Financial Reform - the New Partisan Idiocy

So the self-proclaimed leaders of Congress tromped down to the White House to discuss the financial reform legislation currently being slammed through Congress. And, predictably, both sides immediately abandoned the truth.

Pelosi called concerns over bailouts "laughable." How dare her. Seriously, how dare the false queen call our concerns laughable. What next? Cake? Even Obama is concerned over future bailouts and has asked for a bill preventing them and eliminating the whole "too big to fail" lie created by his financial advisers (more on that hypocrisy later.)

I wonder if Pelosi laughed at Obama. Probably. She has already thumbed her nose at the Constitution and abandoned her sole job as Speaker - to chair the House - in favor of cheerleading speeches on the floor of the House. Remember "I want to thank...." during Health Care? This is the same Pelosi that thinks any money spent on national defense is too much, but money lavished on her rich pals on Wall Street is

On the other side, the ever increasingly hypocritical McConnell complained of the bill setting up endless bailouts. Really? Now he cares? Roll the tape back to the 2008 TARP push. Who did the pushing in the Senate? McConnell. He was the one that talked about the collapse of the economy. McConnell was the one that said if we did not hand over trillions to the crooks on Wall Street, the economy would collapse. The same McConnell who now professes to dislike bailouts.

Dodd cooked this mess up. Chris Dodd, the man from Insuranceland. And it was cooked up quickly, incorporating ingredients from Geithner and Bernanke. Remember those 2? They are the ones that allowed the mess in the first place. The same 2 guys that abdicated their responsibilities as regulators. The same 2 guys that promised transparency and then fought it endlessly.

What needs to be regulated is Bernanke's Federal Reserve. Just last week we learned the extent of the Fed's purchases of "toxic assets" via the "Maiden Lane" vehicle created solely for the purpose of hiding the scope of Bernanke and Geithner's lies. The Federal Reserve now actually owns a shopping mall that defaulted on one of those mortgages. The Fed holds shaky mortgages on resort hotels around the workd, strip malls, failed housing developments and Lord knows how many sub-prime and alt-A notes. They don't even really know.

Bernanke secretly bought any and all. Part of the deal with their fair haired pseudo-hero Jamie Dimon was that the Fed would take all of the risky investments off of Bear Stearns' books and then gift Dimon with it at virtually no cost and with a clean balance sheet. At the time, Geithner was the principal regulator for Bear and Dimon's JP Morgan. Somehow, he managed to not notice or mention the movement of these assets to the Fed.

Yet, the proposed bill does nothing about this. It does not even address the growing problems with the Fed's bloated and shaky balance sheet. In fact, all it does is create a new regulatory authority. An unneeded one.

That should be the issue. Not Pelosi's "let them eat cake" attitude or McConnell's false concern about bailouts. The issue should be how did the regulators fail to see the problem coming and why are they still not enforcing existing law.

Ken Lewis should be awaiting trial. As should Fuld, Thain, Blankfein and Dimon. So should Paulson, Bernanke and Geithner for their hands in covering this up. They all broke existing law. Current law. Laws that are still being ignored by the regulators and Congress.

We need the existing laws and regulations enforced. Instead, we have a Congress again more interested in themselves. More interested in sound bytes and nifty hearings.

Speaking of those show hearings, why do we not have the failed regulators down there explaining how they failed in their jobs? Why do they even still have jobs?

That answer is easy. They still have jobs because the elected folks who are supposed to be on our side are not. Obama rehired all of them except Paulson. Dodd, Boehner, McConnell, Pelosi and the rest of the 530 failures on the Hill prefer to skewer bankers and investors rather than go after their pals in government.

This is not a partisan matter. This is a matter of a Congress that has failed time and again to seek enforcement of the laws they create. This is a matter of an administration that kept the same team that already blew it in place. This is a matter of an incompetent Fed Chariman and his pet Treasury Secretary.

We do not need this bill, nor do we need further regulation. At least not until someone explains why the existing regulations were not enforced.