Financial fuckery thread

[Jenne]

...it's certainly close to the wire.  I mean, lookit, they have caught Mitch McConnell saying over and over that in an election year, he's not going to hand Obama his second term by rescuing the economy.

And of course the public is reading this the right way:  he'll screw over the American economy and NOT DO HIS FUCKING JOB, even going so far as OBSTRUCTING OTHERS WHO WANT TO DO THEIR JOBS, all for the joy of flipping Obama off and making him fail.

And no one in the Teabagger sector is decrying this AT ALL.  I thought that party was created to "clean up" Washington DC?  All it's doing is creating more boils on the ass of Congress, as far as I can tell.

[Cain]

8 days until Debtageddon.

[Triple Zero]

The FISCALYPSE!

[Faust]

8 days until Debtageddon.

This is the big one now isn't it? When the crunch comes it's going to have a knock on effect which will almost certainly send the banks into a spiral again.

[Luna]

Ah.

"We can't figure out any other way to impeach him, so we'll force him to default on the debt, THEN impeach him!"

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/07/25/277893/rep-king-says-obama-will-be-impeached-if-government-defaults/

[Jenne]

Stuff and nonsense.  NO ONE will impeach a president who's worked at getting both assholes to the table, not his fault all they do is fart.

Posturing is soooo getting old on both sides.  Fer chrissakes.

This standoff they have going between the two houses of Congress also seems mightily staged to me.

[Elder Iptuous]

...
This standoff they have going between the two houses of Congress also seems mightily staged to me.

Doesn't it, though?
this whole thing smells like a setup.

[Jenne]

...
This standoff they have going between the two houses of Congress also seems mightily staged to me.

Doesn't it, though?
this whole thing smells like a setup.

Yup.  As Roger says, we are getting the government we deserve. 

[BabylonHoruv]

What do you think of Reid's proposed budget plan?  It looks like it cuts more than Boehner's plan while protecting social security, medicare and medicaid and not raising taxes.  I am curious what he is cutting, I haven't been able to find any info on that yet.

[Jenne]

...personally, I think it's a low-ball yet desperate attempt to pass something, ANYthing, as long as medicare and medicaid are not touched.  It's assinine to not fix loopholes and raise taxes at this point, but whatchagonnado? 

[BabylonHoruv]

...personally, I think it's a low-ball yet desperate attempt to pass something, ANYthing, as long as medicare and medicaid are not touched.  It's assinine to not fix loopholes and raise taxes at this point, but whatchagonnado? 

I'm personally concerned about food stamps, medicaid, and military disability pay because either myself or people that I depend on/depend on me receive one or more of these, but I am also curious where other cuts would end up coming from.  I was able to find some fairly vague info mostly having to do with the housing mortgage authorities.

I agree that not raising revenues is an absurd response.  Boehner's speech made no sense to me when he said that a small business, when faced with more expenses than revenue would cut expenses.  What any small business that could would do is increase revenues and cut expenses only if sufficient revenue couldn't be raised.  Nobody wants to fire people, or cut back on advertising, or quality, or any other sensible business expense.

[Jenne]

The GOP are a bunch of fuckin' liars.  They don't want to raise taxes on the big corps...this has nothing to do with small business owners.  Because that's ONE loophole they can make that folks would agree with.  But their corporate sponsors and their campaign money won't let them.

"You can't tax the job creators."  They're not even CORPORATIONS anymore--they're fucking "Job Creators."  

All this when we have a hugeass unemployment rate.  So we're supposed to believe that not taxing them leads to more jobs, just like bailing out all those banks meant more people would get loans.

So much for the emperor and his invisible clothes, assholes!

[BabylonHoruv]

The GOP are a bunch of fuckin' liars.  They don't want to raise taxes on the big corps...this has nothing to do with small business owners.  Because that's ONE loophole they can make that folks would agree with.  But their corporate sponsors and their campaign money won't let them.

"You can't tax the job creators."  They're not even CORPORATIONS anymore--they're fucking "Job Creators."  

All this when we have a hugeass unemployment rate.  So we're supposed to believe that not taxing them leads to more jobs, just like bailing out all those banks meant more people would get loans.

So much for the emperor and his invisible clothes, assholes!

Did you see his speech?  What I took from it wasn't that he was talking about tax increases (or the lack of them) on small businesses, but that he was trying to say that his experience as a small business owner informed his decision, as a politician to cut expenses.  That any sane small business owner would choose to cut expenses if they were larger than revenue.  Basically using a small business as a metaphor for government.  It's a flawed metaphor anyway, but even remaining within it his solution makes no sense.

Also, Boehner looks like a cartoon to me.

[Jenne]

8 days until Debtageddon.

This is the big one now isn't it? When the crunch comes it's going to have a knock on effect which will almost certainly send the banks into a spiral again.

Well, that's what Bachmann et al are hoping everyone WORLDWIDE will just sit back and ignore.  I mean, truth be known, I think the international community should be calling OFF THE FUCKING HOOK and spamming up the White House and Congress emails and faxes telling them to knock this shit off and quit fucking with the world economy.

Although, I probably give Bachmann too much credit, thar...she probably truly doesn't GET the fact that this shit is real and will hurt, all the globe over.

Except perhaps Australia.  Damn but they've made some really tasty choices lately (read: last decade) and are coming out lately smelling like fucking roses economy-wise.

[Cain]

8 days until Debtageddon.

This is the big one now isn't it? When the crunch comes it's going to have a knock on effect which will almost certainly send the banks into a spiral again.

If it did happen, yes.  It'd be Greece, but with America's global reach.

I don't know what to think yet.  Markets in Asia are very nervous right now.  I'm not sure they know what to think, either.  There was chatter, late on the BBC last night, when they did a link-up with a Singapore news station, that the mere suggestion of a US default and downgrade had led to an increase in the use of the Yen and Renminbi as a reserve currency in the region.

It could be a set-up to a shafting, as suggested above.  But I'm not willing to discount that Boehner is under genuine pressure to let a default happen, because he is.  And like Mitch McConnell and the rest said, they're not just going to hand Obama a second term without extracting major confessions.

They've got him over a barrel.  And he knows it.  His proposals were more than fair, more than reasonable, but the GOP are neither.  His Goldilocks strategy will not help now.  The GOP want to humiliate him, want their pound of flesh.  And for those who think they would not let the nation suffer for it, I only have to point to the fate of New Orleans.

It'd also make great agitprop for impeachment because it would be the first time the US has ever defaulted on debt.  Even if not, you could expect to hear for the next thirty years about how "Democrats caused the US to default on its debt", much as you hear today from conservative writers about the endless caprice of the hippie and peace movements of the 60s.