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http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2011/11/yes-the-us-government-ought-to-own-the-banks-now.html
"When you don't take equity...you aren't acting as a good agent for your principals, the taxpayers."
By all rights, the American people should own the major banks right now. We were lenders of last resort, and the government's decision not to secure equity for US taxpayers was an abject failure to represent our financial interests.
We were compelled by the crisis to act as a lender of last resort. But by all rights should have been able to take over the banks, clean house, restructure, and ensure the banks didn't make a profit off of their own avarice and incompetence. Instead, the government participated in the worst kind of crony capitalism by rescuing the banks and then letting their executives profit from tanking the economy
Well, that's just awesome. So we're going to surrender a battle we've already won? Ladies and gents, the Democratic party.
Many on the right and the left agree that Newt Gingrich has too much personal and political baggage to be the Republican nominee. The difference? The Left points to Gingrich's sexism, hypocrisy, and avarice. The Right is upset that he supported "compassion" for immigrants and that he has sat next to Nancy Pelosi in the past.
From the party of "family values" and self-proclaimed moral superiority, it is amazing that serial adulterer and blatant moral hypocrite Newt Gingrich leads in the polls.
After more than two years of fighting to keep the specifics of the biggest bailout in US history under wraps, the details of the Feds secret loans to the big banks have finally come to light. In the words of the Bloomberg report,
"A fresh narrative of the financial crisis of 2007 to 2009 emerges from 29,000 pages of Fed documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and central bank records of more than 21,000 transactions. While Fed officials say that almost all of the loans were repaid and there have been no losses, details suggest taxpayers paid a price beyond dollars as the secret funding helped preserve a broken status quo and enabled the biggest banks to grow even bigger. "
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-28/secret-fed-loans-undisclosed-to-congress-gave-banks-13-billion-in-income.html
Apologists for Herman Cain are not only dismissing the claims of the women who have come forward alleging sexual harassment and assault, but dismissing the idea of sexual harassment altogether. Herman Cain's defenders are not claiming that they don't know what happened (i.e. "he said, she said"). They are instead claiming they know exactly what happened: nothing.
Their rationale? Women are "humorless," "irrational," "hysterical," "money-grubbing," "attention-seeking tramps." As Dahlia Lithwick notes in her great new article Herman Cain’s Conservative Defenders Are Going Totally Overboard, this is not just an effort to silence Cain's accusers. It is an effort to silence and discredit victims of sexual harassment and assault everywhere.
