Remember deregulation? Even hippies have guns now.
There's too much corruption, hypocrisy and bigotry in America. The demands of the few continually outweight the needs of the masses. Our democracy for the past 12 years has severed family bonds down the middle and embedded loving factions against each other. The trenches have been dug deep. Which all seems pretty standard for American rhetoric these days. Except that I'm talking about the citizens, not the politicians. Every opponent now must pass some threshold of idiocy before legitimacy is achieved. Yes, its fun and shocking to use words like "Fascism" and "Oppression", invoking important historical causes in hopes to stir the emotion of like-minded fools and shut out the opposition. It is far out of fashion these days to do something so dull and ineffectual as read a book about these subjects. And notice how often this country falls into the generational cycles of big government, deregulation, social upheaval, and protest...
First off, what does Burnanke expect to hear after wasting an hour spewing meaningless, obvious phrases like "The fundamentals of our economy our strong?" You have to take a brief moment from coughing up the coffee you were trying to choke down while listening to this to seriously ask what that meant. Seriously, one moment. Take a good cross-section of America and ask them how they feel about the "fundamentals of the economy" and even a gardening aging hippy losing his home and 401k will pull out that dusty shotgun to shove in your face and ask you in the nicest way possible to get the fuck off his property. The CEO who just gave up his bonus certainly isn't prancing around his unsellable $2,000,000 home watching his options plummet. Only the fake public face of appeasement that is Our Government has the sickening audacity to say something so meaningless and stupid.
Of course they're doing it for you. If they told you the reality of it, you'd just go shit yourself and run around like idiots, blowing each other's heads off and hording giant cans of cheese-flavored high fructose corn syrup from the local grocer for the upcoming self-induced apocalypse. Because you're sheeple.
A few people noticed when Obama signed off on the executive right to warrentless wiretaps and complete government immunity, making Bush Doctrine look weak and spineless. I quote from the Department of Justice brief: "[We] acknowledge the need to defer to the Executive Branch on matters of foreign policy and national security and surely cannot legitimately find ourselves second guessing the Executive in this arena." I was taught somewhere in grade school that the fundamentals of our government were based on the concept of Checks and Balances, that the Three Branches of Government, no matter who in this country can remember them, provide a mechanism to prevent systematic oppression and corruption from those in power. Never mind what the fathers of the constitution thought, we seem to have lost the most basic principles of political science, sold them off and grew up into a much colder, more difficult world where it was easier to latch on to big, dumb and simple things and vote for them. Vote for Christ. Vote for War. Vote for Equality.
This, of course, is lost on these new Teabaggers who declare independence from Obama and Big Government citing that distant false light of Republicanism under Bush. No, this is Fascism. Socialism. Because we spent like there was no tomorrow, pretended that we were small government pro-business, declared ourselves good patriots and fought blindly against evil. Now its tomorrow and the check is due and we're all staring around with stupid looks on our faces wondering why we have to pay.
This is deregulation, OK? Can we remember this from now on? When the good times return and the hawks come in slick suits and whet our whistle with the promise of Bigger, Better, Faster: The Supreme Efficiency of Business!!! The Slow Contempt and Waste of Government!!! can we look back on the days when those who knew of Great Things in investment vehicles like credit default swaps!!! triple-A rating scores!! securitized mortgage pools!!! Make your dick bigger!!! and remember how it all turned out in the end? Remember the fraudulent criminals that went free with a big check from the taxpayers who believed them? Those that believed Government was slow, but Business was next to Godliness. You wrote that check in the 80's, 90's, and under Clinton and Bush. Now it doesn't really matter who's in office - you owe, buddy America.
We could have let the market tank. Left GM to fail, let AIG collapse, turned the other cheek to Wamu and take everything down with them. Its such a monumental failure across the entire financial industry that the consequences are too daunting to comprehend. Its fairly certain that with that much capital simply gone from the entire system that there'd be runs on banks in every small town and major city as people fled with what's left of their cash and measly retirement funds tied up in fraudulent securities. Naturally, there'd be those who could survive such a tragedy. They're called The Rich. You and I, however, would not have that cushion of cash to fall into a smaller house. And that's our investments. Now consider manufacturing industry and exports. The dollar drops and America can't keep up. China buys out more cheap American companies. Think of all the things that you do every day that tie into the greater economy via imports, exports, investments, short-term loans for business, oil and transportation. These aren't easy things to analyze in the face of large-scale banking collapse. Which is why Burnanke dribbles out his meaningless speech and everyone else clings to ignorance, assuming the alternative - whatever it is - is therefore better. The more meaningless it is, the more it ignores those troubling consequences, the better. And fuck the weak.
There is room now in American politics for some piece of these moronic, disorganized teabaggers. The indepedent voice of America is growing from a negligable voting percentage to a low-noise roar of disconent, no matter how incoherent. I think both parties see opportunities in this underground movement, though I'm not sure they see the better part of it. One approach is to herd the angry mob with whatever slick political appeasment they can light on fire and carry as a torch out in front. The other is to seriously consider the independent movement as legitimate and stop the intrusion of legislation into the personal lives and choices of its citizens.
It starts with removing religion from legislation. Ohh, hard first pill to swallow, eh? Without the protection of Goverment invading into Their lives, how can you be sure that you'll be free to live yours? Said the one pig to the other. Can't do it? That's too bad. You should probably put that box of fake tea down, get back into your SUV with the Bush 04 sticker on it and go back to being a True Believer Bush-Era Republican, and stop using the independent movement as a costume for a better anti-Obama message. That sticker came with a thing called irresponsible spending that you simply neglected because we were doing the right thing! and you believed in it! Now a Democrat is in office doing what a Democrat must do after War and Deregulation have come home again. Its probably wasteful and pricey, but he's following a plan that worked before - invest in everything you can and something will scores big.
Ah well. Get government and legislation out of social and moral policy. Implement fair market principles, not free market that manipulates government and benefits the biggest at the expense of not only the people, but small business. And for God's sake, keep teabagging where it belongs: in the sleazy motel with that awful hooker you keep buying.
First off, what does Burnanke expect to hear after wasting an hour spewing meaningless, obvious phrases like "The fundamentals of our economy our strong?" You have to take a brief moment from coughing up the coffee you were trying to choke down while listening to this to seriously ask what that meant. Seriously, one moment. Take a good cross-section of America and ask them how they feel about the "fundamentals of the economy" and even a gardening aging hippy losing his home and 401k will pull out that dusty shotgun to shove in your face and ask you in the nicest way possible to get the fuck off his property. The CEO who just gave up his bonus certainly isn't prancing around his unsellable $2,000,000 home watching his options plummet. Only the fake public face of appeasement that is Our Government has the sickening audacity to say something so meaningless and stupid.
Of course they're doing it for you. If they told you the reality of it, you'd just go shit yourself and run around like idiots, blowing each other's heads off and hording giant cans of cheese-flavored high fructose corn syrup from the local grocer for the upcoming self-induced apocalypse. Because you're sheeple.
A few people noticed when Obama signed off on the executive right to warrentless wiretaps and complete government immunity, making Bush Doctrine look weak and spineless. I quote from the Department of Justice brief: "[We] acknowledge the need to defer to the Executive Branch on matters of foreign policy and national security and surely cannot legitimately find ourselves second guessing the Executive in this arena." I was taught somewhere in grade school that the fundamentals of our government were based on the concept of Checks and Balances, that the Three Branches of Government, no matter who in this country can remember them, provide a mechanism to prevent systematic oppression and corruption from those in power. Never mind what the fathers of the constitution thought, we seem to have lost the most basic principles of political science, sold them off and grew up into a much colder, more difficult world where it was easier to latch on to big, dumb and simple things and vote for them. Vote for Christ. Vote for War. Vote for Equality.
This, of course, is lost on these new Teabaggers who declare independence from Obama and Big Government citing that distant false light of Republicanism under Bush. No, this is Fascism. Socialism. Because we spent like there was no tomorrow, pretended that we were small government pro-business, declared ourselves good patriots and fought blindly against evil. Now its tomorrow and the check is due and we're all staring around with stupid looks on our faces wondering why we have to pay.
This is deregulation, OK? Can we remember this from now on? When the good times return and the hawks come in slick suits and whet our whistle with the promise of Bigger, Better, Faster: The Supreme Efficiency of Business!!! The Slow Contempt and Waste of Government!!! can we look back on the days when those who knew of Great Things in investment vehicles like credit default swaps!!! triple-A rating scores!! securitized mortgage pools!!! Make your dick bigger!!! and remember how it all turned out in the end? Remember the fraudulent criminals that went free with a big check from the taxpayers who believed them? Those that believed Government was slow, but Business was next to Godliness. You wrote that check in the 80's, 90's, and under Clinton and Bush. Now it doesn't really matter who's in office - you owe, buddy America.
We could have let the market tank. Left GM to fail, let AIG collapse, turned the other cheek to Wamu and take everything down with them. Its such a monumental failure across the entire financial industry that the consequences are too daunting to comprehend. Its fairly certain that with that much capital simply gone from the entire system that there'd be runs on banks in every small town and major city as people fled with what's left of their cash and measly retirement funds tied up in fraudulent securities. Naturally, there'd be those who could survive such a tragedy. They're called The Rich. You and I, however, would not have that cushion of cash to fall into a smaller house. And that's our investments. Now consider manufacturing industry and exports. The dollar drops and America can't keep up. China buys out more cheap American companies. Think of all the things that you do every day that tie into the greater economy via imports, exports, investments, short-term loans for business, oil and transportation. These aren't easy things to analyze in the face of large-scale banking collapse. Which is why Burnanke dribbles out his meaningless speech and everyone else clings to ignorance, assuming the alternative - whatever it is - is therefore better. The more meaningless it is, the more it ignores those troubling consequences, the better. And fuck the weak.
There is room now in American politics for some piece of these moronic, disorganized teabaggers. The indepedent voice of America is growing from a negligable voting percentage to a low-noise roar of disconent, no matter how incoherent. I think both parties see opportunities in this underground movement, though I'm not sure they see the better part of it. One approach is to herd the angry mob with whatever slick political appeasment they can light on fire and carry as a torch out in front. The other is to seriously consider the independent movement as legitimate and stop the intrusion of legislation into the personal lives and choices of its citizens.
It starts with removing religion from legislation. Ohh, hard first pill to swallow, eh? Without the protection of Goverment invading into Their lives, how can you be sure that you'll be free to live yours? Said the one pig to the other. Can't do it? That's too bad. You should probably put that box of fake tea down, get back into your SUV with the Bush 04 sticker on it and go back to being a True Believer Bush-Era Republican, and stop using the independent movement as a costume for a better anti-Obama message. That sticker came with a thing called irresponsible spending that you simply neglected because we were doing the right thing! and you believed in it! Now a Democrat is in office doing what a Democrat must do after War and Deregulation have come home again. Its probably wasteful and pricey, but he's following a plan that worked before - invest in everything you can and something will scores big.
Ah well. Get government and legislation out of social and moral policy. Implement fair market principles, not free market that manipulates government and benefits the biggest at the expense of not only the people, but small business. And for God's sake, keep teabagging where it belongs: in the sleazy motel with that awful hooker you keep buying.