What...what, what?

"What...what, what?" --Bender Bending Rodriguez, 3001 a.d., from the Heartland of America, Guadalajara.

Those words sum up what I've been thinking the last few days. Those words were uttered because Fry was attempting to tell Bender things that were mutually exclusive, i.e. Cognitive Dissonance. To Fry, what he was trying to say made perfect sense. To Benders binary logic: gibberish.

What I keep hearing from politicians these days translates into, at best, static; at its most basic, filthy, intentional lies. This entry is likely going to be as choppy and as contradictory as what I'm hearing, so reading this one may take some effort (as if there is anyone actually reading these since I don't have half dressed women or comedic breaks in this blog...yet).

Where to start, where to start. How about this, on bailouts and banking.

Frank, Dodd, ACORN, Fan/Fred, and the FED decide that every American should have their own house (any place can be called a home), regardless of whether you can actually afford one. So regulations are crafted, also known as "The Rules", and the lending agencies act accordingly (please refer back to my prior post about good, evil and its relationship to morals). Then the bubble pops and things melt down, so the administration forms a panel under the leadership of Dodd to get to the bottom of things. That is sort of like asking Senator Palpatine to figure out who is undermining the Republic in Star Wars I (yes, I can be a geek that watches way too many movies).

So the government bails out the big banks, the ones that were too big to fail and all that. Plus a heap of banks that felt they did not need bailing out but were forced to in order to avoid additional government scrutiny. Trillions of dollars are taxed out of the economy, borrowed, or simply printed up and are shoved into the Reserve system. Over time, the banks come to resent that virtual take over of their institutions and then scrambles to pay off the 'loans' with interest as quickly as possible. So quickly that the government did everything it could to force them to stay under their thumb. I heard one story that stated that a banking CEO basically had to leave the check on a desk and walk away in order to get the official to take the pay back, "Here, take it!"

The banks could do this because they began to raise the bar on loans. Far from being easier, they made it harder to get a mortgage. If only they had been smarter sooner....

I can just see Obama thinking to himself: the economy is crashing, so I'll tax, borrow, and print whatever number of dollars I need, then I'll pump it into the economy (control and centrally plan as much of it as I can in the process), and then tax as much back out of the economy as I can (and then some) and THEN, pump it back into the economy while slushing billions to my supporters while withholding funds from my detractors. Oh, and tax it again and again every opportunity I get. Yep, I like that.

So, the government begins to put pressure on them (the banks) to make loans easier to get...again -is that not what got us into this mess?

Then, Dear Leader comes out, full of fury and indignation about the banks' profits. He reminds the country (class warfare, anyone) that it was risk taking by the banks that made this mess. He is going to tax the banks, now, based on the amount of risk they are assuming. By the way, the administration is still putting pressure on banks to loan to people who are insane credit risks. What...what, what?

Why couldn't the Dear Leader be this emotional after the Ft. Hood terrorist attack?

Putting that aside, lets look at the taxes the administration hopes to get from this. Lets also set aside for a moment that the Executive Branch can not impose a tax of any kind on any thing. Only Congress can do this. The Administration expects to pull $117 billion from the banking system to recoup the TARP losses.

All of the major banks with the exception of CitiBank (essentially as government owned as GM) have paid back all their TARP loans...WITH INTEREST. This can not be a tax to recoup TARP losses when the banking industry gave them a net profit? Why say you are going to punish them when what you are really trying to do is shake them down? By the way, GM and Chrysler, along with CitiBank are specifically exempted from this tax. Sweet.

So, the banks were given (some forced) bail outs so that they would not fail, so that they could loan money to people to buy a house (and keep corporate script flowing). Given money so they would not fail. So then when they get a pulse, you hammer them with a $117 billion tax that will simply be passed into my ATM fees. Really smart, Obama.

Next item. In 2006, 2007, and early 2008, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd repeat over and over that Fan and Fred are doing just fine. No losses there, even as the corporate Boards are used as a landing pad for failed Progressives. Buy offs and slush funds. Big playground for the corrupt. Huge bonuses, each and every year, even as they were inflating the bubble that doomed us all. In those years, they rave about how healthy those two nominally independent corporations were, despite the Bush Administration calling for reform more than a dozen times since 2001.

August of 2008, they collapse and trigger the depression we are in. We had already been in a recession, but that bubble popping made it all very real, very quick. First, hundreds of millions are needed, then billions, then tens upon tens of billions are needed to make good on the loans they under wrote.

In late 2009, the ceiling for losses is not expected to reach $400 billion, then overnight, they rip that lid off and just hand them a blank check book. Expecting a few more losses, there? Those two companies are now entirely staffed and owned by the taxpayer. The pretense otherwise has simply been dropped.

On to Health Care. This abomination of a health care reform bill is being passed around to the Democrat members of both houses with a blank sheet of paper on it saying, "what do you want for your 'yes' vote?". The Republicans are absolutely irrelevant. This passes in both chambers with or without them. Nebraska gets a Medicare exemption on abortions. None of their money will go towards paying for abortions in Nebraska, in return, they get to pay for them in the other 49 states and territories. Nice. Then, Nebraska gets their Medicare payments guaranteed for LIFE. This whole thing gives me flashbacks to the movie, Johnny Dangerously where the District Attorney gets to see what he can get if he just, "Plays Ball". This is being played again and again in various states. I just use Nebraska as an example.

Finally, the bill rams straight into one of those Cognitive Dissonance moments. The Unions OWN Obama. I believe they even have the receipt and the title to prove it. The unions have promised way more then they can deliver or afford so they have been working hard to off-load those debt obligations onto the taxpayer. However, they don't want the government to reduce the luxurious benefit package they get, nor do they want the government to tax it. Impasse.

The union leaders spent two hours at the White House reminding Obama that they own him. He obliged and ordered Pelosi and Reid to create a "carve out" for the unions in Health Care. They will not be taxed on their "Cadillac" plans until something like 2018. More than enough time to make those exemptions permanent.

What that means is that everyone who is not in a union will be subsidizing those who are. Not only will their benefits be much, much better (on par with the Federal package), but the rest of us will be paying that much more into the system so they can have that plan. What...what, what? Here is a great cartoon to illustrate this:

The bald arrogance of the elected officials in government today. They are not even trying to hide it any longer. Its all right there for those who can actually see it. Have they no shame?

To make that real, we are talking about an increase to our taxes of $60 billion! That is real money people. My head hurts.

--Zavost