Palin on Goldman
One, called Hudson Mezzanine, was put together in the fall of 2006 expressly as a way to create more short positions for Goldman, the subcommittee claims. The $2 billion deal was one of the first for which Goldman sales staff began to face dubious clients, according to former Goldman employees.
“Here we are selling this, but we think the market is going the other way,” a former Goldman salesman told The New York Times in December.
via Goldman Said to Have Been in Other Mortgage Deals – NYTimes.com.
So today is the big day. Lloyd “God’s Work” Blankfein and Fabrice “Fabulous Fab” Tourre are going to be dragged before the Senate and formally introduced to America via the medium of a hearing of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
It’s hard to get a read on just exactly what this is all about. I hear conflicting things. On the one hand, one always has to keep in mind that Congress has a history of dragging current news-cycle villains into their arena to get video-whipped for purely political reasons — think the Mark-McGwire-weeping steroid hearings. And certainly the impending vote on the Financial Regulatory Reform bill is an important and very obviously related subplot to the Goldman investigation. So politically there are all sorts of reasons for the Senate to do this now.
The Democrats have a lot to gain by hauling in God’s Work and the Fab to be tarred and feathered. Politically, the most important thing from their point of view is to corner the Republicans politically, showing the country that these evil assholes testifying are the same people who have been sending armies of lobbyists to Washington to kill the Regulatory Reform bill, the same bill that the Republicans are trying to block debate on.
The Republicans, meanwhile, are in the difficult position of trying to sell Wall Street’s position on the Regulatory Reform bill to their base. That might not sound so very difficult, given that the Tea Partiers in particular continue to oppose further government regulation and have used the idea that Barack Obama’s government is “taking over the banking sector” as a rallying cry. But Wall Street isn’t exactly popular with the Tea Party, either, so selling their side of the debate on this bill is a bit of a sticky thing.
Leave it to Sarah Palin to come up with the solution. This is from a post on her Facebook page. I advise everyone to read it, since it’s a highly amusing piece of propaganda:
The current debate over financial reform demonstrates what happens when political leaders react to a crisis with a raft of new regulations. First off, the people involved in writing government regulations are often lobbyists from the very industry that the new laws are supposed to regulate, and that’s been the case here. It should surprise no one that financial lobbyists are flocking to DC this week. Of course, the big players who can afford lobbyists work the regulations in their favor, while their smaller competitors are left out in the cold. The result here are regulations that institutionalize the “too big to fail” mentality.
Moreover, the financial reform bill gives regulators the power to pick winners and losers, institutionalizing their ability to decide “which firms to rescue or close, and which creditors to reward and how.” Does anyone doubt that firms with the most lobbyists and the biggest campaign donations will be the ones who get seats in the lifeboat? The president is trying to convince us that he’s taking on the Wall Street “fat cats,” but firms like Goldman Sachs are happy with federal regulation because, as one of their lobbyists recently stated, “We partner with regulators.”
Sometimes it’s hard not to admire Sarah Palin. You need to have a pair of iron church bells swinging between your knees to pull off a crazy line like this, and she does it almost effortlessly. If you’re scoring at home, the idea here is that banks like Goldman actually want this regulatory bill because it will allow them to “partner with regulators,” i.e. team up with the government, to dominate the economy. This is despite the fact that Washington is currently flooded with financial services industry lobbyists who, in an attempt to kill this bill, are practically lugging suitcases full of money around to throw at the likes of Ben Nelson and Mitch McConnell.
The awesome thing about this is that it’s almost guaranteed to work with the people Palin is targeting. The Democrats here are going to suffer, deservedly so, for having taken so much money in the past from Goldman and banks like Goldman. That fact now allows transparent bullshitters like Palin — who incidentally supported the bank bailouts — to credibly argue that this Regulatory Reform bill is an industry creation. It doesn’t hurt that the Democrats’ last major piece of legislation, the Health Care bill, actually was a monstrous giveaway to industry that allowed campaign contributors to appropriate the power of the state to extract profits from ordinary people.
This Regulatory Reform bill is not that, but if you’re a Tea Partier, what about the past history of the Democrats would lead you to believe otherwise? Thus Carl Levin can get up there and roar all he wants at Lloyd Blankfein today, but the way this is going to play to a good 30% of the electorate is that the Democrats and big Lloyd are putting on a dog-and-pony show in order to smooth the way for the next chapter in their world domination plan. Hell, even writing that right now, I’m starting to believe it myself.
The reality, of course, is that this is a make-or-break moment for Goldman, Sachs. It just may be that the Democrats, after years of intimate partnership with this firm, have finally decided to “go in a different direction” and cut Goldman loose, purely for political reasons. A close friend of mine from Russia points out that there are parallels here to Putin’s ascension to power, when a rookie president pushed into his seat by a gang of oligarchs decided upon election to whack the most obviously odious of the bunch — Bank Menatep’s Mikhail Khodorkovsky — in order to firm up his “reform” credentials and, politically speaking, put himself on the other side the obscene corruption of the Yeltsin era.
Maybe I’m seeing more than is actually there with this Senate business. But with all this noise now about new cases even above and beyond Abacus, it is sure beginning to sound like someone has decided to make an example out of Goldman Sachs.
p.s. Palin, of course, isn’t completely wrong about the concept of “institutionalizing the too-big-to-fail” mentality. As originally conceived by Tim Geithner, the bill would have done exactly that, bailing out top-25 banks with taxpayer money and then only later (and without a specific timetable) getting Wall Street to foot the bill for bailouts. But the newer version makes Wall Street pay up front into a bailout fund. Of course the bill in its entirety is nothing to write home about (see Nomi Prins’s take on the subject), but what little good stuff is in the bill is only there in spite of Wall Street’s lobbying. In other words, the Goldmans of the world would have preferred no bill at all and are still trying to water it down as much as possible. Palin meanwhile is selling it as something Goldman actually wants, a new Obama-Goldman gouge job, in order to increase its market advantage over smaller competitors. It’s clever, you have to admit.
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If you think the Dems are going to throw Goldam overboard you are naive. I can not believe the thought even crossed your mind. Matt, take a vacation so you can get back in touch with reality. GOLDMAN SUPPORTS THIS BILL. Nough said!
Any proofy-woofy?
In response to another comment. See in context »Of course, Darling $arah didn’t actually write that herself- there wasn’t any incoherent gabble-gabble anywhere in the statement, ergo, Sarah didn’t write it. This statement came from her handlers, and probably reflects some larger Republican attack on the legislation. I imagine some disembodied brain, probably cloned from the stem cells of Paul Weyrich, and floating in a vat in the basement of the Heritage Foundation, that generates all these talking points, telepathically transmitting them to the True Believers. We’ll be hearing a lot of this crap.
Given the history, I wouldn’t be too surprised to see a final bill that reforms absolutely nothing, leaving TBTF and the shadow banks intact, ignoring the need for a Fed audit, Looking Forward, and somehow managing to contract with BoA to force all Americans to buy checking accounts.
It’s really kind of hard to argue with Palin. The fact that she would support Goldman versus her own grandmother if they slipped her enough cash doesn’t change much.
In her usual insipid –and insidious– style, Palin merges just enough truth with just enough pretzel manufacturing to twist out a plausible argument.
While I agree with your assessment that her FB post is a “highly amusing piece of propaganda,” I’m less optimistic that it will resonate with only 30 percent of the electorate. That seems way too low.
The Democrats, by yielding their principles to Blue Dogs, by selling out to the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, and by taking payoffs from Wall Street, have made it difficult to sell themselves as the party of reform.
In an age of polular resentment, they’ve ceded the mantle of populism –to whom I’m not exactly sure. God help us all if the answer is Sarah Palin.
Eisenhower’s warning about the Military-Industrial complex needs to be updated to the The Wall Street-Washington Complex or the K Street-Washington Complex or maybe just shorten it to the Military-Industrial-Financial-Foggy Bottom complex. We may make lightweight of Sarah Palin’s intellect but she is pretty politically-savvy. She will throw the Democratic party AND the Republican party under the bus to get what she wants… a two year stint as president before resigning, taking the keys to Fort Knox and retiring to Puerto Vallarta where she can get Pina Coladas served with those cute little umbrellas. And both parties play right into her hands. The fact of the matter is the Healthcare reform bill produced the biggest heap of dung since Argentinosaurus had its morning constitutional. Neither major party have shown they have exclusivity on being in-you-pocket scum… and Palin will certainly use that to her advantage whenever possible. Do not underestimate her intelligence in appealing to America’s stupidity.
I vote for the “Military-Industrial-Financial-Foggy Bottom Complex.”
TFF.
Great post.
In response to another comment. See in context »MIFFBOC. You win the internets.
In response to another comment. See in context »It’s hard to imagine that a final financial regulatory reform bill will actually enact reform. By the time the lobbyists get their grubby hands on it it will indeed be like the health care bill – a gift-wrapped bj for the financial services racket.
Health insurance companies are already implementing the health care bill for 2011 (why wouldn’t they, as they can raise fees, co-pays and disallow Rx spending on flex plans), and after the so-called financial regulatory reform passes, the hairy-backed Goldman Sachs traders will return to printing money at the expense of their clients.
Matt, as crazy as she sounds, are you sure Sarah Palin’s ghostwriter isn’t on to something?
When was the last time Goldman WASN’T selling short against the obvious?
I’m sure Goldman Sachs isn’t looking forward to eating a giant crapburger with this bill, but if the effects of the reform legislation force other financial institutions to eat even more, then there is a comparative advantage.
Please dig a little more and look at it from the angle of Future Comparative Advantage. I’m too far behind in the process to do it myself, and I don’t want to take Palin’s scribe as my muse.
“When was the last time Goldman WASN’T selling short against the obvious?”
======================================
“Oh please Brer Fox, whatever you do, please don’t throw me into the briar patch.”
In response to another comment. See in context »Oh yes, everyone in D.C. is oh so clever and Machiavellian; always one step ahead – carrot-in-hand – of it’s plodding citizen-asses; pandering to current populism with hypocritical grace; pillow-bashing bedfellows & bedbugs alike for 15 more minutes of infamy & obfuscation(hurting far less than it looks).
Clever players indeed, our political leaders. They’ve mastered the art of keeping the game afoot for as long as possible; but like all the other hacks before them, they do not play to win. It’s the thrill of the thrill of power & profits that drives them. Pawns, Bishops, Horses and Fools are just pieces to move and lose, and to contemplate how best to sacrifice for the game.
It’s just chess to them – those hiding behind their paper rules & laws. But when the endgame comes, the rules end with it. The rulers are reduced to the stage of the board itself.
The last move always belongs to the masses; a few checks, then checkmate; game over; time to reset the board and play another round. Enjoy the few final moves left.
The Tea Partiers are a group of people who are rightfully angry and distrustful of the government, but for the wrong reasons: they are MAD AS HELL about health care reform, but not because it’s a giant hand-out to the pharmaceutical corporations and health insurance companies; rather, because they heard it was “socialist”. It’s like they ALMOST see what’s going on in this country, but are too “patriotic” to believe what they are told is an “anti-American” or “un-patriotic” sentiment: that our entire government—including both parties—has been hijacked by special interests.
In the end, the Tea Party will be a victim of its own ignorance: these people have a legitimate anger that is being misdirected: Fox News and the Republican party both see the potential to manipulate the views of a group of people who are upset at the government. Enter Palin! She is the figurehead the Republican party will use to bring these stray sheep “back into the fold” (before they realize that they could join a third party instead). Palin is responsible for harnessing the Tea Party anger and playing on their ignorance in order to twist their movement into more of a “base” for the Republican 2012 presidential bid.
She is an exceptional choice to head such a campaign; the public at large may see her as devoid of intelligence but her “folksy” charm, skill with firearms, and physical beauty enthralls the Tea Partiers—and her lack of common sense makes her the perfect talking head for the Republican Party: they give her paragraphs of propaganda to read, and she delivers it to the angry masses with charisma and charm.
Take some comfort in the facts that:
In response to another comment. See in context »a) The Tea Party and Sarah Palin remain deeply unpopular in Nationwide polls,
b) She still remains a very divisive figure in the Republican Party, where many feel she hurt McCain’s candidacy, and
c) Even the Tea Party protesters, while all too happy to have Palin as a poster child for their vague, opportunistic outrage, still don’t support her candidacy for president (just 40% in a recent poll).
This piece by tax historian Joseph Thorndike and this clip by radio-talk host Thom Hartmann both correctly explain that the Boston tea party was not a protest against the power of big government, but a protest against corporate power over government:
http://www.taxhistory.org/thp/readings.nsf/ArtWeb/1BB0C8F894BB490B852577020083A6F6?OpenDocument
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtGs09YLH9s&feature=player_embedded
This is just more evidence that today’s teabaggers have got things all backwards. They mistakenly see Obama as a socialist when in reality he’s a corporatist. Otherwise, they’d know that Obama signing off on a corporate-freindly bank bailout plan and pushing for a corporate-friendly health care bill are both clear-cut examples of welfare for Corporate America, not for society as a whole. They also mistakenly see Obama as a loyal friend to the Muslims, when in reality he’s more of a foe than a friend to them. Otherwise, they’d know that Obama is clearly conducting himself as neo-con hegemon hell-bent on making the Muslim world subservient to the American Empire.
But I personally have come to believe that teabaggers, whether they are victims of astroturfing or not, really and truly don’t believe that Obama is a socialist Muslim. I think what they are doing is falsely portraying Obama as a far-left socialist with strong ties to the Muslim world in order to get Obama to respond by moving himself and the Democratic Party further and further to the Right — to the point where he and the Democrats are one and the same with the Republicans. Unfortunately, what the teabaggers are doing is working!
In response to another comment. See in context »[...] Matt Taibbi elaborates on this theme in the context of the Goldman Sachs Senate [...]
The hearing is going to be fun to watch. I would set the over/under for Taibbi/Squid/Rolling Stones mentions at 2-1/2.
I hope we are at a point where we can stop the Wall Street pillaging, or at least slow it down for a while, and a blow against Goldman would be a good start.
About eliminating “too big to fail,” I’m not convinced that can truly be done. Proactively breaking up the too-big banks might work, but allowing them to remain big without the government ultimately backstopping them doesn’t seem realistic to me. When the next catastrophe occurred, we’d just be told that the government was not “bailing out too-big-to-fail banks,” but was rather “lending a helping hand to our bedrock companies.”
This tune is fitting to listen to while reading that article…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2iPhS2XSnk
Pretzel Logic is our way of life.
I don’t entirely agree with your take – I think this was actually an unusually insightful and truthful comment from Palin, but it does not seem all that politically smart. Which is pretty much the opposite of what we have gotten used to with Miss Wasilla.
Here’s where it is truthful – regulation can bring about a situation of “too small to exist”. Whether or not this is a good thing for the banking industry is actually not clear cut (Canada’s banking system is a pretty awesome oligopoly, but it is strictly regulated and was nearly unique when it did not implode two years ago), but regulation can have this effect and lobbyists are quite aware of this.
I think however that when it comes to banking reform, there is quite different dynamic as opposed to HCR, regardless of the process by which HCR became law and how it tarnished many Democrats in the process. There was always a reasonable political case to be made by Republicans to walk away from HCR, but there isn’t with banking reform. And Palin has pointed this out. She does not object apparently to reform per se, just whether it is written by lobbyists and benefits incumbent powers.
To which the obvious response is: Absolutely. So let’s all work together to make sure that this doesn’t happen, all of America can agree how important this is.
Maybe I am not seeing what devilish next move Palin might have in store, but this is an entreaty by Palin for politicians to work together to avoid precisely the sort of risks that exist when new regulations are crafted. Is that smart politics for Republicans, right now in 2010?
Count me skeptical.
Your Brooks story disappeared – whsssssht! So I apologize for posting in the wrong place, but here ya go:
“It’s easy to see why this happened. People who make it into the establishment work and play well with others. They are part of the same overlapping social networks, and inevitably begin to perceive the world in similar, conventional ways. They thrive in institutions where people are not rewarded for being cantankerous intellectual bomb-throwers.
Outside the establishment herd, on the other hand, there were contrarians who understood the bubble (which was the easy part) and who figured out how to take counteraction (which was hard). Michael Burry worked at a small hedge fund in Northern California. John Paulson ran an obscure fund in New York. Eventually, there were even a few traders at the big investment banks who also foresaw the imminent collapse. One of them was “Fabulous” Fabrice Tourre of Goldman Sachs.”
—
Those of us who are angry a Wall Street are just upset that we weren’t smart enough to jump on this gravy train when the time was ripe. Since we’re inadequate at describing what’s wrong with the system, we turn to the god(s) in the SEC or other commissions to think for us. Glory hallelujah!
To sum it up: sour grapes.
Unless real regulation – along the lines of ye old Glass-Steagall – is enacted, we can count on Brooks detailing the sequel.
It’s interesting how little attention the SEC action against Goldman got on Matt Drudge’s website. Compared to how he normally handles such a big story, he all but ignored it.
I recall that now because today, while CNN, MSNBC, and CNBC all have live coverage of the Goldman hearings, Fox News is sticking with their normal programming.
Someone obviously wishes they could sweep this story under the rug.
be patient, little fella. Drudge will have articles about GS after the hearings. Glenn Beck (FOXNews) had an excellent discussion last nighit about GS, too. You must’ve missed it.
In response to another comment. See in context »Did Glenn’s excellent discussion involve a chalkboard web-diagram explaining the connections between GS, Obama, the Sixth International, the Bilderbergers, Woodrow Wilson, Diego Rivera, and the UFO people? I like hungry man proportions too, but not of bullshit.
In response to another comment. See in context »I don’t think it was a mere coincidence that Eliot Spitzer got caught soliciting sexual favors from a prostitute just a few months before a fraud-filled bubble was about to burst on Wall Street. Nor, do I think it was a mere coincidence that the news about SEC staffers surfing for porn on government time broke just a few days after the SEC announced that it is suing Goldman Sachs for fraud. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not defending the misconduct of either Eliot Spitzer or the porn-surfers at the SEC, but what I do think is happening here is that the shadow banking industry is trying to pull a “Spitzer sting” on the SEC. After all, the shadow banks have the most to lose if the SEC wins its case against Goldman.
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/sec-pornography-employees-spent-hours-surfing-porn-sites/story?id=10452544&page=1
In response to another comment. See in context »bingo cynholt ! Obama could quell all doubts about his intent by an emergency appointment of Eliot Spitzer as Atty General, in which case, GS would be praying for the second coming.
In response to another comment. See in context »all the regulation in the world wont mean squat unless cops start raiding boardrooms and slapping handcuffs on those that break existing laws.
The Dodd financial reform bill does nothing to fix the real problems that caused the financial crisis and it still supports bailouts paid by tax payers. Mr. Dobb hides the cost by saying that bankers will pay it.
Bankers will put that regulatory fee cost into their products. Everybody would call that the tax upon the people except Congress. They must have missed that economics class.
The Dodd financial regulation is like prior regulations. Smoke and mirrors doing little good and causing much harm.
I dunno, I somehow get the feeling that the pissed off left and the tea-partiers are slowly growing towards each other. All it’s going to take to solidify a unified populism is the tea-partiers realizing mega-corporations are far more dangerous to the American way of life than phantasmal socialism, and for us lefties to realize you can’t have effective and honest governance AT ALL in the current system. One more obviously crooked bill and greed-motivated financial crash looting spree, we could have a mass movement in the streets.
BURN IT DOWN AND START OVER!!!
Was hoping you’d be live blogging this Goldman roast.
Levin is going to play well back in Flint MI: “You knew it was a shitty deal and you didn’t tell your clients,” Levin tells Sparks. “Does that bother you at all?”
Keep waiting for him to say to the lead GS dweeb, “Spider you stuttering prick ya, answer the fucking question!”
I agree with you that Palin’s statement is a brilliant piece of truth-molesting. The intial bit — “the people involved in writing government regulations are often lobbyists from the very industry that the new laws are supposed to regulate” — is absolutely true, and is one of the central problems with K street in its present form. Thomas Frank, in *The Wrecking Crew*, has done a nice job of detailing the revolving-door process that allows former legislators or regulators to move swiftly into lobbying positions once they’re done with the pretense of “serving the public interest.”
The problem is not the accusation Palin makes about lobbying, which is correct, but rather the conclusions she (and by extension the Teabaggers) draws from it: if your average leftie is inclined to say that, “regulating revolving-doors demand that we create tighter regulation,” Palin’s conclusion is that this renders the very act of regulation problematic. It’s a deft piece of footwork, to be sure, and very much echoes the logic that Republicans have followed since the Reagan 80s: put crummy people in regulatory positions, and make the business of governing seem so despicable that people will despise *government itself*, not the Repubs for making shitty appointments.
I think the righties say, “The oligarchy sucks and the the government is the oligarchy.” The lefties, “The oligarchy sucks and the corporate executives are the oligarchy.”
I wish the goal were creating laws that are straightforward and fair. Golden Rule laws. Not “Do unto others as would benefit your political party.” Not “Do unto others as will pad your pockets after you leave Washington.”
In response to another comment. See in context »That might be what the righties and the lefties say, but the proper analysis (in my view, obviously), is that both of them are in the oligarchy together. Government is power, corporations have money. What do you expect to happen when you mix them together?
The last point I would add is that power by itself, by definition, is the use of force against people (most of whom don’t deserve it I might add). Money, by itself, is not force but rather a voluntary instrument exchanged for goods/services as individuals see fit. Get rid of the power and you need not worry about the money. But as long as the power/force exists, you do need to worry about the money.
In response to another comment. See in context »and by the way, these Goldman guys don’t give a shit:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/credit-crunch-the-4bn-killing-765261.html
Hi Ray, why all the venom?
Did you get axed from a trading job and now you have it in for all of us working on the street? I am a vp in operations in the credit derivatives group and i think it’s a joke how congress is calling subprime debt gambling when it’s no different than any other form of investing. Are we going to wonder next year how the evil bankers could sell Greece debt to their clients when everyone knew it was ’shitty’?
Michael
In response to another comment. See in context »“Maybe I’m seeing more than is actually there with this Senate business.”
Given that there are always more layers of shit going on than there are layers of phyllo in a baklava, that’s pretty much impossible.
Matt, you’re doing the Lord’s work here, but I think you’re wrong on the Russia parallel. While not perfect by any means, Khodorkovsky was far from the most odios Oligarch, and you could make a case that he was one of the better ones. Putin went after him because Khodorkovsky funded rival political parties. The Wikipedia page on Khodorkovsky is chilling and directly refutes your claim. You should change that statement because it is misleading and false. Otherwise, love your work.
Uh, no. Mikhail Khodorkovsky was a mass-murderer and a thief of the hugest proportions. Bank Menatep was the biggest mafia group in the country while I was there. The notion that Khodorkovsky was a “businessman” is comical. I don’t know where you’re getting that from.
In response to another comment. See in context »Matt, eriks must not know much about you. I’ll concede to you on contemporary Russia. Wikiheads, got to love them.
How about Lloyd?
In response to another comment. See in context »http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/27/goldman-sachs-hearings-li_n_553318.html#s85410
Dumber than a rock and he just said G$ is a small institution. He don’t know the answer to anything. What a guy. Great TV. Now Lloyd is just a farmer, trying to hedge his crop. He never finishes a sentence. Unreal.
Uh, they’re “getting that from” Wikipedia? The greatest and most accurate source of information in the world?? You should change your statement, Wikipedia says you’re misleading and false. Wikipedia knows all.
(informative and amusing-as-all-hell post as usual, btw. you’re a bad ass. keep it coming)
In response to another comment. See in context »Dems need to divest themselves entirely of Goldman in particular and Wall St. in general. And I think the way to do it is to keep repeating Eliot Spitzer’s casino meme in the press and online. Check it out; it’s a great piece. http://www.slate.com/id/2252037/
If you follow the link in Palin’s comment from the phrase “happy with federal regulation,” you’ll find a more sophisticated take than Palin offered:
just as drug companies and insurers used Republicans to kill the public option before using Democrats to mandate insurance and subsidize drugs, big banks are using Republicans to kill a bank tax while using Democrats to erect barriers to entry, to institutionalize bailouts, and to restore confidence in Wall Street.
I think that’s likely to be correct. Watch for a “compromise” bill that gives Goldman et al pretty much what they want, with both parties playing their assigned role.
“It’s clever, you have to admit.” With an ending like that, somehow, the bull is waving his underwear at the cow here. It’s as bad as trying to figure out if GS really want Regs or not. That’s a possible reverse process issue that can go either way depending on how much cordage their lawyers figure they got on moving around within these regs. So, it is possible that GS does want Regs as they would be getting it from Obimbo who they gave lotsa bucks/fucks to. Ain’t that so? Soooo, should there be a debate between Plain Plain and Frat Mouth Boy Taibbi? Yeeeessssssssiiiirrrreeee!
You are far less intelligble and witty then you believe.
In response to another comment. See in context »Oh God, with a hick smiley face fit for a Minnesota logger just in from the hills you are so deft and…deaf….missed the point again, goon boy!
In response to another comment. See in context »Well, I don’t know what my personal appearance has to do with your inability to express yourself in writing, but that one is getting flagged for abuse. Enjoy!
In response to another comment. See in context »I think Palin hints at what the Republican strategy will be in the fall: The Republicans are taking loads of cash from Wall St and defending them against any meaningful regulation/laws right now in April/May, they will eventually get two or three Republican Senators to go along with the Democrats ‘reform’ but only after the Democrats already toothless potemkin financial reform is watered down even more(like health insurance ‘reform’), then in the fall the Republicans will campaign against the Democrats and Wall St for writing a bill that took the side of Wall St against the interests of the American people and does nothing to reign in their excesses.
In October most people won’t remember who sided with who right now but in the fall will see endless MSM stories that out the reform bill as benefiting the vultures on Wall St. Then when the electorally victorious Republicans start helping Wall St. again in 2011 few will remember their pre-election attacks on Wall St and the Dems.
It is great theater.
Jon Stewart called it professional wrestling. It was an epiphany for me, and I haven’t been able to take either side seriously since.
In response to another comment. See in context »What a great analogy. A lot of bluster for the crowds, then a choreographed fake fight.
In response to another comment. See in context »Not fake: scripted
In response to another comment. See in context »Good one Matt.. but I have ONE small problem with your logic.. The Swag-Hag isn’t smart enough to write this screed on facebook. Someone on her staff wrote this dribble and NOW has the daunting task of trying to explain this diatribe to her…NOT a likely happen-stance…
BUT, none of that matters to clowns like dick Armey or the Koch family which fund most of the wing-nut pity-parties. All they need is a platform and beck and their off to the races on a whole new batch of lies…
Wow, continue with the name calling. Soon, you’ll think of even more people to call out….than more and more. Till Joe Stalin crops up as…hand-in-hand.
In response to another comment. See in context »Matt, out of all the depressing shit you’ve ever written, the last line of the post script might be the worst.
Yo Cosmo, It’s not Matt. This shit IS depressing. He’s just the preferred messenger. Let’s not shoot him, he’s entertaining. We’ve been watching this shit happen since Tricky Dick so being surprised, depressed or pissed off is self-serving and disingenuous.
And Matt, We got Nomi to tell us what’s what. We hired you to kick the shit out of the scumbags. What’s up with the kid gloves for Sarah? Don’t get us thinking, you know where that could lead. Dr Hook territory.
In response to another comment. See in context »Believing in the surface reality in WADiCey is like believing in SC, the EB and the TF. Big bucks thrown around is like a diversion. It does not mean that what the bucks are paying for is what the thrower wants. DC is full of brilliant minds from the best schools. There is no simplesse oblige here. Straight Arrow is so outa sight now. Hey, just read up on Johnson as Master of the Senate and how he got the Civil Rights Bill passed.
There’s a whole lotta nothin’ here. Sarah Palin is the Paris Hilton of the GOP so let’s not confuse her with the Rhodes’ strategists like Rush, Glen and Mike.
As for G$, they don’t give a shit what the US electorate thinks or if it does. Unless you got 10 mil laying around gathering dust, you ain’t shit. G$ needs to impress the Brooksies that they can survive the assault of the little people, otherwise they get their gold plated peepee’s whacked to the tune of hundreds of millions, just for starters, not to mention Divine disapproval. In order to be too big to fail, failure is not an option.
Great post, Matt. I would go even further. It is obvious that Palin herself did not even write that facebook note. There has not even been a thinly veiled attempt to incorporate her voice: no folksy tropes, no warnings of the Apocalypse, no attempt to explain away the economy with a deranged ranting on healthcare, no settling of old scores, not even a plug for her new reality show. So who wrote it? Some personal advisor or RNC hire, who either got their talking points from Frank Lutz or, most likely, financial industry lobbyists. This pushes establishment uses of anti-establishment theatrics to wear the lobbyists are leading a fight against themselves, or rather, a distorted image of what “they” are after.
There is no distortion. Lobbyists are always “short” the people and “long” themselves. Objectivists? Ayn Rand was the ultimate lobbyist (for herself). You are certainly correct, Palin does not have enough ink in her pen to have written this blurb. The lack of non-grammatical cheap shots gives the deal up. Or do you suppose the GOP pinup girl done went cerebral on us?
In response to another comment. See in context »That was my first thought. It’s manipulative and flat out wrong, but done in a way that suggests someone who actually knows enough about the issues to distort it effectively. And Palin can’t articulate financial policy beyond buzz words like “jobs creation” and “trade opportunity.” I’m skeptical of the idea that she’s facilitating a direct line to financial lobbyists (a little too Machiavellian for a public figure who’s only objective is attention), but it could definitely be a Frank Lutz-type talking points hack.
In response to another comment. See in context »It is not the idiot Palin that is the problem, it is indeed the folks behind her. She really is the new Reagan. Like him, whether she even knows what’s going on in the world is irrelevant. She is the telegenic front for folks with a very clear agenda.
In response to another comment. See in context »She is not Reagan. Reagan was quite thoughtful beyond his “telegenic front”, and a voracious writer and reader. I have seen his son Ron (who is probably more liberal than you) get extremely frustrated with people throwing out this comparison. Whether you like it or not, Reagan was his own man, with his own set of principles. He was not a thinly veiled front as you imply for Palin.
In response to another comment. See in context »It’s 1:50pm and the Goldman execs are getting grilled by a Senate committee. The S&P is down 1.25%, but GS is UP 1.25%. WTF?! I’m beginning to think in an odd sort of way this whole ordeal–the Senate hearings, the SEC case–will just end up enhancing Goldman’s reputation. They’ll pay some nominal fine, and GS will come out of this thing stronger than ever by showing they could stand up to the government’s heat and that life will continue just as before.
By the way, Jon Tester seemed totally clueless on the housing crash. What a waste of a questioner.
[...] WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Goldman Sachs Group Inc’s Fabrice Tourre, the sole employee charged in a government fraud lawsuit against the firm, said he…… Palin On Goldman – Matt Taibbi – Taibblog – True/Slant [...]
Matt:
There’s seems to be a problem with the link to your new David Brooks post as it repeatedly results in an error code “page not found.”
I chomping at the bit to read it too!
[...] WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Goldman Sachs Group Inc’s Fabrice Tourre, the sole employee charged in a government fraud lawsuit against the firm, said he…… Palin On Goldman – Matt Taibbi – Taibblog – True/Slant [...]
I’m not sure how you can conclude this is going to cause big financial firms any pain (unless it is the similar pain that is given to big companies that lobby for minimum wage increases precisely because their smaller competitors can’t handle them).
Here is the “pain” caused to Goldman (ignore his potential partisan stance, I am including this link from my own honest non-partisan perspective, because the facts in the story are indisputable though the author’s intentions might be):
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=aATP..yenY9c
Whether or not Goldman is guilty of something is worth a debate, but the most important thing I think should come of all of this is that people should stop turning to the government to solve any of society’s problems… because it can’t and it doesn’t.
This is the biggest canard in American thought today. Government can and does solve society’s problems, that why we have government. Try living in a society with no police, no emergency services, no roads, no laws against slavery, no military, no protections against poison food or banks just taking your deposits… You can keep that Mad Max bullshit, I’ll stick with Democracy.
We just have a spectacularly bad government at the moment. The answer isn’t to go anarchist and hope that the major coprorations decide to be decent human beings and not enslave and rob us wholesale, the answer is to fix the F’ING government!
In response to another comment. See in context »Your elementary school teacher, as well as those corporations, have clearly done a great job of convincing you.
In response to another comment. See in context »Oral B…gee, a real hump-de-do type of Dumpty you are certainly…are! Purse your lips and say after teacher…”I will not wet my pants and then show them to the boys…”
In response to another comment. See in context »I was getting six to eight marketing phone calls every single night until the government outlawed the practice.
You can make that the first item on your list of things the government has done to solve societal problems.
In response to another comment. See in context »That’s a really good argument. I was starving and naked before the government invented food and clothing too.
Did you ever consider at whose expense the government agency that does this for you was created? Companies provide food and clothing because there is a demand for them (and because the government still allows companies to provide food and clothing). So tell me about the cost-benefit analysis that the government did to determine this agency that makes sure you don’t get unwanted calls, should exist. Until then, it was a typical government boondoggle completely devoid of any analysis whatsoever.
If you are unable to explain the legitimacy of this agency to me (beyond “I want it!”), I can only assume that if I successfully petition the government to create a program in which I receive all of your presents on your birthday, you should be fine with it. Because without that program, how would I get all your birthday presents?
In response to another comment. See in context »Will you governance-haters PLEASE hurry up, emigrate to Somolia, and get your stupid opinions out of the national dialogue?
In response to another comment. See in context »Matt, I agree it’s clever, but Palin didn’t write this. There’s HUGE money behind her. They see her as the future of the corporate oligarchy — putting a sexy/folksy “hockey mom” populist face behind entirely fascist plans. She’s manna from heaven for the huge transnational corporations: an amoral operator with personal ambition, a flair for delivery, and zero knowledge or regard for the reality of what she’s doing.
Billy Graham’s son is one
In response to another comment. See in context »ps. I no longer see anything happening in Washington today in left/right, democratic/republican terms. There is only the will of the corporations versus the protection of America, and all of congress save Bernie Sanders and a handful of others are walking that line. For me, the game is to figure out who’s serious about the latter and who just wants the money, regardless of party.
If Bernie Sanders cared about people he would resign, along with every other member, of the only institution in society that has the legal authority to compel people to put up with what ever it is they decide. Stay true to your desire to not be part of the supposed left/right divide and realize it is no coincidence money pours into that institution that Bernie considers himself a part of.
In response to another comment. See in context »And then what, anarchy? No thanks. I believe in government, but when corporations become bigger and more powerful than government, we have a problem.
There’s a pretty simple solution here that will be hard but will fix a good deal of the problems: break up all the big monopolies. Teddy Roosevelt trust-busted. That’s what needs to happen now. Every sector–including, pronouncedly, the media–is dominated by a couple of extremely powerful transnational corporations.
In response to another comment. See in context »“I believe in government, but… we have a problem.”
That’s exactly the point. We have government and we have a problem.
Teddy Roosevelt raised prices for consumers, I’m not sure what there is to cheer about that. What about considering breaking up the 1 monopoly in society that has never been broken up?
In response to another comment. See in context »Here is a book about how Teddy Roosevelt was “so great” for breaking up the trusts… by passing regulation that the trusts themselves were asking for. What a savior of the common man!
http://www.amazon.com/Railroads-Regulation-1877-1916-Gabriel-Kolko/dp/0393005313
Or a free article that talks about the above too:
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Left+turn+ahead:+William+Appleman+Williams+and+Gabriel+Kolko+impart…-a0189875157
In response to another comment. See in context »I’m with you. I would point out Ron Paul along with Bernie Sanders.
I hope people tire of the faux right/left divide promulgated by the media (and the two dominant parties). It’s possible that could happen. They eventually got tired of things like, say, primetime “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?”.
In response to another comment. See in context »I’m siding with those who say Palin didn’t write this missive. She MAY have, however, come up with a few of the ideas, including the reference to her taking on big oil companies in Alaska (rah rah Palin 2012 – whatever), Then someone with curiosity did some research and read Taibbi, Prins, and perhaps someone else:
“They seem to have a nice relationship with the White House too. Goldman showered nearly a million dollars in campaign contributions on candidate Obama. In fact, J.P. Freire notes that President Obama received about seven times more money from Goldman than President Bush received from Enron. Of course, it’s not just the donations; it’s the revolving door. You’ll find the name Goldman Sachs on many an Obama administration résumé, including Rahm Emanuel’s and Tim Geithner’s chiefs of staff.”
Voila! Palin’s got something for everyone in this. The only thing more disturbing than the fact that Palin will. not. fade from the public eye is that one of my intelligent students is a fan of hers (oh how I hope it’s out of sarcasm).
I don’t think she wrote any of it. There are extremely well-funded think tanks whose sole reason for being is to create resonant marketing campaigns for what big business wants. They have big brains and focus groups at the ready to put just the right combination of words together, to just mix enough truth in with the Big Lie, to resonate with the demographic they’re targeting. They know exactly what words to put in her mouth, and she doesn’t give a flying whizz what they give her to say, she’ll say it. And since the corporate media is not presenting any kind of genuine reality to compete with her (and her ilk’s) alternate reality, the masses she’s targeting will buy it hook line and sinker.
In response to another comment. See in context »“I don’t think she wrote any of it. ”
OK – fine. Read my 1st few sentences again. I never posited that she wrote any of it.
In response to another comment. See in context »You know if she wasn’t a crazy creationist I would be more smitten with Sarah. And the fact that you are checking out her Facebook page I am guessing you are a little smitten too. Matt, subtly you pull Palin into this Goldman story and stir it up into a stew making Sarah more relevant and frankly respectable. You, Sarah, and GS, what a crazy ménage à trois that would make.
Another great posting Matt.
The only thing I don’t get is how someone with brain power, like yourself, waxes over the biggest single issue the American people have with the government. That issue is political contributions. If we get them stopped, then we get our government back.
Looking forward to seeing you again on Imus.
Matt wrote:
“That fact now allows transparent bullshitters like Palin — who incidentally supported the bank bailouts — to credibly argue that this Regulatory Reform bill is an industry creation. It doesn’t hurt that the Democrats’ last major piece of legislation, the Health Care bill, actually was a monstrous giveaway to industry that allowed campaign contributors to appropriate the power of the state to extract profits from ordinary people.”
—
That’s the problem, isn’t it? I said at the time the health care bill became a completely poisonous piece of legislation stripped of all worth (during the Lincoln-Nelson-Landrieu-Lieberman extortion for #60) that that cave-in was going to color the public’s perception of every piece of legislation coming down the line.
Because really, once you show that you’re willing to bribe Ben Nelson with funds for Nebraska and bow and scrape to Joe Lieberman’s (D-Aetna) whims to pass an industry giveaway to save political face on not just any bill, but a health care bill that affects whether people live or die, you’ve established that there’s no principle you won’t sell out. Once you establish that you can’t be trusted with legislation where peoples’ health is the subject matter, you won’t be trusted with anything else. There was precious little trust to begin with – there’s none now.
A postscript to your postscript: it’s not a bailout fund. That’s GOP rhetoric (read: lies) you are quoting. It is/was a $50 billion dollar fund to LIQUIDATE failing banks…to help them fail in a way that’s best for society.
Sadly, it probably would have been the first program the GOP could have used the phrase “DEATH PANEL” about and been accurate.
http://mediamatters.org/search/index?qstring=“bailout+fund”
It’s a bailout fund, but for creditors, not banks. The idea behind it is to unwind companies like AIG and pay off their creditors using the fund.
In response to another comment. See in context »Right on, Matt. Senator Levin is making this point right now. Lloyd says he didn’t get taxpayer $$, AIG did and he doesn’t know if it was them particular dollars that G$ received. Too cool. Levin is spectacular. Could have been a TV star. A man who can wear a comb over like that has got “iron church bells”.
In response to another comment. See in context »Matt.. Are you going wobbly, bro? Sarah Palin’s bodaciousness is getting to you. The dems are a pathetic buncha whores, it they sound less credible than her on this subject. Jeesh!!
I’m in the Tea Party, had 36 years in the investment buisness, was a member of an exchange and was a consultant to the Chairman of an exchange on CDS when the meltdown took place in late 2008.
That being said for context the Tea Parties more closely align themselves with Ron Paul but that wouldn’t fit with Matt’s generalizations that they are all stupid automatons aligned with Palin .
Small govenment ,not running up the national debt and debasing the currency are not racist notions Matt but they also are tough to build an arrogant sensational diatribe laced with ridicule on.
Sign me; “old, white and bitter” AKA taxpayer, parent and employer that was betrayed.
The problem with your claim is that the national debt ran up during the Bush term and the future Tea Partiers thought that was hunky-dory. Only after Obama was elected did they suddenly become appalled with running a deficit. As for Ron Paul, he opposed the wars without exception; the future Tea Partiers supported the wars and re-elected Bush for the wars and, I suppose, the debt.
The Tea Party narrative is full of holes.
In response to another comment. See in context »The T-Bagger narrative is the hole. T-Baggers are scared, angry white jerk-offs most of whom just had their Harleys repossessed. bruiser is typical of the Baggers. He thinks racism, sexism, poverty and economic plunder must be overt to exist. If we stop financing big government, all those funny looking people, with too many brats, that do drugs that don’t come in blister packs, who drive caddys to WalMart, well, they just might go home. They only came here intent on “running up the national debt and debasing the currency”. What the hell does debase the currency mean? Bush must have been the speech coach for all these Pine-Sol huffing hood ornaments.
http://frominsidethetincan.blogspot.com/2010/04/barbarians-in-our-crib.html
In response to another comment. See in context »David Brooks sides with the vampire squid: http://tinyurl.com/29tjb2o
I don’t care much for the Goldman, but i think this SEC case is weak. As much as Sen Levin wants the public to believe Goldman was dealing with widows and orphans, that was hardly the case. The Abacus clients were large and sophisticated investors. The bigger question is where the hell was the SEC when all these complex financial products were being sold?
Obama on Goldman: I’m going to keep the million dollars these Goldman Sachs folks gave me…It’s mine…and next year I expect them to give me some real money
I can’t be the only one that doesn’t believe that sister Sarah actually WROTE that comment, am I? It was way too coherent for her. I want to know who the right wing political strategist is that actually wrote it. Luntz??