Everyone is talking about the "$700 billion bailout" as though it were a done deal, and the only detail to be worked out is how much "oversight" there should be. Am I missing something?

My message is this.

NOT. ONE. DIME.

Not one dime of taxpayer money should go to bail out any Wall Street firm until:

- Shares of that firm are wiped out - worthless.

- Every officer of that firm has been terminated without severance.

- Bondholders of that firm have lost a substantial part of their investment.

- Every executive of that firm has had his assets seized by Treasury agents. I mean EVERYTHING - art, houses, cars, bank accounts, the loft where he keeps his mistress, the whole nine yards.

- Those same executives are under indictment for mail fraud, wire fraud, spitting on the sidewalk and anything else they even thought about.

Then - when those scumbags are penniless and in jail awaiting trial - THEN and ONLY THEN should we even THINK about putting taxpayer money into saving that firm, and only so that its failure won't cascade onto other (and potentially blameless) institutions.

Sadly, most americans don't care about the welfare of their next door neighbor ....... let alone some stranger from a foreign land.

We've come a long way baby!

The Single Funniest Sentence I Ever Read:

"GW Bush Is President of the USA, world's leading democracy, sole economic and military superpower!"

One Of The Funniest Passages I've Ever Read:

""I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense." — Washington, D.C., April 18, 2006 (There are other very solid contenders for "funniest" from GW Bush, The Hero Of Our Times, but this is, I think, THE ONE!)

The 2nd Funniest Sentence I Hope I Don't Ever Read:

John McCain+Sarah Palin Is President+Vice President of the USA, world's leading democracy, sole economic and military superpower!

The 3rd Funniest Sentence I Hope I Don't Ever Read:

The USA, formerly the world's economic and military superpower, ....

GSC

Has anyone heard from Pow Wow on the financial crisis?

I had left incomplete the '3rd Funniest Sentence I Hope I Don't Ever Read" (mainly because I couldn't quite think what that last bit should be) - SUDDENLY the rest of it came to me:

"The USA, formerly the world's sole military and economic superpower, imploded on ---- (date) due to accumulated lies, incompetence, and crimes against humanity and the rest of the planet".

-- GSC

Misreading, for the Fun of it

"Absolutely massive moral scrota..." --Pedinska.

Sweetie, that phrase is perfectly logical. The relativism, in varying sizes, is just a bit north.

-- Cocktailhag

Pedinska,

Trick or Teat

I'm pretty sure this was a typo.

I am actually going to take credit/boos for a purposeful joke on that one.

I was always an Indian. I knew they were the good guys.

I always played the spy. Mom taught me Indians were good. Dad taught me Cowboys were good. Thank god for humor and hormones, it turns out I needed them to exist;)

And eclectic fashion is good as it confuses the enemy. ;-}

+++I love costumes, met the love of my life at a Halloween Party. Oh, but the masks I couldn't wear:(

Kitt,

Tryin' to sell somethin'?

Always--

The After:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLhbf-K10IM&feature=related

The Before:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAtnOQqHLaQ&feature=related

I'm starting to think this crowd (Norquist, Rove, Limbaugh, Kristol, et al.) smokes an awful lot of weed.

I don't mean the crumbly olive-drab seed-ridden $80-an-ounce stuff, either. I'm talking about supersonic hydroponic mind-warping mega-ganja from the 8th dimension. Big Sherlock Holmes-sized bowls of it, nine times a day.

Based on the statements they make from week to week, there's just no way their brains can be producing memories, long-term, short-term, or anything in between. And it's been so long since they could remember anything that they've started to assume the rest of us are just as burnt out as they are.

Or maybe they're just infantile, mendacious little piggies.

Cory Doctorow rewrites the old Nigerian spam email as a request from Paulson for the bailout:

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/22/hank-paulsons-bailou.html

(or link at sig)

I can't help it, I do so love gallows humor.

. . . but the "Single Funniest Blog Post I Ever Read"?? Yeah, I know, sarcasm. Unfortunately it's not a sarcastic "Are-you-kidding-slap-your-forehead-roll-your-eyes" kind of moment. These SOBs are dead serious. They will not relent. Rust doesn't sleep. Compromise? Bwahahaha. Surrender?? Bwahahaha. We're talking termites here. Cockroaches. Insects. Jaysus, these folks will pat you on the back with one hand (as Iggy would put it) while pissing on your mother's grave with the other. Orwell kind of touched on these monsters in his writings, but he didn't really understand America. These folks, these monsters, will do anything, anything to keep power and control. A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G. No holds barred. Rules of engagement?? If it moves, waste it. And that's what they are doing. The problem is, most folks just don't get it . . .

That is hilarious, now if we could just get Gary Busey to shave his head and do an ad.

GG, assuming your request for youtube signals a Ron Paul post to come, the man himself has a new "I wuz right" article at antiwar.com today:

http://www.antiwar.com/paul/?articleid=13492

Cory Doctorow rewrites the old Nigerian spam email as a request from Paulson for the bailout: -- hrh

He linked to thenation.com for that little beauty.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/jstreet/363133/bailout_satire

"...expresses substantial enthusiasm over the draft bill circulated by Chris Dodd, which contains numerous oversight provisions and other substantive limitations and protections absent from the Paulson plan." - GG

Glenn Greenwald,

It has not been established with any kind of convincing argument that ANY bailout is essential! Much less one that must be pushed through in a few days! I have heard no one give a scenerio of exactly what catastrophe will ensue if we delay a few weeks or a few months while we debate this. There should be an honest debate in the full Congress and before the American People about even the necessity of a bailout. Why,why are you already retreating to a position of merely dickering about the window dressing on this obscene bailout when no one has demonstrated convincingly that it is even essential? And Dodd's hands are dirty on this one. He is not a trustworthy broker in any case.