Sunday, March 22, 2009

"Oh, the cleverness of me! " - Frank Rich

Has a ‘Katrina Moment’ Arrived?

Frank, let me help you with this....Katrina was "the Katrina moment". Obama is just part of the clean up crew, buddy. Obama is the new king, but the king still has no clothing. It's not about the man, we've been in a steady descent for the past 7 years..."The Katrina Moment" as you put it, was just the moment when the country realized how impotent and corrupt our government had actually become.

It seems like you're looking for Obama's jugular.....but shit bro.....we're all feeding off a dead carcass here. Obama didn't kill it, he's just trying to convince the rest of us it isn't really dead.

What made Jon Stewart’s takedown of Jim Cramer resonate was less his specific brief against CNBC’s cheerleading for bad stocks than his larger indictment of the gaping economic inequality that defined the bubble.

humph..er...(cough)....what?

I thought it resonated because Stewart was the first person with a national audience to brush past CNBC's complicity in manipulating the market for naked short sellers. If you want to call it the "gaping economic equality"....that's cool....my mind is still trying to wrap itself around exactly what the fuck that means....but hey...I appreciate the semantic creativity.

The only MSM outlet that's coming close to exposing the truth of what has actually happened in our financial market is The Daily Show. If you want to see the really nasty stuff....go here:

http://www.deepcapture.com/

7 comments:

E said...

One of the worst Rich pieces I've read in ages.

Anonymous said...

I'm going to take the contrarian view. I liked this piece, in fact, I thought his Katrina analogy was rich in symbolism (pun intended).

What's incisive about it is this. Just as Bush had an insider (Michael Brown) who was fundamentally unable to deal with the problem, Obama has Geithner, Summers and Bernanke: insiders who are fundamentally unable to deal with the problem.

The reason, of course, is that Obama's insiders are part of the problem. They are sympathetic to the parasites of Wall Street, and so they think, fundamentally, in terms of how they can "re-float" their nearest and dearest buddies; so that then the game can commence once more and the parasites can keep sucking our life's blood from us.

What Obama has to do to escape this Katrina moment is to make a wholesale shift from business as usual.

Here is my prescription:

1. Nationalize AIG, the bankrupt banks, and anyone else who's failing.

2. Break up all these institutions that are "too big to fail" in small chunks. Sell off the healthy parts, kill the toxic parts.

3. Investigate, arrest, indict, try, and convict the banksters who engaged in the parasitic behavior.

4. Re-regulate Wall Street. No more leverage, no more parasitic activity. No more giant conglomerates that are too big to fail.

5. Declare all Credit Default Swaps null and void.

Of course, the well-paid parasites of Wall Street will figure out new and improved shenanigans. In that case,

6. Put some fucking teeth into the SEC. Staff it up to several times its current size, and eliminate all the crony types. Give the SEC new enforcement powers and a mandate to clamp down on the predatory behavior inherent in Wall Street.

Jason Brad Berry said...

- What's incisive about it is this. Just as Bush had an insider (Michael Brown) who was fundamentally unable to deal with the problem, Obama has Geithner, Summers and Bernanke: insiders who are fundamentally unable to deal with the problem.

Matter...I'm totally digging that perspective I just don't get that from the article. I love the game plan...I would like to see #6/4/3 (I think they are the same thing) moved to #1, but I'd take any one of those 6 items. I think the "teeth" part has to be announced immediately and heads have to roll. I worry that we are dangerously close to France, circa 1788ish. If our government doesn't correct the matter...put the boat back on course....I fear the public will oblige.

I"m in total agreement on 2....hell yes! Why has he not wielded that sword yet? People keep talking FDR and the New Deal...I keep thinking TDD and the Trust Busting Express.

Congress is about to bypass the constitution to create a completely, unconstitutional tax, when all they have to do is carve that bitch(AIG) up and auction off the tangible assets. They have that power.

By "nationalizing" it....the misguided and/or myopic folks in this country start hurling charges of socialism, or better yet communism, and demand that AIG be culled.

This really cracks me up...what they are essentially saying is that they don't want to take responsibility for this entire fucked up ......thing.....we (America) have made.

So I think Obama should give them what they want....don't nationalize it (AIG)....just shoot it in the head and let the country see just how fucked we truly are.

Great comment man...thanks for that.

Anonymous said...

Dambala,
I tend to agree with Matter that the piece was pretty good, but I also agree with much of your criticism. What I like most about Rich's piece is that he is asking -- begging -- Obama to take the real steps that are necessary to turn this "thing" we call America around. Katrina may or may not have been a good metaphor from where we sit, but hopefully it will get Obama's attention. The one thing about Obama on which everyone can agree, as simplistic as it may be, is that he doesn't want to fail. Yeah, it's a simplistic truth, but at least Obama recognizes that he could fail and what the consequences of failure would be -- which puts him ahead of where Bush was and where the surviving Republicans want to take us. The most salient point of Rich's column was the last sentence, which warns us all about the GOP wanting Obama and America to fail...just so they can come back and resume the toga party.

Jason Brad Berry said...

- The most salient point of Rich's column was the last sentence, which warns us all about the GOP wanting Obama and America to fail...just so they can come back and resume the toga party.

I guess what aggravates the most is that no one is telling the full truth. What really set me off in the article was his reference to the Daily Show then his avoidance of the truth. At some point, we're going to have to admit the market is rigged and start weeding out the naked short sellers.

It just seems that no one in the MSM is willing to call out the frat boys throwing the toga party...you can't expect CNBC to step up and do it as they're complicit. Even frontline just skirted the issue and didn't name names. These naked short hedge funds have become so large and powerful....they are taking down the biggest banks in our country. If they stay in power, the toga party is just going to get bigger. In case you guys didn't watch this video....please do:

http://theamericanzombie.blogspot.com/2009/03/who-is-sec-working-for.html#links

Jason Brad Berry said...

- I keep thinking TDD and the Trust Busting Express.

sic....TDR...oops...as in Teddy Roosevelt.

Anonymous said...

Dambala,

Thanks for 'splaining TDD and TDR ... I thought I was just really ignorant, which of course I am ... but not THAT ignorant.