Showing us who's the boss

Yesterday we heard from Larry Summers, talking about how, in the end, Wall Street will do what's right for the American people because "we were there for them." Well, that statement also happened to coincide with a meeting the President was having with the major heads of financial corporations on things like executive compensation, new regulations, and lending. Thankfully, a few of our financial betters decided to show just how thankful they were.

President Obama didn’t exactly look thrilled as he stared at the Polycom speakerphone in front of him. “Well, I appreciate you guys calling in,” he began the meeting at the White House with Wall Street’s top brass on Monday.

He was, of course, referring to the three conspicuously absent attendees who were being piped in by telephone: Lloyd C. Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs; John J. Mack, chairman of Morgan Stanley; and Richard D. Parsons, chairman of Citigroup.

Their excuse? “Inclement weather,” according to the White House. More precisely, fog delayed flights into Reagan National Airport.

Awww, fog. Shame there isn't a high speed rail system connecting the two cities, just as it's also a shame that the fog was only bad enough for those three not to make it out of New York.I guess there just wasn't a sense of urgency, seeing as they weren't going to be getting any more billions in return for showing up.

On the bright side, they are saying there has to be major financial reforms. Sure, the armies of lobbyists they pay and their Congressional toadies are saying something else, but the CEO's are pretending really hard. In the end, isn't that repayment enough? Isn't putting up a thin candy shell of humility, gratitude, and claims that you're ready to act like humans again "doing what's right'? It'll just makes the loophole riddled bill that Congress passes and Wall Street loves easier to swallow. Imagine how hard that bill would be to take if these CEO's acted likes assholes the entire way through the process?

Next time make more of an effort to catch a plane: it makes it easier for us to pretend you care. Our psyches are fragile enough as it is, what with lending dried up and no jobs. We need some phony showmanship, so we can at least pretend we got something out of the global financial apocalypse. Can't you at least give us that?

The goodness of their hearts

You know, when Matt Taibbi said that Obama's financial and economic policy had been "hijacked by sniveling, low-rent shitheads", it was hard to believe. I mean they all wear such nice suits and have such large bank accounts. Surely it was hijacked by high-rent shitheads. But to the degree we're squabbling over the level of shitheadedness, we are in agreement: they're shitheads. So that's why it was nice to see Senior White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers make that case so eloquently this weekend.

Summers defended Obama's attempts to persuade banks to increase lending.

"The country did incredible things for the banking industry. Those things had to be done to save the economy, but no major bank would be intact, in a position to pay bonuses, if that extraordinary support had not been provided. The bankers need to recognize that. They need to recognize that they've got obligations to the country after all that's been done for them, and there is a lot more they can do, and President Obama is going to be talking with them about what they can do to support enhanced lending to customers across the country. We were there for them."

Dear sweet fucking baby Jesus, that's the way we're going to get credit flowing, taxpayer funded bonuses curbed, and better regulations and oversight? Obama's going to go jawbone with them and they'll do it out of a sense of duty and obligation because "we were there for them"? A sense of duty wasn't enough for them not to set everyone's money of fire and gamble with the world's financial stability, why would it compel them to act rationally now, especially when "they got theirs..." and we're clearly in the "...so fuck everyone else" phase. "We" are going to be there for them the next time they do this, by which I mean "you" and all your Wall Street buddies in government.

So that's the big plan for trying to make sure that this doesn't happen again: hoping that Wall Street wants to change things out of the goodness of it's heart. Actually, now that I've seen the lengths that our elected betters will go to kill meaningful regulatory reform of Wall Street and the difficulty of getting good legislation through the House and Senate, perhaps wishing that banks and financial giants have a change of heart is the most viable course of action. I guess it's the season for miracles.

Quote of the day

Economist Larry Summers, current Director of the White House's National Economic Council, drops a quote attacking the notion that markets act rationally in an unpublished paper. It's successful in that area, but it's useful in so many other areas too.

THERE ARE IDIOTS. Look around.

Can I get that on a t-shirt? Maybe a mug or a mousepad?

Cheap Blogging Crutch 09.21

Blue Dog Democrats eye new financial reform
Let me assure you, you're reading that headline wrong. Sure you may think it says "Blue Dog Democrats eye new financial reform", but what it really says is "Blue Dogs seek to fuck over decent financial reform". Mostly by scuttling a planned Consumer Protection Agency and weakening planned regulation. Because if this global financial apocalypse taught us one thing, it's that we don't really need to keep an eye on that whole financial and banking sector. They're good people.

Good Billions After Bad
Vanity Fair comes at us with a piece that alleges that the trillions from the TARP bailout package seemed to have large chunks of the money spent poorly, being put in the wrong hands, and doing the opposite of what was needed. And all just because the system was designed without restrictions, accountability, or common sense by the Paulson Treasury Department. Are you shocked? Neither am I. Rest assured though, nothing will be done and the next time a problem like this rolls around, nothing will be learned.

Ahmadinejad: Holocaust Denial A Source Of Pride
Some people take pride in a job well done, others by helping someone else out. Then there are others, "assholes" we call them, who take pride in denying one of the most widely documented events in human history. Couldn't he take pride in rigging an election and suppressing a revolution? At least that's an achievement. Still, this is probably the smartest way to kick off your big "message of peace and friendship" UN trip.

Steve Keen Out-Thinks Larry Summers
One of the great things about this economic meltdown, besides the hobo-grade tins of beans, hopping boxcars, and all this free time, has been watching some of the most respected economists in the world armor up, grab a truncheon and a shield, and wade into the Thunderdome to do battle on the bloody fields of economic theory. Up next is Australian economist Steve Keen, who hopes to garrote Larry Summers over the Obama Administration's economic approach and neoclassical economic theory. Winner faces the viking helmeted Joseph Stiglitz and his steel murder talons in the next round.

I'm Such A Shitty Senator
The Onion was able to look at Max Baucus and see the future, why couldn't anyone within the Democratic caucus or White House see? I mean just look at that S.915 Semiconductor Investment Act. What in the hell was that shit?

Summers Slumbers, or, Lie to me, Larry! Lie to me!

We've all been there: Big meeting in the middle of the day right after a late night vandalizing John Boener's office, urinating in the capital rotunda, prank-calling the Secret Service, or whatever it is high-level government officials do to get their shriveling white rocks off. These things happen. As a matter of fact, I'm fairly certain these are the precise conditions under which Joe Biden helped write the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act. Aside from Biden being a seven-time Senator from the great tax haven state of Delaware.

That said, White House economic adviser Larry Summers has to step it up. Today was Barry's big meeting with the executives of all those credit card companies who seem genuinely worried that when our elected betters champion a new era of corporate responsibility, that era might actually come to pass. This is child's play, Larry, and not the last you'll see of it. You react to public outrage at the rich & powerful by sitting down with the rich & powerful. Wag the finger, wink the eye, and it's time for lunch. Note: It never hurts to have a bunch of cameras present.

But this was a problem for Larry, who couldn't seem to stay awake through the meeting. Why was this a problem? There were a bunch of fucking cameras present.

The real tragedy here is that this was all so easily preventable. Take heed, Lawrence. The next time you're headed into a meeting room crammed with media, take thirty seconds and swing by Rahm Emanuel's office. Find something that looks like THIS. It's full of pure cocaine. You'll get a lot of work done that day, I promise. And more over, you won't make an utter ass of yourself in front of a badly broken country during a meeting whose express written purpose is to help un-break said country.

...awful jackass.