You want anger? I’ll give you anger!!

The challenge is that the people who need the help most can least afford good PR.

Would be helpful and highly instructive if we finished the job that Elliot Spitzer wanted to launch, an investigation into subprime mortgage and predatory lending. If the public knew that the “irresponsible homeowners” were the victims of wide-spread fraud, would they change their tune?

What the hell is the matter with we the people? Someone on an earlier thread answered my question about lazy butts and SUVs by suggesting that we could maybe initiate drive-through protest kiosks. Push a button, yell out the window, and go home.

Probably not. Because as usual, the Pugs have framed this beautifully, and once framed, it’s hard as stink to reframe. Gaaa!

That’s innovation. Throw in a large fries and I think you’re onto something.

Hey Neal and Rick: Cram Down This…

They’ll keep taking from the public until the public fights back … literally.

By the way, obama’s appointed department of justice sellout, eric holder, is taking on the same stance as the bush administration on not allowing the state ags to go after the mortgage fraud that the feds seemingly have no interest in investigating and revealing themselves.

Z

And in about three months we’ll be hearing about a major push for some type of cramdown provision for commercial real estate, now that CRE is tanking quickly. And Congress will be all over passing that. Just wait.

A cramdown for commercial chap 11 is already available. It is also available on 2nd and third houses.

If the public knew that the “irresponsible homeowners” were the victims of wide-spread fraud, would they change their tune?

Imho, no. They would say, “Well, a fool and his money are quickly and easily parted. If they were duped, it’s their fault for not being more careful. Caveat emptor! Let the buyer beware!” Not my belief in the least, but I think that would be the chorus.

As Kagro notes, looks like there’s another bullshit swing at the “Social Security’s in crisis” theme in today’s Washington Post. You know what? Good. We tried hard to stop Social Security from being cut when its head was on the chopping block last time, but I don’t think I’d do it again. If they want to cut Social Security benefits, let ‘em. As Glenn Greenwald says, there’s not enough anger out there — not by a long shot.

if you are serious about this, please know my anger is going to be directed at you too. because i don’t think little old ladies eating cat food – to say nothing of the number of deaths that would be caused (and all the uncertainty of things we can’t predict) is worth it.

please tell me you are not serious about this, that i misunderstood your snark or something.

Thanks, selise. I’m a little snake-bit here lately, so I usually assume my angry reaction is my failure to grasp subtleties. But now I see there may be two of us, on this issue anyway.

Sorry to be OT but here is another example of how the French people are dealing with the U.S. caused global economic meltdown.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200…..aterpillar

If only the American worker demonstrated the committment, courage and solidarity found in European nations.

i’ve misread things before, so i’m hoping this is one of those times – which is why i asked.

have to go to a doctor’s appointment now (don’t get me started on the fucked up MA reform model that too many people think should be taken national), but will check back here later to hopefully see all explained.

edit to add: and if i didn’t read the above wrongly, i’d like to know exactly how my anger hasn’t measured up.

Absolutely. I’ve already heard that EXACT chorus from someone who should know better.
“I got thru my tough times X years ago, so what’s the matter with these other people. I didn’t get any help, why should they”.

Spit. I realize that electing McSame wasn’t an option, but I really expected better from Obama, and the FalseFlagDems.

FunnyDiva

Any way to educate voters on how we all got screwed by the finance industry, so-called lazy homeowners and non-lazy homeowners alike? Like were “lazy” homeowners trying to make payments on really inflated sh*t? Whereas “non-lazy” were in better circumstances? There’s got to be statistics.
Forgive me if this is a stupid question.

Be well!!

I’ve been hoping someone here would do a brief, concise “2009 Economics for Dummies,” replete with glossary of terms (so many acronyms, so little time). A primer for the unknowing. For broad distribution (right after I read it myself).

Not a stupid question, IMO.
I hope Hugh will be along soon with this type of detail.
Hugh needs his own econ-blog page here at the lake. Wonder if he’d consider it…

FunnyDiva

Let’s set a date for a huge protest here and now. Get the word out through blogs, AARP, Keith and Rachel and just do it. City by city and town by town. Peaceful protests. I don’t know what I’d put on the sign there are so many outrages.

Let’s recruit Hugh and the rest of the econ team at The Lake.
Or, I guess we could just go through the archives (maybe by author) and pull out the info.
Hmmmm, I’ll be unemployed again on Monday the 13th…

FunnyDiva

watch this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r70X-bF9yqg

This lady is a little bit eccentric, but she’s brilliant at illuminating what has been going on. Shortly into the video she shows a graph of how American labor wages have gone down while wall street’s compensation has gone up.

Her website is here: http://emsnews2.wordpress.com/

Z

Some of you ain’t gonna like it but here it is…What I want is a repeat of the “Battle for Seattle” during the WTO meeting there some years ago, only I want that nationwide in all major cities, but particularly in DC.

You want to get their attention, then letters to the editor ain’t gonna cut it. Phonecalls ain’t gonna put the fear of the gods into them. They are ignoring us and drooling at the prospect of a little Shock Doctrine gamesmanship.

No. Flat-out NO.

Burn them down before they burn us yet again for Wall Street and their own greedy rich asses.

Financial institutions have been crying for something more generous than mark to market to prop up their financial reports. If a homeowner gets in trouble and has to sell there is nothing comparable to save their butts.

there is a nationwide protest, organized by Joe Trippi slated for April 11th:
http://www.anewwayforward.org/demonstrations/

If there isn’t a demonstration in your town, maybe you can contact them to try to coordinate one.

Z

When current benefits for Social Security are no longer payable from FICA taxes – ie when “Trust Fund” obligations are needed – current benefits will be financed from general tax revenue. That’s how the “Trust Fund” works – it’s an obligation to pay out, not money in the bank. So while the “Trust Funds” don’t run out until 2043, in 2019 we will have to have sufficient other tax revenue to be paying Social Security benefits… We shouldn’t be denying these facts as we defend our safety net.

Of note: I’ve posted on Social Security here a few times. I ran the benefits numbers for myself and a hypothetical low income earner my age assuming retirement at age 69 in 2030. Projected benefits have increased in the past two months – when I first did the calculations in February the monthly benefits were $2451/month and $785/month. On Sunday I ran them again and benefits were $2761/month and $960/month. High end benefits increased 12%, low end benefits increased 22%. So benefits appear to be increasing at the low end.

I plugged in a March birthday in 1961, retirement in June 2030, high end income of $100k, low end income of $14k at this site.

Dead serious.

Let them try. The last time cutting Social Security benefits came up, we pushed back against it and it was killed before the public ever became aware it was happening. Now it’s generally accepted in the media that it happened (I’ve seen it three times in the NYT) but the public never really knew about it.

Public apathy — a blind acceptance that things are getting better, and that they’re not being robbed blind — is facilitating a whole host of evils. If we’d let the privatization attempt go full blown, maybe there would be pushback now that isn’t there. I don’t think any attempt to cut benefits would be successful, I think there would be a massive mobilization of people who have just had their 401Ks looted, but it would make the battle lines a whole lot clearer.

I actually suggested a box like EW’s timeline box with an econ timeline, the past substaintial econ posts and links to the salons with economists.

So I back your idea.

From the WaPo link:

“Over the past 25 years, the government has gotten used to the fact that Social Security is providing free money to make the rest of the deficit look smaller,” said Andrew Biggs, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “Now they’ve essentially got to pay their own way, at least a little more fully.

I want to know why the budget for the War Dept is, for all intents and purposes, sacrosanct but every couple years we have to go through this fight to keep SS. While the budget for the F-22 won’t fill the SS surplus gap it’ll sure as hell be a good start. How much money does the Special Operations Command (in my day we called it Special Ops Group, as in MACVSOG [Military Assistance Command Vietnam Special Operations Group], the home of Phoenix teams) need to go around the world assassinating people? It appears to be very easy to get folks worked up by mentioning SS and the budget in the same sentence. I want that kind of attention on the budget and the War Dept.

I read the RS Taibbi article this weekend on AIG and CDS. I noticed he seems to characterize subprime loans as loans made to crack addicts who just got out of jail and have no job. Is that a fair characterization?

Although that’s what may be needed today’s Americans just don’t have it in them. Too timid, passive, unorganized, isolated, fearful, myopic and all to willing to deferr to the political and economic elites. As it’s been said “The French government fears the people, the American people fear the government.”

Well yes the dying living wage, outsourced jobs, but how do we show the difference in circumstances between so-called “lazy” and “non-lazy”.
I like the cat lady btw.

Ah, crap! Sorry to hear it.

As to culling through the archives, that’s part of my problem. Who to believe (okay, whom), what’s wheat and what’s chaff, and operating at a disadvantage because I’m an econodolt.

So yes to enlisting the wise ones at FDL (et tu, diva?), because some of us who say we’re struggling to play catch up really mean it. And once I’ve got my head around it, I have my own venues to spreading the word. We all do.

I hate to keep asking the wise ones to speak to the lowest common denominator, but I think I’m it. Smart woman, dumb economist.

It was hyperbole but accurate in general broad strokes: people who were flat-out NOT good credit risks were encouraged to lie or had their appearance fixed up nice and purdy by the loaning offices and handed loans that they had no way of ever paying off. They were, however, hoodwinked into thinking they would be fine.

Well then if they were taken advantage of then that needs to be emphasized as being bad credit risks. The fault lays more often with those assholes with so-called expertise, if you ask me.

Jane,

I am actually surprised people have not mobilized to date over their 401k lootings…

I feel like a mom homeschooling her kids when I talk and inform neighbors and the public. People actually believe we are “just in a slump economic cycle.”

Whaaat? Slump?

The Dept. of Commerce put out a report shortly after 911 that cited the largest employment sector by 2012 would be the service sector. I can only wonder if they meant “service” the way you and I would interpret “service sector”?

Guess robbing SS would be the seal on the growth of the service industry sector, in a manner of speaking. Imagine the elderly being willing to work for food and shelter?

Sick.

This is awesome. Thanks!

The fear I get when I read this is that the shock doctrine is moving to step two: first they create a monetary crisis, then they empty the governments treasury. The third step which Jane is reading about, is turning against the citizens and asking them to part with their social safety nets, e.g. social security, unemployment benefits, food stamps.

Santelli’s blaming homeowner’s for their defraudedness is just a metaphor for the larger rip off. A President Santelli would blame the citizens for the deficits and demand they accept cuts in government services and social benefits. A Governor Santelli would blame the citizens for the lack of tax revenues and demand that they pay higher property taxes (as they did here in NY). And a CEO Santelli would tell Congress that he will not sell his toxic assets for less than their former inflated values, and demand that the government find a way to take them off his hands at the inflated price.

Explains Venezuala, Iran, China, Russia’s fears about using dollar currency I think, instead of vilifying them. I think Lieberman wants to declare war on them for that.

Now the problem has gotten to the point where people who had jobs and got traditional loans with 20% down can be big time underwater if they should get into trouble due to job or health problems.

Part of the “Maxine Waters made banks lend to black people, and it destroyed our poor financial institutions” narrative you can hear every day on CNBC and Morning Joe.

And FOX. Or don’t we count them?

Imagine the elderly being willing able to work for food and shelter?

Fixed it for you.

VERY cool!! Thanks. I’ll check what’s happening in San Diego.

Good one!

Or:

Imagine the elderly being willing having to work for food and shelter?

The Chinese are requesting we control our gnomes, banking, trade. If we continue on our present course, their dollar holdings will be worthless. They want us to be reasonable.

The truth being, “Imagine the elderly unable to work for food and shelter. Next?”

Arrest the gnomes, cat lady says.,

Klynn shakes head in tragic agreement.

Yep. Just sent the link to the PDA dude here.

There is a small smidgen of truth to the “it is unfair” argument too, but I believe that part can be handled.

The true part is that it would be horribly unfair to basically hand people who should NEVER have purchased an over-large McMansion a helping hand holding onto something they should never have been able to buy in the first place but for bullshit loan practices. Then those “leaders” who called out against cram-down have also used the picture of house flippers getting lots of help with their greedy or poorly thought-out “investments”.

Those two groups can be easily handled, I believe and NOT given help. Then there are people like my sister. She lives outside LA, is a special needs teacher. She is not some real estate wizard (and most people should NOT be expected to be economics or real estate wizards…they have their own jobs to worry about). She listened to a friend who talked her into buying a house at a point that turned out to be near the peak of the bubble. She was not irresponsible. She was buying a primary/sole home to live in indefinitely. She was not merely seeking to flip the home for a profit or use it to finance a high lifestyle. She just wanted a decent home to live in.

She is WAY upside down. People like her deserve help. People like her are NOT hucksters or greedy bastards. They are people who thought they were doing the right thing the right way but got bitten by the actual greedy bastards on Wall Street who kept telling everyone that the bubble would NEVER burst.

And the sheeple will sit quietly, in front of their tee vee, as their homes burn around them.

Amen to the sister part. I was thinking some people got screwed by bubble prices.

We the people need to surround Congress or the Senate and not let them leave until they provide us with certains things we need – re-instate Glass Steagall, get Geithner and Summers Foxes out of the Henhouse, investigate mortgage fraud, I could go on for pages and pages of where we the people need to be unscrewed.

OT: I just now noticed this FDL Book Salon announcement:

Sunday, April 5, 2009 5:00pm Eastern
Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness

Chat with Richard H. Thaler about his new book.

FWIW, the second author on that book is Obama’s friend and mentor, Cass Sunstein, and I attribute many of Obama’s decisions that I don’t like to Sunstein’s influence.

Democrats should be made to take serious hits in the voting booth for this abandonment of the middle class. In American mythology, the abject adoration of Wall Street is a GOP vice. Looks like that mythology needs an update and these CongressCritters need serious push back long before Nov. 2010.

That’s what I believe, too. Cannot wait until 2010. Push-back, big time. But whenever vigils/protests/whatever name one gives to them are held, for the most part, it’s a wee group of rabble that assembles to no good end. I hope Trippi’s idea catches fire.

That’s what’s needed. It would put such fear in the spinless ones in Congress. Power does not concede power easily, only when confronted with a countervailing power, the people.

We can’t wait until 2010. We’ve got to find progressives who would be willing to challenge incumbent Dems and put them out front and center now. With strong grass/netroots support we can at least put a fear of losing power into incumbents.

ya know, the last person to run on hope and change was Bill Clinton.

didn’t get much of either back then…

Gotta run without reading all posts – but regarding educating public as to fraud -
this was very interesting on Diane Rehm this a.m.:

11:00Beryl Satter: “Family Properties” (Metropolitan Books)
Guest host: Katty Kay

A history professor shatters myths about how black ghettos arose in American cities.

Guests
Beryl Satter, chair of the Department of History at Rutgers University and author of “Each Mind a Kingdom

It’s all about the blockbusting fraudulent sales of homes to black folks in Chicago in the 50’s and 60’s—selling at prices as much as quadruple the value of the house, and get this: because redlining kept the families from gtting mortgages, most were “sold” as contract for sale
That meant that if the buyer missed one payment, they were evicted – they had no title, no equty- and they often had to neglect every other economic thing to make the inflated payments.

Now, I knew about redlining, but I didn’t know so many were contract for deed. We still have that in Texas, and it gets a lot of poor and immigrant folks in big trouble.

That explains the missing piece to me of what went on in housing in those days, when I was kid.

I wish there was a simple way to explain to the public at large how bad these recent mortgage frauds were. I can’t believe cramdown is completely off the table, again.

Take a look at this:Financial Rescue Approaches GDP as U.S. Pledges $12.8 Trillion
Thanks Mr. Bernanke!

This one’s pretty good too:Walgreens Offering Free Healthcare For Jobless, Uninsured
Be sure to read the “requirements” and the comments about how much everyone LOVES Walgreens now, they are a hoot. I guess this means we won’t have heath care OR SS in the near future ’cause we’re broke. Way to go, Mr. O

The problem is the Blue Dogs are owned by the Wall Street banks. They will never ask a question like the one below because they already know whose interests they are there to serve.

Some people say that President Obama’s plan to help Wall Street banks avoid bankruptcy isn’t fair to community banks who pay their bills with their own money, instead of taxpayers money. Do you agree or disagree?

This is a great related article by the President of the Independent Community Banks of America

“Here’s the effervescent Neal Boortz”

Ah. I see, Ms. Jane, that your rage is hitting that point where transcendence is a matter of self-preservation.

The problem is that while the netroots have done a good job on this, most Americans still don’t know we exist — or have been trained to write us off. If they didn’t hear about it on drive-time radio or the evening TV news, it didn’t happen.

And so long as people are ignorant about reality, they can’t be trusted to make the right decisions when they’re angry.

In 1932 America, unions were much stronger than they are today and the corporate media didn’t have a lock on American brains. (Also, Soviet Russia and Maoist China had yet to make it a lot easier for the Hearsts and other conservative media moguls to slime anyone to the left of Walter Winchell.) The American people were better-equipped on the whole to make informed choices.

In 1932 Germany, things were even worse than they were in 1932 America — and much worse than they are here and now. (Remember the photos showing the wheelbarrows of worthless Reichsmarks in your high-school history books? Also, read Angela’s Ashes to see how, even in places like Ireland, the 1930s depression hit far harder there than it did in America.) The people were that much more frightened, angry, and looking for scapegoats. They found them.

I fear that today’s Americans, angered without being educated, will behave more like 1930s Germans than 1930s Americans.

Absolutely, 100% correct, as per usual.

Puppethead is exactly right when s/he says: “And in about three months we’ll be hearing about a major push for some type of cramdown provision for commercial real estate, now that CRE is tanking quickly. And Congress will be all over passing that. Just wait.” And a variant of that is already gaining traction in wonkish circles. Call it “the war against mark-to-market.”

Yes, the MSM’s “straddle” is still between free market, fiscally conservative (retched while I typed that) republicans over and against socialist, tax and spend, bleeding heart liberal Democrats.

There’s almost zero awareness that the 782 billion dollar stimulus is positively dwarfed by the 12 trillion that is going to financial services.

Dead serious.

so very sorry to know that.

i don’t know how you think people who didn’t pay attention will pay attention now – unless their benefits are actually cut. and that means actual harm to real people. people i know.

what you are describing is NOT organizing. there are a lot of people who are apathetic because they don’t know what they can do. and if there’s nothing one can do, why even pay attention?. changing that dynamic is part of what organizing IS. btw, still waiting for that email you promised me on how people like me who don’t have much money can help. don’t worry though, no need to send it now.

most people don’t know how the ftaa was stopped either – or a host of other evils. or how a host of good things actually were brought about. from conversations here, i’m pretty sure most people who read (and write at) fdl don’t know either. part of organizing is educating ourselves on how change comes about and spreading that info.

what you are describing is NOT progressive populism. do you even know the difference between right wing and left wing populism? i ask because despising people who have less than you, and actually wishing for harm to come to them (or even risking harm) is NOT progressive populism. it’s the right wing variety.

this is so especially disheartening because there are many many things we could be doing right now that don’t require wishing harm on anyone (let alone those in need) or invoking the “fear, fear, fear” of the right.

100% wrong.

I fear that today’s Americans, angered without being educated, will behave more like 1930s Germans than 1930s Americans.

me too.

especially when i see right wing populism take hold of progressives.

Ah selise, It’s human to get discouraged and bitter etc. It’s also human for people to forget what good was done in the past. Like FDR era banking reform. Or I was watching a documentary on Ralph Nader and it seems as though he’s done a lot of good in the past, and okay I think a lot of it was before I was a politically sentient being, but I was amazed. Anyway let’s please, please (& yes I am begging) not attribute motives, like wishing harm, or looking down on people for what might have been a few sentences written in tired, pissed off mode.

I think this is extremely unfair selise:

despising people who have less than you, and actually wishing for harm to come to them

I don’t think I’ve ever done anything to deserve that. Quite the opposite.

Just because we have separate ideas of how to be most effective doesn’t mean I have fallen into “right wing populism.” It’s actually much more right wing to demonize someone who has the same objectives as you but different ideas about the best tactics.

You can argue that you don’t think my tactics will be effective, but I think calling my objectives into question goes way too far.

Only a republican could go to China. Apparently the ‘crats want to show only they can gut Soc Sec.

Careful what you wish for, Jane, it has a good chance of happening. The gutting, that is. Anger from the American sheople? Never. At least not until it’s too late to do a damn bit of good.

i don’t know how else to understand this (my bolds):

You know what? Good. We tried hard to stop Social Security from being cut when its head was on the chopping block last time, but I don’t think I’d do it again. If they want to cut Social Security benefits, let ‘em.

your post just strikes me as blaming the victims. and the “good” especially as wishing for something bad to happen to people who depend on SS. i’d very much like to have another way to understand it, and very much appreciate your reply.

here’s another way i think you have it wrong:

Public apathy — a blind acceptance that things are getting better, and that they’re not being robbed blind — is facilitating a whole host of evils.

i think this is blaming people for apathy when apathy might not be the problem at all. a lot good people who aren’t at all apathetic want and maybe even need to believe good things about their political leaders. (and there is also the whole confirmation bias and similar cognitive processes at work.) here’s an example of what i mean from 2 weeks ago:

Stock numbers, price stabilizing in energy costs for public use, slow in decline on purchases for general retail in regular sectors (not the richflation ones, which still suck rocks)…there have been several blips the last few weeks as I’ve watched the news that had that “turning the tide” feeling. Not saying it’s over, not by a long shot — but recovery starts with tiny steps forward, and we’d at least stopped feeling like complete and utter freefall to me.

Just my opinion, but there you go.

this isn’t apathy. i think it’s wishful thinking that things are getting better. although i expect the writer thinks i’m just too cynical and pessimistic. and maybe i’m the one who’s wrong. but like you, i think we’re being robbed blind – and have since the blank check tarp vote.

so i guess i see it’s my fault for not making a better case. because if i can’t convince a smart, caring, definitely not apathetic person, doesn’t that mean that maybe i’m wrong or that i just suck at persuasion?

thanks again for your reply. i do not mean to demonize you at all (actually think you’re pretty awesome for taking my comment seriously and responding seriously yourself) and am not calling your motives or objectives into question. that is not at all what i meant.

will try to clarify:

i’m completely ok with a wide variety of tactics (electoral, direct action, and so forth), so long as the tactics themselves don’t advocate causing (or risking) harm to the innocent. i understood your post to do that. for me it’s not at all a matter of whether i think the tactic is going to be effective – i may have an opinion, but what do i know?

again, it’s whether the tactic involves advocating causing (or risking) harm to the innocent.

edit to add: i’ve got to go, and maybe that’s a good thinkg because i’m still really pissed off and i bet you, jane, are too. we’ve got a lot to be pissed off about but i don’t think the names at the top of the list are jane and selise.

Selise and Jane. I want to put the quadruple parentheses around both of you and wish you both well. Peace be with both of you and thank you both for all of your hard work on our behalf!

Jane, I don’t think you’ve succumbed to right-wing populism either, and in general I agree with most of your original post and applaud your consistent attention to the important economic/political issues that we face. However, you suggest a rather dangerous tactic here. It is possible to lose the social security fight, even with a pissed-off, relatively well-informed electorate and a Democratic administration. If you think the corpocracy can’t subvert the social security debate, look what they’re doing on EFCA. I realize that EFCA is to most people an abstraction while social security is, at least to middle age farts like me, quite real. But what about younger workers? How real is it to them? Can they be scared into organizing to protect a safety net that maybe they’ve been assuming won’t be there for them anyway? I hope we can all agree that to preserve social security we need to educate, agitate and organize. There really aren’t any shortcuts to that. Hoping that the forces of evil will scare us out of our supposed apathy is a dangerous game. It actually reminds me not of right-wing populism but more like the line touted by some of the sectarian left groups in the early 1970s – you know, the “let’s hasten the contradictions of capitalism so people will spontaneously rise up” contingent. How’d that work out?

I’m not sure that public anger is lacking outside the Beltway. It is unfocused. Demoralized. But it is there.

The anger is unfocused because the President has not dared to stand up for it and embody it. There is a lot of letdown at how the Democrats have behaved. Dismay at the administration’s handling of the bank bailouts, the war, and torture comes up from people on all but the farthest looney fringes of the right. Anger at layoffs and offshoring of jobs and profits is common. The Democratic party faithful and the independents are demoralized. The mainline Republicans have gone from stunned or reluctantly hopeful to hopeless and sputtering that BOTH parties are to blame. A surprising number of people seem to be stocking up on guns.

I base this on coffee shop chatter, workplace discussions, and letters to the local editors in a once solidly Republican area that went for Obama and the Democrats the last two election cycles. But I doubt it will again.

If the public knew that the “irresponsible homeowners” were the victims of wide-spread fraud, would they change their tune?

Irresponsible Americans would rather see their neighbors lose their homes and have the value of their own homes tank than find some way to soften the blow to the whole neighborhood.

If the public hears a thing like “it’s not fair” and they don’t realize they’re being lied to or that the message is contrived to get a certain knee-jerk reaction, then they’re just more victims of fraud, just like the homeowner who has a bad or underwater mortgage.

People forget, a lot of these foreclosures aren’t AREN’T on mortgages where people bought too much. They’re on underwater mortgages where circumstances far beyond anybody’s control knocked them on their backs.

But, so many people are against the wall that they’re always going to respond emotionally. Personally I don’t think any of this crisis is our fault and that a lot of irresponsible greedy rich people are criminals who should go to jail to meet and stay with Bubba for a while.

I wrote on another post that there’s a question of how hard gov’t. should push to fix things and the economy may not give us time. But, one might add that the PUBLIC have their own time frame in mind and we must respect that too. How long must they wait before they start seeing some of these criminals in bling bling behind bars?

By the way, obama’s appointed department of justice sellout, eric holder, is taking on the same stance as the bush administration on not allowing the state ags to go after the mortgage fraud that the feds seemingly have no interest in investigating and revealing themselves.

What on Earth? Do you have a linky on that?

A cramdown for commercial chap 11 is already available. It is also available on 2nd and third houses.

Could someone challenge the Constitutionality of this in federal court? it seems terribly unfair “unequal treatment” to allow one class of people (business owners or people who are wealthy enough to own more than one home) to have this opportunity.

Cramdowns for all or cramdowns for NONE !

The Chinese are requesting we control our gnomes, banking, trade. If we continue on our present course, their dollar holdings will be worthless. They want us to be reasonable.

Maybe the Chinese should let their currency float and let their peasants have a bit more buying power, so they might buy some of our stuff. That would help the world trade balance a little and it might help end their part of the crisis.

If we can’t buy all their stuff and they won’t let their own people buy more, then I guess they’ll have to wait a while for our little miracle recovery to happen.

now that CRE is tanking quickly. And Congress will be all over passing that. Just wait.” And a variant of that is already gaining traction in wonkish circles. Call it “the war against mark-to-market.”

Maybe we can get a senator to re-word part of their cramdown bill to call it a “mark-to-market” bill. Who knows, maybe the less aware senators would vote for it without realizing they were just buying into their own stupid language trap.

That entire comment exists because you left out one key line:

I don’t think any attempt to cut benefits would be successful, I think there would be a massive mobilization of people who have just had their 401Ks looted, but it would make the battle lines a whole lot clearer.

The anger is directed a the people trying to cut the benefits, not those who are having then cut. I think the fight happening out of site of the people who are affected by these decisions may not be a positive thing. The goal is to empower them with knowledge of what is happening to them that they don’t get until things rise to the level of media awareness.

I don’t quite know how that got interpreted as “right wing populism.”

The Republiklan party cannot do anything without the money from their corporate contributors that make and sell products. Does it make sense to you that we should begin to financially pressure some of these companies for the legislative actions that WE want?

Some of these companies include Wendy’s, General Electric, Rite Aid Pharmacy Corporation, and Brown Forman ( In Sen. McConnell’s state ) that sells Jack Daniels and Southern Comfort. Don’t do business with these companies and get others not to do business with these companies. Call these companies and tell them, we will not do business with you until we ge the legislative action that WE want. Get enough people to do this and it will work.

you’re mixing up two parts of my comment @74 (i probably should have separated them into two comments). on the issue of blaming the victim, i quoted from your post. on the issue of one reason i thought you were wrong about the “apathy,” i quoted from your comment @26.

regardless, i did not miss the line you highlight from your comment @26 (or the line before it). if i understand correctly, you think, but do not and can not know, that there would be a spontaneous massive mobilization to prevent SS benefits from being cut. but you are still advocating for something that would increase the risk that the benefits would be cut, which is where the “or risking” comes in and why i tried to focus on it in my attempt to clarify. here’s the bit i keep repeating:

again, it’s whether the tactic involves advocating causing (or risking) harm to the innocent.

…..

re populism. a gross oversimplification, but here goes: i understand the primary difference between right wing and left wing populism to be where the source of the problem is located: with those who have more political power (left wing) or with those who don’t (right wing).

blaming the “apathy” of the public strikes me as the second especially when coupled with advocating for something that risks causing that same public very real harm (”If they want to cut Social Security benefits, let ‘em”).

I hope we can all agree that to preserve social security we need to educate, agitate and organize. There really aren’t any shortcuts to that. Hoping that the forces of evil will scare us out of our supposed apathy is a dangerous game. It actually reminds me not of right-wing populism but more like the line touted by some of the sectarian left groups in the early 1970s – you know, the “let’s hasten the contradictions of capitalism so people will spontaneously rise up” contingent. How’d that work out?

good points. thanks.