WHEREIN ELMO ZONEBALL pulls no punches, and spares no feelings, in calling shenanigans on Barney Frank and the rest of the Democrats for their naked opportunism in the face of financial crisis…
I no longer labor under any illusion that this administration has any intention of solving the economic crisis, nor has it the competence were it its objective.
The economic illness afflicting not only the US but the world revolves around the collapse of the housing bubble and the related credit crisis that was virtually assured by the Sarbanes-Oxley mark-to-market rule, as enforced through FASB 157 adopted in 2007, virtually guaranteeing a death spiral in asset values of mortgage-backed-securities and their derivative financial instruments once the housing bubble popped. So long as these assets are forced to virtually zero value — despite the fact that 88% of all mortgages continue to be paid on time, and 92% of working Americans still have jobs — a significant portion of the financial system is in dire straights, unable to borrow/lend, and the continued crisis in credit is the logjam that prevents meaningful recovery to commence.
As has been noted elsewhere, the latest mortgage “cram down” measure not only won’t fix the problem, it will materially exacerbate further long term deterioration in the housing market values as the interest rates are forced higher, and the number of qualifying borrowers dwindle.
Adding further insult to injury is this administration’s obsession with shit-that-does-not-matter™, whilst doing nothing productive to unfuck the credit/banking system. Examples abound:
Yesterday, Treasury Sec’y Geithner announce the administration’s proposals to eliminate all tax credits/reductions for the oil industry, on the grounds that its product contributed to “global warming.” Putting aside for the moment the fact that such a move can only INCREASE the cost of energy for every man woman, and child in America at a time of dire economic distress, one must ask why the Administration is fucking around with shit-that-does-not-matter™ while the economy continues to sink under the weight of the unfucked credit/banking system and the specter of trillion dollar boondoggle bailouts™ and pork-laden deficit budgets as far as the eye can see.
Today, the Democrats continued to place their emphasis on shit-that-does-not-matter™, with Congressman Barney “Hot Bottom” Frank giving a press conference to announce his legislative agenda for March. You’ would think he would be focusing like a laser beam on unfucking the credit/banking system, but no, the Queen of Massachusetts politics instead is going to concentrate this month on… wait for it….. “more regulation of the credit card industry.”
Little did we know that the economic crisis we are in was the product of the evils of unsecured debt.
In the past couple days, the TED spread is skyrocketing in the past couple days, with the 3 mo Treasury note yield collapsing by nearly a third, and in the past month the commercial mortgage credit spreads have reached levels far exceeding those seen last November.
And still the administration continues to dawdle over shit-that-does-not-matter™, like nominating a new FEMA head (while there are no hurricanes in sight), while the single most direct, cost-free, and immediate resolution to much of the credit/banking crisis — mark-to-market reform — languishes like a forlorn wallflower.
The only conclusion I can come to is that this administration, and its sycophants in congress and the Main stream media, are obsessed with using the economic crisis as a bludgeon to cram down as much socialist/fascist take-over of the economy and social re-engineering of the free market as they can get away with before the public wises up.
In the end, I don’t think these Keynesian Klowns have any idea how to unfuck the economy, even if their lives depended on it.
That no Republican can seem to manage to articulate the righteous indignation & outrage this utter incompetence deserves is equally disturbing.
http://forum.darwincentral.org/viewtopic.php?p=458383#p458383