-debt middle class? They’re all cutting coupons out of the papers–the last debt they’re going to incur for some time was the New SUV they bought that gets 4 mpg better than the old one so they could take advantage of Cash for Clunkers. And the banks have already started back into the risky portfolios–didn’t Bernanke say that the recession was over? Partay, PAR-TAY! You get a bonus, You get a Bonus–it’s almost like Oprah was giving out new cars!
And what about that new Health Care Plan that Senator Bilkus–I mean Baucus–lobbed at us like a chimpanzee in a zoo? The Republicans don’t like it, the Progressives don’t like it, the only people who DO like it are the Blue Dog Democrats and the Insurance Companies that pay them. Real Reform–i.e., single payer–has been off the table so long it’s growing mold and Baucus even managed to substitute the unworkable cooperative for the best compromise public option–which the White House is still willing to give up for Republican support that it will never get.
I see a different analogy to the Great Depression. Bush wasn’t Hoover–he was Calvin Coolidge, the guy who said and did nothing and so allowed the Depression to get started. Hoover was the one who stayed with the “tried and true” to fix the economy–the things that didn’t work. And after four years, we elected someone who was willing to propose change–and had the balls to carry it out. You talked the talk, Barry–now walk the walk or you may find yourself walking in another 3-1/2 years–away from the White House.

ARE Self-congratulations in order?

The other week, President Obama decided he deserved a pat on the back so he gave himself one. The unemployment figures for July showed an amazing drop of ONE-TENTH of ONE PERCENT!. Ahhh, the stumble-us–errrr–stimulus has worked and we have avoided a major financial catastrophe. Kudos to my administration!
Well, Mr. President, I think you might be being a bit premature here. Granted we NEED some good news, what with the economy bouncing along the bottom like it has, but a tenth of a percent is really nothing to write home about. Hey Mom, I got a 65.1 instead of a 65 on that test–I didn’t flunk AS BADLY. I’m sure my mom would’ve just hugged the daylights out of me–or got the daylights out of me some other way. Robert Kuttner points out that the job market still hemmorhaged nearly a quarter of a million more jobs and that the drop in the unemployment rate was due to the fact that more people have stopped looking for work. You see, after you’ve given up looking for work after months and months of fruitless job interviews, the people who figure the unemployment rate decide that either you’ve retired or you’re a skid row bum living on mashed potatoes and Heaven Hill. One of the so-called “hardcore unemployed”. In other words, not worth counting anymore. But, if you manage to find a part-time job cleaning the parking lot at the local MickeyD’s–hey, you’re employed again! According to Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute if you add in all the “marginally attached” and “involuntarily part-time” workers, a staggering 25.6 million people–or over 16 percent of the population (nearly 1 in 6) is either unemployed or underemployed.
The good news is that at least one policy is showing success–the Cash for Clunkers–so much so that it had to be given more money. That at least helps people who HAVE jobs. And gets some of the gas hogs off the road. But mostly, the stimulus has only helped people with large offices…with windows…in banks. And one thing you know about bankers–they don’t give away money without giving themselves a bonus first! Yacht sales were booming last February. You can see some of the best of them here: 10 CEO Mega-Yachts (PHOTOS, POLL). Trickle down in action! Ronald Reagan would be proud.

Gordon Gekko announces Goldman Sach’s latest profit statement

Financial Times: Wall Street profits from trades with Fed “You can make big money trading with the government,” said an executive at one leading investment management firm. “The government is a huge buyer and seller and Wall Street has all the pricing power.” A former official of the US Treasury and the Fed said the situation had reached the point that “everyone games them. Their transparency hurts them. Everyone picks their pocket.”
TIME: Too Much Profit at Goldman and Morgan? Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi … calls the firm a “great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.”
Bloomberg: Goldman Sachs Lawyer Charged With Soliciting Girl (Update2)
Goldman Sachs Attorney Caught Trying to Do to a Teen What Goldman Is Doing to All of Us [Crime]
Todd Genger, a 33-year-old attorney for Goldman Sachs, was arrested yesterday for soliciting an undercover cop that he thought was a 15-year-old girl. That’s criminal. Reaping billions in profit from surreptitious taxpayer bailouts, however, remains perfectly legal.
I saw the Gawker article with its reference to Gordon Gekko from WALL STREET and all I could think of was a lizard soliciting a 15 year old As the article continues: So much for the vaunted reputation of Goldman’s army of Ivy League geniuses: “If Genger did indeed get into sexy IM chats with someone he believed to be 15 years old, he’s a colossal idiot on top of being pervert. Because when you think you’re chatting with a sexy underage girl on the internet—it is always a cop. Jeez.”
Ya gotta wonder. Then again–what else could be more in keeping with the reptilian company that gamed the US into GIVING it profits?
We’ve reached the slow season folks and this cartoonist needs some time off desperately to take care of other business so for the month of August, we will be publishing Mondays only.

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ABOUT MEH

Cartoons and text by Greg Uchrin (aka Gregorius alexandrinus), with the able assistance of Fred and Bert Squirrel, with special appearances by George Dymme. Published once a week on Mondays.

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