Nationalize the Banks Already!

We really need to Nationalize the bad banks before we dump anymore money into them. This site explains why. And it makes economics easy to understand.

Now why is nationalization a better use of money? Well first, we are much too far down the road to discuss hands off policies (even though I advocated for this long ago because I knew things like TARP and Ben Bernanke’s nutty work were simply money being flushed down the toilet). First, with nationalization we own the banks flat out. We can then do the following:

-Shareholders get eliminated

-Bondholders get eliminated

-Management gets the boot

-Then and only then, do we separate out the good and bad assets. The good assets we try to sell them off to the market. The bad assets, we assess and slowly process a pricing model and get rid of them. Yet we know since the ownership is now ours that we’ll try to mitigate the loss for taxpayers. Right now with TARP and possibly the bad bank, banks are trying to off load as much of the crap at the highest cost to taxpayers while keeping the caviar assets all for themselves.

-This will get credit moving again because now instead of absurd capital injections, banks will now need to lend money because guess what, we freakin own them and we can decide whether we loan or not!

There is nothing more preposterous than a bad bank...

Amen brothers and sisters!! Can I get a big Amen?

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Pelosi, the Favorite Democrat of the GOP

Is Pelosi on the GOP payroll? I'm so outraged I can't find the words to even write about it.

Huffington Post link here.

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This is New

Yesterday Coyote reminded me to tell Obama what for on his site Change.gov. When I went there, I was redirected because Change.gov was only in effect until January 20th - now, Obama's site is actually Whitehouse.gov. (I was afraid to visit Whitehouse.gov during the Bush Administration because I did not know what enemies list that I would end up on.)

The site is pretty cool and he has an Office of Public Liason which is dedicated to involving the people in their government - I like that.

This morning when Obama had his presser after his meeting with the business community he announced Recovery.gov.

Recovery.gov is all about this stimulus package and allowing us to see where every penny of the money goes and the results of that investment. That is new. That is totally new.

If the people pay attention then they cannot get away with the kind of crap that the Bushies did. No more cost plus contracts for Halliburton and their other buddies.

It will be a searchable database just like the other website that Obama and Tom Coburn created with their legislation "Google for Government."

If we can say anything at all for this first week of the Obama Admin, we can say that it is transparent. I personally believe that transparency, access to information, is the greatest tool that the people have to be involved in and to watchdog our governement. I like it.

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Fuck Bi-Partisanship

I am done. It is only one week into this new flowery world of getting along with the rabid Right and I.Am.Done.

(Rest of the rant on the flip side.)

These bastards are spreading their lies and their fairy tales all across the TeeVees all weekend and the gawd-damned Democrats – who we elected to stand up against these dickwads – are clueless as to how to play this game of political theatre. Do we not have one single friggin’ Democratic spokesperson who can speak in sound bites? Is there no one on that Hill who can get our message across? What is wrong with these people? Jeebus.

Then, I hear on the MSNBC this morning, and also find it here, that the Democrats might drop the Medicare change provision from the stimulus that waives the waiver waiting period for contraception to be included in state programs. Are you kidding me?! Just because gawd damned John Boehner released a sound bite about birth control that freaked the Dems out they are going to cave rather than explain to the sheeple what this provision really does? That pisses me off to no end. (What you are reading now is an only slightly expanded upon version of what the staffers at my Senator’s and Representative’s office heard this morning…)

I realize that that the pundits spun this provision to sound like we were becoming China in advocating birth control…but, it was not a mandate for Christ sake – it was offering people choices! When people have to cut costs what is the first to go? Usually it is medications that we justify that we can “skimp” on. After you have cut every other friggin’ thing out of your life that you can, then we start to look for things that are “luxury.” And, unfortunately, birth control can end up on that list because people play the denial head games like “I’ll be careful.” Well, gawd damn it you stupid Right Wing pricks, it only takes one!

Then, your cut of the $25 dollars - that we might pay for birth control pills - turns into thousands and thousands of dollars to pay for a child that was not wanted to begin with. Then you have a kid growing up in poverty who has to deal with all of the crap that poverty brings and will, quite often, end up in the “system” where we are paying for them in one way or another – either through institutions or because they end up having babies while they are still babies and the friggin’ cycle continues just because you tight assed “conservative” freaks cannot abide by paying for a low income families birth control. Gawd you are stupid!

I realize that Obama’s goal of “one Country” and “we are all in this together” is a noble one. I get it. I also get that it makes sense when we are dealing with reasonable people. I can do that in my personal life with some Right-Wing people who are human and who understand compromise. Yes, it can work.

However, the Republican Hacks on Capitol Hill are not reasonable. They still cannot even take responsibility for the disaster that they caused. They cannot admit that they were the ones who screwed everything up. These assholes do not understand that it is their philosophy that wrecked everything.

President Obama: You cannot work with these people to restore good government because the core of their philosophy is that “government does not work.” Sorry, Dude, but this is what they believe. When you go to them, to work out this legislation and “compromise” you will never, truly, find any common ground.

You are standing on different fucking planets…Ours is the planet of a government that can work for the people, theirs is a planet where government’s only role is to give “tax cuts” to the wealthy and the corporations. They do not give a shit about the majority of us – we are only here to make their beds and serve their meals and cut their lawns and fill their privately run (but federally funded) prisons. These people are criminal hacks and they are Anti-American. Sorry, but you cannot “work with them.” There are only a handful of reasonable, moderate Republicans left and they have no voice inside their caucus; the rest of them are Fascist Pigs. To hell with them.

The American people get it. The American people took the 8 years of Bill Clinton and compared them to the 8 years of George Bush and said “hey, I rather liked the peace and prosperity of the Clinton years…let’s do that again.” And this – Democratic Party – is why you were elected. This is why we worked our asses off and dug deep into our pockets to elect you assholes. Now, our request is friggin’ simple: Act Like the Democrats That We Elected You to Be!

/Rant Over

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Will the Fat Piglet Sing?

Justice delayed? My only question is will Rove be handcuffed and arrested if he ignores the subpoena?

Yesterday Conyers issued a subpoena to Rove, requiring him to testify regarding his role in the Bush Administration's politicization of the Department of Justice, including the US Attorney firings and the prosecution of Don Siegelman. The subpoena calls for Rove to appear at a deposition on February 2.

As we all know, Karl has claimed "absolute immunity" from having to testify before Congress. But things have changed. Bush is no longer there to protect and support Rove's position, and the 'absolute immunity' position has been rejected by U.S. District Judge John Bates.

As Conyers has stated:

"I have said many times that I will carry this investigation forward to its conclusion, whether in Congress or in court. Change has come to Washington, and I hope Karl Rove is ready for it. After two years of stonewalling, it's time for him to talk." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

It is almost as if Rove never accepted the idea that times change and what was once acceptable one day may prove to be unacceptable the next. Personally, I hoping for handcuffs and arrest.

UPDATE: Rove has instructed his lawyer, Robert Luskin, to ask the Obama White House whether the same Executive Privileges currently exist. Gibbs said Obama's legal counsel was looking into it and studying the issue.

As someone pointed out, this move was a clever maneuver. Rove is forcing Obama to make a judgment call on Executive Privilege that could have ramifications later in his Presidency.

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Irreconcilable Headlines

I find it absolutely incomprehensible that these headlines can coexist:

Flood of Foreclosures: It’s Worse than You Think

Record Number of Families Seek Refuge in Shelters (Note: Link is to the NYT section dedicated to homelessness. YES, there is an entire section.)

The picture at the top of the Truthout article has a caption which reads:

Ezekiel Pierre Sejour stands in front of an empty, foreclosed home that he and his mother Marie Nadine Pierre, were moved into by the Miami group Take Back the Land after she lost her jobs and could no longer pay her loans. Take Back the Land moves homeless families into empty foreclosed homes in Miami and provides legal protection from eviction. (Photo: Getty Images)

This is exactly what should be happening all across the country.

The article says that banks are holding inventory for a number of reasons and this inventory is not being listed on the MLS. The problem with not listing these homes is that not only does it offer us horrible and incomplete data, but it keeps the homes empty, longer. The longer that the homes remain empty, the worse shape that they are in and the more money that it costs to get them to the point where they are saleable.

The banks are holding them because flooding the market with the true numbers will lower home prices substantially, everywhere. Who among us would want to continue to pay our mortgages if the value of our homes were to suddenly drop below the amount that we owe? How many of us would just walk away? That is a problem.

Another reason that the banks are not listing the homes is because they want to sell them in bulk to investors. This will be just grand; we can return to the days of slum-lords and serfdom, where just a few wealthy people own all of the homes and the rest of us lose our power of negotiation.

This is George W. Bush's "Ownership Society." This is exactly what he had in mind.

The rich will really have all of the power, owning all of the properties; the people who have to rent from them will just have to be happy with what they get. AND, we will all be renters. Brown water coming out of kitchen sinks, holes in the walls that rodents use as entry points, bugs and other nasties…get used to it…this will be the country that they are trying to create for us. Still.

Despite the election of Barack Obama and the very loud, unified, cry of “No More” heard across this country – the moneyed interests, the banks and the investments houses still are trying to enact Dickens’s England where the cry heard is “please sir, may I have some more.”

Dammit. Enough.

I believe that the many organizations dedicated to ending homelessness are already on it, that they are already moving towards the solutions necessary.

I hope that the Congress is listening and reconciles these two headlines so that people no longer lose their homes and that the millions already sitting empty become housing for those living in cars and on the streets. A country with this much wealth has no excuse for Tent Cities or too full shelters.

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