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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMatt Taibbi's big con
by citizen k
Previously published here.
Matt Taibbi is so good at whipping up indignation about the evil bankers that it's easy to overlook the crackpot and diversionary nature of the story he is telling. It would be useful if there was public pressure, for example, to provide a postal bank that would give people an alternative to commercial banks or if the government made low cost loans available to businesses or municipalities (instead of just to banks) so that Wall Street's casino investment mentality could not cripple the economy. Tax policy that rewarded long term investment and penalized gambling with other people's money would also be useful. But Taibbi and others have displaced discussions of such options with confused and misdirected anger. For example, once he has developed the narrative a bit in his latest, he offers up the following absurd line:
Republican senators David Vitter of Louisiana and James Inhofe of Oklahoma were so mad about the unilateral changes and lack of oversight that they sponsored a bill in January 2009 to cancel the remaining $350 billion of TARP.
David Vitter and James Inhofe, two of the worst, most despicable, most irresponsible Senators in the history of the United States were - get this -"mad about ... lack of oversight" in TARP. And because of this sudden rush of integrity and public spirit, not because they were unprincipled partisan hacks angry that Barack Obama was taking office a week later, they tried to shut off the money spigots after Paulson and G. W. Bush had already handed out $300 billion to Wall Street. That's what Taibbi wants you to believe. On second thought, "crackpot" is too polite.
The Vitter/Inhofe resolution was also sponsored by Bunning, Sessions, DeMint, Barrasso, Enzi and Brownback- an all star cast of terrible Senators. And Taibbi pivots from the righteous indignation of Diaper Dave Vitter to the fulminations of Neil Barofsky, the guy GW Bush appointed as TARP Inspector General and whose complaints Taibbi takes as unquestionable truth. Mr. Barofsky, it turns out, was also a big fan of GOP politicians.
For instance, like so many actors in the capital, Mr. Barofsky develops backdoor relationships with the offices of friendly Republican lawmakers like Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa and Representative Darrell Issa of California, leaking information back and forth to shape news coverage. Then he wonders why Treasury keeps him in the dark? (NYT)
Issa and Grassley - nearly at the same level of moral integrity and public service as Vitter. But here's something just as important that Taibbi does not say: the failure of that Vitter/Inhofe resolution is what allowed President Obama and Treasury Secretary Geithner to rescue the auto industry with TARP funds. In fact, the auto rescue, by far the biggest use of TARP funds by Obama's Administration is never mentioned in Taibbi's article. Never mentioned- like it didn't happen. Of course the Treasury under Tim Geithner did not just rescue the auto industry, it rescued the credit unions, provided billions of dollars of TARP loans to small banks, including labor union owned banks, and retrieved almost all the money Bush and Paulson had given to the big Wall Street banks. Taibbi makes strenuous efforts to dance around the last part - in fact he implies the opposite.
And lastly, he (Larry Summers) promised that the bailouts would be temporary – with a "plan for exit of government intervention" implemented "as quickly as possible."
The reassurances worked. Once again, TARP survived in Congress – and once again, the bailouts were greenlighted with the aid of Democrats who fell for the old "it'll help ordinary people" sales pitch. <..>
But in the end, almost nothing Summers promised actually materialized.
But in fact, with one exception everything Summers promised did materialize - especially the exit. Almost all of the money that Bush and Paulson gave to Wall Street came back to the public under Obama and Geithner. To avoid the problem this fact presents for his story, Taibbi uses a lot of invective:
It has been four long winters since the federal government, in the hulking, shaven-skulled, Alien Nation-esque form of then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, committed $700 billion in taxpayer money to rescue Wall Street from its own chicanery and greed.
Actually, the government never committed more than $450billion, but what's an additional $250billion when it gets in the way of a good story? Or how's this on Larry Summers?
- more -
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/06/1176751/-Matt-Taibbi-s-big-con
I simply can't wrap my head around why anyone would credit Republicans for this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program.
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RomneyLies
(3,333 posts)
Kahuna
(27,311 posts)RomneyLies
(3,333 posts)I mean, REALLY hated Obama.
From day one.
OKNancy
(41,832 posts)His slam pieces on Wes Clark forever made me despise the man.
RomneyLies
(3,333 posts)and for that, he makes a living.
Tom Rinaldo
(22,913 posts)He's a skilled writer with sensationalist instincts who hates to muddy up a good story line with nunces that interfere with his chosen punch line. He doesn't shy away from controversy because his pmominence comes from riding it, so he is one of the few reporters willing to cover big issue stories from a left of center perspective; that's his niche. Sometimes I find myself grateful for the spot light he turns on issues that otherwise get undercovered, but I can never really trust him. That's a shame, he can be helpful at times, but just as easily dangerous to the truth and those who do not serve his purpose.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)You're basically saying that Tiabbi is dishonest because he doesn't pass your disloyal test regarding details of Geithner's Wall Street bailout. What proof do you offer of this alleged dishonesty and apostasy? - Some GOOP Congress critters were also critical of TARP - that's just "enemy of my enemy" rhetoric. Sheer political and economic thuggery on your part. 
RomneyLies
(3,333 posts)HE made up numbers in his most recent piece.
He made up Republicans being some sort of super anti-TARP heroes.
He made shit up.
He's lazy, determines the narrative before applying the facts, and then when the facts don't fit the narrative, he alters the facts so that they do fit the narrative.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Try to convince the skeptics.
RomneyLies
(3,333 posts)
leveymg
(36,418 posts)See, http://projects.propublica.org/bailout/list/index - please, see the items marked in red. ADD THEM UP - they haven'y been repaid, and most never will be, along with another $75 billion give to private mortgage lenders. Then, come back and discuss this, if you like.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)Those banks are even bigger than before, and cannot be prosecuted effectively because they're "too big to fail".
And, after four years, working Americans are still in a depression caused by the bankers, while meaningful regulations have not been enacted. And the bankers just keep getting richer and richer, their success guaranteed by federal and Fed policies.
And now, "shared sacrifice" to execute the coup de grace on the 99%.
Enough!
While Taibbi sometimes stretches a bit, I'm glad that someone's telling the basic story of how the plutocrats and their government is destroying us.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"While Taibbi sometimes stretches a bit, I'm glad that someone's telling the basic story of how the plutocrats and their government is destroying us."
Crediting Grassley, Issa, Vitter, Inhofe, Bunning, Sessions, DeMint, Brasso, Enzi and Brownback is not "strecthes a bit," it's utterly bizarre. It's lying in favor of Republicans and smacks of a twisted agenda.
Why are you trying to give a pass to hyping Republicans? Seriously?
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)Social Security needs to be cut "strengthened", when the projections showing a shortfall decades from now rely on ongoing assumptions that are far more negative than anything the US has ever sustained for more than a few years? When even partial economic recovery meands SS is fully funded for as long as has been studied (75 years)? How about Obama's repeated claims that Social Security was not started for retirees, that they were brought in as an afterthought?
Don't Obama's claims hype the utter BS from Simpson, Bowles, Peterson, Blankfein, elected Republicans, and so forth? Even worse, it has a good probability of leading to horrific policy, whereas Taibbi's stretches do not.
My point is that we can sometimes fundamentally agree with a person, and even cheer them on, even if they do things we feel are non-optimal, if we feel that in the end they're ultimately substantially moving the ball forward.
RomneyLies
(3,333 posts)Oh, right. Nothing.
Skittles
(153,169 posts)HE TELLS YOU
RomneyLies
(3,333 posts)Taibbi lacks credibility because he made shit up.
Skittles
(153,169 posts)RomneyLies
(3,333 posts)Somebody disagrees with your *opinion* and you have a problem.
Skittles
(153,169 posts) ProSense
(116,464 posts)I guess your red herring means you're O with hyping Republicans as the good guys.
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)and the borrowing against toxic assets really bothers me still.
So does the big settlement with the mortgage industry.
I recommend the "Naked Capitalism" blog.
It may not be 100% DU approved, but the blogger, Yves Smith, has put up quite a few interesting pieces there.
Tutonic
(2,522 posts)Yeah I know that some folks on KOS still have a problem with Tiabbi in particular.it isn't difficult to understand that it really was a Ponzi Scheme for the benefit of wall street and the financial in particular.
RomneyLies
(3,333 posts)ProSense
(116,464 posts)"Well count me in as one of them crackpots then. Yeah I know that some folks on KOS still have a problem with Tiabbi in particular."
...isn't about "KOS," but as "one of them crackpots," shouldn't you be writing your thank-you letter to the mentioned Republicans for saving us from TARP?
Here's a list to make it easier: Grassley, Issa, Vitter, Inhofe, Bunning, Sessions, DeMint, Brasso, Enzi and Brownback.
No Compromise
(373 posts)After the really shitty settlement that gave people who had their homes stolen $2000 (maybe, it the state didn't take it for other programs)...
Taibbi said NOTHING.
He did not attack the Obama Administration over that piece of crap, he covered for them.
I think as much as he works to expose bankers, he is also helping to hide many of the crimes.
This is how a limited hangout works. Tabbi is covering the mortgage issue the best, everyone looks to Taibbi to cover it, then when something big goes down like the total sellout of people that had their homes stolen, he is missing in action?
Doesn't make sense. I just couldn't understand why he didn't cover that. Was he on vacation?
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Ask William K. Black:
The reality, of course, as recent "Washington insider" books by Bair, Barofsky, and Connaughton make clear, is that the Obama administration has been extraordinarily generous to the largest banks, including Ms. Good in the Sack. The shocking revelation is that this no longer suffices. Ms. Good in the Sack is a mistress who demands unconditional pandering. She demands that she be allowed to grow wealthy by defrauding her own customers with impunity and god forbid that any politician that takes her money ever adopt a regulation without giving her a private opportunity to veto it. Ms. Good in the Sack is the very model of modern American crony capitalism. She pretends to be tough but she is whiny and devoid of any sense of humor. She has lots of body issues so she is death on any politician who calls her a fat feline. Lo, how are the mighty fallen -- the great vampire squid has morphed into a jilted Valley Girl.
SOURCE: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/william-k-black/obama-goldman-sachs_b_1966605.html
Invective is far from truth.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)Octafish
(55,745 posts)Taibbi mentioned pukes for asking for accountability from Bush, Paulson and the rest of our appointed officials. That is more than many Democrats and most Republicans demanded in the TARP bailout, which was, at essence, a taxpayer-funded giveaway to Wall Street and the Big Banks - which, thanks in large part to Phil Gramm and Bill Clinton, are the same thing.
The Bi-Partisan Origins of the Financial Crisis
Shattering the Glass-Steagall Act
by WILLIAM KAUFMAN
CounterPunch Weekend Edition September 19-21, 2008
If you’re looking for a major cause of the current banking meltdown, you need seek no farther than the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act.
The Glass-Steagall Act, passed in 1933, mandated the separation of commercial and investment banking in order to protect depositors from the hazards of risky investment and speculation. It worked fine for fifty years until the banking industry began lobbying for its repeal during the 1980s, the go-go years of Reaganesque market fundamentalism, an outlook embraced wholeheartedly by mainstream Democrats under the rubric "neoliberalism."
The main cheerleader for the repeal was Phil Gramm, the fulsome reactionary who, until he recently shoved his foot even farther into his mouth than usual, was McCain’s chief economic advisor.
But wait . . . as usual, the Democrats were eager to pile on to this reversal of New Deal regulatory progressivism — fully 38 of 45 Senate Democrats voted for the repeal (which passed 90-8), including some famous names commonly associated with "progressive" politics by the easily gulled: Dodd, Kennedy, Kerry, Reid, and Schumer. And, of course, there was the inevitable shout of "yea" from the ever-servile corporate factotum Joseph Biden, Barack Obama’s idea of a tribune of "change"–if by change one means erasing any lingering obstacle to corporate domination of the polity.
CONTINUED...
http://www.counterpunch.org/2008/09/19/shattering-the-glass-steagall-act/
So, yes. Taibbi told the truth.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)His attackers pull short snippets?
ProSense
(116,464 posts)The two articles posted have nothing to do with Taibbi or the point of the OP.
Nothing!
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Here's something else that's intersting:
For He’s a Jolly Good Scoundrel
By Robert Scheer
Posted on Apr 18, 2012
How evil is this? At a time when two-thirds of U.S. homeowners are drowning in mortgage debt and the American dream has crashed for tens of millions more, Sanford Weill, the banker most responsible for the nation’s economic collapse, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
So much for the academy’s proclaimed “230-plus year history of recognizing some of the world’s most accomplished scholars, scientists, writers, artists, and civic, corporate, and philanthropic leaders.” George Washington, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Albert Einstein must be rolling in their graves at the news that Weill, “philanthropist and retired Citigroup Chairman,” has joined their ranks.
Weill is the Wall Street hustler who led the successful lobbying to reverse the Glass-Steagall law, which long had been a barrier between investment and commercial banks. That 1999 reversal permitted the merger of Travelers and Citibank, thereby creating Citigroup as the largest of the “too big to fail” banks eventually bailed out by taxpayers. Weill was instrumental in getting then-President Bill Clinton to sign off on the Republican-sponsored legislation that upended the sensible restraints on finance capital that had worked splendidly since the Great Depression.
Those restrictions were initially flouted when Weill, then CEO of Travelers, which contained a major investment banking division, decided to merge the company with Citibank, a commercial bank headed by John S. Reed. The merger had actually been arranged before the enabling legislation became law, and it was granted a temporary waiver by Alan Greenspan’s Federal Reserve. The night before the announcement of the merger, as Wall Street Journal reporter Monica Langley writes in her book “Tearing Down the Walls: How Sandy Weill Fought His Way to the Top of the Financial World ... and Then Nearly Lost It All,” a buoyant Weill suggested to Reed, “We should call Clinton.” On a Sunday night Weill had no trouble getting through to the president and informed him of the merger, which violated existing law. After hanging up, Weill boasted to Reed, “We just made the president of the United States an insider.”
CONTINUED...
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/for_hes_a_jolly_good_swindler_20120418/
Seems certain parties don't like to hear mention of how the Party of the People do business with the same folks who finance the Party of Big Business.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)What you're posting has nothing to do with the OP.
Face fact: Republicans were not opposed to TARP and were not fighting Wall Street.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Something else to chew on, ProSense: I've been on the GOP re TARP since Day One. From Sept. 21, 2008:
Know your BFEE: Phil Gramm, the Meyer Lansky of the War Party, Set-Up the Biggest Bank Heist Ever.
You'll no doubt notice how I even asked:
[font color="red"]The people who should pay for the bailout aren’t the American people. That distinction should go to the crooks who stole it -- friends of Gramm like John McCain and George Bush and the rest of the Raygunomix crowd of snake-oil salesmen. For them, the Bush administration -- and a good chunk of time since Ronald Reagan -- has not been a disaster. It’s been a cash cow.[/font color]
Rex
(65,616 posts)Nailed it bro!
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"Something else to chew on, ProSense: I've been on the GOP re TARP since Day One. From Sept. 21, 2008: "
...what the hell does that have to do with the OP?
Octafish
(55,745 posts)...and what it meant for We the People.
Sept. 21, 2008.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4055207
You must not have seen the post.
Rex
(65,616 posts)Dam good reading! 
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)ProSense
(116,464 posts)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program.
Which of the Republicans mentioned in Taibbi's piece (Grassley, Issa, Vitter, Inhofe, Bunning, Sessions, DeMint, Brasso, Enzi and Brownback) voted for Wall Street Reform?
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Bernie Sanders on TARP:
The Fed Audit
July 21, 2011
The first top-to-bottom audit of the Federal Reserve uncovered eye-popping new details about how the U.S. provided a whopping $16 trillion in secret loans to bail out American and foreign banks and businesses during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. An amendment by Sen. Bernie Sanders to the Wall Street reform law passed one year ago this week directed the Government Accountability Office to conduct the study. "As a result of this audit, we now know that the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world," said Sanders. "This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you're-on-your-own individualism for everyone else."
Among the investigation's key findings is that the Fed unilaterally provided trillions of dollars in financial assistance to foreign banks and corporations from South Korea to Scotland, according to the GAO report. "No agency of the United States government should be allowed to bailout a foreign bank or corporation without the direct approval of Congress and the president," Sanders said.
The non-partisan, investigative arm of Congress also determined that the Fed lacks a comprehensive system to deal with conflicts of interest, despite the serious potential for abuse. In fact, according to the report, the Fed provided conflict of interest waivers to employees and private contractors so they could keep investments in the same financial institutions and corporations that were given emergency loans.
For example, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase served on the New York Fed's board of directors at the same time that his bank received more than $390 billion in financial assistance from the Fed. Moreover, JP Morgan Chase served as one of the clearing banks for the Fed's emergency lending programs.
In another disturbing finding, the GAO said that on Sept. 19, 2008, William Dudley, who is now the New York Fed president, was granted a waiver to let him keep investments in AIG and General Electric at the same time AIG and GE were given bailout funds. One reason the Fed did not make Dudley sell his holdings, according to the audit, was that it might have created the appearance of a conflict of interest.
To Sanders, the conclusion is simple. "No one who works for a firm receiving direct financial assistance from the Fed should be allowed to sit on the Fed's board of directors or be employed by the Fed," he said.
The investigation also revealed that the Fed outsourced most of its emergency lending programs to private contractors, many of which also were recipients of extremely low-interest and then-secret loans.
The Fed outsourced virtually all of the operations of their emergency lending programs to private contractors like JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo. The same firms also received trillions of dollars in Fed loans at near-zero interest rates. Altogether some two-thirds of the contracts that the Fed awarded to manage its emergency lending programs were no-bid contracts. Morgan Stanley was given the largest no-bid contract worth $108.4 million to help manage the Fed bailout of AIG.
A more detailed GAO investigation into potential conflicts of interest at the Fed is due on Oct. 18, but Sanders said one thing already is abundantly clear. "The Federal Reserve must be reformed to serve the needs of working families, not just CEOs on Wall Street."
To read a PDF of the GAO report, click here.
So. When it comes to banking transparency, we must rely on a socialist or Matt Taibbi.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)From your link:
Not only is this irrelevant to the OP point, but did any of the Republicans (Grassley, Issa, Vitter, Inhofe, Bunning, Sessions, DeMint, Brasso, Enzi and Brownback) mentioned in Taibbi's piece vote for it?
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Hope this isn't off-point:
Neil Barofsky Gave Us The Best Explanation For Washington's Dysfunction We've Ever Heard
Linette Lopez
Business Insider, Aug. 1, 2012, 2:57 PM
Neil Barofsky was the Inspector General for TARP, and just wrote a book about his time in D.C. called Bailout: An Insider Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street.
SNIP...
Bottom line: Barofsky said the incentive structure in our nation's capitol is all wrong. There's a revolving door between bureaucrats in Washington and Wall Street banks, and politicians just want to keep their jobs.
For regulators it's something like this:
"You can play ball and good things can happen to you get a big pot of gold at the end of the Wall Street rainbow or you can do your job be aggressive and face personal ruin...We really need to rethink how we govern and how regulate," Barofsky said.
CONTINUED... http://www.businessinsider.com/neil-barofsky-2012-8
Gee. That's the word of the TARP Inspector General.
It also helps explain how wealth gets so quickly accrued by those who leave public service for opportunities in the private sector.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"Obtuse much? The point demonstrates the long line of Wall Street-Washington criminality, ProSense."
...calling me "obtuse" while you post a string of articles irrelevant to the OP point?
I mean, do you think the Republicans mentioned, Republicans in general are fighting "Wall Street-Washington criminality"?
You posted a piece about the Fed Audit, again, that was legislations from the Democratic caucus side and voted into law by Democrats.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)There's nothing obtuse: Each of the articles and sources I posted (including William K. Black and Neil Barofsky) support Taibbi's credibility.
RomneyLies
(3,333 posts)Octafish
(55,745 posts)That means he backs it up with his reputation. For example:
How Wall Street Killed Financial Reform
It's bad enough that the banks strangled the Dodd-Frank law. Even worse is the way they did it - with a big assist from Congress and the White House.
by: Matt Taibbi
Rolling Stone
EXCERPT...
Two years later, Dodd-Frank is groaning on its deathbed. The giant reform bill turned out to be like the fish reeled in by Hemingway's Old Man – no sooner caught than set upon by sharks that strip it to nothing long before it ever reaches the shore. In a furious below-the-radar effort at gutting the law – roundly despised by Washington's Wall Street paymasters – a troop of water-carrying Eric Cantor Republicans are speeding nine separate bills through the House, all designed to roll back the few genuinely toothy portions left in Dodd-Frank. With the Quislingian covert assistance of Democrats, both in Congress and in the White House, those bills could pass through the House and the Senate with little or no debate, with simple floor votes – by a process usually reserved for things like the renaming of post offices or a nonbinding resolution celebrating Amelia Earhart's birthday.
SNIP...
Then, behind the closed doors of Congress, Wall Street lobbyists and their allies got to work. Though many of the new regulatory concepts survived in the final bill, most of them wound up whittled down to such an extreme degree that they were barely recognizable in the end. Over the course of a ferocious year of negotiations in the House and the Senate, the rules on swaps were riddled with loopholes: One initially promising rule preventing federally insured banks from trading in risky derivatives ultimately ended up exempting a huge chunk of the swaps market from the new law. The Volcker Rule banning proprietary gambling survived, but not before getting its brains beaten out in last-minute conference negotiations; Wall Street first won broad exemptions for mutual funds, insurers and trusts, and then, with the aid of both Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, managed to secure a lunatic and arbitrary numerical exemption that allows banks to gamble up to three percent of their "Tier 1" capital, a number that for big banks stretches to the billions.
SNIP...
The nine bills to gut Dodd-Frank could also receive a JOBS Act-style welcome when they reach the Senate. There are only two Senate committees with the jurisdiction to tackle these bills, and neither appears to be planning to take a whack at any of the new measures. The Agriculture Committee, which oversees the CFTC, has been busy dealing with a huge farm bill. The Banking Committee, which oversees the SEC, is dominated by Democrats who wouldn't mind at all if Dodd-Frank had both its legs broken, including Chuck Schumer of New York and Mark Warner of Virginia. What's more, the committee's understated chairman, Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota, seems weirdly willing to let pretty much anything touching the financial world roll straight to a vote without his changing a comma – a sharp contrast to the days when fist-shaking politcal Godhead Chris Dodd ran the committee.
SNIP...
That means all those thousands of hours of debate and fierce negotiation spent hammering out Dodd-Frank two years ago might now go up in smoke in a matter of a few quiet minutes. Of the big-ticket items that were actually passed two years ago, the derivatives reforms have been completely gutted by loopholes, the Volcker Rule has been delayed for two years, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau may be thrust under the budgetary control of Congress, which is determined to destroy it. And much of this is taking place with the assent of Democrats, for a very simple reason: because the name of the game isn't cleaning up Wall Street, it's cleaning out Wall Street – throwing a "yes" vote at a bank-approved bill to get them to pony up in an election year. "All this is aimed at the financial services industry," admits one senior Democratic congressional aide. "It's to let them know, 'Hey, you're OK, we're not going to destroy your business – and give us your money, because we're trying to raise it for an election.'"
CONTINUED...
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-wall-street-killed-financial-reform-20120510?print=true
So, please, for the record, as it were: What has Taibbi written that you find wrong?
His reputation is only slightly better than Greenwald's, which puts him somewhere close to the bottom of the ocean, IMO.
He's every bit as dishonest as any of the RWNJ bloviators.
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)RomneyLies
(3,333 posts)He's a skeevy little Ron Paulbot.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Lots of DUers favor that course of action, me included. OTOH...
From what he's said, Limbaugh wants to move on regarding war Bush crimes.
http://www.salon.com/2010/06/08/legacy_3/?mobile.html
Should be universal, IMFO.
datasuspect
(26,591 posts)RomneyLies
(3,333 posts)I despise skeevy libertarian douchenozzles like Greenwald.
I can say one good thing about Taibbi, he isn't Greenwald.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)only highlighted by the content-free, sputtering personal invective about Taibbi that follows in response.
Sekhmets Daughter
(7,515 posts)LIBertea
(15 posts)Are you guys really attacking Taibbi??
No, I mean really??!?
Taibbi's Blog
Left... Right ... It does not matter, he does a superb job in dissecting the fraudulent schemes of the oligarchs.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)Are you guys really attacking Taibbi??
No, I mean really??!?
Taibbi's Blog
...what the hell is that supposed to mean in the context of the OP?
RomneyLies
(3,333 posts)He a polemicist. He's not a journalist and he does not tell the truth.
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)how we can't give that money to Medicare instead.
Why is that?
Money for banks not people??
RomneyLies
(3,333 posts)I am trashing an idiot polemicist who doesn't even get that right.
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)RomneyLies
(3,333 posts)He uses falsehoods and outright lies to support his polemic, just like anybody on Fox News.
That makes Taibbi dishonest and untrustworthy.
But just because he's Taibbi, people buy into his bullshit.
janx
(24,128 posts)He's not the only current star of the infotainment world, on the right or the left. I'm amazed that seemingly intelligent people continue to be taken in by this tactic.
RomneyLies
(3,333 posts)they could definitely make some valid points if they did not decide what the outcome of their piece would be before they started trying to back it up with facts.
Taibbi and Greenwald are two of the worst offenders but there are others like Sirota and Hamsher. They hate Obama so much that no matter what, they have to have everything be about how horrible Obama is regardless of the facts, so then they just make up shit to support their hate Obama agenda and they actually cause more harm than good.
There are plenty of arguments to be made about how the banksters have done things and how they have paid no consequences, but make your arguments based upon the facts. If the facts lead to Obama being a villain, so be it. If the facts don't support that narrative, so be it.
You cannot go wrong simply going with the facts, but these people determine the narrative before they apply the facts and that's just a backwards approach and is precisely what every RWNJ in the righwing media does.
janx
(24,128 posts)There is no motivation for them to change.
RomneyLies
(3,333 posts)Skittles
(153,169 posts) MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)Stick to your guns!
Taibbi is often critical of Obama, so certain folks work hard to discredit him. At least that how it seems to me.
You should see the stuff they write about me!
leftstreet
(36,108 posts)This happens all the time
ProSense
(116,464 posts)In fact, picking scum-of-the-earth Republicans (Grassley, Issa, Vitter, Inhofe, Bunning, Sessions, DeMint, Brasso, Enzi and Brownback) to portray as credibly concerned about fighting Wall Street is not only bizarre, it's laughable.
leftstreet
(36,108 posts)Nature abhors a vacuum and all that
ProSense
(116,464 posts)" Why aren't Democrats 'fighting' Wall Street?"
...Taibbi says Republicans were fighting against TARP, and you agree with his piece and poing (I assume, since you're here objecting to the OP), and then you're asking why Democrats aren't "'fighting' Wall Street"?
Democrats did fight Wall Street with increased regulation, and not a single Republican mentioned by Taibbi voted for it.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2142056
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)greedily collecting pay checks while fighting against traditional Dem values.
leftstreet
(36,108 posts)We've been conned by both political parties into believing only 'the right' fights traditional Democratic party principles.
Elements in both sides work to protect the interests of the Ruling Class
Skittles
(153,169 posts)oh yeah
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)From the OP:
"Republican senators David Vitter of Louisiana and James Inhofe of Oklahoma were so mad about the unilateral changes and lack of oversight that they sponsored a bill in January 2009 to cancel the remaining $350 billion of TARP."
From the actual Rolling Stone article, with the passage in question bolded by me:
"So Paulson came up with a more convincing lie. On paper, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 was simple: Treasury would buy $700 billion of troubled mortgages from the banks and then modify them to help struggling homeowners. Section 109 of the act, in fact, specifically empowered the Treasury secretary to "facilitate loan modifications to prevent avoidable foreclosures." With that promise on the table, wary Democrats finally approved the bailout on October 3rd, 2008. "That provision," says Barofsky, "is what got the bill passed."
But within days of passage, the Fed and the Treasury unilaterally decided to abandon the planned purchase of toxic assets in favor of direct injections of billions in cash into companies like Goldman and Citigroup. Overnight, Section 109 was unceremoniously ditched, and what was pitched as a bailout of both banks and homeowners instantly became a bank-only operation – marking the first in a long series of moves in which bailout officials either casually ignored or openly defied their own promises with regard to TARP.
Congress was furious. "We've been lied to," fumed Rep. David Scott, a Democrat from Georgia. Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Democrat from Maryland, raged at transparently douchey TARP administrator (and Goldman banker) Neel Kashkari, calling him a "chump" for the banks. And the anger was bipartisan: Republican senators David Vitter of Louisiana and James Inhofe of Oklahoma were so mad about the unilateral changes and lack of oversight that they sponsored a bill in January 2009 to cancel the remaining $350 billion of TARP."
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/secret-and-lies-of-the-bailout-20130104#ixzz2HDKp7JSS
Surely we can do better than this.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)So what did bailout officials do? They put together a proposal full of even bigger deceptions to get it past Congress a second time. That process began almost exactly four years ago – on January 12th and 15th, 2009 – when Larry Summers, the senior economic adviser to President-elect Barack Obama, sent a pair of letters to Congress. The pudgy, stubbyfingered former World Bank economist, who had been forced out as Harvard president for suggesting that women lack a natural aptitude for math and science, begged legislators to reject Vitter's bill and leave TARP alone.
Vitter is the hero, which is bizarre bullshit.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)But both parties were thwarted.
The bankers were made even hyperwealthier.
And the rest of us got a four-year-long (and counting) depression, now with "shared sacrifice" austerity for the 99%.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)His point is that Republicans were "so mad about the unilateral changes and lack of oversight that they sponsored a bill in January 2009 to cancel the remaining $350 billion of TARP"
On what frigging planet?
He then goes on to say that the Republican effort to stop TARP was opposed by the administration.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program.
Did Vitter vote for that?
Like I said: Crediting Grassley, Issa, Vitter, Inhofe, Bunning, Sessions, DeMint, Brasso, Enzi and Brownback is not "strecthes a bit," it's utterly bizarre. It's lying in favor of Republicans and smacks of a twisted agenda.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2141454
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)that one of us is trucking in nonsense.
RomneyLies
(3,333 posts)that ProSense isn't trucking in nonsense.
Marr
(20,317 posts)Your pretense that his brief turn of phrase was the crux of his point is almost too lame to even address. In fact, I think it is. Have fun.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)Marr
(20,317 posts)There's no excuse for YOUR pretending it was his point. This is too sickening to even contribute to any longer. Have a nice day and good luck with your latest piece of bullshit.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)RomneyLies
(3,333 posts)That's about the only defense I can come up with.
Marr
(20,317 posts)I've seen this sort of attempt at discrediting journalists and commentators too many times to list-- though it generally comes from right-wingers. Have fun repeating those 'errors'. Maybe you could make a list-- like that one that "proved" Michael Moore was lying about everything.
"People like Taibbi are always attacked by establishment-sorts and their apologists."
...it's OK for Taibbi to push that Grassley, Issa, Vitter, Inhofe, Bunning, Sessions, DeMint, Brasso, Enzi and Brownback were as credibliy concerned about TARP and wanting to end it despite the Obama administration, but calling him out for hyping Republicans lumps you into the "establishment-sorts and their apologists" category?
When did those Republicans become anti-establishment fighters of Wall Street and TARP?
Marr
(20,317 posts)Don't let go! Gnash it good, now!
ProSense
(116,464 posts)HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)supposedly = Taibbi saying the republicans 'saved' us.
right, prosense.
Bonobo
(29,257 posts)
freshwest
(53,661 posts)UrbScotty
Libertarians like Chris Hedges (who I appreciate when he preaches on morality) like to push the anti-government - give up on the democratic process - both are the same - all corporatist party - meme daily.
Which the Patriot Movement does today as the Tea Party did for the Ron Paul Revolution, not seeing that the end result of their libertarianism is classic corporatism in its truest terms.
They hate taxation by government, but adore it as private property and free enterprise when it functions the same way to tax people on the essentials, with no control over the corporations with democratic accountability.
It's easy to stand by and mock and those doing the work of keeping the predators at bay from the public at large. The same ones who do so will show up first in line to reap the fruits of the labor of those who work to maintain economic equality.
snot
(10,529 posts)are trying to dispute Taibbi's conclusions by saying that some of those who questioned the TARP were Republicans and by saying that the TARP did some good in the case of the auto industry.
Sorry, that doesn't work to dispute the fact that the bank bailout was a giant scam on US taxpayers.
The bottom line is that banks like Goldman and Royal Bank of Scotland placed giant bets with insurers like AIG, and in the case at least of Goldman and, I'm sure, many others, they KNEW the mortgaged-back securities that they were betting would fail WOULD in fact fail – as they did – i.e., they placed short-odds bets at long-odds prices. And they were certainly in a position to know that AIG wouldn't have the solvency to pay on all the bets it was selling; but that didn't really matter to them, because Goldman et al. had no "insurable interest" in the underlying mortgaged-back securities, since they'd just sold them to OTHERS, and the premiums for the bets were relatively cheap. And Goldman et al. should have been prosecuted for this double-dealing, but they weren't; not only that, but instead of just letting AIG go bankrupt and letting Goldman get in line with other creditors of AIG (along the lines of how we handled insolvent financial institutions during the '80's S&L crisis), we bailed AIG out so US taxpayers could ensure Goldman would be paid on its bets. And all of this is STILL GOING ON, because we still haven't implemented any effective regulation of credit derivatives.
And to anyone who thinks the bank bailout didn't really cost taxpayers anything, well, ok, that does get a bit more complicated, but in short, the 1% are a lot richer as a result of the bailout, and the rest of us aren't, because there isn't really any free lunch.
If you don't get all this, please go read as much as you can find by William K. Black, for starters.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"are trying to dispute Taibbi's conclusions by saying that some of those who questioned the TARP were Republicans and by saying that the TARP did some good in the case of the auto industry. "
...that's bullshit. The fact is Taibbi is trying to portray Republican Senators as objecting to TARP and trying to rein it in. Bullshit!
So what did bailout officials do? They put together a proposal full of even bigger deceptions to get it past Congress a second time. That process began almost exactly four years ago – on January 12th and 15th, 2009 – when Larry Summers, the senior economic adviser to President-elect Barack Obama, sent a pair of letters to Congress. The pudgy, stubbyfingered former World Bank economist, who had been forced out as Harvard president for suggesting that women lack a natural aptitude for math and science, begged legislators to reject Vitter's bill and leave TARP alone.
Vitter as the hero is bizarre bullshit.
Taibbi is actually trying to make the case that prior to Obama's swearing in, Vitter was credibly and legitimately going after TARP.
What nonsense.
snot
(10,529 posts)JEB
(4,748 posts)changes my opinion of that list of shit stain Repukes. Doesn't mean that they don't very occasionally through dumb luck or self preservation or the usual greed actually try to do something good. Still greedy, lying, corporate, warmongering Imperialists. Did I mention shitstains? I'm fine with Taibbi's reporting. Nobody else comes even close.
patrice
(47,992 posts)jtuck004
(15,882 posts)to end Depression-era protections that had successfully resisted challenge for 60 years protecting the American people from the banks. Clinton signed the Modernization Act which allowed Wall Street to hide their fraudulent and dishonest derivative activity, and destroyed the lives of tens of millions of Americans during and after the Bush administration, our neighbors, when Larry Summers friends on Wall Street decided that profits were more important than people.
Summers did such an awful, calamitous job in hurting so many people Obama tapped him as an economic adviser. (Would have hurt less people by running around kicking widows in the teeth). GM exists today, but thousands upon thousands of the jobs it used to provide don't, along thousands of people who used to work for their now-defunct suppliers, replaced by factories paying less than half to fewer workers. Those unemployed workers are now part of our record 47 million people on food stamps.
I might point out that Obama re-appointed Barofsky too, and when Barofsky started question the evil fucking things people like Summers were doing other appointees that have been enemies to the working people of America turned against him, such as Timothy Geithner, turned up the heat..
Barofsky's book details it pretty well, a lot better than the cheap shots other enemies of this country take on their two-bit little blogs.
Along with many Republicans, Larry Summers is a traitor to the working people of this country, and has brought more profit to the banks, and more tragedy and grief to our brothers and sisters, than ANY terrorist.
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)Sid
Tarheel_Dem
(31,234 posts)
colsohlibgal
(5,275 posts)We can quibble over numbers but the FED and Wall Street, with the cooperation of enough dems and reps, are scamming all of us.
Ordinary people can eat cake and pound sand but Wall Street gets trillions printed up for it - and yes, we'd have never noticed it had not Bernie Sanders and others harped about a Fed audit.
All in all, everyday people are going to keep being shafted for the wealthy until we get serious about public funding of elections. Big bucks walk, the rest of us talk, and that won't really change as a general rule till we get big money out of politics - oh and get some fair impartial House redistricting to march back from some really ghastly gerrymandering.
A real main stream media news that moves from cheerleaders to tough challenging questioners again would help a lot as well.
RomneyLies
(3,333 posts)MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)RomneyLies
(3,333 posts)Oh right. I forgot the favorite tactic of those who have no argument.
Misdirect to another topic.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)RomneyLies
(3,333 posts) 
grantcart
(53,061 posts)The fact is that it was rushed, there were no details and no one was sure how it was going to play out.
That is because the system was in a complete meltdown. The banking industry was facing a China Syndrome bank run that was accelerating by the minute.
On September 15, 2008, the holding company received a credit rating agency downgrade; from that date through September 24, 2008, WaMu experienced a bank run whereby customers withdrew $16.7 billion in deposits over those 9 days,[12] and in excess of $22 billion in cash outflow since July 2008, both conditions which ultimately led the Office of Thrift Supervision to close the bank.[17]
During the last two weeks Washington Mutual (the largest retail bank in the world) was losing deposits at the rate of $ 4 million per minute.
Tarp was meant to serve as a positive shock to the system so that the massive bank runs would stop.
It did.
When Obama took over he improved its effectiveness (which in the waning hours of the Bush administration was basically psychological) and used it to save Detroit.
The fundamental dishonesty in the piece is that it was the Republican administration and policies that created the disaster. Cleanup in an emergency is always messy. Its easy to criticize the repair but it takes the gall of the Republicans to criticize the repair to the crash that they were solely responsible for. That you had to bring in some bankers to understand the complex system was part of the necessary dirty work to fix the system.
That Taibbi praises the Republicans for objecting to the clean up that they caused simply shows how superficial his perspective can be.
Romulox
(25,960 posts)inequality and worst social mobility in the developed world.
So yeah, it "worked", alright.
patrice
(47,992 posts)that situation would have been necessarily more to our benefit than what could happen if we put ourselves together well enough NOW? I am suggesting that we may have bought ourselves some time that the people NEED, before oppressors of another order rob a bunch of us of potentials that we have not discovered/developed yet, potentials that may be crucial to the prospects of the whole thing no matter which political direction the trajectory takes.
And, yes, probably unlike some of the strong cohorts involved in this, I do think TIME is a crucial criteria here, not only for at risk populations at different ends of the generational spectrum, but also for Earth.
I don't know; if things had not gone the way that they did, and all of it did "crash" more than it has, whether we'd be talking about decades before significant progress on social and economic justice and environmental/energy issues, but I do want us to at least ask that question of ourselves. Would it have been decades after a more extensive crash, before we actually got on our feet? Or has, even given some of the mis-steps in what actually happened, has the way things actually did go down allowed more opportunities to involve more of the more fundamentally affected cohorts to educate themselves more validly and become more active in ways that more effectively address their own issues themselves, rather than allowing power-enclaves, "Left", "Right", and "Center" or "All", to turn the course of things in ways that would ultimately result in being less demographically inclusive? And that's "less inclusive" not so much in terms of outcomes, because I think we're still at least 2 years away from a true bench-mark there (November 2014), and longer than that REALLY, but also more inclusive in terms of the MANY and VARIOUS processes at work here.
Perhaps you recognize my skepticism about the, TTE, "Let it all crash and burn, so we can start over" cohort. Who, exactly comprises that point-of-view and how authentically do they indeed hold that position? AND - very importantly given my own impulse in that direction - are they recognizing that such a scenario WILL indeed generate its own emergent oppressors, to which MUCH will be lost and I just really don't think that we can write off the VALUE of what will be lost, as that all plays itself out over how many (?) decades, as stuff that, TTE, "we don't need anyway." Ought we not to at least try to make critical decisions about what will and what will not be lost, or should we just leave that up to WHATEVER power enclaves emerge out of such a situation? Yes, such a crash would be cleansing, lots of bullshit would go away, but that's not all that will happen and we shouldn't pretend that we won't lose value that future generations will need in order to survive AND that we haven't even asked ourselves about whether that's a factor or not, much less have we made somekind of at least hypothetical effort to identify what those values might be.
These are the reasons why I think Labor is the real decision point here, not D.C.
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)We need to break up the banks. In 1980 branch banking was illegal in Colorado, should be again, country wide.
datasuspect
(26,591 posts)ProSense
(116,464 posts)Why?
datasuspect
(26,591 posts)anonymous blogger?
why does this unqualified person's opinion matter so much to you?
RomneyLies
(3,333 posts)uid:1479.
datasuspect
(26,591 posts)what are his specific journalistic qualifications? other than bombast and hyperbole?
RomneyLies
(3,333 posts)You're describing Taibbi right there.
Citizen k used facts to demonstrate that Taibbi's piece was bombast and hyperbole.
datasuspect
(26,591 posts)FAIL.
RomneyLies
(3,333 posts)You took what Taibbi did and applied it to the guy who tore Taibbi's arguments apart with the actual facts.
datasuspect
(26,591 posts)try again.
you're grasping for straws now.
and you're "that's what you are, what am I-ing" me to death here.
make a coherent argument other than "defend obama no matter what" and people might take you seriously.
RomneyLies
(3,333 posts)You are taking what Taibbi did and you're saying it's what the guy who had the facts did.
Taibbi LIED about the numbers. Citizen k gave the actual numbers.
Taibbi LIED about Republicans opposing TARP. Citizen k demopnstrated the lie with the facts.
That you still support Taibbi says a lot about you.
datasuspect
(26,591 posts) ProSense
(116,464 posts)anonymous blogger?
why does this unqualified person's opinion matter so much to you?
You're anonymous. What the hell does that have to do with the point he made. Tabbi's piece do include the bizarre hyping of Republicans.
datasuspect
(26,591 posts)why does this unqualified forum poster's opinion matter so much to you?
please explain why this blogger's opinion should carry as much weight for everyone else as it does for you.
RomneyLies
(3,333 posts)and demonstrated Taibbi did NOT use facts.
datasuspect
(26,591 posts)the journalist used FACTS.
RomneyLies
(3,333 posts)Taibbi is NOT a journalist. He is a polemicist.
The blogger demonstrated Taibbi is an outright liar, making up numbers to fit the arc of the polemic instead of using facts.
datasuspect
(26,591 posts)RomneyLies
(3,333 posts) datasuspect
(26,591 posts)RomneyLies
(3,333 posts) grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)datasuspect
(26,591 posts)and transparent as all get out.
defend the oligarchs at all costs
defend the oligarchs at all costs
defend the oligarchs at all costs
defend the oligarchs at all costs
defend the oligarchs at all costs
defend the oligarchs at all costs
defend the oligarchs at all costs
RomneyLies
(3,333 posts)Trying to claim any body is discredits you.
datasuspect
(26,591 posts)you do.
and please read some books.
the extent of your rhetorical "expertise" is largely sophistry.
your arguments are all "that's what you are, what am i."
you're not even a worthy adversary.
more like a horse fly.
RomneyLies
(3,333 posts)The way you throw around rhetoric on this thread, you've invested your entire being in the credibility of a polemicist who lies every bit as much as any Fox News commentator.
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)datasuspect
(26,591 posts)i don't ever use the ignore feature, but for this one, i think i will start.
Sekhmets Daughter
(7,515 posts)and Taibbi is talking policy. He is no respecter of either party.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)Obama's inauguration was to hinder the President.
None of these Republicans voted for Wall Street Reform and are not in a fight against Wall Street.
An original bill to promote the financial stability of the United States by improving accountability and transparency in the financial system, to end "too big to fail", to protect the American taxpayer by ending bailouts, to protect consumers from abusive financial services practices, and for other purposes.
NAYs ---41
Alexander (R-TN)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Brown (R-MA)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Collins (R-ME)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hatch (R-UT)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johanns (R-NE)
Kyl (R-AZ)
LeMieux (R-FL)
Lugar (R-IN)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Nelson (D-NE)
Reid (D-NV)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Snowe (R-ME)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Wicker (R-MS)
Sekhmets Daughter
(7,515 posts)They didn't support TARP and they don't want to interfere with Wall Street, it's really pretty consistent. As I said, you are worried about partisan politics and not about policy. There were plenty of critics of TARP, including Joseph Stiglitz, from the beginning. Dems passed it with no real provisions for oversight. After the horse had left the barn they tried to go back and fix it...that rarely works. Banks used the money for proprietary investing and the credit markets remained frozen.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)Elizabeth Warren provided the oversight/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Warren#TARP_oversight
That earned her the wrath of Republicans.
Sekhmets Daughter
(7,515 posts)They could issue reports, but they could do little to make the banks behave differently. On a lighter note...aren't you extremely tickled by the fact that in blocking her to head the Consumer Protection agency, republicans could neither defeat Warren in her bid for the senate, nor keep Reid from putting her on the powerful Senate Banking committee?
ProSense
(116,464 posts)She wasn't happy with the procrastination and the Republican handling of the imminent crisis, but she acknowledged that the actions were needed.
Through a series of actions, including the rescue of AIG, the government succeeded in averting a financial collapse, and nothing in this report takes away from that accomplishment. But this victory came at an enormous cost. Billions of taxpayer dollars were put at risk, a marketplace was forever changed, and the confidence of the American people was badly shaken. How the government will manage those costs, both in the specific case of AIG and in the more general case of TARP, remains a central challenge – one the Panel will continue to review.
http://cybercemetery.unt.edu/archive/cop/20110402010341/cop.senate.gov/documents/cop-061010-report.pdf
Sekhmets Daughter
(7,515 posts)That we did indeed need to bailout AIG...the banks, not so much. Certainly we did not need to give them so much money to invest for themselves, nor open the Fed Discount Window to GS and Morgan Stanley.
LittleBlue
(10,362 posts)Stopped reading here. These have never been discussed in the mainstream media.
Strawman argument, very poor. The author of that blog is the real con. Go on back to the "blogosphere" where you belong blog boy.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"Stopped reading here. These have never been discussed in the mainstream media."
...you did, because what follows is Taibbi's bullshit claim.
Republican senators David Vitter of Louisiana and James Inhofe of Oklahoma were so mad about the unilateral changes and lack of oversight that they sponsored a bill in January 2009 to cancel the remaining $350 billion of TARP.
Speaking of a "strawman argument," where on earth does it say anything about "mainstream media"?
LittleBlue
(10,362 posts)No one in the mainstream media.
It's a fiction invented by this blogger. Like I said, blog quality reasoning, blog quality article. Not worthy of serious discussion unless there really was a movement to fix things the way he described, which there is not.
Jog on, you're boring.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)Congress authorized $700 billion in TARP spending.
Congress authorized the Treasury Department to use up to $700 billion to stabilize financial markets through the program — a step that inspired widespread public outrage, helping to fuel what became the Tea Party Movement, and, in the mind of most economists, one that played a crucial role in pulling the global economy back from the brink.
and even the nyt can't seem to get the numbers straight on how much was actually used:
Tracking the $700 Billion Bailout (2009)
Committed: $549 billion
Uncommitted" 150.6 billion
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/national/200904_CREDITCRISIS/recipients.html
Credit Crisis — Bailout Plan (TARP) (2012)
The Treasury never tapped the full $700 billion. By the time its authority to spend the money expired on Oct. 2, 2010, it had committed $470 billion and disbursed $387 billion,
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/credit_crisis/bailout_plan/index.html
But one thing is clear: Congress authorized $700 billion.
Nevernose
(13,081 posts)Because of you did, and your OP is all you took away from it, I suggest you go back and read it again.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)datasuspect
(26,591 posts)jeebus
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)or even resemble what the post is trying to claim.
"Blue links" need only remind you of the "Blue Team"! OUR side! And how it must be defended against unpleasant facts!
At that point, button-bursting pride should be sufficient to win the argument.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)1. Taibbi said goppers sponsored a bill to cancel tarp cause they were mad about lack of oversight:
Republican senators David Vitter of Louisiana and James Inhofe of Oklahoma were so mad about the unilateral changes and lack of oversight that they sponsored a bill in January 2009 to cancel the remaining $350 billion of TARP.
GOPers are bad so Taibbi is carrying water for them...
2. taibbi cites barofsky on something:
And Taibbi pivots from the righteous indignation of Diaper Dave Vitter to the fulminations of Neil Barofsky, the guy GW Bush appointed as TARP Inspector General
Barofsky is a GOPer, see above...
3. Taibbi didn't mention the auto bailout:
In fact, the auto rescue, by far the biggest use of TARP funds by Obama's Administration is never mentioned in Taibbi's article.
Didn't mention the auto bailout so must be out to get banks? I don't even understand this one.
4. t. says the gov't committed $700B to tarp.
Semantic bullshit that doesn't mean anything to the average reader, 'committed' as opposed to 'authorized' spending...
Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)one of the small circle of new way adherents. But you post it here as if it were factual and carried any authority.
Sadly, some will believe that this does have some factual information behind it.
gulliver
(13,186 posts)And no, I don't mean that as a compliment.
Scurrilous
(38,687 posts) Cynicus Emeritus
(172 posts)We've come to allow the pro too big to fail NYC banksters pretending to be populists and progressives to run the op eds that favor their own kind, while average Americans that they perceive as being lowly losers are sacrificed and had by same.
Taibbi represents what America needs and the banksters represent why America has been had.
banned from Kos
(4,017 posts)Dammit!
donheld
(21,311 posts)I'll believe Matt any day ANY DAY over Prosense.
Bonobo
(29,257 posts)As Tabibi points out, some or many of them borrowed from the govt. on cheap loans meant as economic incentives to help unemployment and the like to pay back the higher interest TARP loans.
And many of them did it, conveniently, so they could then pay large bonuses otherwise forbidden for them to do while still owing money to TARP.
One of the 99
(2,280 posts)by someone on the left.
http://prospect.org/article/errors-matt-taibbi
Taibbi is popular with many because he just tells them what they want to hear. Much like Rush's audience. Liberals and progressives should have a higher standard or we're just as bad as those on the other side who only watch FAUX.