Days after GM’s CEO Rick Wagoner was forced out by the Obama administration, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner left open the possibility that such moves could happen again.
In an interview with CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric, Geithner acknowledged the government has had to do “exceptional things” – citing AIG as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
“We have changed management aboard,” he said. “And where we’ve done that, we’ve done it because we thought that was necessary to make sure these institutions emerge stronger in the future.”
Just let the weight of that statement settle on your chest. Like a crate of heavy Italian sausage. Circa 1936 or thereabouts.
Then, once you acclimate yourself to having your very breath stolen from you, ask yourself who this “we” is. And what it is, precisely, that gives this “we” the kind of power it presumes to wield here.
This is not a trick question.
Discuss.
If the royal “we” (perhaps Geithner uses “Wii” to be hip) may dump a few more CEOs, why not use their awesome superpowers on the UAW? Or is that not allowed by the powers behind the royal throne?
Noone is giving them this power, there is simply noone stopping them. IMHO
“We” = the enlightened ones who know what’s good for you.
Welcome, Comrades!
And what it is, precisely, that gives this “we†the kind of power it presumes to wield here.
Congress legislated it, silly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9DgMG-_6Ls&feature=related
B Moe,
I was hoping someone would post that.
hope and change
Who gave WE that power? Why WE did of course. I’d like to say that WE is well and truly fucked, but my sense is that it is we who are well and truly fucked.
I am beginning to think that the American public is too ignorant to save itself. I knew we were headed in this direction, I just didn’t think it would happen so fast.
There is very little hope that this insanity will be stopped or reversed. Sadly, since one cannot stop history, one must adapt to it.
We must be stopped
Usually when you hear the word “we” there is an implied or easily understood “them”.
I think they’re becoming comfortable with the use of the ‘Royal We’.
I mean, who’s gonna stop them? Olympia Snowe?
Seriously…Who’s going to stop them?
Geithner?
Geithner?
Well, I know it isn’t the same “we” in my new favorite expression.
We are fucking doomed.
It is not given, it is taken. This mindset, will to power, does not believe that someone higher than themselves exists to “give” them the power they seek. They see power as something to be forcefully taken, in broad daylight, to show all that they thus have the “right” to have it. It is the mindset of the bully.
It’s only unconstitutional if a fiscal conservative does it, silly.
Ahhh…Remember all the slippery slope arguments given by the left in regards to Bush’s UNITARY EXECUTIVE? I do. Somehow, to those poor hapless souls, there is no more slippery slope now that their man is in the White House. I’d like them to know, that it isn’t the hand of government that stops me from snapping their scrawny little necks, but my belief in God. Or if they prefer, natural law.
“Who gave WE that power?”
The 52.5%’ers!
The New Economy?
The lefties screeched and howled that BushRove were fascists, which, accoridng to them, is the government controlling corporations for the stupid amongst us…
Well, no here goes Barry pulling this IN ACTUALITY in the wide open and they are silent.
Silence from the large fat head of Olberdouche, the spitshined blowjob lips of Chris Matthews, the sucked-out brain of Brain Williams…
Nothing, not a sound.
Barry is everything the leftards said Bush was, and much more. I find that delicious.
Ahhh, but this time it’s evil corporations taking it in the ass and not Jose Padilla. So, it’s like, OK. Besides, when your 401(k) and your job and your company are gone, the government will take care of you. Nothing to worry about.
Good fuck. There is no try to stop them. That’s the point. Geithner and CBS are warning the people what could stop them what will happen if they do.
This fat bastard.
He has the massive will of the American people behind him — and he has been granted permission by us to do what he sees fit.
Consti-what? How fucking quaint.
I heard about this from a caller to the Glenn Beck radio show last night:
Nothing in the Treasury’s Agreement with GM gives them the right to fire Wagoner. See here: http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/reports/gm%20final%20term%20&%20appendix.pdf
They had no power to fire him but did any way. Un-f’ing-believable (except with these clowns in the Executive Branch its totally believable).
I think CEO’s need to show real leadership and tell the President (and Geithner and whoever else) to pound sand. Unfortunately, there’s a serious leadership void all around (Executive Branch, Legislative Branch, private industry, etc.). Hopefully, all it takes is one brave soul.
I wonder if all the shouting the Dems did during the last 8 years about fascism and operating outside of the Constitution from the President was simply to make the public tune out. Now that the Chief Executive is exercising powers not granted him by the Constitution, the public doesn’t care because they’ve grown so weary hearing about it for the previous 8 years (when it wasn’t actually occurring).
Is it “the boy who cried wolf” strategy writ large?
Noone is giving them this power, there is simply noone stopping them. IMHO
My humble opinion also.
As Obama’s agenda is unmasking itself the Fourth Estate is quickly emerging as the emperor who wears no clothes.
Watchdogs?
Lapdogs.
Cheerleaders.
Naturally “we” is Geithner and BHO, and their authority is “we won.” As is made obvious by Geithner’s testimony (YouTube link above) “we” understands that there is no Constitutional authority for their actions, but that doesn’t matter. America has moved to an unwritten Constitution on few inherent rights (and none at all with respect to property) constrained only by the opposing factions within Congress. Once “we won” “we” can do anything agreed to by Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid.
But it has always been thus. The Constitution is just paper. The American people (as a body) have not made it clear they do not want this.
I would like to point out that VRE train 305 to Fredericksburg did not run on time yesterday. WE better hop to it!
How do you say “Duce” in jive?
Interesting link AFS, I’d like to hear Beck interview Wagoner and ask him why he stepped down.
Hell, I’d like to hear anyone ask Wagoner that question.
Telling them to “pound sand” will end, with this bunch, as well as did telling the AG to “pound sand” did for Koresh or Elian. One brave soul has no chance unless they get enormous, overwhelming, and immediate backing. These are bullies, thugs, writ large.
“Just let the weight of that statement settle on your chest. Like a crate of heavy Italian sausage. Circa 1936 or thereabouts.”
BUT!
It arrived on schedule.
I’ll risk some unpoularity here but I think this is a case of “right idea, wrong mechanism.” The 5th ammendment allows for the government to take over private property for the public good as long as a fair market price is paid, by my understanding. However, the Government loan wasn’t a siezure, nor was there a fee paid to the owners (shareholders) by the government. So for that reason this is wrong. However, had the government actually paid for the shares, at a market price, I’d say that it would be wise to remove the head of a failing company. Investors force board changes after take overs, all the time.
Gee Jeff,
I wonder how long before they decide they need to replace you!?!
Because, you know, they’re working in the public’s interest…
And I thought the royal “We” was a term that was only bandied about in England…
Hopefully, all it takes is one brave soul.
We are going down without a whimper. Tea-parties my ass. It is time for revolution.
OUTLAW!
For all the Left’s drama over the power of corporatism. Corporations, as are Unions also, are creatures created and ruled by government. If they don’t roll over for the Obama minions, Pelosi and Reid have the power to simply change the rules under which Corporations are allowed to operate and exist.
That is the main threat. Force is the iron glove backing it, used to break the recalcitrance of a few examples which will need to be made. Wagoner rolled over, someone else won’t and then they will have their example.
allows for the government to take over private property for the public good
Its gonna be hard to make the case that bailing out the UAW or AIG fits this definition. Unless public good now means whatever benefits the democratic party.
“Unless public good now means whatever benefits the democratic party.”
When has it ever not meant that?
ThomasD,
Twenty million dollars buys one a lot of silence.
“Twenty million dollars”
Payable in Obama Commemoration Inauguration Plates. You get 500,000 of them.
U-238, what was the “public good”? The good of the public would have been if these under performing companies were allowed to fail, imho. This trope about “all those unempolyed workers” is nonsense. The market, if there is one anymore, and GM’s competitors (those that don’t suck) would have hired a very good number of those workers.
One argument I have heard is that if “we” didn’t do anything, the United States tax payer would have been on the hook for all those pensions and that would have cost far more than doing what “we” did. I am asking, out of ignorance on this subject, is that true? My understanding is that there is already a pension guarantee corporation in place? Or is that for public sector jobs?
Ya know, calling it “fascism” is so unhelpful. Better to call it “managed capitalism” the way Hewitt’s been doing.
That the two ideas are indistinguishable is immaterial. Hugh just doesn’t want to be so gauche.
Being free was such a burden anyway.
So, were the last eight years of endless bleating about fascism undertaken out of ignorance and/or stupidity, or because they needed to make the term unusable before they took back the reins of power?
(My thanks to whomever coined “Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice,” btw. That rocks.)
It is so easily explained… “We” are very liberal as advertised and the constitution really are not true rules, more like a set of guidelines…
The ultimate in royal WE
“Who’s we sucka??”
Start at the 1:40 mark
The “we” is the representatives of the American people who have a fiduciary responsibility over the taxpayers’ money.
The theoretical figment of what you think is the market and the market forces and market mechanisms are broken, meaning they’re merely in your imagination at this point. Proof that was the very man you hold out as tragically spurned. By what metric would that failure of a CEO have kept his job if the market mechanisms were in order. Grip this reality – people get fired for doing a bad job.
Again, shareholder oversight, what happened to it. I asked Darleen to approach the topic. Sorry if I seem surly. I get that way if it appears that I’m repeating myself to a bag of rocks.
See ya, Mr. Wagoner. Thanks for nothing. The security guards will now escort you to the exit door once you’ve emptied your pockets and handed in your access card to the parking garage.
The “we†is the representatives of the American people who have a fiduciary responsibility over the taxpayers’ money.
Where is that power granted in the Constitution?
Again, shareholder oversight, what happened to it.
It appears to have been usurped by the Government, hence the title of this post. You might also want to point out where that power is authorized by the Constitution.
No. Further back. Where comes the power of the Constitution?
This condition, it is asserted, never goes away. It is permanent. The next step
can be imposed upon, abused and thwarted, but such interference does not remove the original condition of men
Grip this reality – people get fired for doing a bad job.
What thor said! You goddammed right!
Like those UAW guys that clock in and then go over to Sudsy’s for the whole day to drink short-ones. And, and, and the fat UAW guy who says I can’t move that box, that’s someone else’s job.
Grip it. GRIP IT GOOD!!!
shareholder oversight? Our dipshit fuckhead president wants to give half the shares of his stupid new government jalopy factory to the UAW. How’s that for shareholder oversight? Greasy fucking socialist union thugs.
ask yourself who this “we†is.
“We” is whomever operates unopposed. I don’t see much a chance of someone standing up and saying “No” unless they are ready for IRS audits, being screetched at by the WH Press Secretary, individually tailored legislation winging its way out of Congress to punish the “offender” [By a Congress filled with OUTRAGE!1!11!].
I guess pledging of lives and sacred honor doesn’t extend into the business community just yet.
Thor seems to think that we’re for these bailouts.
So. The government has a fiduciary responsibility over taxpayers’ money. Which means that, following that logic, once they start running healthcare, eg., they can tell us how many situps we need to do each day in order to qualify for our continued coverage. They can tell us what to eat. What to drink. Etc.
Which means that a government that wants to control us is best served by taking on responsibility for funding everything.
Yeah. Just like the founders had in mind.
Wrong answer, Bmoe. The disconnect lies more with the middling of financial products.
Wagoner was not popular within company nor with the shareholders. Why couldn’t they oust his failed butt?
Constitution, oh please. What child talk. Where in the constitution does it grant Mr. Wagoner the right to be CEO of GM?
Thank God President Barack Obama and Co. have the foresight and integrity to save America from strict Consitititituuutionalist baby talkers and free-market hallucinators. Investors are coming back into the market, you know that thing that most you wingered know not-so-much about yet incessantly harp of.
The “we†is the representatives of the American people who have a fiduciary responsibility over the taxpayers’ money.
Not a bad point, but it raises the question about where Congress gets the authority to simply send money to a manufacturing concern in exchange for nothing other than its continued operation.
The theoretical figment of what you think is the market and the market forces and market mechanisms are broken, meaning they’re merely in your imagination at this point.
That makes no sense, Thor, insofar as you agree that GM hs been poorly run and makes shitty cars. Don’t those data militate to the conclusion that the market is indeed working, with consumers opting for other manucaturers’ vehicles?
you sure they’re not coming back to the market because they’re greedy? Or will it only be greedy if they’re coming back at GWB levels and not BO (heart monitor) levels? Blip. Blip. booooooooooooooooop.
Bzzzzzt. Not what was argued.
Constitution, oh please. What child talk. Where in the constitution does it grant Mr. Wagoner the right to be CEO of GM?
You misunderstand what the Constitution is, bright boy. It’s not law for us, it’s law for the government. See also: Tenth Amendment.
You, Jeff, seem to think something so complicated as our banking and banking regulatory system and all its private sector ramifications can be argued down to a few simple absolutist sentences of principled theoreticals.
This has no finality. This we manage. This is fluid. This is not governed by precedent.
Where in the constitution does it grant Mr. Wagoner the right to be CEO of GM?
The Constitution doesn’t grant rights to individuals, thor. It grants rights to the government. If it doesn’t grant a right to the government, the government doesn’t have that right. Now, where does the Constitution grant the Federal government “fiduciary responsibility over the taxpayers’ money.”
Wagoner was not popular within company nor with the shareholders. Why couldn’t they oust his failed butt?
A poorly written contract I would assume, which is only the governments concern if it is contested in court.
This has no finality. This we manage. This is fluid. This is not governed by precedent.
And we’ve got a complete idiot at the helm. If that’s not a warm blanky right out of the dryer, I don’t know what is.
It grants rights to the government.
A slight quibble: Government has no “rights,” it has powers. We have rights.
You mean like the rule of law?
Yes, I do.
The Constitution only limits White power. A lot of people don’t know that.
Aaaaand…that about sums it up right there.
A slight quibble: Government has no “rights,†it has powers. We have rights.
Correct. That was a poor word choice.
Now, where does the Constitution grant the Federal government “fiduciary responsibility over the taxpayers’ money.â€
I would argue that the Constitition does grant this power, but the power to spend is restricted by Article I, Section 8. So Congress can exercise their fiduciary responsibility all they want, but the scope of spending power is limited.
“This has no finality. This we manage. This is fluid. This is not governed by precedent.”
So who is arguing simplistically? The Consitution and our laws are the framework with which we handle these problems. You cannot say “new one on me” and simply do whatever you feel – the rules are their to be followed. If you have to resort to arguing the Constituion only applies to things that you are comfortable saying you have seen before, then you might have to ask yourself why it is there in the first place?
It exists to constrain the actions of the Federal (and has been extended against States) Govt against its citizens, and to delineate what responsibilities it does have.
Saying “the CEO of GM sucked” isn’t a very good Constitutional argument.
Being addressed is corporate governance mechanisms not consumer freedom of choice.
Baby talk.
I can do this. I’m conversing on slightly more elevated topics with those that have no understanding outside the basic and topical.
can = can’t
I’m conversing on slightly more elevated topics with those that have no understanding outside the basic and topical.
I didn’t know you spoke Biden.
If you can’t do this then shut the fuck up and go away.
Being addressed is corporate governance mechanisms not consumer freedom of choice.
Of course it is, Thor. If you’re a GM stockholder, raise holy hell about Rick Wagoner. If you’re not, then STFU…it’s none of your business.
If you’re a consumer and you don’t think GM makes a good product, go elsewhere. Lots of others have.
And exactly where is the consumer choice with Il Duce canning Wagoner?
You’re blabbering gibberish. Who is not following the rules? GM has always had the ability to negotiate with its creditors before bankruptcy. That’s what they’re doing. If the bondholders want to reject the offer made by GM then the bondholders can try their luck in bankruptcy court.
As shareholder and creditor the U.S. government has every right to advise and exercise its influence when and where it deems necessary.
There is no crazed unconstitutionality of whats happening to GM. Period. You’re just black helicoptering if you state otherwise.
The Constitution has a fiduciary responsibility over the money they collect from taxpayers, not the taxpayer’s money. This is not a small distinction.
Recognizing this is taking the comment out of context, but in a cosmokharmicomedic way.
Yes we can!
But what about diapers, dicks and Palin’s vagina, thor? Stick to what you know, hammerboi. You suck at this.
There is no crazed unconstitutionality of whats happening to GM. Period.
Then it should be simple for you to point out where these specific powers are enumerated. Well, except for the obvious fact you haven’t a fucking clue what the Constitution is.
The Constitution has a fiduciary responsibility over the money they collect from taxpayers, not the taxpayer’s money. This is not a small distinction.
Constitution = Government.
When did we buy GM stock?
There is no crazed unconstitutionality of whats happening to GM. Period. You’re just black helicoptering if you state otherwise.
Then you’ll have no trouble finding this power in the body of the document. We await your response.
Once again to get to the question one has to look further back in the story to the crucially elided fact. Congress did not authorize the use of TARP funds for the automakers. Yet those funds were used for the automakers anyhow. That is a problem. And will be tomorrow.
Also you know what? Mr. Soros’s lackey is now in de facto control of the company what is the third-largest advertiser in our little country. Here is some advertising dollars for you and you but not you is what Baracky will say. That would not go unnoticed if it were a Republican what had put himself in charge of GM I don’t think.
When did we buy GM stock?
It does seem that thor is making this up as he goes along, no?
And doesn’t the sacking of Wagoner seem like more of a usurpation of shareholder power than a manifestation of it?
“WE” = “Timmy’s got a mouse in his pocket”
The Lone Ranger: “Well, Tonto, we’re surrounded by Indians. Looks like we’re going to have to fight our way out, or die.”
Tonto: “What you mean we, pale face?”
” doesn’t the sacking of Wagoner seem like more of a usurpation of shareholder power than a manifestation of it?”
Yes.
You people crack me up. Hey, those of you complaining, which of you actually own a GM?
Libs, stop taking the “where in the constitution?” bait. None of these Republicans were screaming “where in the constitution?” when Congress got it’s panties twisted in knots over Terri Shivo, or Bush declaring two wars without any declaration of war. The “where in the constitution?” crap is a strawman, used only when convenient.
Hey, Rick Wagoner came tin-cupping to Feds, and asked for billions to keep GM propped up. If the feds said “no” I’m thinking Rick would be out of a job pretty soon anyways? no?
Rick invited in an activist investor, and now Rick’s been forced out because that investor has no confidence in him. Same thing happened at Yahoo.
Hey, it’s fine with me if he just gives the money back and keeps his job.
Duuuuuuh, I’m a conservative. Duuuuuuuuh, I don’t read details. Duuuuuuuh, even if I did I wouldn’t understand those financial details. Duuuuuuuh, I post messages on message boards pretending I know something I don’t.
Duuuuuuh, I think I’m smarter than anyone who voted for Obama on any topic under the sun. It’s what’s neo-conservatism is about! Fiercely ignorant but always righteously in the right! Fuck education! It’s for Communists!
[ahem]
Our not being able to stop it, of course.
One component of that disability is stupid ideas, like that the constitution of a government can ever have anything more than marginal effects on its behavior, and that the reach of the state can ever be limited by anything other than counter-violence.
It’s possible to stop thinking these stupid things, but the disability would remain. There’s not enough human violence outside the state to counter it, and there hasn’t been for a very long time. That’s where it all goes.
No matter how much of a pussy you personally are, there’s a seat in the machine where you can file papers that destroy people. If you crave more violence than filing allows, but you’re still too much of a pussy to go solo and be a serial killer or a terrorist, you can become a politician or a cop and fuck up huge numbers of people without personal exposure. Sometimes they get shot, sure, but not often enough to work as a disincentive.
The state has enough channels to dissipate the majority’s violent urges, and enough prison cells for (the dumber ones) who strike out individually. Who’s left? Not enough.
Still waiting, Thor. A smart southpaw such as you should have no problem citing the relevant passage.
So you guys got nothing. Cool.
Read Gm’s viability plan that they were required to submit under terms of their emergency loan, you stupid fuckin’ hick.
Not an investor, Sammy. The government is a creditor. Also you’re barking up the wrong tree with the Schiavo bit, and the “two wars” ploy is inanity cubed. Other than that, great comment.
“As shareholder and creditor the U.S. government has every right to advise and exercise its influence when and where it deems necessary.”
Shareholder? I didn’t know creditors could “exercise its influence when and where it deems necessary”. Does this mean bondholders can advise GM to break the law, bribe officials and discriminate against women, etc?
Advise away – but to exercise its influence is supposed be in a lawful manner. What “law” did Turbo Tax Tim invoke to tell GM’s board “fire your CEO”? If it wasn’t by law, but merely by threat of, “if you don’t fire him, no more free money for u!” then it is simply linguini spinedness by the GM board, and their shareholders will have to sort that mess out…
You people crack me up. Hey, those of you complaining, which of you actually own a GM?
I’ve got a GMC Suburban myself. I also worked at an assembly plant for seven-plus years.
Hey, those of you complaining, which of you actually own a GM?
Since most of us pay taxes, I’d say we own a piece of a shit load of them.
Answer the question, snotnozzle. Quote the plan that they were required to submit under the terms of their emergency loan, if you think it helps support your case. When did we buy GM stock?
Somebody should have done a Schiavo search before throwing around the strawman strawman.
But that would have required someone to bother to spell it correctly, and someone can’t be bothered with such onerous work, evidently.
Meanwhile, here’s a GMU econ professor at Cafe Hayek on Mr Obama’s remedies for the auto industry. Linked before.
Granted, he’s not on thor’s level. But he gave it a go.
Read Gm’s viability plan that they were required to submit under terms of their emergency loan, you stupid fuckin’ hick.
How many shares of voting stock is that, thor? GM did make a submission, as I recall, BTW.
Could you cite the portion of the “viability plan” that transfers common shares of GM to the Untied States Treasury?
88
Yes libs stop talking about X, Y, and Z because “blah blah blah Bush” and because you can not answer those questions without looking like fascists. For fuck sake you people trot out the verb, noun, name, and expletive “Bush” like a freakin cross to ward against reality.
Meh, off to the doc – I’ll have to check this later. If Jeff doesn’t end up having kick thor off again, this could actually remain an interesting discussion.
“Libs, stop taking the “where in the constitution?†bait.”
Since when did discussing what powers our government has under the Constitution become bait? Oh yeah I can answer that myself, January of this year.
My job is not to educate ignorant angry hicks.
Too bad. You might start with yourself.
That’s the plan that Baracky rejected, innit? It seems rather inoperative.
It’s almost time for strawberry soup. Had it for Easter last year but it was a little early. You can have some thor even if you’re churlish most all the time these days. It’s very very tasty. I am going to bring some for NG this year.
This is the language of the tyrant. The petty dictator solely interested in the implementation of his will.
This, folks, is what led to Sulla’s Proscriptions. Which led to Caesar crossing the Rubicon.
So are BHO and Geihtner.
Q. When did we buy GM stock?
A. Read Audacity of Hope motherfucker!
You could cite it yourself if you read it.
I can’t say I’ve read all 117 pages, but I did search the document in vain for mention of the transfer of voting stock to the federal government. At any rate, as Pablo notes, the plan was rejected by Oprompta, so what would be in force here?
Where’s the authority, thor?
Anyone watching The One take questions at the G20? The Wizard of Uhs. It’s frigging painful to watch.
And if you believe that is what we are, then why the fuck are you here?!
If you’d like to have Rick Wagoner back as CEO – i.e. you think he’s the best one to turn GM around and payoff the US government – raise your hand.
If you’d like to have Rick Wagoner back as CEO – i.e. you think he’s the best one to turn GM around and payoff the US government – raise your hand.
If I had taken thor’s advice and bought GM stock, I’d have a say. As it is, I do not, therefore I have no say.
See how this works, fuckhead?
I don’t care about Wagonner, Sammy. I care about the federal government usurping private authority.
But while we’re posing such hypotheticals, raise your hand if you want Saddam back.
If you would like Sammy to stop throwing out straw men and false arguments raise your hand.
I own no GM stock; I have no say.
In any case that’s not the question. The question is, what granted the government the right to order someone’s firing? That’s followed by, what are the limits on this new-found power?
The next question is, of course, how do we remove this power from government?
But while we’re posing such hypotheticals, raise your hand if you want Saddam back.
Now there was a guy who knew how to get shit done for his country. He’d have Wagoner in one of Uday’s and Qusays’s rape rooms before you could say “tree chipper.”
The point is that this sends a signal to the new CEO that he is not for real in charge, Sammy. The State is, as embodied in our dipshit hungarian muppet president. This is how fascism works. For real you can read about it in books. You may not have noticed but all the ones what are CEOs of other companies sure did.
Not just CEOs. Congress and its little “AIG SHOULDN’T GET THOSE BONUSES WE APPROVED” circus put us all on notice. If a Congresscritter don’t like you, well…
Just when you think liberals can’t get any more clueless and banal than thor, enter sammy. Welcome sammy- is there a newsletter i can subscribe to get more of your deluded vision and incorrect knowledge about the powers of the government.
Also, if you were around here for the Schiavo thing, there wasn’t a whole lot of push to get the government involved in that thing either. You’ll find most of us are tradionalist dinosaurs.
“I don’t care about Wagonner, Sammy. I care about the federal government usurping private authority. ”
I just doubt that you really care about that. How many times did you raise this same argument when a Republican was responsible?
Related:
this one is more goofier than meya even
I just doubt that you really care about that. How many times did you raise this same argument when a Republican was responsible?
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I screamed from the rooftops when Bush expanded Medicare (on both Constitutional and fiscal grounds), implemented NCLB, his “faith-based” bullshit and any number of extravagancies.
You’re wrong. It’s in black and white and I’m looking straight at it. The word equity is right there.
Pablo is a proven idiot. He reads Wikipedia so he can catch a word that looks different than the one you typed then declare his genius. He, of course, is smarter than Barack Obama. Barack Obama is a mere Harvard educated (code word for Communist!) former lecturer of constitutional law while Pablo is a self-proclaimed and self-taught neo-conservative, even owns a decoder ring of our founding fathers’ intent! The Supreme Court consists of poseurs!
Gotta go. Let me know when your intellectual rigor pays dividedts and when you can honestly say you’ve read about what you speak.
Really? What’s the basis for this doubt?
When did a Republican order the firing of a non-government employee? When did Republicans violate the Constitutional provisions against bills of attainder and ex post facto laws?
I didn’t like the steel tariffs. Also he signed that goofy fuel economy crap.
Don’t forget amnesty.
“I just doubt that you really care about that.”
Funny but every comment you make shows that you do not care about the federal government usurping private authority. Does believing we are disingenuous make you feel better about yourself?
You are the disingenuous one here. You admit you thought Bush took upon him powers not granted by the Constitution and that was wrong. Then in the very same breathe you trot him out to defend using the Constitution as a piece of toilet paper when it is done by your guy. Not as a means of showing precident or making an argument either, but just as a means to drag the conversation away from its original intent and in your mind invalidate anything anyone says that isn’t of like mind as you.
Fuck you.
Here is the 3 month Loan agreement from Treasury setting out the conditions for loans ultimately valued at approx $13B dated last Dec 19, to begin at $4B on closing, with addition sums apportioned later, conditions having been met. See page 11, among others, describing warrants for common shares, etc. On the date of the loan, the GM had a market cap of roughly $2.5B. Today, that market cap is $1.24B.
Bush did this in error. Hennessey presents Bush’s thoughts and object. It was a mistake. He did it, he said, as a temporizing measure in order to avoid bequeathing Obama yet another huge economic disruption at the start of his term and to give GM one more opportunity to viably reorganize outside of a court. They didn’t.
Also see here:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=douchebag
You’re wrong. It’s in black and white and I’m looking straight at it. The word equity is right there.
I see that, but it says by the end of 2009 **should this plan go into effect**. The plan was rejected, so how would any unsecured public debt be converted into an equity position?
You’re wrong. It’s in black and white and I’m looking straight at it.
Are you drinking a daiquiri?
I just doubt that you really care about that. How many times did you raise this same argument when a Republican was responsible?
You are really fucking dense, aren’t you?
George Bush was both Yale and Harvard educated. They’ll give that shit out to just about anyone, apparently.
Comment by Sdferr on 4/2 @ 12:31 pm #
Here is the 3 month Loan agreement from Treasury setting out the conditions for loans ultimately valued at approx $13B dated last Dec 19, to begin at $4B on closing, with addition sums apportioned later, conditions having been met. See page 11, among others, describing warrants for common shares, etc. On the date of the loan, the GM had a market cap of roughly $2.5B. Today, that market cap is $1.24B.
Yep, I guess I was wrong. My apologies, thor. And what a stupid, stupid, stupid (and unconstitutional) thing it was that Bush did. What a fuckhead.
When is thor gonna tell us where he went to college?
Here’s a thought experiment for you: let’s say you want to effectively disable something like a tank. Would you study the tank first to learn how it worked in order to break it, or would you just pound on that fucker like a monkey with a hammer (pre-denounced!)?
There are no wrong answers. Knowing how something works makes you even better at breaking it is all I’m saying.
Are you saying we bought GM stock through Wagonners rejected plan, thor? Because that would make you an idiot.
Thor –
Waggoner was fired before Obambi even rejected the plan. So regardless, Obambi was in no legal position to fire him.
Although, in a highly technical sense, Waggoner wasn’t fired. He was asked to leave.
I suppose that after seeing what happened to those guys at AIG who were asked to give back their bonuses he decided to get out of dodge (so to speak).
But you’re too blinkered by ideology, and too stupid to boot to handle something as complex as temporal sequencing.
Comment by thor on 4/2 @ 12:27 pm #
Please ignore the talking genital wart.
Thank you.
Should someone point out the obvious: that Wagoner resigned and was not fired. Jesus, for the champions of meaning, you sure know how to change words to your preferred meanings.
Wagoner could have stayed, all he had to do was convince the board that the company should keep him and not get the money.
I will say this for the bunch of free marketers here: if the idea that a lender can ask for concessions from a borrower before loaning money is “fascist,” then a lot of mortgage lenders have some splaining to do.
But, if we’ve learned one thing from eight years’ of GOP mis-rule, it’s that the government is a giant piggy bank to use how rich people see fit. if that’s services without payment, wars on a giant credit card, or the out-sourcing of government functions to plutocrats, well, dang it, that’s apparently capitalism.
Are you saying we bought GM stock through Wagonners rejected plan, thor? Because that would make you an idiot.
I think he was saying that, but that’s not what happened. The original bailout agreement, signed in December 2008, provided for the transfer of common stock to Treasury.
I will say this for the bunch of free marketers here: if the idea that a lender can ask for concessions from a borrower before loaning money is “fascist,†then a lot of mortgage lenders have some splaining to do.
When the lender is the government, Kirk, it is.
This is fun.
The Obama administration caught lying:
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/04/02/biden-takes-credit-for-bush-funding/
Sod-off, Kirk.
“But, if we’ve learned one thing from eight years’ of GOP mis-rule,”
So you consider our government rulers? No wonder you are so quick to give away your freedoms you do not think you have them to begin with.
Jeffersonian @145 – Did the government actually take possession of those shares, or was that contingent on some future event?
In any event, even if thor is correct (and I am not stipulating that it is), if the government did not end up as the controlling interest, they had no right to call for anyone to resign or to fire them.
Of course, this is all amusing because for less than half of what they pissed away on bailouts, they could have actually bought all public shares of GM stock and simply owned the whole enterprise.
Well considering how quickly I have heard some people equate hoping a politician fails with hoping your country fails someone calling our politicians rulers shouldn’t surprise me.
Conservatives govern, reactionary leftists rule.
Remember, Obama was “ready to rule on day one”!
They want a freakin ruler because freedom is too much for them. It is too hard, too cruel, and too unfair.
Some of you might want to look fascism up in a dictionary before you try using it in a sentence. Add socialism while your at it. Is it really productive to toss these terms around every time a Democrat does something you disagree with.
And for the sake of expediency, I’ll concede that it was no more useful to throw terms like these at Bush.
What have we learned so far?… Any CEO that recieves gov’t aid is going to imediately think on every decision “What will OHB think…”. Some how I doubt that will be good for all involved (excluding “We”, tree huggers, etc. — of corse).
I dare say we have a better understanding of what those terms mean than you do.
And I’ll use them when they’re applicable. Like government making business decisions for private companies, making personnel decisions, imposing ex post facto laws and bills of attainder…
“Some of you might want to look fascism up in a dictionary before you try using it in a sentence.”
Do you have any idea what website you are on?
158. Comment by Mr. Pink on 4/2 @ 1:29 pm #
“Some of you might want to look fascism up in a dictionary before you try using it in a sentence.â€
Do you have any idea what website you are on?
Did I miss type the Cartoon Network again???? Damn!!!
All those conservatives look the same to Sammy.
“Do you have any idea what website you are on?”
No, no he doesn’t.
Maybe he thinks we’re Bolshevists.
Socialism: government control of the means of production.
Fascism: government control of the means of production.
“Fascism” was, in fact, a Marxist coinage. Marxists borrowed the name of Mussolini’s Italian party, the Fascisti, and applied it to Hitler’s Nazis, adroitly papering over the fact that the Nazis, like Marxism’s standard-bearers, the Soviet Communists, were revolutionary socialists. In fact, “Nazi” was (most annoyingly) shorthand for the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. European Marxists successfully put over the idea that Nazism was the brutal, decadent last gasp of “capitalism.”
-Tom Wolfe
“Maybe he thinks we’re Bolshevists.”
Thats O.K. I think he is full of bullshit.
“The Nazis did not, as their foreign admirers contend, enforce price control within a market economy. With them price control was only one device within the frame of an all-around system of central planning. In the Nazi economy there was no question of private initiative and free enterprise. All production activities were directed by the Reichswirtschaftsministerium. No enterprise was free to deviate in the conduct of its operations from the orders issued by the government. Price control was only a device in the complex of innumerable decrees and orders regulating the minutest details of every business activity and precisely fixing every individual’s tasks on the one hand and his income and standard of living on the other.
What made it difficult for many people to grasp the very nature of the Nazi economic system was the fact that the Nazis did not expropriate the entrepreneurs and capitalists openly and that they did not adopt the principle of income equality which the Bolshevists espoused in the first years of Soviet rule and discarded only later. Yet the Nazis removed the bourgeois completely from control. Those entrepreneurs who were neither Jewish nor suspect of liberal and pacifist leanings retained their positions in the economic structure. But they were virtually merely salaried civil servants bound to comply unconditionally with the orders of their superiors, the bureaucrats of the Reich and the Nazi party.â€
-Ludwig von Mises
Please ignore the homosexual who lays with soldiers.
Thank You.
Thor used to laugh and chortle and giggle at the regular posters here. Now his posts are bitter and angry and mean-spirited beyond the telling. I think he’s finally realized that his personal Jesus of a President is a tiny tiny little man with a proportionately tiny brain. He’s just taking his grief out on you guys is all.
Anyone have a spare troll hammer sitting around?
#Comment by Nan on 4/2 @ 1:43 pm #
Please ignore the talking genital wart.
Thank you.
Seeing a lefty chastise people about using the word “fascism” has to be the funniest thing I’ve read all week. Screw the dictionary. We all know the real definition of fascism is leftism that ends with lots of dead people and is therefore really right-wing because leftists don’t kill people.
As if Barack Obama weren’t a fascist though. That’s what I don’t get. He’s a fascist plain as day.
Someone should write a book connecting Liberalism and Fascism. That would end the argument one and for all.
I’ll tell you another thing I am, wealthier for having bought a bunch of stock starting in February. I’ll tell you another thing I am, factually correct. I’ll tell you another thing I am, a guy who voted for Barack Obama who shakes his head and laughs when he reads the wingered stuttering and crying because none of their bullshit matters.
Enjoy tossing off on the internet, little will change but the tears, sputum and jizz release seems to help you ease your pain.
You could even call it something like “Liberal Fascism.” Or is that too literal?
Worked for HG Wells.
“He’s a fascist plain as day.”
Sorry, what definition are you using?
“Constitution, oh please. What child talk. Where in the constitution does it grant Mr. Wagoner the right to be CEO of GM?”
Thor’s an unserious goof! Who’da thunk it?
“Where in the constitution does it grant”
Minor quible here but according to the Constitution our rights are granted to us by God not a piece of government paper.
fascist – n. – of or like a Chicago street trash piece of shit socialist what is owned by one Mr. Soros and advocates for cap ‘n trade, card check, compulsory national service, and hyperinflationary fiscal policy.
oops. that was the definition for the adjective. My bad.
#
Comment by N. O’Brain on 4/2 @ 1:37 pm #
Socialism: government control of the means of production.
Fascism: government control of the means of production.
Let’s just say, “Close enough,” and move on.
So I guess I missed the part where Obama proposed legislation to nationalize Microsoft, Walmart, and Exxon.
fascist – n. – Any of a number of ill-considered political leaders and other figures foisted upon a once-great nation by a lickspittle dirty socialist media. Notable fascists include Barack Obama, his skeezey woman, Timmy the tax cheat, and PepsiCo.
We are a consumer based economy, the credit and insurance agency could be considered our means of production. Also General Motors.
In 1934 Mussolini described the corporative econÂomy as ‘no longer an economic system that puts the accentccon individual profits, but [one that is] concerned with the collective interest. . . . If the past century was the century of
the power of capital, so the twentieth century is that of the power and the glory of labor.
The Corporate State in Action by Carl Schmidt
Cap ‘n trade is de facto nationalization of all industry. Well, except the ones what don’t involve carbon dioxide. Actual ownership is of negligible import. That’s how you know these ones are true blue fascists.
Ah, that explains it. In your little rage filled land of self delusion, you simply take a word with sufficient negative connotation, and smack it onto something you really don’t like.
I get that it can be really hard to enunciate your reason, or even recognize the basis for your knee-jerk reactions, but just realize that some of us are confused because the words you select already have definitions, and we assume that you actually have some idea what the fuck you’re talking about.
assclown (go ahead, look it up)
“So I guess I missed the part where Obama proposed legislation to nationalize Microsoft, Walmart, and Exxon.”
Just wait.
Soros is……patient.
Yeah Sammy. Happyfeet’s definition was flippant but still contained a lot more wisdom than your your earnest schoolboy prattle.
I never said I thought fascist had sufficient negative connotation.
WB assclown.
ha ha ha (breathe) ha ha ha
Well you can take comfort in the fact that he’s simply an awful fascists then. Any fascist worth his salt would nationalize the industries that are, you know, profitable.
You know, it doesn’t help that Tom Daschle explicitly invoked the fasces in his 2000 address to the Democratic National Convention, saying that’s how he sees the Democratic Party.
Really? Care to show that?
Please don’t be a douche. Our fascist piece of shit president uses his Mr. Soros’s cap n trade scheme to exact exorbitant taxes as a cost of doing business, and uses those monies to socialize medicine and implement Mr. Soros’s other fascist policies both here and abroad. Cap n trade harnesses industry to advance the purposes of the state. De facto nationalization.
Sammy –
I guess Maxine Waters’ calling for the nationalization of the oil industry and Geithner’s open admission that we “may have to nationalize a few banks” doesn’t count either, right?
Thor – you are an ignorant festering pustule on the buttocks of humanity. You wouldn’t know intelligence if it walked up to you and slapped you in the face with its dick.
Link
So, nationalization of Microsoft, Walmart, and Exxon in the first 100 days, first year, or by then end of the first term? Let’s vote!
I’m saying, “never,” but I’d love to see what y’all really believe. Or is all this talk of fascism, how you say, exaggeration? hyperbole? hyperventilating? (take a minute to breathe into the bag before you answer)
ha ha ha ha ha ha
“Any fascist worth his salt would nationalize the industries that are, you know, profitable.”
Credit is the lifeblood of our economy. Douchebag.
“So I guess I missed the part where Obama proposed legislation to nationalize Microsoft, Walmart, and Exxon.â€
The question is do you think he could? And if so, by what Constitutional authority?
Hey, Sammy.
The fake laughter doesn’t work. Believe it or not, it’s been done before. It has precisely no rhetorical effect.
And given that I’m a fairly educated chap and know the meaning of fascism, I feel under no obligation to assure you that I’m using the term to your specifications.
You evidently aren’t a regular here; you missed the boat immediately w/ respect to Schiavo and the beating Bush took here for steel tariffs, bailouts, his working with Kennedy, amnesty, Harriet Miers, and a host of other issues. You probably don’t know that I told a reporter at NPR that McCain was something of a douche.
How about you go find a little box of toy conservatives and take them on. You’re more suited to that challenge, I suspect.
“Ah, that explains it. In your little rage filled land of self delusion, you simply take a word with sufficient negative connotation, and smack it onto something you really don’t like.”
Wow, you just described the reactionary left over the eight years of the Bush Administration.
“Let’s vote!”
You won’t get a vote, Sammy.
That’s the point.
Something wlse to ponder, Sammy:
“Everything in the state, nothing outside the state.”
-Benito Mussolini
Sounds right wing to me.
Not.
Sammy’s cool.
Well spoken indeed.
Takes spine to bring it.
Does anyone doubt that if Bush was doing everything Obama was doing right now Sammy would be here saying the complete opposite thing?
You and Sammy should get together for some mutual validation, thor.
heh. Well, that’s all the funny I’m gonna get before I leave work since Meghan is obviously busy right now.
Something I’ve always wondered, to what degree does a movement have to be nationalistic if it’s to be considered fascistic? And, if it’s lacking strong nationalist themes, is it more like a totalitarian socialism? I’m not sure.
Fascistic still works as a descriptive term of course because I don’t think people weigh the nationalism factor very strongly.
oh. Swap tribalism for nationalism. There you go.
Where’d Sammy go?
You got something between your teeth, thor.
The key difference between fascism and communism is that fascism allows the corporations to continue the charade that they are in control. Fascism, communism, socialism – all of these are statist ideologies with varying degrees of street theater designed to enact the totalitarian impulses of the leaders.
Fascism uses nationalism to justify itself, and subterfuge to hide its control.
Communism uses classism to justify itself, and brute force to enact its control.
Socialism is communism with slightly less violence.
Needless to say, whatever you call what Obama is up to, it is certainly statist. And since he’s only at subterfuge, and not outright violence (not that his minions aren’t advocating class-based violence) he himself is a fascist, and his followers are communists.
Maybe this is the “third way” that we’ve been hearing about!
You and I should arm wrestle. Loser pays the gin tab. And yes I’ve been known to quote lines of poetic verse as I overpower my arm wrestling opponents. It adds a touch of gentrified humiliation.
If I do it’s not one of your wife’s pubes, don’t worry.
hmm. actually I think for real that the nationalism of the back in the day fascism was mostly a bonus feature what was just mostly a Europe thing. It’s not the same dealio here in this particular hemisphere where we be at, but also it’s just the times. I tell you why. Nationalism was very motivating and unifying. Modern fascists know how to use the media for the motivating and the unifying and the upside of that is they don’t have to spend spend spend on the military so they get a more better fascist experience. That’s what my more-considered opinion on that idea there is. About the missing nationalism.
Damn. I’m late to the cock-slapping AND I’m out of popcorn. This day sucks!
“Nationalism was very motivating and unifying. Modern fascists know how to use the media for the motivating and the unifying and the upside of that is they don’t have to spend spend spend on the military so they get a more better fascist experience.”
That makes a lot of sense, happyfeet.
Thank you bh. That’s nice to hear cause my self-esteem has been taking a beating today. That Sammy sure got a mouf on him. A mean one.
Plus Obama really doesn’t seek to promote national greatness so much as he’s about absolving us of our “sins” as a country. In a way that’s a proxy for the nationalistic aspect of fascism, which as Happyfeet said is really just a binding agent. It’s really about a religion of the state however that manifests itself.
sammy is a douchenozzle, happyfeet. You, most certainly, are not. ;-)
For you I have no soup nor time. Back to your pretend land of victimization from evil government gremlinsm better yet, counselor, fuckin’ sue the government, I dare ya, ya brave legal beagle.
Send me an email on the day you file.
?
Jeff, he is spinning downward again – beyond the usual purile insults, that is. May have to get the shepard’s crook out again…
221
Where is that from?
Forget I asked it sounds like thor.
Please ignore the talking genital wart.
Thank you.
But thor is a fine barometer of the failure that is Obama, LTC John. You can tap the little midget from time to time (thor, not Oprompta) just to see how the pressure’s affecting it.
To wit, #214: When they’re substanceless and purile instead of one or the other as is otherwise utterly typical — ever see the little smudge attempt the linear thought? It is to laugh — than whatever thread they’re in has already made the point and failboi will infallibly let you know. Tap, tap!
See, thor has a hair-trigger mechanism. It’s always 180 out of phase with a broadly realistic perspective on life on Earth, but it’s that consistency that’s entertaining (and moderately useful, in a clinical, so-what’s-pathology-look-like-anyway kinda way). Of course, if the little rodent ever catches on, that mindless reflex may suffer, but even outed, so far it hasn’t.
It might be DNA-level for all I know. An abscess of the soul.
See what I did there? Test it yourself. So far, either clueless or too hidebound to care. And to think it evolved that way all by itself!
You leave the boy alone. He’s supposed to be on medication.
#225 – Perhaps. Could just be bad manners and a really bad problem with anger issues. I thought the thread had some potential before auguring in, as usual.
Socialism/Communism the State control of the “means of production” is de jure The State has ownership outright.
Fascism the State control of the “means of production” is de facto. Private “ownership” is ownership in name only, the State making all decisions regarding what is done with the property. Private ownership is but a fig leaf. A velvet glove over the iron fist of the State.
sammy is a douchenozzle
I gotta correct you there JD. The nozzle of the douche actually has a use. Try “douchenozzle-wrapper”.
You know what else Barackalypse is? Just one of the guys. You know, not exceptional.
“Hey England, we’re just like you. Not that great. Maybe at one time, but now America is just another country. Hey Mexico, how’s it going? Can I ask you some advice on how to keep our drug problem under control? Whassssup Canada? Lookin’ good! Say, you wouldn’t have some tips on how to make sure old people don’t live too long, would you? Russia! Big brother!! I was thinking of getting rid of my nukes. If I do will you get rid of some of yours? You’re willing to talk about it? Awesome! I’ll start getting rid of my nukes now and then we’ll talk. You’ll call me, right? Call me.”
What.a.fucking.limp.noodle.
ya forgot israel
last place inna obamland
“Yo Hamas, we should hang out”
“Congress legislated it, silly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9DgMG-_6Ls&feature=related”
Whats awesome about this video is its universal appeal. I get to share it and be like “see what our finance officials get to deal with”? While the kooks get to think its some great big moment.
How many times did you raise this same argument when a Republican was responsible?
Nice. He assumes we operate under the same double standard as the Left does.
You should see my faxes and e-mails to my Republican senators. They’d make your hair curl.
Some of you might want to look fascism up in a dictionary before you try using it in a sentence.
“Fascism” comes from the Latin word “fasces,” which is a bundle of reeds bound together with an axe. It symbolized labor unions in Italy. Mussolini, Marxist that he was, wanted to put all means of production in the hands of the labor unions.
Do you notice who is missing from Obama’s condemnation of GM? Management, maybe? Or maybe the supply chain.
Read Goldberg’s book, Sammy, then come back and tell us how ignorant we are about fascism.
You hostility to limited govenment and Constitutional authority was noted long ago.
What’s awesome about that video, meya, is that for those not dedicated to your brand of blindness, it points to not only how but why we’re on this path. Geithner and Nernanke (and even Frank) show nothing but contempt for the one question that has merit these days, which is “by what authority”.
By what authority. It’s the most important question an American should ask of its government. It speaks truth to power, remember?
Even if you refuse to see it, Bachman absolutely gets her answer: We are a nation of men and not laws. And you “get to share it and be like ‘see what our finance officials get to deal with’†because you refuse to value those principles, and like Geithner and Nernanke, you merely point to Congress for whatever it wants to gin up.
Or do I read you wrong? “Our” financial officers?!
Is a Fed — straddling the dividers between public and private and it being a obvious, uncloaking tool of globalist, central banking — originalist and constitutional? Is it classically liberal and in the interests of one’s American rights to have central power take the means of production, trade, and ownership by way of, among a host of sins, debauching its currency and overtly assuming whatever reigns it may, simply on the basis of a crisis it alone is responsible for?
Is that constitutional, meya? Jeffersonian?
So thanks for the confirmation. That exchange utterly makes the very point you refuse to see. They’re bartering your freedoms and you applaud them and jeer the notion of their accountability. Inmates and asylums. Black is white.
I’d say its not really their job to worry that authorities that have been recognized for decades, if not since mcculugh v. maryland, are constitutional.
Yours is not to question why…
Seriously? I mean, you don’t imagine how it would work that this would be found unconstituitonal? You want a nice brief on it, ask the lawyers, not their bosses.
Why ask lawyers when the AG will just find a new set that agrees with him, even if the first opinion was drafted by his own people. So the Constitution means whatever the hell they say it means per given administration.
“Why ask lawyers when the AG will just find a new set that agrees with him”
I said above Bachmann can ask the Congressional Research Service. That’s not the AG. But she doens’t want an education on this. She thinks she’s doing the educating.
I mean, you don’t imagine how it would work that this would be found unconstituitonal?
I can’t imagine what the hell that sentence is supposed to mean.
Kindly spare me the diversionary noise, meya, and answer the question: Is it constitutional — in yes, a Jeffersonian sense — to have Washington DC fall into the service of central — even global — banking at the expense and virtual servitude of the American people?
To Bachman’s rather obvious point, is today’s culture of federal collectivism and yours and my loss of rights, properties, and freedoms enumerated in the US Constitution? Is it or is it not, meya? Is the Constitution a document of enumerated powers or is it not? Is the Fed, thereby, constitutional?
Do you know what the Fed is? Do you know how fiat currency came to pass and by what means? Were they strictly constitutional and/or, yes, Jeffersonian, again in the originalist sense?
Did Jefferson explicitly warn against such things, or did he not? Should I cite such thinking, or has your legal beagle research covered the history there such that you can show he never said what he did concerning money and banking? I mean, if you know something valid that brings this argument to a close without your bullshit and snark, it seems you’d lay that on me, no?
Instead, given your propensity to lie and squirm, I don’t expect a straight answer but if you want to point to a court decision that makes 200 years of a rather obvious and vivid and willful erosion of rights constitutional, have at it.
“Is it constitutional — in yes, a Jeffersonian sense — to have Washington DC fall into the service of central — even global — banking at the expense and virtual servitude of the American people?”
Congress gets to make money and set its value. That’s what the constitution says. It doesn’t say “be whatever Howard thinks is Jeffersonian.” It’s got mechaninsms to prevent faction, but they’re not guarantees. You can read about them in the Federalist Papers.
“Is the Fed, thereby, constitutional? ”
Exactly. This was my point: Bachmann gets to act up for the kooks. Did you notice her neat new constitutional amendment? What would that do to you precious gold standard?
Have you read Mcculough v. Maryland yet? Tell me how jeffersonian that is.
Shorter version, meya, and one that dovetails quite nicely with what I observed about you back in #236: You’re a believer not in the substance and tone and intent and penumbra of constitutional ethics and provisions as they encircle(d) your and my private existence so as to protect them from such anticipated goings-on by the power-mad and corrupt, but rather in wrangling your and your ideological master’s way to partisan power.
One assumes you like the nice cozy stench of “progressive” fascism and nannyism, meya, or surely you’d state otherwise. Loudly, because loud is all we have left, at least for a short while.
For this reason (or is it a cause?) you squirm and lie your way not through, but around anything simply concise and rational that would impede your progress (see what I did there?) to your being a cog. A tool.
You have no more interest in serious philosophical debate on nations and peoples — especially what it means to be the island of America and an American sovereign inhabiting it — than your masters. As I’d observed, to you and to them we are a nation of men and not laws. We are a nation of political ways and means and not of principles.
We’re indeed not a nation of principles any more, meya, and to hear you tell it, we weren’t even in our structural past; no, not so long as a decision can be wrangled that makes something so, regardless of both it’s intent and outcomes.
Your obvious tactic is why people learn to despise a goodly number of lawyers.
You’re so wrong, meya, it’s literally hard to know where to begin. Yeah, me and my “precious gold standard”, not that you can find me ever advocating for one. (Because I admit I don’t know the subject sufficiently. But I do know the smell of globalism and the utter loss of individual, American sovereignty under these recent Administrations, and further, why it’s happening. Me, I have some degree of vision.)
So how about we start here. I’d quote it in full but it’s great length would probably break the page.
And you’d ignore it.
Oh, shit: “The Constitution does not empower the Congress to establish a National Bank”. Son of a gun. Imagine that.
Have you read Mcculough v. Maryland yet? Tell me how jeffersonian that is.
It is not. That is our point. Are you arguing that Supreme Court rulings are infallible? We should never even consider overturning them?
And after a quick perusal I see nothing in McCulough v Maryland that authorizes anything like TARP, could you maybe point that out to me?
B Moe, meya is merely fulfilling Jefferson another way. Consider the man on Constitutions:
Oops. Seems meya the constructionist intends to seek her a bit of monarchie masque, and to do so, as it turns out, on our backs. Because of the Constitution.
The problem I’m having here is you guys are pointing to Jefferson as the only source of the founder’s principles.
Oh, no. I would actually prefer pointing to James Madison. The problem I am having is I don’t think your definition of principles is anything I would even recognize.
Necessary and Proper becomes quite clear in its meaning when you see how Barcky thinks all of this is necessary and proper in order to achieve his ends.
And the tsunami of stupidity continues, undeterred.
Just don’t pretend to call anyone else ‘activist’ as a slur.
And I don’t ever use this as a slur, but as a descriptor of what you are. I want a static Constitution, you want an active one. That makes you an activist.
“Oh, no. I would actually prefer pointing to James Madison.”
I suspected. I hinted at that when I mentioned the Federalist papers. Here is Madison on the Necessary and Proper clause:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers/No._44
Patrick Henry apparently disagreed. So which founder do we choose for original intent?
“Necessary and Proper becomes quite clear in its meaning when you see how Barcky thinks all of this is necessary and proper in order to achieve his ends.”
See for you it may be about just him when discussing a law signed by the last president. But I’m thinking more along the lines of the court that decided Mcculugh v. Maryland fitting it under the necessary and proper clause.
“I want a static Constitution, you want an active one. ”
Some of hte powers of the constitution are tied and grow with external factors. For example, the power to regulate commerce will grow along with commerce — no commerce will be bigger than the power of congress to regulate it, but it also will not stretch further than commerce. What do you think of Marshall’s view of the constitution? Too active for you?
In arguing for hte need for the necessary and proper clause, Madison, in the Federalist 44, had this to say, on the topic of a “static” enumeration:
“Had the convention attempted a positive enumeration of the powers necessary and proper for carrying their other powers into effect, the attempt would have involved a complete digest of laws on every subject to which the Constitution relates; accommodated too, not only to the existing state of things, but to all the possible changes which futurity may produce; for in every new application of a general power, the PARTICULAR POWERS, which are the means of attaining the OBJECT of the general power, must always necessarily vary with that object, and be often properly varied whilst the object remains the same.”
This was something he wanted to avoid.
For example, the power to regulate commerce will grow along with commerce — no commerce will be bigger than the power of congress to regulate it, but it also will not stretch further than commerce.
The power granted was to regulate interstate commerce, and it has already been stretched to absurd lengths. As for Fed. 44, it has been too long since I read it, I will need to reread it this weekend and get back to you.
“The power granted was to regulate interstate commerce”
Actually it was “among the several states.”
“This is like a patient who’s on antibiotics,†he said. “Maybe the patient starts feeling better after a couple of days, but you don’t stop taking the medicine until you’ve finished the bottle.†Returning the money too early, the president argued, could send a bad signal.
Actually it was “among the several states.â€
Actually, you are a spinning crapweasel.
Also a stupid, lying, antisemitic fascist.
happyfeet – maybe one of Barcky’s sycophants, like meya, could explain to us why returning the money would be a bad idea.
She’d rather nitpick and derail, JD.
Which, of course, you already know.
Happy, that is our money they want to return. He wants to keep them sick so he can keep our money to give to his friends. That socialist piece of shit.
It’s beyond dismaying. Barack Obama is fundamentally not fucking serious. No one had any idea what a piece of shit this man was, but he wears it on his sleeve. How does that happen?
Spies – Don’t sell her short. The little crapweasel fascist is quite mendoucheous too.
Does the President or the Treasury not have some kind of positive fiduciary duty to the American citizens to accept that money back if offered?
265
Didn’t we used to have a free press that asked those questions?
“She’d rather nitpick and derail, JD.”
Nitpick. Show a federalist paper, a court opinion from the time of the founders, cite some founders… Nitpick.
“happyfeet – maybe one of Barcky’s sycophants, like meya, could explain to us why returning the money would be a bad idea.”
What the TARP? I’m looking forward to it being payed back. Not holding my breath though. I preferred a receivership type solution.
Sometimes I go peak at wiki, just for shits and giggles. User Meya is a college student of Scandnavian descent that is pretty much a run-of-the-mill socialist. Coincidence?
So why will Barcky not accept the money back, meya?
“So why will Barcky not accept the money back, meya?”
Oh you’re talking about that thing from that judge on foxnews uh?
. Show a federalist paper, a court opinion from the time of the founders, cite some founders
I don’t argue with lying, fascist crapweasels, SFAG.
I just point out what they are.
This meya:
Oh, that can’t be her, JD. Our meya assured us that she was paying lots of income taxes.
‘Cause, you know, those grad student stipends are guaranteed to put you in an obscenely high tax bracket.
Wait, she wouldn’t have been LYING about that, would she?
Perish the thought.
Thanks, sdferr. Notice how the lying fascist’s initial reaction was to try to blow it off by trying to disqualify the source, Fox.
Spies – Those lying mendoucheous fascists are not generally known for their honesty.
$358Million? That looks to be about 1/100th of the first tranche of $350B put out under Bush. Not a very large sum in the scheme of things, particularly when compared with the $25billon JPMorgan got. Kinda laughable when you think about it isn’t it?
Beg pardon, that’s 1/1000th.
Oh no need to argue
Don’t worry, lying crapweasel. I won’t.
You see, I’m wise to your game. Your goal is to spin, bullshit, twist, and waste people’s time.
It doesn’t take much time to point out that you’re a liar. So that’s all you’re going to get from me.
P.S. I’d bet money that I read the Federalist Papers while your mommy was still changing your red diaper, honey.
Sdferr – Agreed, but at the same time, we should be encouraging this, not mocking it.
And meya is still a lying fascist.
I mean, do you really think that anyone here doesn’t already know you are a lying crapweasel?
That we’re going to suddenly see the light and recognize your brilliance?
What do you get out of this, meya?
I’m not clear as to what so entangles the Banks that they should want streamlining to be done? I don’t intend to mock the smaller banks that have managed to see their way through any illiquidity to be able to repay their loans, just meya’s suggestion that “the banks are paying it back”, as if that relatively tiny sum looks anything like what Jamie Diamond is talking about.
Dimon, sorry.
I see. I misunderstood you previously, sdferr. Lo siento, mi amigo.
This discussion was on the Comrade Obama thread so I’ll drop this here too.
Maybe it’s just me, but this whole “Obama won’t let them pay back the money†has the feel of a mob loansharking operation.
The Mob doesn’t want the loan repaid, just the vig or not even that. This gives them the leverage to do whatever they wish. Strip out everything worth while and leave the real creditors, that they have taken for all they can hustle, an empty shell.
The pitchforks remark has that, “nice little life you have there, be a shame if something happened to it”, feel of a shakedown too.
The economics of barbarians, rape, pillage, loot and move on to the next juicy target. Build nothing, destroy everything.
geoffb – It certainly does have that kind of feel, doesn’t it. And that really puts the pitchforks comment into perspective. Well done.
geoffb, there does remain the telltale difficulty that animated Paulson back in Nov. when he forced banks without any particular liquidity problems (Wells Fargo was one I think) at that time to take TARP dollars in order to give cover to the banks that actually did have liquidity troubles and needed the cash infusions to stay upright. I think the Fed and Treasury do worry about instigating a run on the troubled banks and with good reason, don’t you?
I think it would be cheaper to have the runs, (that doesn’t sound right), cover them with cash infusions and FDIC. Then merge the less stable banks with the strong ones. Plus ditch that “mark to market” crap that has been a good part of the way the poison has spread.
This whole mess smells of a manufactured crisis that is hiding behind the mask of a real but not so bad one. Can’t let a crisis go to waste or end too soon. Takes a while to get the fascism dug in good and hard.
Right now no one is sure what banks are good and what banks are bad. That makes even the good ones subject to a sudden run if anything sets it off, rumor, internet rumor.
My wife had/has an account at a large regional bank that I figure is, most likely, sound. But I can’t be sure. How can I trust anything anyone says to reassure me. I can’t. I moved the maximum allowed into I bonds for inflation protection, and pulled out more as cash to have just in case. Bank wasn’t happy I know.
This policy has made all banks suspect, not made all of them trusted.
It could be that another course might have been taken from the beginning, though I hadn’t intended to enter into that question. Some folks point to the inconsistency of the bailout and resolving Bear Stearns vs. the Lehman bankruptcy proceeding that kicked off the run on money market funds, for instance. However, given Paulson’s decision to attempt to shore up the system rather than accede to watching it fall, the presumption he takes viz runs is rational, I think. We’ll never know, so far as I can see, what would have actually come to pass had the alternative path been taken. It would have been a doozy though, that much I think we can safely assume.
“Kinda laughable when you think about it isn’t it?”
Could be. Not to them, I’m sure. But they are paying it back. BoA’s antics are even more so.
“P.S. I’d bet money that I read the Federalist Papers while your mommy was still changing your red diaper, honey.”
Could be. I’ve asked how old you are.
“I mean, do you really think that anyone here doesn’t already know you are a lying crapweasel?”
I’ll admit, That’s actually not federalist 44, its Mein Kampf. And mmculough v. maryland? That was written by mussolini.
“Right now no one is sure what banks are good and what banks are bad. That makes even the good ones subject to a sudden run if anything sets it off, rumor, internet rumor. ”
At all times even a good bank is subject to a run. That’s the point of the FDIC.
“This whole mess smells of a manufactured crisis that is hiding behind the mask of a real but not so bad one.”
When I look at some figures, like the Dow’s fall from its 14K peak, and case schiller housing prices, and see the drop we’ve seen in them, that’s enough to tell me we’re in a world of hurt as all those losses get realized. Lots of financial assets were leveraged off of that, and its going to be sticky as people try to play hot potato with the losses. That’s enough to cause crisis in my book. As far as liquidity goes, I think we’re over the hump. TED spreads are down from their crisis peaks of last fall, but not back to where they were before things took a turn for the worse.
A caveat to spies: this is all lies.
I’ll admit, That’s actually not federalist 44, its Mein Kampf.
You’d know, fascist.
As far as liquidity goes, I think we’re over the hump.
This from a person who was hoping for hyperinflation so she wouldn’t have to pay off the ill-advised and poorly-spent student loans she contracted.
Yeah, you’re about as much of a financial genius as thor, meya.
#290, Agreed.
What that depended on was the belief that the next administration also had “good intentions”. That they would want to do what was needed to recover and then grow the economy again.
That belief is part and parcel of the “magical thinking” that the pragmatic/moderate political group engages in to our detriment. There is no room in their world view for an enemy that is not foreign in origin.
That there could be those of American origin, well educated, well spoken, who wish the destruction of everything that America means and stands for, is not part of their way of thinking. They are blind to that threat. They see everyone, in their Washington circle of “friends” as basically like themselves, with some minor political differences.
That the political differences could be huge, hidden/masked, and that others could be driven entirely by those hidden political ideas is beyond their ken. This is the biggest failing of the so called pragmatics or moderates.
Stu Varney takes the “control” side of the argument.
This can still be rationalized (and will be I don’t doubt) as done to “protect” the still vulnerable crippled banks from adverse events. It’s still crap though, no matter how we slice it.