Tuesday, October 29, 2013

TELL ME AGAIN HOW MUCH RIGHT-WING CRAZIES HATE BIG BUSINESS

For years, the mainstream press has been feeding us nonsense like this:
The Tea Party movement is as deeply skeptical of big business as it is of big government.
More recently, when Cruz-inspired teabaggers in the House forced a government shutdown, we began to read headlines like "Republican Civil War Erupts: Business Groups v. Tea Party."

Funny, that doesn't seem to jibe with this:
... even as federal regulators and prosecutors extract multibillion-dollar penalties from the nation's biggest banks, Wall Street can rely on at least one ally here: the House of Representatives.

The House is scheduled to vote on two bills this week that would undercut new financial regulations and hand Wall Street a victory.... Citigroup lobbyists helped write one of the bills, which would exempt a wide array of derivatives trading from new regulation.

The bills are part of a broader campaign in the House ... to roll back elements of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, the most comprehensive regulatory overhaul since the Depression. Of 10 recent bills that alter Dodd-Frank or other financial regulation, six have passed the House this year. This week, if the House approves Citigroup's legislation and another bill that would delay heightened standards for firms that offer investment advice to retirees, the tally would rise to eight.
And what is this Citigroup-backed bill?
The bill that Citigroup helped draft takes aim at one of the more contentious provisions in Dodd Frank, a requirement that banks "push out" some derivatives trading into separate units that are not backed by the government's insurance fund. The goal was to isolate this risky trading and to prevent government bailouts....

The House bill scheduled for a vote Wednesday would significantly curb the requirement that banks separate their derivatives trading operations, a plan that was created as a compromise by Citigroup lobbyists. In essence, the compromise exempted a wider array of derivatives from the push-out rule. As it now reads, Citigroup’s recommendations are reflected in more than 70 of the 85 lines of the House bill.
So the point of this bill is to make sure more losses from potentially risky trading will be covered by taxpayers. Um ... isn't that socialism? Or at least the socializing of more of the banks' losses (while their profits remain privatized)? And haven't we been told over and over and over again that the Crazy Caucus members who appear to have veto power over everything the House does absolutely hate socialism?

Funny, you'd think the 'bagger caucus would be up in arms about this. Why, you might almost think the 'baggers would be ready to shut down the government to prevent this.

If you were an idiot. Or a mainstream political journalist. (But I repeat myself.)

I say this all the time, but I'll say it again: teabaggers don't hate big business -- they love big business. Yes, it was easy to get confused when they forced a government shutdown and threatened to bring about a debt default, but they were just showing love for big business the way Annie Wilkes showed love for Paul Sheldon in Misery. Like Annie Wilkes, they're certain they know what's best for their beloved, even if their beloved doesn't understand.

(A final point: If you read the article, you'll see that business-friendly House Democrats are also on board with these bills -- though the Senate isn't, nor is the White House. But my point still stands: Crazy Caucus House Republicans could pitch a fit and bend the House to their will if they were really such great skeptics about business -- and they do nothing of the sort.)

6 comments:

Ten Bears said...

They love it so much they suckle at its teat.

No fear.

Victor said...

You have to be either extremely naïve, or f*cking stupid to believe that - or, both, of course!

It's a new meme they're trying to imbed, to try to distinguish the Teabaggers from old-school Conservatives.

Which is what they are, with ALL of the faults and paranoia, multiplied!

Danp said...

They didn't create all those 501c4's to get anonimous donations from rural nut jobs. Nor did Rick Santelli, who kicked off the Tea Party scam, represent that group. That said, I do believe most teabaggers do hate big business and the banks. They just don't know who their puppetmasters are.

BadTux said...

Lead-free ammo doesn't work as well as lead-based ammo, because of the energy equation -- mass * speed = energy. Lead has more mass than any other (non-radioactive) projectile that can be fired out of a gun, and thus has 30% more energy than iron shot. A lead bullet slamming into a game animal at long distance will thus have 30% more stopping power.

That said, a ban on lead bullets is hardly the same thing as a ban on guns. Guns will become slightly less effective, but at the ranges at which guns are typically used, it's largely irrelevant.

And yeah, time travel is sooo popular amongst righties...

Examinator said...

Bad tux
Your comment is posted in the wrong topic but I agree.

Examinator said...

Peoples,
The reason why the Tea parties are against Banks and the finance industry is simply that
a. they don't understand it.
b. they can't work in it at least at the levels where the money is.
C. and it supported the Democrats/ Obama.
The TParty enjoy movies because they are more often than not formulaic and simplistic. They rale against the non formulaic as the product of them 'libruls' after all they can read the gossip press and they're not like us.