The New Financial Reform Bill Has the Banks Crying All the Way to the …. Bank

The disaster bubbling up to the surface down in the Gulf is assuming proportions that make the plagues of Egypt look like a teen party that got a little out of control. “Don’t worry. Accidents Happen!” says the new bright star of the Tea Party Brigade, Rand Paul, “it’s un-American to blame BP for being negligent.” After all, there were THREE companies that were negligent down there and one of them was that shining example of patriotic profit-taking, Halliburton! You can’t blame BP for an Act of GOD! Well, I have a question. If these god-fearing jackasses think the destruction of the Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi Delta is an Act of God, then WTF do they think God is trying to SAY???

But I digress. My real topic is that other corporate disaster, the Financial Reform Bill. Yup, Chris Dodd has finally achieved his valedictory legislation, a financial reform that is in every way the counterpart of the Health Care and Credit Card Reforms. Like underwear that is so full of holes, the skidmarks get on your pants anyway. Yes, there are some nice new picket fences with signs that say, “Don’t Go Here Or We’ll Slap You,” in place, but by and large, “too big to fail,” has become enshrined by law as the WAY THINGS ARE in the United Corporations of America.

Limiting the size of banks? Perish the thought–just like the US itself is too big to fail, our banks are too big to close. Breaking up some of the companies that were responsible for a worldwide economic collapse? You gotta break some eggs to make an omelet! Caps on credit card interest? We covered THAT back with credit card reform! And what a success THAT has been. And the piece de resistance? The wall between trading and commercial banking that would prevent banks from using our money to buy chips in their own casino? Hahaha you must be joking.

OK there’s a new consumer agency that Elizabeth Warren, darling of the Daily Show, has been pushing. And there’s some new regulation and oversight. But mostly Wall Street is left with the task of policing Wall Street and us chickens know what it means when the fox is guarding the hen house. The Street will still hire its own credit raters, you know, the ones who gave those risky investments AAA ratings? And derivatives will still be sold to hedge risk, thereby allowing risk to be swallowed up in bookkeeping. So in every way, the things that led to the economic collapse of 2009 has been left in place. Anyone want to take bets on another collapse by 2016? How about 2012?

If this is Chris Dodd’s valedictory achievement in the Senate, I’d say his retirement is a very good thing for the American people. But–couldn’t you have left a little quicker, Chris?

What Would It Take For A President to Say “The State of the Union Ain’t Very Strong”?

I mean seriously, what WOULD it take for the President to start out, “The State of the Union isn’t very strong”? Massive depression? Naw, even Herbert Hoover said the SOTU was strong. Open rebellion? I bet even Abe Lincoln said the state of the union was strong. And it was, if you didn’t count the 11 states that up and left when he was elected. Perhaps alien invasion? “Let me remind you, you still have two out of three branches of the federal government and that ain’t bad,” as the President said in MARS ATTACKS. Actual unemployment and underemployment is around 20%, we’re in debt up to our yinyangs to China because of a double recession during the Bush presidency, two wars that we shouldn’t have been in in the first place, tax cuts for the people who didn’t need them and a massive bailout of banks that had been holding a craps game with our money, credit card companies charging 30% interest, 30 million people without health insurance, BUT–The State of the Union is strong.
We did get one moment of high comedy tho–thanks to Chris Matthews of MSNBC. Forgot he was black for an hour, Chris? Way to GO! Only one month into 2010 and you already have the gaffe of the year! But wait–maybe you can outdo yourself–you have 11 more months to do it in!
President Obama gave himself a number of pats on the back, waved his finger at the right side of the aisle and outlined an ambitious agenda to get us back on track–well, not all that ambitious, there were a lot of half-measures–i.e., we need to increase jobs, but we need to keep the budget under control, so hey, let’s just do a little of both. He pointed the finger at the Bush administration for getting us into this mess more forcefully than he had since…his inauguration. You told Justice Roberts where to get off (and Stephen Colbert brought up a great point about how Roberts is willing to overturn precedent if he has only two dissents to do it on–and just where WERE Scalia and Thomas last night anway?). And he wants to see things on his desk! Well, Barry, let’s hope that you tell people exactly what you want on your desk this time around the calendar and that you knock some heads together to do it.
The problem is that we’ve heard all this before and we haven’t seen enough action on it. As my hookers say in the cartoon, you’re good at oral, now let’s see a little bump and thrust. You told us bank presidents weren’t going to get away with things and then you turn around and let them get away without showing up for their meeting with you. LEAD! Stop taking things off the table before you start negotiating. Get rid of your bad advisers. Rely more on Joe Biden than on Rahm Emanuel–Emanuel’s been advising you to give away the farm for nominal victories but Biden knows where the bodies are buried. Get rid of the financial cronies and slap around those bank presidents like you did the auto manufacturers. And for god’s sake, stop going on expensive dates with Michele while your middle class is going down with the ship–at least look like you have a bit of empathy. You said you’d rather be a good one-term president than a poor two-term one. Well, we don’t want you to be a good one-term president–we thought we were voting for a GREAT president. So stop futzing around and be what you promised.

Why Get Upset–the Democrats couldn’t win anything even WITH a Supermajority

The American eagle is a funny bird–it’s been trying to fly with two right wings and no left–or rather, with a right wing and an even righter wing. It’s hard to fly anywhere like that, the best you can do is go around and around in circles–on the ground. In another display of incompetence, the modern Democratic party has managed to lose Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat, in the bluest of blue states, Massachusetts, to a Republican news anchor and the fingerpointing has begun. Letting aside for the moment the idiocy of Coakley, the Democratic nominee, taking a week’s vacation in the heat of the campaign, the Democratic moronocracy has begun to claim that the Republicans have been right and that Obama has been too radical, despite poll after poll showing that VOTERS think his problem has been not being radical ENOUGH. In this scenario, blame for any lack of success is placed squarely on the liberal and progressive blogosphere–which was to a large extent responsible for the Obama victory–who have been denigrated for divisiveness because of their expectation that Obama fulfill the promises he made the American people throughout the election. Chief among these is the President’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, whose chief duty seems to have so far been showing Barry the best way to go down with the ship.
Should we be worried that the Democrats no longer have a supermajority, despite the fact that they couldn’t get anything done uncompromised WITH ONE? Not if they get their collective “”"” together and act like an ALTERNATIVE to the eight years of the Bush Administration instead of their little brother. But in order to do that, a certain Chief Executive is going to have to act like a Leader instead of an Infomercial…that if he wants something done, he has to say what he wants and then stick to it, that he can’t just ask the finance industry to accept reform, he’s got to shove it down their throats, that if he wants health care reform, he can’t take his strongest bargaining chip off the table before negotiation even has started. And that the way to handle the opposition’s complaint that he’s being too radical is to show them what being radical really MEANS. But I’m afraid that kind of confrontationalism isn’t in Barry’s bones, because that requires a commitment instead of a compromise. I remember reading somewhere–and unfortunately I can’t remember where or I’d note it–that back when Obama was editor of the Harvard Law Review, contributors could never tell whether or not he actually agreed with their positions or not and that during his tenure, he himself only contributed one article–and it was published anonymously.
Anyway, the State of the Onion address is tonight and we’ll see if the Wall Street Journal is correct about Obama’s declaring he will take a hard line with the financial sector…or whether we’ll just get more words. TTFN! Oh, one final thing–today is Squirrel Appreciation Day–go out and scatter some nuts for our furry neighbors!

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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