Sully's an asshole. Naomi Klein is spot on, as always. Great post!

Naomi Klein is brilliant. Best Real Time ever, despite Sullivan's know-it-all oxygen consumption. I can't wait to read The Shock Doctrine. We need more Naomi Klein.

So when the gov't bails out the auto industry they will pretty much own a stake in almost all markets. Wasn't that what we called communism in the old Soviet Union where everything was run by the party????

Naomi Klein, Katrina vanden Heuvel, Rachel Maddow, Tina Fey and my wife (not necessarily in that order) are the five sexiest women on the planet.

I just watched this episode 5 minutes ago. Sullivan crucified McCain, Palin (Oh my god he ripped her), and Bush. They only disagreed at the very beginning of the show and it was over how much the "american people" were to blame. The rest was a lovefest.

B

Just when I was giving Will I Am credit for keeping his mouth shut, he disappoints.

I thought the ideal capitalism of which he speaks was supposed to be in Iraq.

the rats are jumping ship, they're drowning, and soon they'll all be singing, "all hail king john mccain, ruler of sea monkey atlantis!"

Could anything be more important to organize against NOW.....

Bush bending over the US taxpayer before he leaves....

Bald Dipshit said- "No one is ever forced to take out a bad loan."
Is this guy retarded? Is he so out of touch with reality that McCain needs to snatch him up as an adviser?
While fucktards like him got rich and fat, many (like myself) were struggling to pay off astronomical student loans, outrageous credit card debt and home/car payments.

John: I am voting for Obama,and am hopeful, but looking at some of the things he's said, and at those whom he has picked for financial advisers, and his ties to the U of Chicago, I think there's very good reason to fear that an Obama administration may have many of the unfortunate corporatist tendencies that kept the Clinton admin from being the boon to our country that many of us had hoped it would be. Don't get me wrong: I think (as someone once said) that Clinton was absolutely the best Republican president we've had since T. Roosevelt, and I expect Obama to be at least as good. I think, tho, that those who expect the kind of vision and sagacity of an FDR, or even a JFK, qualities that we are sorely in need of, thanks to Bush/Cheney, are probably going to be disappointed. Of course, even if Obama is not all that we might hope, that in no way mitigates the fact that a McCain/Palin presidency would undoubtedly bring worldwide catastrophe--possibly even enough to engender nostalgia for the Bush/Cheney years along the lines of the bumpersticker sentiment "I never thought I'd miss Dick Nixon."

Capitalism is dead, finished, gone, over, done. This trillion dollar socialist bail out forced on Americans killed it. Sullivan's an idiot.

anyone else catch palin's bizarre ramblings about flagged molecules, etc., the other day?

little princess is playing her disruptive part to a "t", i gotta admit...

Bankers are supposed to be experts, aren't they?

If you had several millions of dollars, and your neighbours, who make $30,000 a year, want to borrow $450,000 each, to build new houses, would you give it to them?

Only if you knew you could sell the bad debt to someone else. This is the house of cards. There's so much debt, only the taxpayers/federal governement have enough money to pay it back (actually you don't have enough moeny, so that might be the next disaster.) Total American Bankruptcy.

sullivan is not an idiot...he just thinks that there are still some real conservatives out there...the conservative movement...the real one....died a long time ago

come on john....show the parts where sullivan reams mccain and palin...and when told by will.i.am that we are spending too much time talking about palin, and when maher goes on to show how talkiing about palin loses white female votes, sullivan explains how destroying her will destroy mccain....and ultimately the christian right

and maher needs to let go of his hatred of all things religious...he is wrong...not every religious person is a walking, talking idiot....just the extremes of all religions are dangerous

Re: my post at 27. This is where the lack of regulations plays out. The banks should not be allowed to package and sell bad debt. But that's "the free market". If people want to buy it, it's for sale. Did people know they were buying bad debt, with good? Or did they hush up about the bad debt in the package?

Naomi just stated that the Thuglies need a disaster to push through their agenda. She is spot on! Much like the PNAC crowd needing "another Pearl Harbor". Well, with September 11, 2001, they got what they wanted and we got the Patriot Act, the spying, and the loss of civil liberties.

Fear. Fascists have always used fear as a tactic to subvert the Constitution and wipe out the pitiful gains of working Americans.

holy christ, amato. nice piece of writing.

givin' 'em the ol' catholic exorcism, eh?

John, I almost always agree with you, but I think you're a little off here. Americans have incurred too much debt and willingly took the shovel that lenders gave them in order to dig a big hole for themselves. Now, where Sullivan goes astray is when he ignores the fact that many Americans are in debt not because they want the latest gadget or a new addition on their house, but because their healthcare costs, stagnant wages, or some other systemic, non-individual crisis have pushed them against the wall, and rather than starve or forego prescriptions or food or clothing for them and their children, they charged it, figuring or hoping that someday they'd be able to afford to pay off the credit cards. But then the Bush economy continues to screw everyone who actually works for a living, and the credit card debt continues to rise, and the people who were lured into mortgages they could afford under one rate but not another, higher rate, end up losing their house. Etc.

Why do idiots like Sullivan get to get paid for their inane opinions? WTF?

They have been wrong about everything, heck look at his personal life: Andrew Sullivan, as a British gay man prostituting himself for the American homophobe right, is the poster child for confusion and self hate.

Do you want Barack Obama or John McCain to make these decisions?

I want Ralph Nader.

I trusted Obama until I got flim flam. I never trust McCain.

Sullivan: You’re favoring nationalizing the other companies.and most industries?

No, if we bail the Fat Cats out, we attach all sorts of strings. I don't see the strings yet.

This argument that people should not have taken the loans that they could not repay is completely specious!

These conservatives talk personal responsibility. Where is it? I don't see it.

This bailout is a swindle.

Sullivan was an aggressive jerk. And he places too much blame at the feet of Americans who took on debt they couldn't repay. Both the mortgage industry and home buyers are to blame. And in both cases it was a form of greed. But hey people are greedy and they will continue to be greedy. So what do we do about it? As a group, our society through our government needs to regulate the industries involved. Then it's not in their interest to make ridiculous loans and Americans won't be able to get ridiculous loans. This is where free-market ideology has gone off the rails. There were no referees making sure the football teams weren't cheating. In fact, there weren't even rules for the game.

If you want a concise evaluation of the ongoing economic meltdown, read Robert Kuttner's assessment here.

Andrew Sullivan is a total fool. He talks about Adam Smith as a guiding principle for our economy. Excuse me, Adam Smith lived and died before the Industrial Revolution. Smith had no idea about the pernicious affects of corporations with vast economic and political ability to manipulate the "Free Market" as well as control our government. That is the definition of fascism; a government controlled by corporations, no??? Sullivan is a prime example of the stupidity of the American voter. He is a pernicious enabler.

No more private profits and socialized risk. Hang the crooks. And, remember:

John, John, John McCain,
Mighty big liar with zero shame.

McCain is all bluster and no action. He is known by his colleges as a grandstander that does nothing to move American towards a more equitable, fair and sane society. He's just a "hotdog" that tries to "look and sound good" to the fools that vote while doing the bidding of those that pay for his political campaigns. And Sarah is just a shallow, shrill shill.

Friday, September 19, 2008 was the last day of the Reagan Revolution.

Johnny2Bad @ 26:

BennyP @ 19:

Bald Dipshit said- "No one is ever forced to take out a bad loan."
Is this guy retarded? Is he so out of touch with reality that McCain needs to snatch him up as an adviser?
While fucktards like him got rich and fat, many (like myself) were struggling to pay off astronomical student loans, outrageous credit card debt and home/car payments.

He's right. No one forced them to take the loan but that's not the point. Banks should never have loaned it to them because they weren't "good risks". They weren't qualified to receive the loans, aka basic solid banking practices...Something that used to matter before making fast money on the commissions then bundling them into securities and insuring the losses were the only reasons to write mortgages.

This is something that is starting to piss me off. Most of the crisis is not due to the "subprime" mortgages issued, but the debt packages that these institutions had engineered. The mortgages themselves had been used by these banks to create credit packages between them. The value of the bad mortgages pales in comparison of the junk portfolios the banks were able to derivate from the poor saps trying to own a house.

They are using mortgages to blame this shit on the homeowners.

Besides being an obnoxious, interrupting, arm-waving boor, Sullivan gets so many things wrong here that it's hard to keep count. I'll pick just one: he says that "no one is ever forced to take out a bad loan they cannot repay." Of course no one was FORCED to take out loans, but they certainly were INDUCED to do so by lenders who had lobbied hard (can you say Phil Gramm) to be able to offer all kinds of exotic mortgage instruments to consumers. George Bush also induced people to buy houses, promoting what he calls "the ownership society."

To think that the average home buyer has anywhere near the sophistication of the slick mortgage lenders who invented and then made a living selling these creative loans day in and day out, which apparently is what Andrew Sullivan believes, is to live on a planet on which the rest of us do not live.

Tyler Durden @ 49:

Johnny2Bad @ 26:

BennyP @ 19:

Bald Dipshit said- "No one is ever forced to take out a bad loan."
Is this guy retarded? Is he so out of touch with reality that McCain needs to snatch him up as an adviser?
While fucktards like him got rich and fat, many (like myself) were struggling to pay off astronomical student loans, outrageous credit card debt and home/car payments.

He's right. No one forced them to take the loan but that's not the point. Banks should never have loaned it to them because they weren't "good risks". They weren't qualified to receive the loans, aka basic solid banking practices...Something that used to matter before making fast money on the commissions then bundling them into securities and insuring the losses were the only reasons to write mortgages.

This is something that is starting to piss me off. Most of the crisis is not due to the "subprime" mortgages issued, but the debt packages that these institutions had engineered. The mortgages themselves had been used by these banks to create credit packages between them. The value of the bad mortgages pales in comparison of the junk portfolios the banks were able to derivate from the poor saps trying to own a house.

They are using mortgages to blame this shit on the homeowners.

Yeah, and Pelosi's saying "the bailout should include provisions to help families facing foreclosure to stay in their homes"
Talk about buying votes.

roooth @ 54:

I watched it and, as usual, I ended up being pissed off that Maher never makes the Republican shut the fuck up long enough for anyone else to get a word in edgewise.

And Maher was right there with Sullivan, blaming the people who are "choosing to walk away" from their mortgages. Nice way to describe losing your home, because it actually implies a choice.

But both Sullivan and Maher glossed right over Klein's point about the CEO's "walking away" with HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS in severence pay and golden parachutes.

Are they kidding? One group is walking away with just what they can carry and a future of ruined credit and higher interest rates on everything for years to come and the other group is walking away with billions in unearned pay and bonuses and a trail of destruction in their wake?

Maher is so big on the irrationality of "magical thinking" but can't seem to add two and two together when it comes to the role that CEO compensation is playing in this disaster.

How many homes could have been saved if mortgages had been restructured at lower rates? Probably most of them, but the problem is that the bad lenders bundled the bad loans and sold them at profit, removing themselves from total responsibility. It was a house of cards, and that was NOT the fault of the home owners.

Instead of allowing CEO's to drain their companies treasuries, they shouldn't get a damn cent until they do something to help fix this mess.

Oh, but that's a sin!! Take the robbery out of the "free" marketplace? Heaven forbid! Not allow a CEO to take obscene payouts for ruining their companies? Unamerican!! Even Maher can't conceptualize it. He can bitch about it, but nothing more.

We are all supposed to sit back and let the robbers keep what they stole because they had a job title? Really?

I'm a real estate agent in Florida. I didn't do any of the bad loans myself, because I was fortunate in who I dealt with, but I've seen plenty of them and I've seen too many people who had no idea what they had been sold. Now they're screwed and their mtg companies are still doing nothing to help this - and they won't be, either.

Don't be fooled that this is just greedy people on the bottom.

The corporations that control insurance and credit cards and auto loans are all intertwined now, thanks to deregulation, and everyone one of the millions of people who have lost their homes will now also see their credit card interest rates, auto insurance rates, any interest rate at all, adjust up to the max, because the corporations have all been allowed to tie variable interest rates to credit scores.

Think about how many more billions in interest all these corporations will be charging millions of Americans for years, maybe decades to come, because their homes were foreclosed on and their credit ruined.

Credit cards, auto insurance, auto loans - you name it, all will be charging top interest to the poorest, which will keep it harder for the people at the bottom to save or get ahead.

But someone will be raking it in. That's why Klein was saying Wall Street was rallying so fast. Their debt was wiped out and passed to us and their future is looking bright.

"When there's blood on the streets, there's money to be made."

Goddammit, I wish you were wrong.

biodrummindieseler @ 42:

Andrew Sullivan is not clueless. His argument concerning the irresponsibility of the American consumer is valid.
I liked Naomi's suggestion that we nationalize the oil industry if we nationalize Wall Street. Overall, this was one of the better Realtime shows. "New Rules" is usually the only clip worth watching.

First off most of this crisis is not due to consumer debt, thus the irresponsibility of the American consumer (which is an issue) has no place in this discussion. The banks that had to be bailed out for the most part were investment banks, and AIG was an insurance company with too much exposure on derivatives. Ergo the American consumer (irresponsible or not) is being used as a scape goat to diver from the real issue: this country lacks the assets required to back up the level of debt and credit it has amassed and thus... here we are with the chickens coming home to roost.

Using the canard of the American consumer irresponsibility for this crisis, is like blaming the Super Bowl loss of the New England Patriots on the bad performance of the Red Sox bench.

Blaming this on the American consumer is out of the GOP playbook, who for decades convinced most of the idiotic American populace that it was them Welfare Queens who had run Rayguns' trillion-dollar debt. Sure some of the debt was due to shady welfare behaviors, but that was order of magnitude (trillions vs. hundreds of millions) less than the real culprit: the subsidies paid to the Military complex and general corporate welfare.

Sure there is a responsibility on having the chickens being watched by the foxen. But I think the responsibility for the demise of the chickens is not that they are too tasty for a Fox, but on the foxen that eat the chickens.

All I can say is Naomi Klein deserves the utmost kudos for standing up to that fool Sullivan. The problem here isn't the American people. The problem is the greed of the corporations and how they profited off the backs of ordinary Americans. They took the American Dream and danced on it while playing fiddle as these financial companies went under.

The point is that they aren't hurting. But the citizens of this country will be hurting for a long time.

It's almost as if this was a show that failed in its network run. The network heads, producers, directors, writers and the stars make money even though the show is a failure. But the viewers who liked the cancelled show suffer and get nothing.

Rooth at 54: Thank you for saying that. You have put all of these sentiments in one neat little package. Kudos to you.

Shannon, I agree with you. We can't blame the American people for the housing bust -- weren't those "unqualified" borrowers at first able to pay their mortgage payments but when the interest rate ballooned, they had no idea it would increase so much? The banks had no crystal ball to tell them how much more it would be in the future, and if people thought it would be $50.00 more per month, most would say they could handle that. And the banks didn't care -- by then they'd sold the mortgages at inflated prices to huge financial institutions or other banks, which are the ones being bailed out with taxpayer money now.

The problem was an absence of government oversight and regulation, which allowed institutional greed and corporate profits to skyrocket. We cannot live in a world that has no limits, no regulations. That would be anarchy, which is what the government and corporate sectors are now approaching. Fascism on the march.

Kudos to Bill Maher for getting Naomi on that segment. It would have been much more informative without Sullivan.

1. If banks accept a lot of bad loans then the banks are just as much to blame. Its kinda their job to measure risk and not give out bad loans. If the banks encouraged people to ask for bad loans then the banks accepted the bad loans, then the banks are mostly to blame.

2. Issue 1. is irrelevant. The problem with the market isn't people defaulting on loans. The people have nothing to do with what is going on. The current problem is that the BANKS SOLD BAD LOANS TO FINANCIAL COMPANIES WHO SHOULD KNOW BETTER THAN TO BUY RISKY SECURITIES. That is the cause of the current financial crisis. To blame it on the loan recipients shows someone with either a frightening ignorance for someone who takes it upon themselves opine about these issues professionally, or someone with an agenda. In this case I'd say its a little from column A and a little from column B.

53 Stone Pony Says: Tyler Durden @ 49:

Johnny2Bad @ 26:

BennyP @ 19:

Bald Dipshit said- “No one is ever forced to take out a bad loan.”
Is this guy retarded? Is he so out of touch with reality that McCain needs to snatch him up as an adviser?
While fucktards like him got rich and fat, many (like myself) were struggling to pay off astronomical student loans, outrageous credit card debt and home/car payments.

He’s right. No one forced them to take the loan but that’s not the point. Banks should never have loaned it to them because they weren’t “good risks”. They weren’t qualified to receive the loans, aka basic solid banking practices…Something that used to matter before making fast money on the commissions then bundling them into securities and insuring the losses were the only reasons to write mortgages.

This is something that is starting to piss me off. Most of the crisis is not due to the “subprime” mortgages issued, but the debt packages that these institutions had engineered. The mortgages themselves had been used by these banks to create credit packages between them. The value of the bad mortgages pales in comparison of the junk portfolios the banks were able to derivate from the poor saps trying to own a house.

They are using mortgages to blame this shit on the homeowners.

Yeah, and Pelosi’s saying “the bailout should include provisions to help families facing foreclosure to stay in their homes”
Talk about buying votes.

With so many people foreclosed upon, what will be the drain on our social safety nets--which are almost nonexistent at this point--if homeowners aren't assisted? Having mass homelessness will only fray our feeble systems all the more. What are cities going to do, set up mass homeless camps? And if people just walk away from their homes, the banks are almost certain to fail. The banking system is smoke and mirrors as it it. Banks need the people to at least continue trying to pay on their homes.

Look, I agree that it's responsible to delay big life decisions until you're solvent. You're to be applauded there. There is an element of "personal responsibility" in every purchase, in every contract. But the people who work on Wall St. used this bad debt to create investment packages that would enrich themselves! In other words, in order for Wall Street investors--also people who need to show some personal responsibility--to make a scheitload of money, they needed to encourage people to get into debt beyond their means. They could then use this to move money around as though it were a "product," skimming something off the top for themselves. No homeowners, no bad debt, no money made.

Second, how many times have we been told--by CNBC, CNN, any of these daily financial report shows--that it has been the American CONSUMER keeping the economy afloat over at least the last seven years. Without people buying beyond their means, we would've hit a crisis point long ago. It doesn't excuse it, but it does point out that it's the public that was taken for a ride in this situation. (Remember Chimpy telling everyone to be patriotic and shop after Sept. 11?)

Now, put that together with the fact that wages have not kept pace with the cost of living, and that most people can't afford health insurance, and that people are often one not-so-large catastrophe away from bankruptcy, and you can see that this clearly can't be blamed on the home-buying public beyond a small portion. They are pawns.

The financial system in this nation is set up so that the permanent upper-class--the "investment class"--needs the permanently indebted in order to keep making money for themselves. This has nothing to do with buying votes (and I'm not a person with any amount of affection for Nancy Pelosi, so don't go there). It has to do with helping people who were set up for a fall before the game even started. If anyone needs the help, it's them.

Steve E @ 58:

Sullivan, and of course many others believe and trust in, "The Captains of Industry" depicting them as always with more intelligence and courage than the unwashed masses. But they always forget it takes the mindless uneducated masses to put these pricks where they are in the whole scheme of things. If the masses can`t afford to pay, the elite will perish. They want us to believe a con artist is a better person because he has outsmarted the rest of us. We deserved to be fucked, cast aside. Greed is good.

Right on... couldn't agree more.

I told friends that the ARMs were a bad investment and the due date would come, and they might not be able to refinance. There is plenty of fault to lay at the feet of the foolhardy. Don't try to absolve the foolish of their culpability in this mess. There were plenty of us warning them about the bad investments.

Still, that is the reason we have government supervision...so that someone will be the adult in the economic turmoil of buyers and sellers--the greedy and the foolhardy. Deregulation is at fault, and that can be laid squarely at the feet of the Republicans.

biodrummindieseler @ 42:

Andrew Sullivan is not clueless. His argument concerning the irresponsibility of the American consumer is valid.
I liked Naomi's suggestion that we nationalize the oil industry if we nationalize Wall Street. Overall, this was one of the better Realtime shows. "New Rules" is usually the only clip worth watching.

Granted loan recipients bear some responsibility however the current financial crisis has nothing to do with these people losing their home. Its because banks sold loans to financial institutions as securities. The banks eager to sell them because it meant they got the money but not the risk got greedy by offering more and more loans to people they shouldn't have. The financial institutions who had a responsibility to their customers to gauge risk somewhat sensibly also got greedy, buying up these loans because they thought the housing market was going to keep going up forever.

See the difference is the homeowner had a responsibility to themselves. Banks and financial institutions had much greater responsibilities to their stockholders (this group is global) and their communities and ultimately to the taxpayers who are going to get their bacon out of the fire.

So to blame homeowners in the current financial crisis is clueless for someone whose job it is to opine about these things.

I have found more nobility in the poverty that surrounds me than in any marble hall of American government. Whited sepulchres!

I don't think your right on this one, John. I think both Sullivan and Kline made some really good points but I really don't think you can fault Sullivan's argument. He agreed with Kline that regulation is necessary, he simply laid blame where it is doubtless, at least partly, due. Americans have watched their incomes stagnate since the Reagan supply side revolution and yet they have continued live beyond their means, on credit, as if there were no tomorrow. You can blame the thieves, but the thieves could not have done the deed without the complicity of the suckers. You really cannot deny that if people were making their mortgage payments this crisis would not have occurred. Oversimplified? Yes. But not altogether wrong.

Class War Fare has begun, funny how it is the "haves" (Sullivan) that are shooting first.

Andrew Sullivan full of shit and talking points up to his
big fat, inflated bald head!

The banks begged,"PLEASE, PLEASE! DON'T MAKE US SWINDLE THESE HOMEOWNERS WITH THESE INCREDIBLY PROFITABLE MORTGAGE CONTRACTS!"

EarthAbides @ 79:

Class War Fare has begun, funny how it is the "haves" (Sullivan) that are shooting first.

"has begun"? Hello, were have you been for the past half a century of GOP's effort to undo everything related to the New Deal?

Just because the GOP huffs and puffs, with full on 100% fake ass self-righteousness and indignation, whenever anyone who dares to tell the truth: that they (the conservative movement) have been/are engaged in class warfare. It does not make their class warfare any less real.

Johnny2Bad @ 84:

Here's a bitter pill for Obamnanites:

“Moreover, (Obama advisor) Robert Rubin, a major Clinton administration force behind Glass-Steagall repeal, was also among the first to benefit personally from it, in moving from his Treasury position to co-direct the newly merged investment/commercial banking conglomerate Citigroup." -Counterpunch

Looks like Robert Rubin was for banking deregulation before he was against it.

This article from 9 19 2008 tells of Nader's prescient prediction of June 2000:

Nader Predicted Wall Street Meltdown

From the same article more recent pronouncements:

Candidate Nader has called for an immediate halt to the increase in the national debt, an end to corporate subsidies and unconditional taxpayer bailouts of corporations, and a start to the aggressive prosecution of corporate criminals.

In his prepared remarks for New York Times editors in its Washington Bureau, Nader stated: "Given the contrast between the 'free market' ideology of the Republicans and the corporate or state socialism that is their increasing practice, the time is ripe for full Congressional hearings next year on the organized power, greed and lack of regulation that is shaking the foundations of Wall Street."

Nader added, "What we need to do now is find a just way to deal with the millions of homeowners facing foreclosure and make sure that this level of financial market manipulation does not happen again."

He elaborated a 10-point plan to cool off the financial markets meltdown:

1. No bailouts without conditions and reciprocity in the form of stock warrants.

2. No more lobbying for any company that is bailed out.

3. No golden parachutes and get out of jail free cards for guilty executives.

4. No bailouts without public hearings.

5. Reduce the moral hazard in U.S. mortgage markets by introducing covered bonds for the majority of mortgage products as they do in Western Europe. That gives institutions that finance mortgages an incentive to be prudent, because they cannot just unload them and wipe their hands clean of the liability, but are instead on the hook if the homeowner defaults.

6. Maintain neighborhood stability and housing security by passing a law with a sunset clause allowing below median-value homeowners facing foreclosure the right to rent-to-own their homes at fair market value rates.

7. Avoid future housing bubbles by removing implicit government guarantees for new mortgages that exceed thresholds of greater than 15-20 times the annual fair market rent value of the home.

8. Make the Federal Reserve a Cabinet Position, so it is accountable to Congress, as well as making sure all Federal Reserve Bank presidents are appointed by the President and answerable to congress.

9. Reduce conflicts of interest by taking away power for auditor and rating agency selection from companies and placing it in the hands of the SEC to be administered on random assignment.

10. Implement a securities speculation tax, starting with derivatives to deter casino-style capitalism.

Andrew Sullivan is a bitter Brit who can't get U.S. citizenship. He should shut his trap because he only has one agenda that is self-serving.

Get back to us when you really matter you asswipe.

Sullivan's argument is like blaming the consumer for the failure of the company. Fact the Company failed to keep its books in order, and took on big risks. Part of running a corporation is risk management, the banks failed, period.

Sullivan is complete wrong. "Conservatism" is an ideology and a philosophical world view. He states that "Conservatism is the best way to generate wealth..." as if this is a self-evident value to which every human endeavor should aim. He has been so brainwashed that his values assumption is not even questioned.

The ideas of Social Justice can be put forth just as well as "Conservatism" (whatever that is). A society is not just a collection of individuals. When people participate in a society they invest the society with part of their personal duties to other people. The society then reflects these duties (perhaps Christian duties such as charity, love your neighbor, etc) in such a way that everyone is helped. Our society, through our government, ensures our safety and education, ensures we have safe food, should ensure a stable society through which we make a living, and through which we have good health. These may be mandates in a totalitarian society or allowances in a democratic society.

But when conservatives start preaching self-reliance and non-government participation in our lives, I just want to tell people like Sullivan how wrong he is. I would bet he would not want to live in such a world, where he had to bargain with the fire department to put out his house fire, where he has to have enough money to pay the paramedics so they will take him to the hospital, and where he always must guess whether the food he eats and the medicine he takes has been tested for safety.

I don't want to live in Andrews world and I suspect most everyone else doesn't either.

Sullivan, and Republicans like him, have no idea what they are talking about. This problem has come about because of the deregulation of the lending industry, led by Republicans with a lot of Democratic help. Before 1995, profitable and performing loans were the same. Deregulation of the industry led to fragmentation of the industry which then incentivized all of the people in the mortgage origination-to-sale chain to create profitable as opposed to performing loans. In 1995 the Republicans in control of Congress changed the RESPA anti-kickback rules as they applied to mortgage brokers and allowed lenders to pay brokers what is called a yield spread premium or a par plus payment. In a nutshell, this is a payment made by the lender to the broker if the broker originates a loan that is a higher than par rate. For example if a broker has an "A" rated borrower based on his loan application, and now his FICA/Fair Isaac score, that qualifies for the lender's 6% loan, the lender will pay the broker a premium if the broker can lock and close that borrower into an 8% loan. That 8% loan has more value to the lender because an "A" borrower, who is less likely to default, is paying an interest rate that a "B" borrower would pay - who is more at risk of default. Before 1995 I and several other consumer lawyers around the country were arguing that this payment was a kickback for the referral of business made illegal under RESPA because the broker does no more work to close the loan at 6% than he does at 8%. The broker is being paid by the lender for the higher than par rate loan. The mortgage industry got Congress to eliminate this anti-kickback rule so that we had to prove the overall compensation was unreasonable - an impossible task because most states allowed lenders to charge up to 10% of the loan amount for his commission. The next steps in the process were allowing interstate banking, then Gramm-Leach-Bliley bill that eliminated the wall between investment banks, deposit banks, and insurance companies, with a boost from the parity statute. Countrywide saw this deregulation as a means to eliminate offices, and the overhead and management issues of having a Countrywide office in every city. Countrywide created a nationwide network of brokers who they would pay yield spread payments for originating loans. Countrywide would get short term money to fund the loans then turn around and sell them as a pool of loans to a bank. So, for a simplified example, an "A" borrower goes to a mortgage broker and says "I need a $100,000.00 loan". Since he is an "A" borrower he qualifies for 6%, but the broker would search for he lender who would pay him the highest yield spread, usually Countrywide and tell the borrower all he can get is a 8% loan. At closing Countrywide would draw $100,000.00 on its short term line of credit, and fund the loan paying the broker the yield spread. Countrywide would then have a pool of these loans, all mixed in of "A" "B" "C" and "D" grade borrowers and go to someone like Merrill Lynch and say "I have 1,000 loans average $100,000.00 each with an average 10% yield over 30 years with a present value of $125,000.00. I will sell you the loans for $115,000.00." Countrywide would then pay back its credit line and just made $15,000.00 per loan less its yield spread less its costs of money for 1,000 loans, or lets say 10,000.00 per loan which is $10 million. Meanwhile Countrywide kept the servicing rights for these loans which also generated another income stream for Countrywide. Merrill Lynch who before deregulation was prohibited from entering the mortgage business has an income stream from Countrywide as the servicing agent, then sells the pool of loans to Bank of America (who after buying Countrywide and Merrill Lynch), as a non-regulated security. The rating of these pools of loans was essentially privatized, which meant that a company like Moody's was give the rating task - a job that they never had before. They had no idea how to rate a pool of loans which had a mix of "A" (usually 10%) and "B"-"D") loans all with greater degrees of risk of default because these borrowers were now paying slightly higher interest rates than they would be expected to pay. What happened in essence was that Moody’s saw that 10% of the pool of loans were "A" borrowers and so rated the entire pool as AAA which was its highest degree of safety. So they pool of in essence junk loans was sold as AAA rated to entities like Bank of America, as Trustee for "ABC" asset backed securities. As you can see no one had an incentive to make sure the loans were performing loans. The Broker and Countrywide as originator, and Merrill Lynch and Bank of American only had an incentive to close profitable loans - loans they could sell. They could care less if the loans were performing loans. as long as the pool was sold before many of the loans started to default. Then when the underwriting rules were relaxed, you started to see non-income qualifying loans i.e. stated income. Many people gave the correct income info to the broker, who then submitted an application to the lender with false income information. These loans were justified because of the values of the properties. The brokers would get friendly appraisers to give a high-ball appraisal then submit the loan package. The appraiser would either give the higher appraisal or he would lose that broker's business. This was the first wave of foreclosures that are going through the courts. These sub-prime loans defaulted because they were based on false income and false appraisals and all the borrowers were paying higher interest.

The next wave we will see is when deregulation compounded the problem by allowing the 4 option mortgage. This mortgage allows a borrower to elect to pay on 1 of 4 options each month: 1) ½ of the interest that was due on the loan with the remaining ½ put on the back end of the loan. At the end of a fixed period, usually 3 or 5 years the borrower would have to amortize the full mortgage principal plus back end interest at whatever the rate was; 2) interest only; 3) amortize over 30 years; 4) amortize over 15 years. The Countrywide broker now could qualify a borrower if his income allowed him to pay ½ of the interest. This opened up a whole new category of borrower who could not otherwise qualify for a 30 year amortized loan. The broker would sell this 4 option mortgage to the consumer by telling him "just come back in 3 years or 5 years when the loan adjusts and we will refinance you because the house will go up in value" The broker used the same appraiser to over-appraise the value. Here is an example of how that loan works. A $100,000 10% mortgage would require $10,000 per year interest or about $$850.00 per month. The broker would qualify the borrower at $425.00 per month which is ½ of the interest. After 3 years, the $100,000 principal is now $115,300.00 and costs about $1,000.00 per month to fully amortize over 30 years. The borrower's payment more than doubles. These are the loans that we are starting to see come through the foreclosure division in my county now and we will see this wave for a few years.

You have to remember, too these are amateur borrowers who have maybe 1 or 2 mortgages in their lifetime, relying on professional lenders who are closing 1 or 2 mortgages a week. The incentive for the broker is to close as many loans as he can to maximize his profit. He has no stake in making sure the loan performs as long as he gets paid. If he worked for a bank that kept the loan and he closed too many loans that defaulted he would be fired. Countrywide had an incentive to pay brokers large yield spread premiums and turn around and sell the loans as fast as possible. They did not care if the loan performed, so they closed an eye to the bad underwriting that went on an in fact encouraged its employees to qualify everyone - who cares at Countrywide as long as the loan is sold before it defaults. Merrill Lynch does not care if the loan performs as long as the pool is AAA rated and can be sold. This is why we are where we are and the problem has a simple cure by regulating the mortgage brokers and the underwriting guidelines and oversight with a bite.

I think they're both right, just talking about two different things in two different timeframes. Klein is spot-on in her description of predatory capitalism and makes the case for more regulation. Sullivan is talking about a longer-term trend that made the business practices that Klein describes possible. Jimmy Carter for all his faults saw that the trends in government spending and consumer consumption both of goods and energy, etc. was not sustainable. When he gave his much-derided "malaise" speech (he never actually said the word "malaise"), Carter was trying to redirect Americans down a path that would allow us to live within our means. Reagan came along, promised you could have everything, and rode the resentment against Carter all the way to the White House. We know how the rest turned out. People voted for Reagan twice, Bush 1 once and Bush 2 twice (well not really) and the orthodoxy of endless tax-cuts and deficits is only now beginning to be questioned in the mainstream debate.

I think the question isn't whether Americans were foolish and brought this on themselves, rather are they any different from the people of all other empires that have collapsed, all of whom shared the belief that the good times would go on forever.

Alice X - (Chomsky Nader) - status quObama - change you can pretend in - @ 98:

RedWhiteandBrooklyn @ 94:

Alice X - (Chomsky Nader) - status quObama - change you can pretend in - @ 41:

"I want Ralph Nader.

Nader? You are delusional! Nader trying to run legislation through Congress & the Senate would be like me trying to fly by flapping my arms. Nader has become nothing more than an egoist who wants to keep his name in the headlines and thinks that he can once again alter the outcome of the election. Really, name one thing that he's done (except complain) since his 2000 run. Just one.

Read the list at 87 and tell me of one other candidate who is bringing such comprehensive knowledge to bear on the economic situation.

NAME ONE.

Obama has been captured by the Fat Cats.

McCain is a FAT CAT.

In a nutshell; If somebody walks into a bank or Countrywide Mortgage lending place and they say they want to buy a house the asshole behind the desk has to say "How much do you want to borrow, how much money do you make (show me) how much do you owe?" If the numbers do not add up properly then the lender has to say "You cannot afford this."
If the borrower, a normal human being is watching TV and sees commercial after commercial telling that borrower that he/she can and should borrow money on their house or buy a house with no down payment and your income doesn't matter then that borrower, not being sophisticated and also being a little greedy and jealous of his brother-in-law who just did exactly what the commercial told him/her, is going to run down the the Lending Tree and and ask for a loan. If the loan asshole gives him/her the money you cannot blame the dumbass borrower. Mr./Mrs Dumbass was just told what he/she was doing is just fine. The American people are dumbasses.

even when the facts are in their face, they cannot believe that their philosophies are bankrupt. I'm surprised he didn't blame Clinton.

Nader is a constant watchdog of the political shenanigans of the Republicrats.

No one knows more or cares more deeply for the average American.

The Corporations HATE HIM, but they CANNOT BUY HIM.

He is incorruptible.

Joe H. @ 103:

even when the facts are in their face, they cannot believe that their philosophies are bankrupt. I'm surprised he didn't blame Clinton.

I was waiting for Clinton to be mentioned, but Sullivan knows it wouldn't fly.

These guys will never admit to failure, they will always say that the plan is good, but the execution was faulty. What has to happen, they'll maintain, is do the same thing over again but get it right this time.
But they did get it right, actually. I think they intend to break the bank and turn this country into a feudal society.

Udon Nomee @ 104:

So.... If I took out a loan that amounts to usury on a level that heretofore had been the exclusive domain of unsavory and otherwise questionable characters with names like "Knuckles", "Joey No-Thumbs", and "Buster from Chicago", and it subsequently turns out that everything I had been told regarding how easy it would be to refinance at any point in time whereupon I should deem it advantageous to do so turns out to be false and I end up losing my house to foreclosure, all that is my fault and I shouldn't have taken out a bad loan to buy a house I could not really afford so it serves me right, right?

And if the lending institutions approve SO MANY bad loans like mine, to so many people like me, that when we all are unable to get out of our bad loans, even though we were all told we could do so easily, and at any time, and end up losing all our houses to the degree that the lending institutions are in danger of failing altogether, that is also all my fault because I shouldn't have taken out a bad loan to buy a house I could not really afford, is that right!?!

I'm so ashamed of myself. I wonder what's wrong with me, anyway...

What is wrong with you, not you personally of course, but too many average Americans, is that they have bought into the propaganda of the CONS, they are not called CONS for nothing, and elected them to government.

They have been running this confidence racket every Ronald Reagan, the ARCH CON MAN himself.

It is all a scheme. They will pump every last dime out of the country they can.

Alice X - (Chomsky Nader) - status quObama - change you can pretend in - @ 105:

Nader is a constant watchdog of the political shenanigans of the Republicrats.

No one knows more or cares more deeply for the average American.

The Corporations HATE HIM, but they CANNOT BUY HIM.

He is incorruptible.

Are you Nader's wife or something? Just asking.

The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 began forcing banks to give out loans that weren't sound. Certainly not the Primary cause of the present meltdown, but an indicator of a trend that started thirty years ago.

I'm not decrying the law. But in order to get the banking interests to agree with a government edict to give out BAD LOANS (think about that for moment), you KNOW the government has to either make a promise either by law, or by closed-door promise, that certain institutions would be insulated against risk.

That's back-door mercantilism.

And it created the environment for monopolization.

Who exactly has been buying these bad companies up, these past few weeks?

In other words, who holds the DEEDS on all these PROPERTIES, that the ostensible BUYERS won't be able to complete their payment schedules on?

To make it more clear, when all the dust has cleared, WHO'S going to end up OWNING the GROUND underneath MOST of our feet?!?!

Yeah. This situation was assisted by bad loans, but repackaging and being able to monetize debt was far more responsible for the present system.

It's been almost a hundred years now, since we created the permanent fiat currency system. The Bretton Woods agreement in 1944 forced virtually every significant currency in the world to peg to our currency AS IF it were gold. Twenty-five years later, Nixon floated the currency, and got OPEC to agree to only trade oil with US currency, effectively making the Federal Reserve Note the reserve currency of the world.

But people around the world are starting to desert the dollar. I don't think it's an accident that, in 2000 and 2001, Iraq, North Korea, and Iran all started making noise about trading oil in EUROS!

We have a real danger of a dollar collapse coming, and it's ironic that wielding our swords won't fix the problem this time, because that tactic seems to be the only one that we, as a nation seem to know how to use.

The Very Bitter Ceci Hussein @ 111:

Alice X - (Chomsky Nader) - status quObama - change you can pretend in - @ 105:

Nader is a constant watchdog of the political shenanigans of the Republicrats.

No one knows more or cares more deeply for the average American.

The Corporations HATE HIM, but they CANNOT BUY HIM.

He is incorruptible.

Are you Nader's wife or something? Just asking.

Never met him.

I'm not going to claim to be an economist, but maybe someone could answer this for me?

Would this whole thing had happened had we not been making money out of thin hair. Say if the dollar went back to the gold standard.. then surely it'd be impossible for all these banks to have unaccountable and undetermined values of debt, because the dollars would actually have some physical value?

I should open up by saying that I do believe in regulation. Or in absolutely no regulation at all, one or the other, but this half-assed approach to it favors only the well off....

I don't think it is fair to blame conservatism for this, it is NEO-conservatism that got us into this. Bushco didn't de-regulate, they put the people in charge of fighting the regulators in charge of the regulating. This is NOT a free market principle. They still have regulators, just the regulators are now regulating in favor of industry and against the people they were supposed to protect.

The biggest problem we have on Wall Street is that we don't have a free market. In a free market, when a company paid out $5.7B in bonuses, we stock holders could sell the stock in protest. The company would have to ship up or go under. But in today's world, the vast majority of money from small investors goes to Wall Street via mutual funds, 401k's, etc. The small investor may or may not even know what companies he owns stock in and certainly has no say of when to sell or when to buy.

A Goldwater/Ron Paul conservative approach would have worked if that were really what had been put in place. But now I think the answer really is for government to step in and fix this, from the ground up (top down would be more accurate though I think). When I was seventeen and living at home I was told "you can have it your way when YOU pay the bills, but while you're living in THIS house, you will do what I say!" We are now paying the rent on Wall Street. They should live by our rules until they grow up enough to live out on their own again....

Naomi Klein--Canadian
Andrew Sullivan--British expatriate
Will.i.am--Toronto born

What is this about? Do Americans not get it?

With all due respect, both Andrew Sullivan and Naomi Klein are right. It is clearly systemic--a Wall Street culture run amok, given carte blanche to chase after, gouge, sweetheart the American public who are clearly struggling through a decade-long economic stagnation. That said, the American people have to wake the hell up. Nothing is free. It is basic economics--don't buy what you can't afford. No one is putting a gun to these people's heads and forcing them to sign away their homes and their financial futures on high-risk deals. In the end however, this is corporate welfare on the grandest scale imaginable. But something needs to be done to save and protect the financial well-being of Americans.

Naomi should have used the following statistic against Sullivan when he blamed Americans first. The Wall Street Journal reported already in 2006 that 61% of all borrowers receiving subprime loans had credit scores high enough to qualify for prime conventional loans.

Subprime loans and ARM's ofcourse were far more lucrative for mortgage lenders back then than conventional loans. It was PREDATORY lending that led to this.

"It’s so chic of conservatives like Sullivan to blame the American people for the economic crisis"

Conservatives love America its Americans they can't stand.
Its obscene to promote an ideology that allows for a market that actually aggressively preys on people and then turn around and blame those same people for letting themselves be taken in.
Sullivan is wrong on so many levels its pathetic.He disgusts me.

VietVet8666 @ 36:

Nobody here is too pissed off.

I haven't even come to terms with how pissed off I am. If Congress fails to penalize the billionaire crooks in any way or demand some kind of repayment, then I and millions of others will be looking for pitchforks. Once again it's "Trust us." Long time past for that.

Sullivan and his ilk are revisionist asshats, period. Buy, hey, since when does knowing #$%^&-all about history stop you from talking about the Founding Fathers as if you just did lunch with them? Since when is living a highly material lifestyle disqualification from banging on about your personal relationship with Jesus? And whatever would give anyone the idea that you had to read "Wealth of Nations" to actually speak to the virtues of the free market?

C'mon: Education is for elitists. Don't you get it? Jesus was blue eyed and Caucasian-looking, just like his Daddy. We know that, because we have all the pictures. George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson, Paul Revere, John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin, and all those Presidents whose names we can't remember really did put the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. So that officially makes us a Christian nation. Life begins at the moment when the guy has the chick's bra unhooked, so condoms are really just pre-abortions. Oh yeah, and CEOs who earn more than the GDP of Third World nations deserve to be rewarded for the risk of pulling the cord on their golden parachutes. That's just meritocracy of capitalism.

Gaaaagh. I could go on, but I'm starting to make my own brain hurt with the cognitive dissonance. That and the knowledge that too many @$%^&tards out there actually subscribe to some or all of the above.

I just heard a McCain ad saying the government can't take on huge expenditures for whatever Obama says. I'd say that is a day late a trillion dollars short of reality.

enough @ 133:

I just heard a McCain ad saying the government can't take on huge expenditures for whatever Obama says. I'd say that is a day late a trillion dollars short of reality.

In ancient Rome there was a cult of assassins who were noted for their bravado...

Their favorite trick was to approach their victim in a crowded public square, sly stick in a blade and then jump back screaming "assassin... assassin..." and in the confusion that resulted they would make their escape.

This is McPain's M.O.

Paul @ 120:

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith

Conservative ideologies, economic or otherwise, are always doomed to failure before they even get started, because they are based entirely upon self-defeating concepts and human instincts. Invariably, the fewer restraints that are imposed upon conservatives and their institutions, the faster they fail. And they never, ever figure it out. Conservatism, as it always plays out, is a kind of paracitism that always destroys the host, which results in the destruction of the paracite itself. It is a strange thing about conservatism, as it is normally presented and practiced, that it is based entirely upon violations and betrayals of enduring principles but is dependent upon portraying such failings as being high virtues that are motivated by the most intellegent and elevated thinking...it is inherently dishonest, and very self-servingly so. Effectively, it is not possible for me to differentiate between the thinking of the typical conservative and that of a common criminal.

Gary @ 117:

I'm not going to claim to be an economist, but maybe someone could answer this for me?

Would this whole thing had happened had we not been making money out of thin hair. Say if the dollar went back to the gold standard.. then surely it'd be impossible for all these banks to have unaccountable and undetermined values of debt, because the dollars would actually have some physical value?

I'm not an economist either, but my thought is that no; it would have made no difference. This mess is the result of the system being gamed or being corrupted such that measures that could have prevented it from happening were side-stepped or nullified. Let me attempt to explain myself:

If you think about it, any economy is nothing more than an instrument of good faith and public confidence, because there is no substance that exists which has inherent worth, independent of what people are arbitrarily willing to accord it. Gold? If you think about it, it only worth comes from what it can be used for: Electronics as a low-resistivity conductor, as an alloying agent that lends corrosion resistance, as an effective insultaor of radiant energy due to it's ability to reflect all infrared radiation, for it's ability to add beauty to sculpture and jewelry. Those qualities give it it's inherent worth. But is that good enough to stand as the basis of wealth? In that regard, it only has a monetary value as assigned by its usefulness as a commodity. How about diamonds? Same story, there inherent worth is derived from its practical uses. All current valuation of diamonds is artificially set, as the result of a long marketing effort that is backed up by a cartel that controls and manipulates the supply. The truth is that almost all industrial diamonds are synthetic...man made. Gem quality diamonds can be sythetically produced in such numbers that the price for top quality gem diamonds could be dropped to a few dollars per ton. That doesn't work either. It's the same story for any substance/commodity you can think of. Food? Water? Air? Drugs?....they're not commodities, they're necessities of life and not a practically suitable or moral basis for a monetary system. What then?

Currency!

Currency, whether based upon reserves of gold or based - as in our case - upon nothing at all, is never anything more than a thing that is accepted in lieu of barter. Whatever people agree upon in good faith in which they can lend their public cinfidence will serve as a good substitute for barter, will serve as the basis for a monetary system...if everybody agrees to it. It is simply a matter of whether people will take good faith in confidence in the substitute. If so, it will adequately serve as a basis for conducting commerce and guaging accumulated wealth. Here, you are just giving a representation of wealth for stuff or services, instead of bartering stuff for stuff or service for service. This is what we do, regardless the basis of the "currency". It is all a surrogate for direct barter.

So long as everybody plays by the rules, the representation of wealth is wealth. The wealth possesses value only so long as the good faith and public confidence can be maintained. One of the ways that it is maintained is by assuring that it is available only to the extent that it represents the gross, arbitrarily assigned value of the issuing nation's net wealth..all of its buildings, infrastructure, minerals, clean water, productive farm land and so on, in other words, its physical and working assets and recoverable resources. As those asset and resources increase, the supply of the surrogate for barter can increase. Another obvious means is to avoid natioanl debt. When it all goes well, the supply matches growth or shrinkage and there is neither inflation or deflation.

Where the currency system fails is usually the result of when the system is corrupted, where it is gamed. Anything that causes good faith and confidence to be lost, can destroy the economy, regarless the basis for its monetary system. I believe that that is at the heart of the current crises. Look at what's going on...it's a confidence crises in the credit markets, brought about by the very people who are suffering the crises of confidence. They themselves have gamed and corrupted the system, through what will surely and eventually be proven to be criminal acts beyond number. They know themselves too well, and are caught in a viscious cycle that is driven by how they act upon their own distrust for each other. And, because they think like criminals, they are trying to blame their victims for the mess they created.

We are very, very close to the whole system crashing into a pile of smoking rubble, and Klein is right, this is the time that the crooks will try their hardest to insert shock doctrine policies. That cannot be allowed to happen.

I don't think it's fair at all to blame the people who were buying homes. Some of them were young people who would be clueless about mortgages and finances. The bankers were greedy. What a fucking mess the republicans have created.

VietVet8666 @ 30:

Why does everyone here pay homage?

It's simple. People like Henry Paulson have taken advantage of ordinary Americans.

Now, because we pay homage, we will give him what he wants.

Fuck these bastards. Take to the streets. Unless you're too comfortable.

I'm with you. Let the thing fall. No way do my children get turned into galley slaves. This will not stand.

61% of borrowers were in subprime loans because of the yield spread payment. See my post 95. The consumers were put into the subprime category with higher interest rates and a higher monthly payment because the lender paid the broker for the higher interest rate loan.
Polderjongetje @ 125:

Naomi should have used the following statistic against Sullivan when he blamed Americans first. The Wall Street Journal reported already in 2006 that 61% of all borrowers receiving subprime loans had credit scores high enough to qualify for prime conventional loans.

Subprime loans and ARM's ofcourse were far more lucrative for mortgage lenders back then than conventional loans. It was PREDATORY lending that led to this.

Would it not have been hillarious if when Sullivan took the anarchy swing towards the end and wanted self governing, that Bill would have pulled out a shotgun, blown Sullivan's head off, pardoned himself immediately and gone to a commercial break.

obelus @ 142:

VietVet8666 @ 30:

Why does everyone here pay homage?

It's simple. People like Henry Paulson have taken advantage of ordinary Americans.

Now, because we pay homage, we will give him what he wants.

Fuck these bastards. Take to the streets. Unless you're too comfortable.

Fellow peasants... it is time to get out the pitch forks and torches! Or at least pick up the god damn phone and call your congressional reps and scream like hell!
I'm with you. Let the thing fall. No way do my children get turned into galley slaves. This will not stand.