chuck Schumer, MEDIA HOUND EXTRAORDINAIRE, my state's senior US Senator, is a schmuck. I wrote him about the unconscionable level of unaccountability in the current bailout.

Here is the stupid form letter his staff sends back under his signature. He is an insipid, special interest teet-sucking putz. I look forward to contributing at least $1,000 dollars to his next opponent, even a republican.

Thank you for writing and sharing your thoughts about America's financial crisis. I agree with you that giving the Secretary of the Treasury authority over a $700 billion dollar fund to stabilize the financial system, without any checks on his authority, or oversight of his actions, would have been a grave mistake. However, the severity of this economic crisis forced the Congress to act in order to save Main Street from further financial pain. If we had not acted when we did, small businesses trying to fill orders and meet payroll, students looking to pay for college, consumers looking to buy cars and so many others would have faced even greater economic hardships, which would have been disastrous for household wealth and jobs in our country.BS- this hasn't been averted

That is why I made the difficult decision to support the administration's rescue plan after insisting on changes to the program to ensure that taxpayers will share in the rewards of recovery, that executives of these mismanaged financial institutions would not be enriched with taxpayer money, and that there would be effective oversight of the program. When the economy recovers, taxpayers should be able to recoup most, or all, of this money because the federal government will earn a return from any investments it makes in banks needing assistance. To hold the banks' executives accountable, the bill requires that all companies that benefit from government assistance limit how much they pay their top employees and, in many cases, eliminate golden parachutes entirely. And to guarantee effective oversight of the rescue program, major oversight mechanisms were written into the legislation, including the creation of a new Inspector General and Congressional oversight panel.Yeah, but leaving much of it to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency which actively blocked all actions brought against the banks since 2003

Finally, we forced the Administration to add protections for homeowners into the bill that address the eye of the financial storm - the foreclosure crisis. Of course, this is only one part of a comprehensive solution needed to get our economy back on the right track. Congress stands ready to deliver a broad-based economic stimulus package to invest in Main Street, create new high-paying jobs, and keep the engine of our economy going.

Again, thank you for contacting me on this important issue. Please do not hesitate to contact me again if I can be of further assistance on this, or any other matter.


/not subby

For those who can count, that's 4 trillion. You forgot the secret loans.

yes we can

IronTom: yes we can

He isn't in office, yet. DO try to pay attention?

Is it only going to be apparent there is not an unlimited amount of money the government can spend when it's too late?

ManRay: Is it only going to be apparent there is not an unlimited amount of money the government can spend when it's too late?

Not with a numbskull running the Fed who thinks inflating our way out of debt is a truly cunning plan. I do kind of look forward to wiping my ass with hundred dollar bills, though.

ManRay: Is it only going to be apparent there is not an unlimited amount of money the government can spend when it's too late?

Bush still has two months to finish his sound economic policy...

ManRay: Is it only going to be apparent there is not an unlimited amount of money the government can spend when it's too late?

Mirabeau B. Lamar approves.

Oh, I am glad to see that this went green. Gives me the opportunity to once again say what an insipid jerk Schumer is.

Charles Schumer: All-Too-Typical Democrat Megalomaniac JerkLink (new window)
Author: Michael Eden
28 August 2008 No Comment

This was truly amazing, although it really shouldn't be.

Apparently, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is not the only "queen bee of the universe" wannabe.

Here's the skinny: Bill O'Reilly had Karl Rove on to give a Republican response to the Democrat's dog and pony show. Knowing that Karl Rove is smarter than any two Democrats, O'Reilly, in the interest of fairness, decides to have Lanny Davis and Charles Schumer come on the program under the desperate hope that they might somehow come up with a brain between them.

Lanny Davis is in the makeup room when Charles Schumer - with his entourage in tow - comes into the makeup room (no surprise that Schumer wants to wear makeup after this display of most unladylike behavior). Schumer asks Davis - a fellow liberal Democrat in good standing - what he's doing there. And when Davis explains that they're going to be on the program together, Charles Schumer erupts into a diva-like tantrum and storms out. Schumer can be heard on the phone shouting at someone; one of Schumer's "people" is yelling at someone else on his cell.

A little bit later an O'Reilly producer comes up to Lanny Davis. Would he be okay with bowing out so the queen diva can go on the program alone? Absolutely not, says Davis. Is that what Senator Schumer is asking for? Lanny Davis, you see, had been the original guest, and Schumer had just been a late invite (you know, for the brain-thing).

Continue reading for the meaty part of the Slate.com write up, in a minute-by-minute narrative:

5:38 p.m.- [Lanny] Davis is still waiting for makeup when Sen. Chuck Schumer enters the room, entourage in tow. "Lanny!" he says. "What are you doing here?" Davis explains that they're going to be on O'Reilly together. Schumer's smile vanishes. He turns to Amy Sohnen, a heretofore cheery Fox News executive producer. "Absolutely not," Schumer says. Apparently there's been a mix-up. Schumer thought he was going to be appearing alone. Davis, sensing trouble, drifts over to the food table.

The senator storms out of the office to make a phone call. Outside in the hall, his spokesman is soft-yelling into his cell. It's unclear whether the objection is to Davis himself or appearing on-screen with someone of lesser stature than Schumer.

After a few minutes, Sohnen approaches Lanny. There's been a terrible mistake, she explains, and they can't have him on the show. "That's not an option," Davis says. He was the original guest, and he gave his permission for Schumer to join him. "I'm sorry. Unless Roger Ailes calls me personally, I'm doing the show."

6 p.m.-Set of The O'Reilly Factor. Schumer and Davis sit down with Bill O'Reilly at a table overlooking the convention floor. Apparently O'Reilly has been briefed on Schumer's tiff. "No one tells me what to do either, and I'm the star," O'Reilly says. "Now, siddown." They agree Schumer will speak first, and that he and Davis won't appear on-screen together.

At one point during the interview, Davis pointedly refers to "great Democrats like Chuck Schumer." Schumer doesn't return the compliment.

So in any event, Queen Schumer finally shows up in her tissy little huff to do the program.

Can you imagine this?

What really pissed me off about the first one was that right after it passed, Nancy Pelosi was going on and on about "I am a believer in the free market". No she isn't. If she really was a believer in the free market, she would have let the mismanaged banks fail, and the better ones grow to take their place.

This is amazingly offensive to me.

Knight without armor: chuck Schumer, MEDIA HOUND EXTRAORDINAIRE, my state's senior US Senator, is a schmuck. I wrote him about the unconscionable level of unaccountability in the current bailout.

Here is the stupid form letter his staff sends back under his signature. He is an insipid, special interest teet-sucking putz. I look forward to contributing at least $1,000 dollars to his next opponent, even a republican.

Thank you for writing and sharing your thoughts about America's financial crisis. I agree with you that giving the Secretary of the Treasury authority over a $700 billion dollar fund to stabilize the financial system, without any checks on his authority, or oversight of his actions, would have been a grave mistake. However, the severity of this economic crisis forced the Congress to act in order to save Main Street from further financial pain. If we had not acted when we did, small businesses trying to fill orders and meet payroll, students looking to pay for college, consumers looking to buy cars and so many others would have faced even greater economic hardships, which would have been disastrous for household wealth and jobs in our country.BS- this hasn't been averted

That is why I made the difficult decision to support the administration's rescue plan after insisting on changes to the program to ensure that taxpayers will share in the rewards of recovery, that executives of these mismanaged financial institutions would not be enriched with taxpayer money, and that there would be effective oversight of the program. When the economy recovers, taxpayers should be able to recoup most, or all, of this money because the federal government will earn a return from any investments it makes in banks needing assistance. To hold the banks' executives accountable, the bill requires that all companies that benefit from government assistance limit how much they pay their top employees and, in many cases, eliminate golden parachutes entirely. And to guarantee effective oversight of the rescue program, major oversight mechanisms were written into the legislation, including the creation of a new Inspector General and Congressional oversight panel.Yeah, but leaving much of it to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency which actively blocked all actions brought against the banks since 2003

Finally, we forced the Administration to add protections for homeowners into the bill that address the eye of the financial storm - the foreclosure crisis. Of course, this is only one part of a comprehensive solution needed to get our economy back on the right track. Congress stands ready to deliver a broad-based economic stimulus package to invest in Main Street, create new high-paying jobs, and keep the engine of our economy going.

Again, thank you for contacting me on this important issue. Please do not hesitate to contact me again if I can be of further assistance on this, or any other matter.


/not subby

Knight without armor: Oh, I am glad to see that this went green. Gives me the opportunity to once again say what an insipid jerk Schumer is.

Charles Schumer: All-Too-Typical Democrat Megalomaniac JerkLink (new window)
Author: Michael Eden
28 August 2008 No Comment

This was truly amazing, although it really shouldn't be.

Apparently, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is not the only "queen bee of the universe" wannabe.

Here's the skinny: Bill O'Reilly had Karl Rove on to give a Republican response to the Democrat's dog and pony show. Knowing that Karl Rove is smarter than any two Democrats, O'Reilly, in the interest of fairness, decides to have Lanny Davis and Charles Schumer come on the program under the desperate hope that they might somehow come up with a brain between them.

Lanny Davis is in the makeup room when Charles Schumer - with his entourage in tow - comes into the makeup room (no surprise that Schumer wants to wear makeup after this display of most unladylike behavior). Schumer asks Davis - a fellow liberal Democrat in good standing - what he's doing there. And when Davis explains that they're going to be on the program together, Charles Schumer erupts into a diva-like tantrum and storms out. Schumer can be heard on the phone shouting at someone; one of Schumer's "people" is yelling at someone else on his cell.

A little bit later an O'Reilly producer comes up to Lanny Davis. Would he be okay with bowing out so the queen diva can go on the program alone? Absolutely not, says Davis. Is that what Senator Schumer is asking for? Lanny Davis, you see, had been the original guest, and Schumer had just been a late invite (you know, for the brain-thing).

Continue reading for the meaty part of the Slate.com write up, in a minute-by-minute narrative:

5:38 p.m.- [Lanny] Davis is still waiting for makeup when Sen. Chuck Schumer enters the room, entourage in tow. "Lanny!" he says. "What are you doing here?" Davis explains that they're going to be on O'Reilly together. Schumer's smile vanishes. He turns to Amy Sohnen, a heretofore cheery Fox News executive producer. "Absolutely not," Schumer says. Apparently there's been a mix-up. Schumer thought he was going to be appearing alone. Davis, sensing trouble, drifts over to the food table.

The senator storms out of the office to make a phone call. Outside in the hall, his spokesman is soft-yelling into his cell. It's unclear whether the objection is to Davis himself or appearing on-screen with someone of lesser stature than Schumer.

After a few minutes, Sohnen approaches Lanny. There's been a terrible mistake, she explains, and they can't have him on the show. "That's not an option," Davis says. He was the original guest, and he gave his permission for Schumer to join him. "I'm sorry. Unless Roger Ailes calls me personally, I'm doing the show."

6 p.m.-Set of The O'Reilly Factor. Schumer and Davis sit down with Bill O'Reilly at a table overlooking the convention floor. Apparently O'Reilly has been briefed on Schumer's tiff. "No one tells me what to do either, and I'm the star," O'Reilly says. "Now, siddown." They agree Schumer will speak first, and that he and Davis won't appear on-screen together.

At one point during the interview, Davis pointedly refers to "great Democrats like Chuck Schumer." Schumer doesn't return the compliment.

So in any event, Queen Schumer finally shows up in her tissy little huff to do the program.

Can you imagine this?

Do you really need to include all that text? Can't you just link it?

savage henry: ManRay: Is it only going to be apparent there is not an unlimited amount of money the government can spend when it's too late?

Bush still has two months to finish his sound economic policy...

Because Obama's been such a strong opponent of the current corporatist handout spree.

Oh goddammit. I'm voting commie next time he comes up for reelection. At least my money will get redistributed to people who actually might need the help.

i'll be open to even remotely considering the idea once they show me that they are using the money in any responsible manner.

so far, that isn't the case. so for now, not a chance.

hopefully obama's team brings the hammer down and makes it clear that when you take the taxpayers' money to stave off collapse, the taxpayers now own you, and your prior interests are no longer of concern. hopefully.

basically, i want obama to run this thing like a mafia boss; when you take his money, you know you're in his pocket, and if you don't do what he wants he'll break your knees.

burndtdan: basically, i want obama to run this thing like a mafia boss; when you take his money, you know you're in his pocket, and if you don't do what he wants he'll break your knees.

Which is unlikely to happen, since the bail out legislation essentially gives money to wall street and there is little or no oversight on what happens once we write them that check.

Biggest. Pork barrel. Evar.

This "bailout" may turn out to be the defining shameful legacy of Dubya: an orgiastic plundering of the treasury, eclipsing in its dishonesty even his ill-conceived War On Unconventional Tactics.

Procedural Texture: Biggest. Pork barrel. Evar.

This "bailout" may turn out to be the defining shameful legacy of Dubya: an orgiastic plundering of the treasury, eclipsing in its dishonesty even his ill-conceived War On Unconventional Tactics.

And the worst part? The Democrats are going to continue the legacy.

ain't that just wonderful?

Get ready for the American Peso, the government will add a string of zero's to the currency so it will actually buy something. Can you say Zimabwe's runaway inflation? I'll give you one-hundred billion for that donut.

torch: You forgot the secret loans.

I received my secret trillion dollar loan successfully, but unfortunately I put it into an Icelandic bank account.

/ You win some, you lose some.

Weaver95: burndtdan: basically, i want obama to run this thing like a mafia boss; when you take his money, you know you're in his pocket, and if you don't do what he wants he'll break your knees.

Which is unlikely to happen, since the bail out legislation essentially gives money to wall street and there is little or no oversight on what happens once we write them that check.

actually, the current bill has plenty of oversight in it. the administration simply isn't doing it.

however, there's nothing stopping the treasury department from forgoing the rest of that money and writing a new bill.

i'm not saying what i think will happen, i'm just saying what is possible.

Weaver95: And the worst part? The Democrats are going to continue the legacy.

a little melodramatic. they did a bailout in britain and it's working pretty well.

the legacy of bush in this is the toothless bailout, the bailout with no conditions. obama has said many times that he didn't work that way, and it was the democrats that put what teeth there are in the current incarnation (that the administration has just ignored).

you're grossly overgeneralizing if you think that any sort of financial aid package is the same as this clusterfark. as always, this is an example of the bush administration farking something up due to gross incompetence.

Procedural Texture: Biggest. Pork barrel. Evar.
Weaver95: And the worst part? The Democrats are going to continue the legacy.
Ain't that just wonderful?

That remains to be seen, of course, but yeah, so far they're going along with the scam.
One can hope (since Obama isn't quite as beholden to big donors as the average politician), but it wouldn't surprise me at all if your prediction is correct.

If he wants to double the size of his package, I think he may be overcompensating.

I can take a 1,200 dollar snow blower to Bangkok and not be able to get two cents for it.

.

I wonder how this will work out if signed into law before Obama gets into office...

He's not talking about a bailout of banks and financial institutions like the $700 billion from October was (which, by the way, has only been half spent at this point).

He's talking about the kind of fiscal stimulus that Obama is proposing... spending money on roads and other infrastructure (bridges, electrical grid) and investments in new energy technologies like wind and solar. $1.4 trillion for this is not at all out of bounds. Hell, make a it 2 trillion. You Ron Paul "omg gold standard inflation printing press!11" idiots need to STFU and learn some economic history. A direct fiscal stimulus is what will be necessary to keep this recession from becoming a depression.

So, how long until I can make the choice between taking a week's salary and paying off my $110,000 mortgage balance or super-sizing my Value Meal?

Fractional reserve banking has me thinking that this would effectively add over $14 trillion to the market - that in no way can be good for those of us with inflation fears.

submittard:

A stimulus package is not the same as a "financial bail out".

Reading comprehension: NOT YOURS!

burndtdan: the legacy of bush in this is the toothless bailout, the bailout with no conditions. obama has said many times that he didn't work that way, and it was the democrats that put what teeth there are in the current incarnation (that the administration has just ignored).

So why did he vote for it? It was obvious it was going to pass. If he wanted something else, there were 25 other Senators he could have sided with. He could have even used his clout within the Democrats to come up with something better than what Barney Frank and Hank Paulson slapped together.

Shaggy_C: Fractional reserve banking has me thinking that this would effectively add over $14 trillion to the market - that in no way can be good for those of us with inflation fears.

Inflationary fears? Give me a break. Consumer prices fell 1% in the last month alone. We're now worried about deflation, not inflation.

Plus, you can always kill inflation by rising interest rates. Deflation... now that's a biatch to fight.

There needs to be significantly more touching pinky to mouth here.

Procedural Texture: This "bailout" may turn out to be the defining shameful legacy of Dubya: an orgiastic plundering of the treasury, eclipsing in its dishonesty even his ill-conceived War On Unconventional Tactics.

You know who is to responsible for forcing Pelosi, Schumer, and Obama to make this constantly enlarging bailout package? Which will be passed by a Democratically controlled House, and a near filibibuster proof Democratically controlled Senate, and signed into law by a Democratic president?

That's right, Bush.

Gah! Preview fail.

shiat man. I think I'm gonna start begging Congress to buy me lunch.

If I weren't a student right now with low income, I would be shunting a bunch of my savings into gold. Yes, prices are falling right now, but with all this expansion in the money supply, prices are likely to rubberband into astronomical inflation in 1-2 years.

Gold now: $801/oz
Gold in 2010 (my prediction): ~$2000/oz

Subby is a retard.

He's talking about an economic stimulus package, which is different than a financial bailout package. The economic stimulus package would likely consist of jobs programs, tax refunds, and the like, whereas the financial bailout package Bush proposed went exclusively to Wall Street banks.

Whether a large economic stimulus package is a good idea or not is irrelevant to the question of whether it is intelligent to equate an economic stimulus package with the financial bailout package. They're not the same things. They're different.

or at least see if they'll buy me TF - there ain't no links round here no mo.

AntiNorm: What really pissed me off about the first one was that right after it passed, Nancy Pelosi was going on and on about "I am a believer in the free market". No she isn't. If she really was a believer in the free market, she would have let the mismanaged banks fail, and the better ones grow to take their place.

What you fail to understand about the financial crisis is that there were no "better ones" positioned to take the place of the mismanaged banks. Had we not bailed out the banks, they would have gone under, and it would have been an indeterminate period of time--possibly a decade or more--before any banks arose to take their place. In the meantime, new business would be stifled by the unavailability of credit.

For an historical analog, see Japan's financial crisis of the 1990's. It is widely believed that Japan lost a decade worth of economic growth because its government chose the laissez-faire solution the extreme American right advocates today.

Will there be negative economic consequences from the bailout? Probably. Will they be as bad as a decade of lost economic growth? Almost certainly not. While I don't like the idea of corporate welfare any more than anyone else, especially for the animal scum who run Wall Street's banks, the fact is, our government chose the least bad policy here.

Okay, educate me.

All of you need to tell me what we should do.

Let the economy tank?
Are you serious?

Continue ignoring our infrastructure?
Didn't we get enough of that from Reagan forward?

Our entire transportation systems sucks - falling apart everywhere from the airlines through that joke we refer to as our railway system, our telecommunications system, once the gold standard the rest of the world measured their communications by is now rated 19th out of 21 industrialized nations, our medical system, also once considered to be the best in the world is falling apart, ironically while we spend more money than any other country (per capita) and don't even get me started on our educational system or our prison system.

Next up, how about some idiot telling me that throwing money won't fix the problem.

Jesus, get a clue.
We need to invest in our country.
And then we have to pay for it.

Remove all Republicans: Someone finally understands. The Democrats are still beholden to the Republicans in Congress. Even President Obama is going to be stuck following along with Bush's policies.

No, you don't understand.

Apparently people have no clue the power of the Fed and Treasury here. Unilateral power. In Bush's hands. If Obama does it too, I'll atack him.

Right now its Bush. Deal with it. What Schumer is proposing here isn't a bailout. The bailout is a disgrace. History is going to look on Bush so poorly it will destroy Republicans. They are trying to run from him now, but its impossible.

Like it or not, the economic stimulus packages like schumer is proposing will be required.

You dumb mutherfukkers whould have biatched when the right was destroying it, not after its too late.

Those tax cuts you loved? Yeah, bills are due on those. The deregulation that made the "free market" go crazy for a while? yeah, bills are due on that too. fark off, righties.

Remove all Republicans: helix400: You know who is to responsible for forcing Pelosi, Schumer, and Obama to make this constantly enlarging bailout package? Which will be passed by a Democratically controlled House, and a near filibibuster proof Democratically controlled Senate, and signed into law by a Democratic president?

That's right, Bush.

Someone finally understands

Good trolls are subtle. You're as subtle as Sen. Larry Craig at a Log Cabin Republicans convention.

When inflation takes its toll, there will be no question whatsoever as to how stupid all this willy-nilly making it rain policy our government is inflicting on Americans is.

Random Reality Check: All of you need to tell me what we should do.

Sometimes recessions happen. Roughly every 7 years on average.

Our entire transportation systems sucks - falling apart everywhere from the airlines through that joke we refer to as our railway system, our telecommunications system, once the gold standard the rest of the world measured their communications by is now rated 19th out of 21 industrialized nations, our medical system, also once considered to be the best in the world is falling apart, ironically while we spend more money than any other country (per capita) and don't even get me started on our educational system or our prison system.

Name one time in our country's history where there weren't major problems. Or one time when there wasn't a desperate need to fund something. Or when our infrastructure wasn't falling apart.

We need to invest in our country.
And then we have to pay for it.

That's good. Just make sure debt doesn't grow faster than our ability to pay it down.

helix400: You know who is to responsible for forcing Pelosi, Schumer, and Obama to make this constantly enlarging bailout package? Which will be passed by a Democratically controlled House, and a near filibibuster proof Democratically controlled Senate, and signed into law by a Democratic president?

That's right, Bush.

This X 1.4 Trillion

/Worst American President ever.

1derful: When inflation takes its toll, there will be no question whatsoever as to how stupid all this willy-nilly making it rain policy our government is inflicting on Americans is.

Right now the economy is bordering on deflationary. Even after the $700 billion bailout package, the fed is talking about slashing interest rates to increase the money supply. That's how badly Bush and the Republicans have farked us over. It might be time for some old-school Keyensian stimulus.

helix400: Random Reality Check: All of you need to tell me what we should do.

Sometimes recessions happen. Roughly every 7 years on average..

The fact you think this is a narmal recession just shows how clueless you are.


Our entire transportation systems sucks - falling apart everywhere from the airlines through that joke we refer to as our railway system, our telecommunications system, once the gold standard the rest of the world measured their communications by is now rated 19th out of 21 industrialized nations, our medical system, also once considered to be the best in the world is falling apart, ironically while we spend more money than any other country (per capita) and don't even get me started on our educational system or our prison system.

Name one time in our country's history where there weren't major problems. Or one time when there wasn't a desperate need to fund something. Or when our infrastructure wasn't falling apart.

Our infrastructure was constantly built up through the 60s. About the 70s, we stopped putting money into it. Its a stupid thing to say.

That's good. Just make sure debt doesn't grow faster than our ability to pay it down.

We haven't cared about that since St. Reagan told us it didn't matter. Clinton started to back off, but as soon as he was gone, BAM, the fiscal conservative Republicans took over. Cause deficits don't matter. Except when they do. And then you you pass the blame in retarded ways and hope people are dumb enough to buy it.

helix400: Name one time in our country's history where there weren't major problems. Or one time when there wasn't a desperate need to fund something. Or when our infrastructure wasn't falling apart.

So you are saying that now is just like the past...or something.