Party Line Moronics

Yesterday, almost at the same time that BP announced that oil had stopped pouring into the Gulf for the first time in 3 months, a Congressional committee announced that the partisan trash would keep pouring into the nation unabated. The trash flow in question has to do with legislation revamping the horribly failed MMS. Something that literally every Congress Critter except Joe Barton agrees on publicly. But when it is time to actually go on the record with a vote, same old party line nonsense.

The bill in question is HR 3534, intended to divide MMS into three agencies with distinct responsibilities and reporting, prevent the corruption that was found to exist in the last administration and endorsed when Obama rehired the same corrupt failed team and to try to stem the flow (pun very much intended) between regulator and regulated by enacting a 2 year ban on going from regulator to oil company executive.

This is one of those pieces of legislation that should move right through without the partisan rancor. It is something that almost every member of Congress that has been interviewed for the last 90 days has called for. Not one member of Congress actually has a reason to oppose this.

It is something the American people want done rapidly. It is something overdue and overlooked by an administration that seems to rehire failures (see Obama economic team) and a dysfunctional Congress that only looks to the next election cycle.

Remember the hearings? With the exception of BP property Joe Barton, every member of that committee had sharp words for BP and even harsher words for the MMS. All except BP Joe pledged to reform the agency and made marvelous statements to that effect. But once the hearings were over and the cameras off, the partisan idiocy was firmly put back in place.

The legislation passed the committee on mostly straight party line, by a 27 to 21 vote. Yep, 21 members of this committee voted to reject cleaning up MMS. All Republicans, all automatically opposing any Democratic legislation. This bill could have been to rename an office building after Ronald Reagan and Republicans would oppose it as long as a Democrat is Speaker.

Democrats should not be giggling right now. They are just as bad if not worse, having spent years opposing all things when they were the minority in the House. This is not new at all. It is just worse than ever. And it is never about the actual legislation. This vote was not about MMS.

It was not about correcting one of the worst agencies our government has ever had. It was not about trying to actually regulate the drilling industry in a fair and effective way. It was not even about trying to prevent the next disaster. It sure as heck was not about you and me or the folks who live on the Gulf coast. Not even close.

The only thing those bought and paid for talking puppets in Congress care about is themselves and their precious 2 party system. The only thing these charlatans are focused on is the next election. And that pathetic blind ideology says to vote party line regardless of the issue. The goal is not to govern, but to ruin.

In this case, the minority, led by "Mr. Repeal" Boehner is going to vote no on everything that comes along on the simpleton's theory that they can then say they opposed the false queen Pelosi's majority. Boehner and his masters at the Republican Party seem to think that 'NO' is a good answer to everything Democrats propose. Even common sense stuff like fixing the failed regulatory agency that allowed BP to drill an unsafe well and pollute the Gulf of Mexico.

On the flip side, the majority led by the false queen seems to think that being the majority gives them the right and privilege to steam roll the minority and ignore their input. False queen Nancy's masters at the Democratic Party seem to think that passing legislation willy nilly because they can without regard for the public or the rest of Congress is a great idea.

Therein lies the problem. The tired, corrupt 2 party system is struggling to keep itself in command of all that happens. The differences between them are barely noticeable except at election time. All they care about, think about, worry about and work on is their own power base. All either party wants is to win the next election, and they will sell every one of us down the river to do so.

For them it is a grand game with the laws of this nation as their playing cards and us as chips to be tossed on the table. For them it is not about governing or the good of the people. It is not about the right thing, the wrong thing or the true thing. It is only about the winning thing.

Boehner and Pelosi are the same. 2 tired, corrupt politicians who have sold so much of themselves that they no longer have any actual persona. They have sold us out to their party leaders without a flinch. They have sold this nation out for the chance to win an election.

Well, come November, we can sell them out by voting them out. All of them Every last one of the House and those Senators that are up for election. Because that is the one thing these miserable excuses for leaders cannot sell out from under us. Our right to vote them away.

On November 2, let Pelosi, Boehner and the rest knows their services are no longer desired.

To drive home that message, I am offering T-Shirts with this message:


As a capitalist and a free market person, I am selling them for both profit and with the intent of donating to those candidates that are willing to step outside the parties and declare a concern for the Constitution and the people.

You can order them here: http://www.itisnotagame.spreadshirt.com

Primarily Primaries

Yesterday, several states held primaries leading up to the November election. As has been the case recently, many of these were won by seemingly new faces. Most of the primaries being bandied about today were on the Republican side.

One thing to realize about primaries in mid-term elections is that they tend to have fairly low turnout. This is not to take away from those that won yesterday, but a little perspective never hurts.

One thing was clearly obvious from yesterday's results - those that did turn out for the Republican races are more conservative and want a more conservative government. That is not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself.

What makes it a bad thing is that now both parties - the same tired old failed parties that have always lied to us - are somehow claiming that this scattering of primaries and small sampling of voters gives them victories. Both parties are actively lying to us right this minute about yesterday's results.

The Republicans are heralding "America's obvious shift to the right." Nonsense. What shifted to the right are those voters that came out. Not all of America. Not every American voter. They are proudly pointing to those races where even their chosen candidate lost and declaring victory.

Democrats are also trumpeting yesterday's results. They point to the GOP's sharp shift to the right. And again, they massively generalize and marginalize the actual voter in this. They point to the same primaries and call that somehow victorious for them. Their heavily flawed theory is that the perceived shift rightward will benefit them come November since they see America as more Centrist. Donkey-poo if you ask me.

The Tea Party folks point to the few where their candidate won and declare victory. They are the closest to the truth, but not quite there either. Again, those results represent only a small slice to the American electorate and are not indicative of anything other than the feelings of that small slice.

What really happened? Well, folks in those states got sick and tired of the lies and false promises that both parties have been issuing for decades. They finally grew weary of being used as pawns in the Democrat/Republican power game. After all this time, the voters in those states made a choice to try to elect someone who is not part of the extremely inbred 2 party culture.

Inbred? Yes. Heavily inbred. The problem we have now in our political/government structure is that the 2 parties have dominated for so long that they are basically one and the same. Elected officials and party leaders pick candidates that mirror themselves. No divergent views are tolerated. Those that try to voice a different opinion are effectively culled from the herd by these same self serving corrupt leaders.

Republicans are desperate to claim the Tea party as their own, even though it is not. They are happily willing to toss all other Republicans overboard for any winning strategy. Any at all. To them it is not abut ideology or policy. It is only about winning. The same GOP that has been opposed to Medicare is suddenly a constant defender of Medicare. The same GOP that pushed the bailouts from day one now says they are bad.

Democrats are equally dangerous and dishonest. These are the people that cannot utter the word "terrorist." They decry attacks on the US, but refuse to call them what they are. The same Democrats that have claimed to support Israel suddenly cannot wait to blame them for the terror that Israel sees daily. Their kowtowing to political correctness in words leads to inactions that endanger us all. The same Democrats that once advocated for the poor and the working person now leads the bucket brigade in pouring our tax dollars on the largest banks and companies.

Both parties are badly broken and inherently dishonest. Both regard governance as a game to be played for points. Neither cares about anyone except themselves. And neither deserves to govern.

To drive home that message, I am offering T-Shirts with this message:


As a capitalist and a free market person, I am selling them for both profit and with the intent of donating to those candidates that are willing to step outside the parties and declare a concern for the Constitution and the people.

You can order them here: http://www.itisnotagame.spreadshirt.com

Summertime and the Dodging is Easy

While almost all of America took one day off from work to remember our fallen heroes, the folks in Congress took a full week. While most of us hurried Friday to make sure that we would be caught up before our holiday weekend, Congress just walked away from a pile of unfinished business. And while most of us stayed home and had our vacation in the backyard to save a little money, Congress took off for pretty much everywhere and mostly on our dime.

They are supposed to be back on June 7. I don't know which is better anymore. Them being away on vacation and therefore not making things worse with their amazingly lazy and self serving vacations that leave important business undone or them being at work, messing things up even more with their endless game playing.

For the record, one of the only things they do in a totally bipartisan way is to adjourn for these vacations. In effect the only thing those 531 clowns agree on is their desire to avoid work.

Let's look at what they left undone:

Financial Reform. This was urgent and needed immediately according to the leadership of both parties in both houses. It currently is in that limbo state where the House passed version A and the Senate version B. And there it sits. Waiting for the ever unimpressive Barney Frank to appoint the House half of the conference committee. Apparently this is so urgent, Frank had to wait until after the week long Monday holiday to even consider appointees. No mention of this urgency in the quiet adjournment on Friday.

Iraq and Afghanistan War Funding. Left nowhere while the Congress took off on their vacation. Our men and women in uniform will just have to wait while Pelosi and Boehner and Reid and McConnell get their tans in order. Note that not one Republican had a peep about this. Nor any Democrats. Nor anyone in the Executive branch. Hmmm. Fund the troops or get away for some vacation time? Obviously Congress has their priorities in order - themselves first and everyone else second. Forget that these troops are in harm's way protecting us. Forget their needs. Congress has campaigns to finance.

Extending Unemployment Benefits. This is a difficult and fairly controversial measure and one that needs immediate attention with so many out of work. I am not saying that they should extend the benefits. Actually, I am not really sure if they should be extended again, but I am saying that they should debate and take action. It must be really easy to ignore those that have no income while cashing a bloated Congressional paycheck. For the record, the current benefits will expire tomorrow, 6/2, while the Congress is happily sleeping in and ordering room service on our dime.

The Gulf Oil Spill. After multiple hearings and speeches, condemnations and demands, the Senate passed a weak relief bill, tossed it to the House and left town so fast all you saw was a trail of lobbyists in their wake. The House, much like a Miami Dolphin wide receiver chose to not even bother to catch this ball and took off in hot pursuit of campaign contributions. Oh sure, a lot of members of Congress will pass through Louisiana during their vacation for the mandatory photo opportunity and press release. But there will be no real action taken. Wonder why Gulf Coast residents feel ignored? Well, here is the answer. The largest oil spill in US history with the possibility of massive economic and environmental implications and Congress reacts by taking a vacation. No time to deal with the issues coming out of this one, including the amazing mismanagement of the drilling and the crisis by the administration. There are lobbyist sponsored events to get to.

Ben Nelson of Nebraska lamented to the Miami Herald that, "They think all we do here is play games." There is that word again. Games. And that is exactly what they do. Play a huge game with our futures and our well being. The game has now extended to our troops who are bravely fighting for freedom along with every other facet of our nation's business.

To the troops this is no game. It is real life and death every day. To the unemployed families, this is no game. It is a matter of food and shelter. For those on the Gulf Coast, this is no game. It is real and getting worse by the hour. For Wall Street, the regulation bill is no game. It will determine how they shape their businesses (employing literally millions and affecting all of us) going forward.

Lest the administration take solace in Congress' epic low 13 percent approval rating, take note that not one peep from Obama and company about this. Not one call for immediate action on any of these items. Not a single gripe that Congress has again gone walkabout. I heard nothing demanding that out troops get their funding. Nothing demanding that the Gulf Coast get some economic relief. In fact, what we heard was mostly nothing.

If Congress really wants time off, I suggest we give them all permanent vacation starting November 2. Vote them all out. They work for us and their performance is beyond unsatisfactory. In a real job, these clowns would have been fired long ago. We have the power in November to do just that. Reward them appropriately for their poor job performance and send them home once and for all.

To drive home that message, I am offering T-Shirts with this message:


As a capitalist and a free market person, I am selling them for both profit and with the intent of donating to those candidates that are willing to step outside the parties and declare a concern for the Constitution and the people.

You can order them here: http://www.itisnotagame.spreadshirt.com

Bernanke's Folly or Hiding Maiden Lane

Today the Senate, in a rare but refreshing bipartisan move, received an amendment to the Financial Reform bill that would require the Federal Reserve to be audited regularly. Ben "I want transparency" Bernanke fired off letters and made phone calls to oppose this.

His reasoning: "Such amendments, if enacted, would seriously threaten monetary policy independence, increase inflation fears and market interest rates, and damage economic stability and job creation."

Huh? I thought he has testified many times that all of his actions were directed towards preventing such things. So why the obvious fear of a public look under the hood of the Fed? Could there be stuff he was not supposed to do? Maybe trillions of our dollars to his pals?

There is his steadfast refusal to identify the banks that took zero percent loans on the grounds that it is not our business and we might question those banks' stability. Why does he want to hide these transactions? Perhaps there is more there than normal business? Or perhaps he is far more interested in protecting his Wall Street pals than in protecting the American people.

And let's not forget Maiden Lane, LLC. All 3 of them.

What's Maiden Lane? Well, that is the dirty little secret Bernanke and Geithner have struggled to hide. Remember how TARP was going to take all those nasty 'toxic assets' off the banks' hands so they could free up capital for lending? Remember how Paulson, Bernanke and Geithner gifted Bear Stearns to Jamie Dimon at JP Morgan without the bad assets on the books? Remember how AIG suddenly had none of those?

Well, it is because the New York Fed under Geithner, with Bernanke's blessing created Maiden Lane. Actually they created 3 of them. The first took to $30 billion in garbage off of Bear's hands so that Dimon wouldn't have to take any losses on buying a losing company. Those assets have lost at least $2 billion thus far.

Maiden Lane 2 took the assets off of the books of AIG. Almost $200 billion there and Maiden Lane 3 another $30 billion off of AIG. That last $30 billion had credit default swaps against it. The same credit default swaps that AIG paid Goldman Sachs $13 billion - of our money! - to satisfy at 100 cents on the dollar when nobody else was getting par.

The assets held by Maiden Lane are all mortgages. Some have defaulted. Maiden Lane (and therefore the Fed) now owns a shopping mall and holds the defaulting mortgages of several resort hotels - some outside the US. I am pretty sure that this is way outside the Fed's charter. This is only some of what Bernanke does not want you to know he did with our money.

Seeing the pattern here? Things they don't want you to know. But, wait! Bernanke's Folly gets better. In the name of saving American jobs and businesses, Maiden Lane hired CT Corporation as its registered agent. CT is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wolters Kluwer, a multi-national information services company based in the Netherlands. Yep, the Netherlands. As in not a US company. Why take this offshore? Perhaps Bernanke will be asked that at some point, but I would not hold my breath.

Regardless of his tough talk about transparency, the harsh truth is that Bernanke has perverted the intent of the Fed from central bank to a huge off balance sheet hidey hole for his pals on Wall Street. Geithner knows this since he was there. And they are terrified that we will get to see just how corrupt and disingenuous this little empire is.

Which brings me to the president. Obama renominated this guy. And he made Geithner Treasury Secretary. This is like putting Tattaglia and Corleone in charge of the FBI. The 2 guys most responsible for hiding the misuse of trillions of our dollars are put in charge of our dollars. I am not saying Obama knew this. I am saying that he chose the same tired, failed folks to fix the system they broke. And in that he failed us. The only change evident are the new business cards everyone got.

And now, faced with audits and transparency, Bernanke has obviously broken into a cold sweat. And even more so because there is huge bipartisan support for this. If only there was a way we could dump Bernanke in November.

Fun Facts About Financial Reform

With the financial reform bill wending its way to a Senate vote, I decided to actually read the thing. Needless to say, it is - like most legislation - a difficult read. However, there are some little nuggets in there that have yet to be mentioned in the partisan spitball fight.

Top of my list is the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. This would be created as part of the Federal Reserve. Excuse me? The Fed? The ubersecretive Fed? The same one that sees transparency and secrecy as synonymous? That Fed? They would be given the responsibility to protect consumers?

Am I the only one that sees the literal idiocy of handing this task to a semi-independent organization that is currently hiding bank information to protect the banks from their own customers? I am not making that one up. Bernanke made it clear that he was hiding the names of which bank borrowed how much from the Fed to "protect the banks' images." Apparently he thinks telling the customers the truth about the financial stability of a bank might cause them to move their accounts to a more stable bank. Well, duh.

Yet Dodd, Shelby and company want to hand this group the responsibility to protect consumers from the banks. Are they kidding? Bernanke and Geithner (as New York Fed president) may have set an all time record for closed door Sunday deals to protect the banks and shield them. This is the same group that made Goldman and GMAC commercial banks overnight with zero investigation and verification. And they are expected to protect us? The Federal Reserve wouldn't know a consumer if they ran one over. They have never dealt with consumer issues and have, in fact, avoided them.

But, for some unknowable reason, Dodd, Shelby and the the rest of the corrupt Democrat/Republican lie machine want to hand more power to the Fed. And that is in the face of Bernanke's ongoing opposition to any kind of transparency at the Fed. This alone is enough to scuttle the bill if any member of the Senate was honest of genuinely interested in anything except the next election.

Obama has endorsed this idiocy. Geithner, Schapiro and the rest of his pre-failed financial team all love the idea. Why? Why do they want to hand consumer protection to the one agency that specifically does not deal with consumers? We can all speculate as tot he reasons. I firmly beleive it is to make sure that nothing changes.

Once I got past that in my reading, I found a very interesting little piece. One that stopped me in my tracks.

This bill would repeal the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act prohibition against the regulation of security-based swaps. For those who don't know, Gramm-Leach was the 1999 Clinton endorsed act that lifted the Glass-Steagal 1932 prohibition on commercial banks engaging in investment bank activities. The idea in 1932 was to prevent banks from gambling with depositors' money.

Since the meltdown of 2008, it has become apparent that securities swaps were a large part of the problem. Lots of feckless politicians are demanding prosecution for this. Except for one problem. Lots of those same politicians passed a law prohibiting any regulation.

In an earlier post, I posited that Goldman most likely did not violate and criminal statutes. As it turns out, there weren't any to violate. See, the kids at Goldman, Lehman, Bear and the rest knew that swaps were unregulated. They knew that the law prohibited regulation and by extension, government intervention. They knew this because they had a hand in making it so.

Democrats and Republicans acting indecently in a bipartisan way. It was Bill Clinton's Treasury whiz kid Bob "I got me a corner office waiting on Wall Street" Rubin that pushed Gramm-Leach along with Republican Gramm. Once that law was signed it was off to the races in a totally legal way. Put bluntly, they could not break a law that did not and could not exist. Even if the lazy pencil pushers at SEC and the Fed wanted to get involved, they could not.

One cannot help but wonder why this has not been more of a topic the last couple of years. After countless hearings, the protestations of 2 presidents (Bush and Obama), the nonsense from Paulson, Geithner and Bernanke, not one of them mentioned this little fact. None wanted to admit that they set the table for what happened. Not one time was this mentioned. Not even by the kids from Wall Street trying to defend their activities.

I am not sure what will happen with the financial reform bill. But I do know one thing. None of them are telling us the truth here. Not Obama and his economic team of super-failures. Not Dodd or Shelby. Not Barney Frank.

And that is a automatic firing offense. Come November, I suggest we fire the lot of them. All of them. The entire House and those Senators up for re-election. By failing to mention their own contribution to the mess, they have failed us all and - in my opinion - are more responsible for the meltdown than Goldman and the rest.

As much as it pains me to say this again, I do not think the Wall Street gang broke the law. Stretched, pushed and loopholed, yes. But violated, no. And Congress knew this. Obama and Bush knew this. The economic advisors both administration used (and they are actually the same failures) knew this.

As they say in baseball, toss the bums out.

The Goldman Affair

Sometime in a hearing room, long ago (or so it seemed by the end of the hearings) Carl Levin called in the kids from Goldman Sachs for a little chat. By chat, I mean hearing and by hearing, I mean group interrogation.

A lot of the media coverage centered on Levin's use of the word "s****y" as quoted from a Goldman e-mail. And while it was a direct quote, it had the unfortunate side effect of shoving the real information out of the way. I am sure that much will be made of the use of that word by the media. Whatever. Oh, except for CNBC's Jim Cramer. Stop apologizing for these guys, will you? Nobody wants to buy junk or crap. Nobody. Seriously, you sounded like an idiot.

What I saw was a rare peek into the inner workings of both Washington and Wall Street. And let me tell you, it is not a pretty sight. As a serious believer in free enterprise and a free market, I was interested to see how the Senate would come down on the issues surrounding Goldman. Between the push for the Financial Reform bill and midterm elections around the corner, one would expect a lot of posturing. And posturing we got.

The Senators get to tell their constituents that they stuck it to Wall Street and the Wall Streeters get to tell their pals they stuck it to the Senate.

However, we also had a look at how it really works when it finally came down to Carl Levin and Lloyd Blankfein. Before we got to that, there were panels of Goldman executives doing their absolute best to not directly answer a lot of questions, most of them loaded or too technical for actual comprehension.

We had the mortgage trader who was not sure what a stated income loan was. We had the division manager who really didn't see how packaging troubled loans with solid ones to get a good credit rating was a problem. We had the Senator who wanted to somehow get one of the execs to take the blame for the entire financial crisis. We saw the Senator who wanted to try to defend Goldman without defending them. We had hours of this stuff and more.

We also had a couple of interesting and informative points. One came when the trader who built the security that is at the heart of the SEC lawsuit against Goldman admitted he allowed the hedge fund manager to help designate the contents of that security knowing the hedge fund was going to bet against it be shorting it heavily. Sadly Claire McCaskill moved onto other matters rather than dive into that point. Full disclosure - I caught that when pointed out by FBN's Eric Bolling who made no excuses for Goldman and had good words for Levin. How refreshing.

Another was the blatant admission by a Goldman manager that he would select the bond rating firm that would give him the better rating. That also did not get the scrutiny it deserved

But the real look at how it works came when it was Levin and Blankfein. The heart of Levin's questioning was about the inherent conflict of interest that Goldman and all investment banks have.

In getting there, we had our peek behind the curtain. Levin came prepared with mountains of notebooks. Depositions, reports, e-mails, charts, tables and indices. And he made sure Blankfein had all the same documents. Frequently a staff member would whisper in Levin's ear when he had asked a question. Often Levin corrected himself.

When confronted with internal e-mails from his own staff calling securities crap and worse, Blankfein seemed to not know much. There was a lot of "I don't know," from the guy who supposedly knows it all. Blankfein actually said he had no idea that certain pension funds can only invest in AAA rated items.

And that is how it works on Wall Street and in Washington. They actually don't know. On purpose. Back just a few years ago, this was called "plausible deniability." Now it is business as usual.

Levin and Blankfein went around for quite a long time. I saw a CEO trying to look cooperative without cooperating and a Senator trying to look fair minded without any real fairness intended. Put them together and you had 2 masters hacking away at each other with carefully crafted and molded questions and answers.

When all was said and done, Levin made his point about conflicts of interest and intentionally selling junk. Blankfein managed to not actually admit to any of that while acknowledging it.

I recently posted that I thought the civil case should have been a criminal case. Now I am not so sure. I still believe that Goldman will settle for a pile of money and no admission of wrongdoing. But that will be a matter of convenience and not contrition.

But criminal? I just don't see it. Blankfein has a veritable army of lawyers to keep his firm right on the edge of legality. Not so much ethical, but legal. None of the stuff that came out today was an out and out violation of the law. Most of it was highly unethical and some of it just plain wrong, but not illegal. I have to correct myself from my earlier post on this point.

And therein lies the other peek at the inner working of Washington and Wall Street. They know exactly where the legality line is and pay platoons of people to keep them on the good side of that line. There is really no line for ethics to worry about. The powers that be in DC and on Wall Street know this. And they take full advantage of it.

You can't legislate ethics or morality. Either people are ethical and moral or they are not. That is where our political and business leaders fail us over and over. They trounce ethics and morals. Ignore them. But they always pull up right at the legality line. A false apology and back to business as usual.

We are the ethical and moral measures for these so-called leaders. We get to make that call. Whether it is at the ballot box in November or that proxy vote that you get with your stock holdings. We measure and rate them with our votes.

While I cannot vote to fire Lloyd Blankfein, I can vote to fire my elected officials, and I fully intend to do so. I think it is time to replace the whole lot of them. And that will put the Wall Streeters on notice that the new government is not going to play patsy and roll over. All of the bribes - sorry, campaign contributions - will be for naught.

As a member of the board of the USA (all 300 plus million of us) I move that we elect an entire new Legislative Branch. Do I hear a second?

Get out of my oven!

Yesterday, while making dinner, I was hit by what has to be mommy government. I was roasting some potato planks in the oven when the thing decided that it had passed "normal broiling temperatures," and locked itself shut to cool down - with my potatoes inside and rapidly charring.

We pulled the manual out to look it up and discovered that this is one of those "built in safety features," that nobody really wants or is even aware of. I tried to research this and find out if there was some regulation in place, but one look at the various regs involving electric ovens and my eyes crossed.

Now I have no problem with reasonable safety regulations for the manufacture of an appliance. In fact, I am sure that some of those have prevented fires and serious injury. However, the idea that there is a "normal broiling temperature," which is not specified in the manual, is somewhat goofy.

I am certain that behind this is a set of government regulations and/or nonsense lawsuits. And that is where I draw a line on my kitchen tiles.

It is one thing to require that an installed electric oven have a tip-over preventing bracket. It is totally another to determine what is too hot. And yet another to not give me a way to override it.

I cannot say for certain that there is a government regulation involved, but I look at my charred potatoes as a metaphor for the ever-growing nanny state attitude that big government has. This is not a partisan thing. Looking at regulation dates, both parties have passed lots of silly regulations designed to protect us from ourselves.

Some of these make sense, like auto shut-off for gas appliances when the pilot goes out. Some are just plain invasive and not needed like locking my oven when it thinks it has gotten too hot. It is as if mommy government assumes we are all addled 6 year old children incapable of taking care of ourselves. The same government that cannot balance a budget, meet a deadline or answer a phone call.

The hazard of this nanny state thinking is obvious and scary. On the course we are now following, we will need government approval on the food we eat (salt content, fat content and so on), the TV we watch (V-chip), the clothes we wear (endless regulations), what we drive (CAFE standards), and so on. Mommy government wants to make sure that we cannot harm ourselves by accident and in the process is hobbling our ability to do anything.

The pending financial reform is a prefect example. There is a lot of good in there. Most of it deals with transparency for the investor. That is a good thing. The lack of transparency in derivatives was a part of what caused the "meltdown." However, there is a lot of not so good and some flat out bad.

The worst of it is the bailout fund. This in effect codifies and legitimizes "too big to fail." That is a very bad thing. It ensures that the biggest banks will be able to continue bad business practices and shaky investing with the comfort that mommy government will be there to pick up the pieces without penalty. By legitimizing the Paulson-Geithner-Bernanke lie about too big to fail, mommy government pretty much gives a pass to any large institution. Without the possibility of failure, success is meaningless.

After trillions of our dollars have been poured into this rat hole, Congress wants to set up a permanent payola plan for them. Instead of enforcing the existing laws and regulations, the plan appears to be to create new ones that do nothing different except create a pile of money that can be handed out with no review or authorization.

In the same way that my oven locked itself when it thought the temp was too high, this fund will pay out when some unaccountable administrator thinks the risks are too high for SELECTED companies. Right, selected. So if my company (admittedly tiny) is on the brink of failure, I am left out to dry. But if one of mommy government's selected favorites gets into trouble, they will have this money handed to them rather than pay the price of failure.

In case nobody is a student of history, Andrew Jackson vetoed the charter of the Second National Bank of the United States in 1832 with the following statement:

"Gentlemen, I have been watching you for a long time and I am convinced you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the bread staff of this country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you and when you lost you charged it to the bank."

History does repeat itself, and the bailout fund is just what Jackson railed against - socialization of the losses. In effect, preventing the largest banks from burning themselves, just like my oven.

Well, mommy government - stay out of my oven and get pout of the banking business. Let me burn my potatoes if it suits me and let the big banks fail if it suits them.

Civil Fraud?

According the the Wall Street Journal today, the Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Goldman Sachs with "Civil Fraud," for part of their role in the whole mortgage backed securities/collateralized debt obligation mess that was at the center of the financial crisis.

Civil Fraud? Why not criminal charges? Why not a referral to the Justice Department for an indictment? Well, it is simple and sad.

By going with civil fraud - the equivalent of a lawsuit - the kids at Mary Schapiro's SEC get to look like they did their job when they have not. By going with the tough sounding civil fraud method, Schapiro gives the thieves at Goldman an easy and painless out. Schapiro basically gets to look heroic while making sure her pal Blankfein never has to break a sweat on this.

Why? Because within the next 12 months, Goldman will quietly settle with the SEC for a relatively small sum and not have to admit any wrongdoing. That is what almost always happens in these "civil fraud" cases. And once the settlement is paid and the papers signed, Goldman can go right back to the same stuff they were doing, but this time with impunity. And you can bet that the settlement will somehow be paid with our money.

Had Schapiro actually done her job at any level and brought criminal charges against Goldman executives, they would have had to defend themselves in a public trial. No secret settlement deal (likely to be announced on a Sunday). None of this pointless "without admitting any wrongdoing" that is so popular among the financial regulators.

In effect, Goldman will be paying the government to go away. With Mary Schapiro's blessing. By not having to defend their criminal actions, Blankfein and his band of financial pirates can happily sail off and look for other victims to pillage.

Given that the "financial crisis" cost the taxpayers of this country trillions of dollars and millions of jobs, one would hope that the lazy regulators might wake up and actually enforce a law. Throw handcuffs on Blankfein and see how he looks in an orange jumpsuit.

I find is somewhat mystifying that a CEO can go to prison for an umbrella stand, but not for literally fleecing a nation by illegally manipulating markets to maximize profit at the cost of their own investors and clients. In case nobody remembers, the execs at Enron went to jail for doing pretty much the same things.

Yet Blankfein (Goldman), Fuld (Lehman), Schwartz (Bear), Lewis (BofA), Mozillo (Countrywide), Thain (Merrill) and the rest are going to get away with it if the ever lazy and incompetent Schapiro has her way. She has no interest in actually enforcing the laws she has sworn to uphold. Her interest is in protecting her friends. Just like Bernanke, Geithner and the rest.

See, they think and say that their first priority is to protect the banks and Wall Street pirates. Not so. Their actual job - were they to do it - is to protect us from them.

But that won't happen. Not with this already failed crew. They showed us that in 2008 when they all ignored Lehman's manipulations and Lewis' lies. Mozillo's amazingly corrupt practices. Schwartz's criminal declarations of fiscal health while his firm was on life support. Dimon's manipulation of government to enhance his firm at our expense. Schapiro's total ignorance of Madoff and Stanford's fraud.

This I put squarely at the president's feet. He kept Schapiro and the rest of the gang that couldn't regulate in place. He rehired them from the Bush administration. After their failure was obvious. He has allowed the regulators to continue to not do their jobs while seeking more regulation to be ignored.

I have said it before and will say it again. We do not need more regulation or new agencies. There are already more than enough laws, regulations and agencies. We need effective agencies, regulators and enforcers. Not the Wall Street CEO sycophants we now have. We need actual people of integrity in these positions and not recycled failures like Schapiro, Geithner and Bernanke. This is Obama's failure and only he as president can fix it by firing this lot.

I challenge the president to fire these losers and hire people that were not at the core of the meltdown. People that do not cower when a Blankfein or Dimon speaks.

And come November, we need a new Congress. One that will actually take these clowns to task. A Congress that will stop dragging CEO's to meaningless hearings held for the sole purpose of saying they held a hearing. A Congress that will drag Schapiro in and ask her bluntly, "So when do you intend to actually enforce a real law?" A Congress that will ask Geithner why he cannot use existing regulation. A Congress that will call Bernanke out for concealing the shell game the Fed has played with our money.

At this point, my attitude is that if they were in office in 2008, then it is time for them to go. All of them. Because they all knew the game that was afoot and they all ignored it, lied to us and then went home to stash their loot.

Come November, the most important qualification for elective office is to not currently be in elective office.

Come November, we the long suffering people will have to effect the change we want ourselves. One vote at a time at the ballot box.

Come November, the choice is ours. More of the same lies and diversions or a government that actually works.

You Can Bank on the Lies

I just reread my post from yesterday and want to point out that I am not a financial professional in any way. To be totally honest, I don't really understand a good portion of the mumbo-jumbo uttered by the masters of deception in the financial industry. What I do know, however, is when someone is lying. And these guys have been lying at levels that would make Nixon blush.

This morning, the Wall Street Journal reports that the biggest banks - Goldman, JP Morgan, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, et al - have been manipulating their balance sheets to make their financial condition look better than it really is. To be specific, they are moving debt around at the end of the quarter for reporting purposes and then putting it back after the reports are published.

In other words, they are cooking the books to make investors and regulators happy.

Sound familiar? It should. Just a few weeks ago a report was issued pointing out that this is exactly the behavior that sunk Lehman Bros. The Lehman report even let us know that the liars at the top of Lehman had a named procedure for this - "Repo 105."

Well, it seems Mr. Fuld at Lehman was not alone in this sham of a scam of a lie. In fact, based on the Journal's report, it is a common practice. Even everyone's fair haired boy Jamie Dimon at JP Morgan uses this tactic to enhance the numbers. Considering that Dimon may be history's largest recipient of government largesse in the form of Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual with tax dollars guaranteed to back up any losses, this is particularly wrong.

Not illegal, mind you. Barely legal, yes. Unethical, yes. Wrong, yes. But legal. Apparently, the bankers and Wall Street kids have twisted the laws to the point where cooking the books is now legal. And folks wonder why the banks are spending millions on an ad campaign against any kind of new regulation.

Before I go on, let me simply say that I am not in favor of a new agency or extensive new regulation. I believe that we have a ton of regulations already. What we don't have is willful enforcement. What we have are lazy regulators, a complacent government, a corrupt congress and a blind Federal Reserve. We need to close some loopholes in the regulations, but that is all. No new agency, and not a total revamp of the regulatory morass.

Congress can stop with the bogus show hearings and get to work today on establishing a serious investigation. Not more hearings where the Fools on the Hill recite prepared 3 minute questions leaving no time for an answer. Not more of the "J'accuse" style hearings so popular. What we need and still don't have is a forensic style investigation. One run by folks not seeking reelection and not looking for a big job on Wall Street. All Congress cares about is the next election. The only way Congress could be more out of touch would be if they were literally blindfolded.

In a previous post, I suggested that Dr. Elizabeth Warren and Fox Business' Eric Bolling (also a lifelong investor by trade) head up the investigation. Why those two? Well, they are pretty much the only 2 voices that are honest about this stuff. Warren already heads a commission to oversee TARP. She has never once hesitated to call it the way she sees it. Bolling is literally the only financial reporter to be honest about the way his friends deceived a nation. In other words, honest folks that have no secondary agenda. It is not a matter of conservative or liberal, Democrat or Republican. It is a matter of honesty.

Back to the machinations of the financial industry. One has to ask why this behavior is not being more strongly investigated. Why it took this long to surface. Well, it is simple. The so-called regulators at the Federal Reserve saw it happen, but decided it belonged to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC felt it was a Fed issue. Truth? Both are so deeply intertwined with the entities they are supposed to regulate, they cannot see the violations for the cocktails. Or, as I like to put it, both the regulators and the regulated all belong to the same club.

So when the seemingly heroic Dimon makes his case against regulatory reform, what he is really saying is that he does not want to lose his ability to manipulate the numbers his shareholders see. He does not want to admit that his seemingly solid company is no more solid than Lehman was. Same for Blankfein at Goldman. He keeps sending out letters and press releases talking about fixing things and being more "transparent" but he is not. While proclaiming transparency he is cooking his books, too.

As we approach the April 15 tax deadline, American taxpayers are reporting honestly their income and expenses. Why? Because the IRS - the principle regulator for personal finance - can and will find any cheating. As they should. Like it or not (and nobody does) that is the law right now.

But, for some reason, the large banks and Wall Street firms do not feel this obligation. Why? Because their principle regulators are not so interested in regulating or honest reporting. Why? Because Fed Chairman Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Geithner have been in on this little game all along. They knew about it back at the beginning. And if they suddenly take action, then they will have to recuse themselves at best - if not resign in disgrace - because they helped game the system for their pals.

This is not a partisan issue. Geithner was president of the New York Fed when the big banks were cheating and gaming the system. It was his job to regulate them. Yet Lehman, Bear and the rest were allowed to run wild. Paulson - the ever present architect of this lie - was Treasury Secretary. He was point man on the scam of a generation. And Bernanke? Well, either he is a total fool or simply a very dishonest man. Either way, he is not doing his job as regulator. In fact he constantly seeks to protect these banks by hiding their transactions and interest free borrowing.

All of them promised transparency. And all of them immediately sought to thwart that. Here we sit, 2 years later, and we know nothing more of what really went on. No criminal investigations. Not even the blatant stuff like Fuld and Schwartz lying to shareholders about their companies. Not even Ken Lewis, who actually admitted to lying and concealing the real costs of the Merrill deal.

Where is the administration on this? Well, they want all new regulations and agencies. Without even a clue as to what is needed. They seem to think that somehow creating a new agency will be a magic wand and simply stop the bad practices by its very existence. They are wrong. The people Obama has hired to look at this are all part of the same crowd that got us here. We don't need a new agency.

We need the existing ones to do their existing jobs. And that is exactly what the administration won't do. Point out the failure of government. Thus we still have Geithner, Bernanke, Schapiro, Rubin and the rest of the usual suspects. Why Obama appointed them is beyond me. They already had failed. So, in traditional government methodology, they got promoted rather than fired. Obama routinely points to the "previous administration." Memo to the president - you hired most of that "previous administration's" financial/economic team. It is now the current administration and still ineffective, incompetent and likely corrupt.

So again, I have to call for that independent investigation. If I am right about Bolling and Warren, they will proceed independently anyway. They do care about the truth and do care about transparency. They care about getting the truth and creating an environment where I can safely invest and not worry that some Jamie Dimon type is really just scheming to take my money.

Until there is an open investigation outside the Congress and administration, we should wait. One of the biggest failures of government over the decades has been the tendency to leap before they look. To do something - anything - so they look good. Well, right now, government doesn't look any too good. Nor do the banks.

Meanwhile, Back at the Banks...

While the politicians and media are all wrapped up with their traditional silliness ranging from the obsession the media has with Tiger Woods (just another pathetic excuse for a human who cheated on his wife) to Jon Kyl's promise to filibuster the non-existent Supreme Court nominee, the banks and Wall Street have been happily continuing to rig the system and prvent an actual investigation of just what happened.

Before I get there, I have to comment on the 2 distractions above. The media obsession with this sad excuse for a man, this adultering pig is simply nauseating. And the delicacy with which it is handled is baffling. The same media that will call folks racists and fascists without a flinch seem unable to call Woods what he is. An adulterer. Plain and simple. He cheated on his wife. Why this is somehow the lead story everywhere is bad enough, but the fact that the cowardly media (all sides) prefers terms like 'womanizer,' 'philanderer,' and the ever ludicrous 'sex addict,' to the more accurate adulterer eludes me. Call things what they are and stop the excuse factory. I will happily say it - Tiger Woods is a disgusting pig that cheated on his wife repeatedly. A serial adulterer. All this clown is addicted to is the adulation of his fans.

As to Kyl's promise of a filibuster, this is perhaps the final proof that the Senate is now officially pointless. There is no vacancy on the court and no nominee to discuss. So why would Kyl make such a stupid and empty threat? Because he has no interest in governing and lots of interest in pulling in campaign cash. Democrats should not be happy or feel somehow vindicated. Democrats invented the concept of skewering Supreme Court nominees with Bork and Thomas. All Kyl is doing is elevating the art of silliness that seems to pervade the Congress these days. Threatening to stop a nomination that has yet to be made for a vacancy that has yet to exist? Excellent job Senator! You have managed to turn nothing into something just to avoid the simple fact that this Congress is a failed body and a corrupt one. Kudos to to the man with the giant pile of poop.

And while these distractions dominate, the folks on Wall Street and at the big banks continue to lie and threaten. Earlier this week, Wall Street's new fair haired wonder boy, Jamie Dimon (who was gifted Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual) stated that any new regulation might cause credit to become unavailable. In case Dimon has not noticed, credit is still hard to get and getting more difficult. What Dimon meant was that regulation would hamper his ability to continue to lie to shareholders and the public.

What he really meant was that he and his cohorts had invested a lot in corrupting and baffling the existing regulators and they did not want to have to actually follow the rules. If they followed the rules, why the fear of a consumer protection agency for financial institutions. As we all know, the law abiding need not fear the police.

And today, the liars from Citi stepped up and apologized for what happened there, while claiming to not know about it. Well, Mr. Prnice and Mr. Rubin, how could you not know there were tens of billions of dollars in risky assets on the books? Because someone said so? Aren't you supposed to know this stuff? Aren't you supposed to have independent auditors look at it? Or are you simply lying some more to avoid admitting that you made a walloping huge paycheck out of trashing an entire economy.

What Prince and Rubin really mean is "We knew, but we were making a lot of money and really didn't care all that much about anything else." What they are really saying is "We are so sorry we got caught."

And therein lies the real problem. Nobody has been caught. No investigation. No forensic examination of who did what. As long as people like Ken Lewis, John Thain, Lloyd Blankfein, Alan Schwartz and Bill Fuld are able to simply lie and not get called out, the system will continue to fail the investors and depositors. These guys lied endlessly. And boldly. And, apparently, without penalty.

As long as Geithner and Bernanke are running the regulatory scheme, there is no regulation. These are the same 2 that let it run wild in the first place. The same guys that were in on every Sunday decision. Every decision to send my money to the crooks on Wall Street to cover their bad bets. Somehow and for some inexplicable reason, Obama left these 2 in charge after they proved their incompetence.

And still no real investigation. No independent look at what, how, where and why. We already know who. Geithner and Bernanke fear an actual independent investigation. They know that it will inevitably point out their failure. The bankers fear an investigation. They know it will inevitably point out their lies.

And the administration and Congress? They just hope it will go away. They fear the bankers. They don't fear us, though. And come November, we need to remember that they work for us and fire them. All of them.

Oil, Salaries and Silliness

As I was watching a favored financial show this morning, 2 debates jumped out at me. Both seemed relatively silly and after a little thought, I decided both were silly.

First up is the price of oil on the various markets. Well, guess what. The price is up. And talking heads are lining up to blame "speculators." Maybe they need to define what a speculator is before spouting off. From my perspective, speculator is another name for an investor. And, like all investors - large and small - they want to to see their investment increase in value.

Since the topic is oil prices, all manner of goofiness intrudes. The most common thread in these debates is the intentional running up of the price by 'speculators.' Well, that is just plain goofy. Any object is only worth what someone will pay for it. Period. You may think your fancy watch is worth $250,000, but until someone hands you a quarter-million, it is not worth anything. Same with oil futures.

They are only worth what someone will pay. If I hold oil futures that I paid $75 a barrel for, and want to sell them at a profit, then I need someone willing to pay more than $75. Basic market principle. If buyers only want to pay $70, then I get to choose to keep them or trade them at a loss. If buyers want to pay $80, then I get to make a profit. But, until I actually sell them, they are not really worth anything to me other than a barrel of oil.

And that is what drives oil prices - a willing buyer. There is no evil plot to raise oil future prices. There are, however, willing investors to pay the current price. Otherwise it would fall. Since the price seems to be rising, I can only assume that there are willing buyers at the current price.

If nobody wanted to pay the price being asked, then the price would drop. Same with everything from milk to gold. To somehow single out oil because of its importance and claim that price rises are somehow artificial is to basically deny the reality of a capitalistic society. Oil futures are traded on an open market. Sellers and buyers come together and agree on a price. Now, the reasoning the buyer has for paying that price is varied and, frankly, not significant.

Much like everything else in our society, oil is more about hyperbole and blather. A political point to be scored and recorded. Reality - just another commodity on the market. Traded daily and priced daily. Don't like the price of oil? Don't buy it. Simple market economics.

Which brings me to paychecks. Reports out over the last day or 2 indicate that Wall Street and the banks are set for a record total payroll. Thee will be much screaming and pontificating about the evils of high pay or the virtue of high pay. Either way, it is a silly debate. Unless a firm is still on the public dole (TARP, et al) then what they pay their people is between employee and employer. In the case of public companies, the employer side includes the shareholders.

And there will be the usual moaning about CEO pay, trader pay and so on. Who cares? Does anybody bemoan the leviathan salaries celebrities and athletes pull down? Not like the CEO pay screaming. And who does this screaming? Well paid TV talking heads. If you ask one of them how much their paycheck is, they won't tell you. They will tell you it is none of your business. And it is not. Nor is anyone's paycheck a topic for public banter - unless that paycheck is somehow funded with tax dollars - be they public employees or TARP babies.

But the yelling will commence and go on. Pointlessly, I might add, since no company seems to set its pay practices based on public opinion. Nor should they. As long as they are using their own money, companies get to pay their people what they want. That is how it works in the private sector.

Which brings me to my last point this morning - public employee pay. This is our business since it is our money. There was a time when the phrase "public servant" had a meaning. It meant someone working for the government at a lower than average pay level because it was public service. No more.

Government workers at all levels are out earning private sector employees. When you add in the benefits packages government workers get, the difference is startling. It would be all too easy to simply blame Obama and go to lunch. But this has been building for years and years. Not just at the federal level. State and local are just as bad or worse.

Now Congress wants to get into the act. The same Congress that automatically gets a pay raise every year unless they vote not to. The same Congress that earns around $175,000 each for what is effectively a part time job. Yes, part time. They only actually meet 40 weeks a year and then only 3 or 4 days a week. Talk about overpaid.

This is really a simple one. Freeze all government salaries until they get their budgets under control. Including the endless flow of perks and privileges to the 530 members of Congress. Them most of all. They created this mess - let them suffer the price for it.

Better yet, come November, lets fire the lot of them.

Lehman Cooks Books - Nobody Surprised

So now we have the auditor's post-mortem examination of the fall of Lehman Brothers. Most people agree that this marked the real beginning of the financial crisis that led us into this recession. And, while almost everyone knew there was some shenanigans going on, the report reveals more than just a little misdirection.

In the interest of disclosure, I am not an accountant or financial expert. In fact, I am like most Americans - a victim of this massive and ongoing fraud. Those are strong words, but these were serious crimes.

According to the report, Lehman CEO William "Whatever it takes to make me look good" Fuld ordered his people to clean up the books at Lehman to reduce the debt on their balance sheets. And clean they did. In fact, what they did was to cook the books. They even had a name and a procedure for this recipe - "Repo 105."

Yep. A publicly traded company entrusted with billions of investor dollars created a process by which they could move exorbitant debt off the books to fool regulators and shareholders as to the health of the company. Now, we all know that publicly traded companies are supposed to have independent auditors examine these books looking for just the type of thing Repo 105 was doing. So what happened there?

Well, according to the report, the auditors - Ernst and Young - were in on it. Right. The very folks who are supposed to monitor for fraud were helping to commit it. And the credit rating firms? Well, they were so corrupted it is barely worth this sentence.

Former CEO Fuld claims he had no idea this was going on. That make him either culpable in the fraud and cover up or criminally negligent. The law requires the CEO to sign off on these reports, and Fuld did. In fact, just days before Lehman joined the dinosaurs in ignoble extinction, Fuld told everyone and anyone that the firm was in good shape and not to worry. In private, Fuld was begging for Hank "Pirate" Paulson to save his company.

The report reveals a very troubling problem. Where were the regulators? Well, they were conspicuously ignoring things. One does not hide over $80 billion in debt and not leave a trail. Yet, the regulators, auditors and board members were happy to go on about their day and pretend that nothing was wrong.

To be fair, at least one financial reporter - Eric Bolling of Fox Business - openly challenged Fuld's rosy report. While most of the financial press was buying Fuld's nonsense hook line and sinker, Bolling announced on-air that the lawyers were in the boardroom. Keep in mind that some of these Wall Streeters are Bolling's friends, yet he reported the truth anyway.

Here is what the report really tells us. It tells us that the regulatory system is broken. That Wall Street cheats. That big bankers lie and get away with it. That the financial press is largely (except Bolling) a pile of sycophants. That the government looked the other way.

So what will it really take to restore our confidence in what is obviously a gamed system? Well, some prosecutions might help. Fuld in handcuffs would help. Ernst and Young punished if not shut down might help. But what would really help is real transparency. The transparency that Bernanke, Paulson and Geithner promised and then proceeded to avoid.

Maybe we need new regulation and new agencies, and maybe not. We cannot be sure until we examine - in the open - what went wrong and who failed. Not some confidential secret report, but a truly open process.

And given the state of the regulators and Congress, I nominate Eric Bolling and Elizabeth Warren to head it up. Sure, Bolling is a conservative. But he is also an honest investor and one that knows how the liars on Wall Street work. And Elizabeth Warren is one of the few truly plain spoken folks anywhere in the process.

The bottom line of the Lehman report should read, "Everyone involved failed to do their jobs. All of them had a hand in the fraud and all of them should pay."

After all, we the taxpayers are already paying for their crimes.

Down our throats.....

I find it highly amusing that Senate Minority Leader McConnell has the sheer audacity to complain about legislation being jammed down our throats. Of course, he is talking about health insurance reform. This is the same Mitch McConnell that ignored not only his party, but also "the American People," as he likes to say so often, in ramming TARP and AIG down our throats. Apparently, McConnell only jams things down our throats that benefits banks and Wall Street. The same McConnell that thought nothing of tossing a trillion dollars to the crooks that put us in this recession.

Hold the applause Democrats. Your leaders are no better. Harry Reid, the Majority leader that helped shove TARP down our throats is unwilling to use his authority to help regular people. And the illustrious Chris Dodd who actually circumvented the US Constitution in passing TARP (more on that next paragraph) is now instrumental in making sure that the same banks and Wall Street cheaters that put us here are not reined in.

In order to jam TARP down our throats, Dodd used a tiny little trick to get around Article 1 of the Constitution that requires tax and spending bills to originate in the House of Representatives. Back when TARP was pending, the House - in a rare moment of responsibility - rejected it. Twice. Not good enough for Dodd, McConnell, Reid and company. They picked up an old House bill that had died in the Senate, stripped out everything except the "HR" designation that made it a House bill and then amended the entire TARP package to it. The same TARP that the House had just rejected. It this legal? Sure. Is it Constitutional? Barely.

But is is wrong and against the will of the same people that McConnell and Reid purport to represent. Yet there they were, leading the charge to ignore the will of the people. And here they come again, skewering any level of financial regulation or reform, despite the will of the people.

Apparently the needs of Goldman Sachs is important enough to jam down our throats, but getting access to health care for the poorest among us is not. Ask yourself this next time you write a check to an insurance company or to pay for an overpriced prescription that your insurance has chosen not to cover: "Did TARP really help me?" Unless you work on Wall Street, the answer is going to be no. Then ask yourself: "I wonder how much McConnell, Dodd, Reid and the rest of those liars pay for their health care?" The answer will be "very little if anything."

So the same gang of Senators that decided to take over a trillion dollars from you and me for their pals on Wall Street have also decided that health care is too expensive and that any kind of financial reform would be bad for the banks.

In other words, to quote a long famous phrase - follow the money. We the people that seem so important to these charlatans on Capitol Hill apparently cannot afford the entry fee to the club that actually get taken care of.

For the record, both Obama and McCain endorsed Reid, McConnell and Dodd's shady actions by voting yes on TARP. Both disregarded the rules and the people and the Constitution. Sadly, the only time we see bipartisan action in the Senate is when it is time to reward the big contributors and ignore the people.

One important difference between us and Wall Street - we can fire the Senate come November. Even the mighty Goldman Sachs can't do that.