Protection For Irresponsible Free-Marketeers

But Not, Necessarily, For YOU, Plebe!

With today's news that Paulson is about to funnel taxpayer funds to more insurance comapanies, despite the fact that he really doesn't have the authority to do so (but since when does the absence of Congressional authority mean anything to a neocon corporate capitalist--just ignore valiantly all signs that fantastical ideologically-based thinking hasn't worked and then run to Congress with a three-page proposal and they'll have to pass it or risk losing their jobs along with the rest of the plebes!), we get a clearer sense of how neo-socialism is going to work--more robbing from the middle and working classses to distribute upwards, with no or few apparent consequences for the abject profligacy of the neo-robber barons of the past eight years.

Again, your Demon wants to know, where are the protections for the plebes whose wallets are being raided and futures mortgaged--you know, girls and boys--reworking of bankruptcy laws, usury laws on the terms and conditions of credit, and investigating whether insurance companies are going to continue to be able to charge average joes higher premiums based on problems with credit in the past--and what did that ever have to do, really, with insurabilty where products aimed at average people--home, auto, life--are concerned, anyway?

While you're at it, Congress, start considering how credit problems affect average people looking for jobs--if a position doesn't involve handling of or direct access to money, why is it relevant, why is it perfectly legal (still?) With the number of layoffs sure to be coming and the disastrous effects sure to be experienced by ordinary people, whatever their political affiliation, ignoring these problems even while funnelling taxpayer funds into a never-ending bailout of the politically connected wealthy interests who caused the problems in the first place would be a move fraught with danger to the pols who attempt it as well as the health of whatever democracy we have left.

I'm jus' sayin'...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/24/AR2008102401715.html

The Dress-Me Caribou Barbie Special

Conspicuous consumption, excess focus on the superficial to the detriment of substance, silly distractions, a cynical circus of the bizarre? Just biz-as-usual for the GOP, especially as Wall Street melts down and takes the global economy with it.

All of the hullabaloo over Sarah Palin's ginormous wardrobe expenses (including high-end baby clothes for the adorable special baby who's kept up way past his bedtime in order to be a campaign stage prop) has your Demon all atwitter today. After all, I am a woman, and nothing can ever be more important than looking good in the bright light of public opinion, most especially if one is a woman, and one who's had to bear 10 children in the frozen tundra at that (although having a ruggedly handsome snowmobile-racing, moose-shooting baby-making-machine of a husband who'll lie for you to avoid a Troopergate scandal ameliorates such harsh circumstances greatly).

So, take this post with a grain of salt, Sarah, all of us are just jealous cats--mmrrrow! hsss! spit!--and all of us women out here would not at all mind breaking our manicured nails to have your looks, your man, your babies, your God-given superstar status, and Tina Fey mocking--er, imitating, us on national TV (singlehandedly reviving Saturday Night Live to its halycon status for a nation that hasn't watched it since the '70's). And, now, your $150K wardrobe. Face it girls--we all want to be Sarah Palin--it's a fantasy sequence come true! We're just in mass denial and some feminist consciousness-raising is in order!

That's what the McCain campaign thinks, anyway, and the real reason they brought an empty-headed far-right wingnut on board, surfaces in force, finally, today. If anyone attacks you they can portray it as an attack against an historically disadvantaged minority, thereby stealing any thunder the opposition might be able to rally--if only he'd pander to his "natural" constituency, which he has assiduously so far avoided--and if only a McCain campaign aide hadn't been caught lying when she accused a big bad though unfortunately NONEXISTENT black man of robbing her and carving a backwards "B" in her face in supposed retaliation for her support of McCain.

"[McCain campaign spokesperson] Wallace said the media storm about Palin's wardrobe was a terrible disservice to her and said there seemed to be a 'double-standard for women in politics.'
'That any aspect of her shoes, clothes or appearance has become a distraction is a terrible commentary on the state of the media and politics. Let's get on with our great debate about the best direction for the country in these challenging times for our economy and our nation's security' she said. "

The politics of divisiveness is alive and well in the GOP, thanks to you, and they're hoping it will stoke the fires of the closet anti-affirmative action activists still buried deep within the GOP nut-wing hatchery base--those who imagine themselves the oppressed victims of all those liberal years of government affirmative-action regulations: you know, hiring preferences and all. It was really political all along, an attempt to displace white men from positions of centuries of entrenched power and influence (which they rightfully held). Sure, women and other-colored people can achieve things, but not more than the rest of the rabble and hoi-polloi who have to come to resent it, and mightily.

Or maybe the real reason they had to spend all that money to clothe you, Sarah, was that this photo got out: you definitely need some help dressing yourself if you think this outfit makes you look like anything but a streetwalker in desperate need of some grownup sartorial direction.

RNC Shells Out $150,000: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14805.html

McCain Camp Bemoans "Double Standard for Women in Politics: http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE49N7JM20081024

Dollop of Lagniappe: McCain Volunteer Admits She Made Up Robbery Story: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/oct/24/mccain-aide-admits-she-made-face-carving-story/?partner=RSS

Another "Business" Too Big To Fail

Even if the 'business of America is business' (and your Demon takes issue with that postulation--the true 'business' of America is looking out for the commonweal, of which moneyed interests are only a part),the bailout is nothing short of a bloodless coup.

~ Massive transfer of wealth from 'the people' threatens to succeed only in bankrupting America, cannibal capitalists win--all y'all can all go home (if you have one). Absolutely nothing to see here, folks , move on~

So, is it supremely fitting that the American Administration destined to be remembered only infamously as the worst, most unAmerican ever bestows as its parting gift a crippling deficit too big to be imagined, or what?

Of course, the Bush administration is not entirely to blame for creating such a huge debacle--its roots go back to Mr. Morning in America himself, Reagan--but for perfecting it and taking it to its logical and disastrous conclusion, and consistently treating the federal taxpayers' monies with an approach that amounts to "friends and contributors welcome to back the trucks up to the Treasury door and take it all away," and to years of conservative think tanks, letting lobbyists write legislation and appointing foxes like Paulson to guard the henhouse, we have years of concerted and tireless Republicon efforts to thank.

Wall Street has succeeded in extorting its bailout, mostly on its own terms. Where is legislation to help the little people--say a complete repeal of the dastardly bankruptcy legislation the credit card companies managed to push though, just for starters?

Face it, America--the worst President ever and his maleific friends have just succeeded in completely subverting democracy in the name of 'capitalism'--except that, like everything else in this Administration, with its penchant for trying to convince us that up is down and other disingenuous misnomners, the fact is that 'capitalism' has somehow succeeded in privatizing profits and socializing losses, the precise opposite of what we all supposed it to be.

And don't look now, but when you lose your job, and the creditors who are the beneficiaries of this bailout-shakedown come after you, there won't be any social services left to help you get back on your feet, nor any particularly effective laws to prevent them from coming after anything you might manage to salvage.

If you're not outraged, you haven't been paying attention, as the old saw goes, and yeah, what about the plan that Sweden successfully implemented when faced with the same situation, described in a New York Times article not so long ago?

As the WaPo reports, the amount of the bailout must be borrowed because, er, we really don't have that much money on hand: "What is clear is that the Treasury will have to borrow the money: The bill increases the legal debt limit by $700 billion, to $11.3 trillion."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/03/AR2008100301108.html

So what if America turns out to be "too big to fail?" Who's going to bail us out, and incidentally, own us?

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081020/greider

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/opinion/03krugman.html?_r=1&oref=slogin