Clerks

by digby

Atrios nails the fundamental issue:

The issue is that Timmeh and friends never distinguished between bailing out the system and bailing out the players. There was a way to do that, and they didn’t do it.

I don’t know whether it’s insecurity,solidarity, ideology or some combination thereof, but they do seem to have believed that the only way they could fix the problem was to acquiesce to the demands of the perpetrators.

Just to remind you of how those people think, I’ll run this again:

Asked about Geithner’s comments and his decision regarding opening the discount window to Wall Street after Bear had been sold for $2 a share and not earlier, [Bear CEO]Jimmy Cayne became spitting angry.

“The audacity of that p—k in front of the American people announcing he was deciding whether or not a firm of this stature and this whatever was good enough to get a loan,” he said. “Like he was the determining factor, and it’s like a flea on his back, floating down underneath the Golden Gate Bridge, getting a h–d-on, saying, ‘Raise the bridge.’ This guy thinks he’s got a big d–k. He’s got nothing, except maybe a boyfriend. I’m not a good enemy. I’m a very bad enemy. But certain things really—that bothered me plenty. It’s just that for some clerk to make a decision based on what, your own personal feeling about whether or not they’re a good credit? Who the f–k asked you? You’re not an elected officer. You’re a clerk. Believe me, you’re a clerk. I want to open up on this f—-r, that’s all I can tell you.”

This is how these Wall Street MOUs see the government. Clerks. And in a way they’re right. That’s the problem.

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