ODB "Likes It Raw," But Not This Raw Deal

Dead at 36, Russell Jones, a.k.a. Ol' Dirty Bastard, a.k.a, Dirt McGirt, a.k.a. Big Baby Jesus, allowed MTV cameras to accompany him in a limo to a New York City welfare office to get his family's allotment of food stamps. Citibank prefers a private jet to Washington D.C, but travels with similar irony.

From a Malkin reader, fed up:

I have been a Citibank cardholder since 2002. I have a better than average credit score and a perfect payment history with Citibank. My current APR on my Citibank credit card is 7.99%. Yesterday, the same day I find out Citibank is receiving $25 billion in bailout cash from our tax dollars, I received a notice with my billing statement stating my APR would nearly double to 14.99%.

You're supposed to use bailout (i.e., taxpayer) monies to extend credit, not hike rates and screw your customers. You're supposed to use bailout (i.e., taxpayer) monies to restore a measure of fiscal sanity and forethought to your blundering corporate management, not reap a congressional windfall, then double-recover on the back end.

I cannot stomach these sinister CEO suits appearing before our nincompoop Congress, playing Oliver Twist, begging for some more government soup, with their shit-eating grins and their "shit happens" philosophy on operating a company, all the while sleeping on Egyptian cotton sheets with four-digit thread counts. You should be wearing a barrel with suspenders, you financial sector f**k-sticks! Hit the pavement! Use the sidewalk as a pillow, you captains of failed industry! Your dimwitted leadership isn't worth the paper you print your cooked books on.

I cannot take much more of this economic crisis. I think I'm cracking. Calgon, "take me away!" Or don't:

The maker of Calgon, who's slogan was "take me away" and Mr. Bubble has filed for bankruptcy.

Ascendia Brands Inc. has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protectionand said it would try to sell itself.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!! Sh*t! Dammit! Bail them out! Do it now!

Economic Hot Potatoe

Too soon, Chevy Volt. Too soon.

During campaigns no one likes to play the blame game. On the Hill, however, it's everyone's fault except the public servant in the mirror:

For now, however, with the federal emergency loan plan stalled in the Senate, lawmakers in both parties are engaged in a high-stakes game of chicken, positioning themselves to blame each other for the failure.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., scrapped plans Wednesday for a vote on a bill to carve $25 billion in new auto industry loans out of the $700 billion Wall Street rescue fund.
It's really up to Bush's team to act, he said.

"I don't believe we need the legislation," Reid said. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson can tap the financial industry bailout money to help auto companies, Reid said, but "he just doesn't want to do it."

Not our responsibility, countered the White House.

"If Congress leaves for a two-month vacation without having addressed this important issue ... then the Congress will bear responsibility for anything that happens in the next couple of months during their long vacation," said Dana Perino, the White House press secretary.

You think the American people will be fair and discriminating with the truckloads (Japanese manufactured trucks, 50 miles to the gallon) of blame at their disposal when Detroit goes belly up and the sky falls? Keep telling yourself that, Dana.

And not giving a red government cent to the Big Idiot 3 (i.e., America's Lenny Smalls to Japan's George Miltons: Honda, Toyota, Nissan) might be the most thoughtful and prudent action within this economic sh*tstorm. But if the proverbial "do-nothing" Congress wants to now, in fact, do nothing, then own the damn thing. Don't leave a flaming bag of auto industry poo on the White House's front step, play "ring and run," then fly your lobbyist-paid-for private jet down to Barbados for two months (for that matter, who the f**k takes two-month paid vacations besides new mothers on maternity leave?!?! Henry Waxman, you better show me one hideous-looking troll-baby before you're excused from the legislation table. Christ, even the retarded Texan only spends a month at a time clearing brush at the Crawford Ranch).

"A high stakes game of chicken?" When did our elected officials go all Rebel Without A Cause on us? Take off the leather jacket, Barney Frank. You are not cool!

Oh my God! I think I just became a pure fiscal conservative. Let's make the Bush tax cuts permanent. I don't want these feckless Beltway dolts taking another dollar of taxpayer money to spend frivolously on a bailout for eHarmony or Arby's.

You are no longer sound stewards of our money. No taxation without representation. Not one of you represents me.

On Hovercars

Mitt Romney's Op-Ed in the New York Times just about nails my sentiment on the proposed auto bailout. In my opinion, the most difficult aspect of the Romney plan will be dealing with the unions, who have become extremely short-sighted. But life is never as easy as "here are your choices: (1) everybody loses their jobs or (2) some people get to keep their jobs, but with less pay." Are there any other real choices?

Maybe. They can start by cutting the $20,000 per flight private jets out of the budget. Unreal. Can these corporate fat cats really be trusted to get the auto industry out of this mess?

***UPDATE*** Socialism Not on March; Paulson's Hubris, Conversely, Is

I didn't want to update my previous Socialism post because, like Socialism, it produced long lines and red tape and I didn't want to make it any longer and less efficient. So this is an update, but in a new post. If you want to know about Socialism from my old post, look here.

But for those of you wondering about the bank bailout and the government taking shares in troubled banking institutions, fear not:

As reported by that bastion of Marxism, Fox News, in this article, Treasury Secretary Paulson is up on the Hill with Ben Bernanke, his own personal Friedrich Engels, explaining the newfangled direction of the bailout to the folks. Hank and Ben went up the Hill to fetch a pail of money.

According to Hammerin' Hank, the banks receiving bailout money, even in the form of share purchase, will have the ability to use the money pretty much however they please. Sure, most of them will try to unfreeze credit lines for homes and small businesses and students and loans like those. Sure, some of them will try to build up a reserve to avoid running out of money - a Socialist "war chest" if you will.

But for all you "better dead than Red"ers out there, the time to panic has passed. You see, the banks will be able to use the money at their own discretion. They won't be nationalized. If they were, how could they use the money for things "such as buying other banks or paying dividends to investors."

Wait, what?? We're giving them money so they can purchase other failing banks, or pay shareholder dividends??? Um, no. Mr. Secretary, that's not Socialism. That's lunacy. Let me make sure I have this right:

My tax dollars. They go to Washington. They go to you, Hank. You give them to (fill in name of failing bank). They give them to (fill in name of shareholder of bank).

Well, at least that quells those war drums trumpeting the end of Capitalism. Perhaps we should be banging on the gong of "this is a really really really bad idea and we don't need to label it anything other than a really bad idea. The idea itself should scare you without a need for a label."

A Mandate To Loot

Allow me to introduce you to the independent oversight board charged with monitoring the $700 billion bailout.

You want me to appoint some folks, you shiftless Congressional layabouts. You make me sick:

In the six weeks since lawmakers approved the Treasury's massive bailout of financial firms, the government has poured money into the country's largest banks, recruited smaller banks into the program and repeatedly widened its scope to cover yet other types of businesses, from insurers to consumer lenders.

Along the way, the Bush administration has committed $290 billion of the $700 billion rescue package.

Yet for all this activity, no formal action has been taken to fill the independent oversight posts established by Congress when it approved the bailout to prevent corruption and government waste. Nor has the first monitoring report required by lawmakers been completed, though the initial deadline has passed.

So let me get this straight: We now approach 50% of the initial bailout fund - the big block of stinky government cheese - dispatched into the financial markets (and car markets, and insurance markets, and perhaps the credit card markets, I hear Spencer Gifts just received aid to bolster its dwindling lava lamp inventory) without a single overseer appointed, without a single status report filed?

F**k it, let's loot the coffers! "Yeah, no cops!":

MADNESS!

From CBS News:

CBS News correspondent Priya David spoke with several compensation consultants who said that, even in this economy, firms are worried that, if they don't pay out the bonuses, they'll lose their top talent -- people they want to keep around for when pastures turn green again. On The Early Show Wednesday, David reported that lawmakers and taxpayers alike are concerned about where the money for those bonuses will come from. For Wall Street workers still employed, there could be a hefty bonus in their checks next month. According to a report from financial news agency Bloomberg, Goldman Sachs, for example, has set aside $6.8 billion for bonuses, and Morgan Stanley, $6.4 billion.

Countrymen, it is time to resurrect the old chant of protest "no taxation without representation." No one in Washington gives a rat's ass about us, the American taxpayers, in this $700 billion bailout fiasco. Especially, King Paulson - former head of Goldman Sachs - who is apparently making this up as he goes along under the "broad discretion" provided by the bailout bill:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The government has abandoned the original centerpiece of its $700 billion rescue effort for the financial system and will not use the money to purchase troubled bank assets.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Wednesday that the administration will continue to use $250 billion of the program to purchase stock in banks as a way to bolster their balance sheets and encourage them to resume more normal lending. He also announced that the administration was looking at a major expansion of the program into the markets that provide support for credit card debt, auto loans and student loans.

Fat cats and their congressional feeders. Madness!

How Can You Be So Obtuse, Detroit?

Thomas Friedman recalls being flabbergasted at our American car manufacturers' shortsightedness:

Last September, I was in a hotel room watching CNBC early one morning. They were interviewing Bob Nardelli, the C.E.O. of Chrysler, and he was explaining why the auto industry, at that time, needed $25 billion in loan guarantees. It wasn’t a bailout, he said. It was a way to enable the car companies to retool for innovation. I could not help but shout back at the TV screen: “We have to subsidize Detroit so that it will innovate? What business were you people in other than innovation?” If we give you another $25 billion, will you also do accounting?

My head thinks we should refuse government life support to Detroit and its antiquated business model. My heart worries about the workers left behind when the Motor City crumbles.