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Republicans appear to have learned at least one thing from the finance crisis–and it is that bailouts are very unpopular. You know the kind of bailouts of big private financial companies pushed for by the Republican president George W. Bush? Now Republicans are trying to make Democrats unpopular by tarring any Democratic bill dealing with new financial regulations as a “permanent bailout fund” bill. It really does not matter to Republicans that even people like Mark Halperin are calling their claims complete nonsense.
What was meant to be a hearing on the collapse of Lehman Brothers, not surprisingly, turned into a stage for political grandstanding. But I did learn one important thing from the hearing: Republicans are committed to playing the “permanent bailout” game. Basically, Republicans on the committee tried to as often as possible call any Democratic bill a permanent bailout, a bailout fund, or some form of the general theme. It seems they are trying the prove the old adage that “a lie told often enough becomes true.”
I expect most of the congressional Republicans to continue to pay the bailout game in the coming days, weeks, and possibly months while Congress tries to pass some form of financial regulation. The general idea of new regulations meant to clip Wall Street’s wings is generally very popular, but Republicans are working hard to change that by tying any reform, regardless what it is, in the byzantine logic that somehow it is a permanent bailout.
The fight is shaping up to be just like health care, just replace the phrase “government take over of health care” with “permanent bailout.” The sad thing is that the political strategy just might work unless Democrats and the media start forcefully calling Republicans liars.
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sigh.
when will someone, anyone, recognize these same old moves and effectively deal with them?
Please use visuals! How about GOP senators as the tentacles of the Vampire Squid?
A chart of Open Secrets and a picture of the $$$ flowing into the pockets of these lying liars???
Come on? How hard can it be to deal with these predictable liars?
The problem is that consolidated corporate media have no investigative clout. This whole doublespeak strategy of the elephants wouldn’t last a week with the kind of journalists we had covering Watergate, or even Iran Contra. But today Robert Parry is relegated to trying to fund his own website to that he can publish stories the corporate media won’t.
While the specific part of the bill they’re saying is a “permanent bailout”…is no such thing, taking a look at the Bigger Picture, this bill does NOTHING to guarantee that “too big to fail” banks will not get bailed out again.
Nothing.
Yes, I know. There’s a provision re: helping a bank that’s in trouble go through an “orderly liquidation.” However…considering the tenuous-at-best situation we’re now in, with the “too big to fail” banks even BIGGER, and the trillions of toxic instruments/CDSs/derivatives lurking even deeper underground (yet having to eventually come to light at some point)…and all this with no end in sight…
1. How can anyone assume with confidence that the U.S. wouldn’t have to end up bailing out a “too big to fail” at this stage of the game? It’s as if Obama and Congress are ignoring what’s really going on, ignoring the fragility of our economy, ignoring, ignoring, ignoring…and pretty much faking it to make it LOOK as if no bailout would ever happen again.
2. Simon Johnson, in a recent interview with Bill Moyers came right out and said: If two of these “too big to fails” look like they’re going down at the same time (which is exactly what happened in 2008), there’s NO WAY the gov’t isn’t going to step in to keep them afloat. They’ll be forced to. Because they’re “too big to fail.” Period.
Consequently, I’d say, even tho’ the Repubs are doing a sleight-of-hand thing when it comes to that $50 billion reserve fund re: linking it to “permanent bailout” jargon, in essence, the structure of the bill itself does indeed lean that way by keeping, fully intact, six mega-banks that account for 60% of the totaly GNP of the U.S.
P.S. I’m wondering: What kept the gov’t from helping in the “orderly liquidation” of some of those banks in 2008? What’s different now? What’s ANY different? Why wouldn’t it be just as “devastating” to have them basically go belly-up now as it was then? I don’t get it.
Agree. The Rs were probably more technically correct when they were using the term “institutionalized bailouts.” Simon Johnson has been saying that the bill effectively does just that because no one will allow the TBTF to take down the whole economy when next one fails. If one does fail, then we’ll be bailing out the depression, one way or another.
OTOH, there are those Rs, like Ron Paul and others critical of the Fed, who might aptly call the 0% interest rate policy (and, I guess JPM gets -5%)a “permanent bailout.”
The lie is only that the Rs have any intention of doing anything more harsh to the financial sector sleaze than the Ds do. Just like they won’t kill Romneycare, despite protestations to the contrary–at least not those operating at the federal level.