Month: May 2010

Miranda Warning

by digby

Despite the fact that the terrorist suspect is “singing,” as Chris Matthews puts it, Pat Buchanan asks “why would you Mirandize him?”

I think people are very confused. Just because the police fail to give a suspect the Miranda warning, it doesn’t mean the rights that are mentioned in the warning are no longer operative. In fact, it means that the government can’t use the information against you if they fail to give it. The law of the land is as that old bleeding heart terrorist symp William Rhenquist described it back in 2000, when the court reaffirmed the law:

Taking up one of the most famous and harshly assailed decisions in American law, the Supreme Court forcefully reaffirmed Monday that the Constitution requires police officers to give suspects Miranda warnings before questioning them in custody.

The opinion, written by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, was short, emphatic and rejected arguments that Miranda vs. Arizona, the landmark 1966 decision, no longer should be the law of the land. Rehnquist, an early Miranda critic, wrote for the 7-2 majority that Congress could not overrule it and that the court would not do so.

In a hushed courtroom crowded with spectators, Rehnquist provided high drama to a case already among the most anxiously awaited of the court’s term. Announcing he would explain Miranda’s fate, he began by reciting the familiar warnings, pausing after each one.

“You have a right to remain silent,” said Rehnquist, his strong voice filling the marble courtroom. “Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law. You have a right to the presence of an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you.”

Those warnings, Rehnquist continued, “have echoed through police stations and on television screens” since 1966, when the court’s Miranda decision gave judges a way to evaluate when confessions could be admitted into evidence. If a suspect in custody did not get the Miranda warnings before he was questioned, the case made clear, his statements could not be used as evidence against him.

So, short of a new Supreme Court decision reversing Miranda, or a move to strip us all of our citizenship and ship us to Gitmo if we’re accused of crimes, the authorities had no choice if they want to convict this person in a court of law.

Now we know that people like Buchanan believe that he should be called an unlawful combatant regardless of his citizenship, tortured, tossed in a cell and we should throw away the key, but so far that isn’t the law of the land or the policy of the government (at least not on US soil.) Therefore, the government had no choice but to go by the book.

Assuming the right’s non-stop bleating about the constitution and the rule of law has any basis in reality, they need to come to terms with the idea that the government doesn’t have a choice in this. They have to mirandize suspects and follow the law. And they need to understand that if the government just decides not to, it doesn’t mean that the suspect never had those rights. The fifth amendment still exists even if the suspect isn’t told about it — it is not contingent on the Miranda warnings. And if he evokes it on his own, an anyone who’s ever watched a Law and Order episode is likely to do — you don’t get to torture him to make him talk.

I honestly had no idea that any of this was considered up for debate, but it certainly seems to be.

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Keep Open Left Open

by digby

One of the best blogs in the blogiverse is holding a fundraiser this week and if you have a couple of bucks to spare I urge you to direct them to Open Left so they can keep the doors open over the next year.

This is a very important blog, one that serves as an engine for progressive movement activism and analysis for all of us. It’s one of my first stops every day. It’s a place where ideas are generated and discussed with passion and purpose by writers and thinkers committed to the progressive movement, like Bowers, Chart, Rosenberg, Sirota, debcoop, Bink and all the others who post there on the front page and in the diaries. In this day of major media blogging, it’s vitally important that we keep these independent blogs that do such good work going with out personal support.

Right now they have a contest for matching funds from a big donor, so if you feel like doing this now, you’ll be giving them double your money.

Donate here.

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Tyranny For Dummies

by digby

Next time someone in a tri-corner hat starts waving the constitution in your face, ask them about today’s Senate Homeland Security hearings, where the conservatives had a complete fit at Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s complaint that people on the terrorist watch list can buy any gun they like and there’s nothing anyone can do about it — while at the same time they all thoughtfully pondered whether or not we should strip them of their citizenship. I’m not kidding.

MSNBC covered the story this way, starting with the man who has been saying that we are terribly unsafe if Guantanamo prisoners are tried in America and that we need to have a many tiered system of justice in terrorism cases. Just don’t let anyone see if terrorist suspects might be buying their weapons in America, because that would be unconstitutional:

Lindsay Graham: [speaking of restricting people on the terrorist watch list from buying automatic weapons] this is not going in the right direction because we’re dealing with a constitutional right. And I am very concerned about the gaps in our defenses. But maybe I’m not making a good argument to you but it makes perfect sense to me that losing the ability to own a gun which is a constitutional right using this list the way it’s constructed is unnerving at best.

Total intellectual incoherence is what’s unnerving.

Andrea Mitchell and Kelly O’Donnell took it from there:

O’Donnell: The question is, if you are on a terrorist watch list, can the government step in a stop you from buying a weapon when it goes through the typical process of having those background checks? And at present the answer is no. They may identify it, they may watch that person and we’ve been told today that more than eleven hundred times since 2004 and 2010, someone who is on a watch list has bought a firearm in the United States. They have not been able to tell is there is any tie between any of those persons and those who get accused of actually committing some act of terror.

That’s because they are not allowed to keep the records of who buys guns. She went on to say that Senator Congressman King want to tighten this and followed up with analysis:

O’Donnell: But as you heard Lindsay Graham, who is an expert on this because he serves in the Air Force as a lawyer and the JAG and has studied a lot of this, gun issues are tough.

So they highlighted an issue. There is a lot of concern from the conservative side that United States citizens could be in a situation where they would not be able to get a gun. We also know there are circumstances that already exist where there are restrictions for mental problems or felons and those kinds of things. This is a new area where they are trying to tie terrorist watch lists to limiting gun access. And it was certainly a way to air it out. But they are far from being able to resolve this kind of issue.

Ok. So the conservatives believe that the constitution is inviolate and can’t be tweaked just because we don’t like the outcome. I can roll with that.

Except, as well know, they don’t believe that at all:

Mitchell: And the chairman of the committee, Joe Lieberman, he also suggested that he thinks it’s time to strip someone who’s under a watch list of their citizenship. We heard John McCain say earlier today that there should not have been the mirandizing so there are a lot of what critics of the administration are going to be saying, Republicans are going to be raising a whole lot of issues

O’Donnell: All about how you would proceed. Especially if one is a naturalized citizen as was the case in the Times Square incident. Could you pull away some of the rights that we as American citizens would have? That’s part of what is prompting Lieberman’s comments. And if you were even a natural born citizen and would commit what they said would be an act of treason would you then forfeit your citizenship benefits?

And there was a discussion today that under one set of facts a citizen could be determined to be an enemy combatant, a classification that gives the government some different avenues to go through prosecution. These are really tough issue because they go right to the heart of the constitution and right to current day events that have everyone on edge.

Yeah, they’re tough alright because they don’t make any fucking sense. You can’t take away someone’s right to own a gun if they are on the watch list, but you can take away their citizenship? Being accused of treason could lead you to lose your citizenship? What are these people smoking?

Why not say that you lose your citizenship for committing any crime? (Well, as long as it doesn’t involve depriving you of your right to bear arms — which is so inviolate that even terrorist suspects can’t be profiled on that basis.) Seriously, we could all make ourselves so much “safer” if we just got rid of the whole citizenship and rights thing altogether and allowed the government to just convene kangaroo courts and do with us what they will.

And those who labor under the illusion that not being middle eastern will protect them need to think again. Here’s what a recent terrorist suspect looks like, after all:

I still can’t wrap my mind around the fact that tea partiers are having fits over a health care plan which they claim is a usurpation of our constitutional rights, but stripping Americans of their citizenship when someone suspects them of a crime is worth considering. Torture and indefinite imprisonment are perfectly in keeping with our founding principles but asking people to fill out a census form is Big Brother in action. Profiling anyone who some beat cop thinks might not be a citizen is a-ok, but making it difficult for terrorist suspects to buy a gun is an assault on the constitution. What the hell?

I don’t think “tyranny” means what these people think it means. These poor deluded people seem to actually believe that owning a gun is the only thing they need to protect their rights. That is a very silly idea.

Update: If you think that it’s equally silly to let everyone in the country, no matter what the circumstances, have free access to guns, you can sign this petition.

Antonio Villaraigosa signs on with Bloomberg on this issue.

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Benefits

by digby

As the President’s spooky deficit commission meets behind closed doors today, and Pete Peterson and his minions continue to work themselves into a frenzy, it’s probably worth asking — cui bono? What are these people getting out of all this? MTMB made a connection:

[A]s always, one must follow the money, since Peterson’s ‘charity’ [The Peterson Institute] seems rather self-interested–and not in the sense of ‘healthy children are good for all of us’ (italics mine):

…we can get a sense of what is on the table by looking at the earlier agenda of Peterson’s Commission on Budget Reform. The Peterson/Walker plan would have slashed social security entitlements at a time when Wall Street has destroyed the home equity and private retirement accounts of potential retirees. Worse, it would have increased the Social Security tax, disguised as a “mandatory savings tax.” This added tax would be automatically withdrawn from your paycheck and deposited to a “Guaranteed Retirement Account” managed by the Social Security Administration. Since the savings would be “mandatory,” you could not withdraw your money without stiff penalties; and rather than enjoying an earlier retirement paid out of your increased savings, a later retirement date was being called for. In the meantime, your “mandatory savings” would just be fattening the investment pool of the Wall Street bankers managing the funds.

But, perhaps Peterson et alia are just fucking morons who suck at public policy? Let’s follow the money some more (italics mine):

Political analyst Jim Capo discusses a slide show presentation given by Walker after the “I.O.USA.” premier [a movie backed by the Peterson Foundation about how our debt makes us DOOMED!], in which a mandatory savings plan was proposed that would be modeled on the Federal Thrift Savings Plan (FSP). Capo comments:

“The FSP, available for federal employees like congressional staff workers, has over $200 billion of assets (on paper anyway). About half these assets are in special non-negotiable US Treasury notes issued especially for the FSP scheme. The other half are invested in stocks, bonds and other securities…. The nearly $100 billion in [this] half of the plan is managed by Blackrock Financial. And, yes, shock, Blackrock Financial is a creation of Mr. Peterson’s Blackstone Group. In fact, the FSP and Blackstone were birthed almost as a matched set. It’s tough to fail when you form an investment management company at the same time you can gain the contract that directs a percentage of the Federal government payroll into your hands.”

To put this in context, currently the annual Social Security revenues are over $700 billion. If, between rerouting money and increasing payroll taxes (cat food for all!), $350 billion could easily be diverted to firms like Blackrock.

Nice little business.

By coincidence, today Brad DeLong makes the point that Democrats should be willing to do something like this as a way to shore up social security over the long haul. He thinks this is an easier way to make retirement funds secure in 2042 or so than raising taxes. (Evidently, he thinks people will be more willing to be mandated to pay Pete Peterson money than the government. And maybe he’s right.) Anyway, here’s his argument:

Some of the Social Security trust fund will be invested in the stock market in hope of getting a higher rate of return–but the Treasury will guarantee to make the Social Security trust fund whole if and when its stock market investments ever turn out to be net losses.

Congress also raises Social Security taxes–only it calls them “contributions” to “private accounts.”

Social Security taxpayers get some choice as to how to invest their “private account” “contributions”–accepting more risk in the hope of higher return, or not.

Any gains or losses from investments in “private accounts” stay with the taxpayer in whose name the investments were made.

This deal would allow (1) Democrats to say that they have no allowed the diversion of a single dollar of Social Security taxes away from the current system; (2) Democrats to say that they have strengthened the Social Security system as a whole by reinforcing its finances and raising its financial resources; (3) Republicans to say that they have kept the Democrats from throwing more money down the well that is the unsustainable and outmoded twentieth-century Social Security system; (4) Republicans to say that they have created private accounts for every American.

It seems to me that this position would be a fine place to wind up–but that it is not a bargaining position from which Democrats should start. This is, in fact, where I envisioned and hoped we were going in 2005: with private accounts as an “add on, not a carve-out” to the Social Security system as it currently exists.

One from column A and one from column B — and the profits go to Mr. P.

Depending on the details about how these accounts would be handled, it would be a fine place to wind up — except that t is extremely likely that it will wind up with a bunch of Masters of the Universe getting to play with the American people’s retirement money with the full guarantee of the government and making a profit at it. None of that has worked out very well for us in the past.

The Republicans might be expected to go along with this for obvious reasons, but I suspect they will hold out for something better. They have time. Getting “mandatory private accounts” on the menu, especially at the hands of Democrats, would be a huge coup and they will be willing to let that settle among the people in the hopes of a better deal down the road. (Not to mention allowing the unpleasant memories of Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimond to fade from their minds.) It seems strange to think in this “too big to fail” era that anyone would agree to what amounts to another mandate to pay private industry directly, but maybe over time we’ll all get used to the idea that the taxpayers must hire middlemen to do the government’s job and pay them a premium for the privilege. It’s the ultimate privatization of government and a beautiful scam for the private sector which bears no risk since the taxpayers will always be on the hook. All those years of right wing anti-government propaganda will have finally paid off.

I respect DeLong, but I think this is the wrong approach and the Democrats should not even entertain this idea. Watching what’s happening in Greece right now, where pensioners are having their minimal checks cut in half because the government engaged in crazy financial schemes and the rest of Europe is now demanding austerity, reinforces my belief that we should not make any decisions right now about social security. This is a shock doctrine moment and the best thing to do is keep the existing safety net completely off the agenda.

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Cinco de Mayo

by digby

Hollywood gets in on the action.

Robert Rodriguez is calling this his “Illegal” trailer. You see, Robert talked Fox into letting him put together a Cinco De Mayo message for ARIZONA – given. well, the way things are in Arizona at this moment – it is kinda insane that there is a movie that was shot over a year ago waiting to be released that is about – THIS EXACT ISSUE… but if, Danny Trejo and buddies went Revolution Wacko as a result.

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Getting Into It

by digby

Well I guess we know now whether the White House is going to weigh in on the primaries this year:

President Barack Obama has cut his first ad in support of Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s re-election campaign, urging Arkansans to back the incumbent Senator for her work on two policy topics that have become focal points of her primary campaign. In a personally-narrated radio spot, Obama paints Lincoln as a populist crusader who is “leading the fight to hold Wall Street accountable and make sure that Arkansas taxpayers are never again asked to bail out Wall Street bankers.” “On health care,” Obama adds, “Blanche took on big insurance companies by voting to end discrimination against Arkansans with preexisting conditions and fought for tax credits that will help thousands of local small businesses provide insurance to their employees.”

Yeah, she was a real stalwart on health care reform. She didn’t even vote for the reconciliation package.

I’m guessing there was a deal for this and maybe that makes sense. But it’s this kind of thing that makes people cynical about politics. Primaries are the province of the grassroots, not the establishment. Certainly the leadership should show a little respect and let them unfold. There’s little enough real democracy in our system as it is.

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Getting What They Paid For

by digby

Is there a bigger lackey than Mary Landrieu in the congress? I honestly don’t think so. She is facing an environmental devastation of her state’s shoreline and the destruction of its fishing and tourism industries and she was on John King’s show this afternoon defending the oil industry and promoting more offshore drilling:

King: You know the narrative’s that’s emerging, that critics of this industry say that senators from the Gulf states, senators like Mary Landrieu are too cozy with the industry, that your states get a lot of revenue from this and that this industry has essentially regulated itself. Because in Democratic and Republican administrations, the enforcement from the government, the regulation from the government is simply not at the level it needs to be. Is that a fair criticism?

Landrieu: Well that will be examined. I don’t believe that’s a fair criticism. I think that this industry has very tight regulations and good regulations. But you know we learn after every accident. We learned after the Three mile [Island] accident with nuclear. We shut that whole industry down and that was a mistake. We should have regulated it better and continued to lead the world in nuclear, and instead …

King: So those who say this is a wake-up call, shut this industry down …

Landrieu: They are wrong, they are absolutely wrong and I’ll tell you why. Because that’s not going to do anything to clean our environment. [Really?] It’s not going to do anything to create jobs. It’s going to lose jobs. And it’s not going to do anything to make America safe, you know independently, energy independent, and those are the three things we need to do. Moving this industry off our shores on to other shores, where they don’t have the kind of tight regulation, where they don’t have the court system we do, where they don’t have the kind of transparent government we have — would be wrong and a mistake.

And I want to make this point. Two things. We use 20 million barrels of oil a day. We only produce 9. So we’ve got to produce not less but more. And we have to do it safely. And again I hope we can do this in a fashion that’s respectful [?] we investigate, we hold people accountable and we move forward.

King: When something like this happens people go back at look at political relationships. Of the top 20 recipients from the oil and gas industry ever, you rank number 14. In the 2008 campaign, you were the number one congressional candidate for donations from BP, after only president Obama presidential candidate, Senator Obama and Senator McCain. There are some who say that if you’re going to be the watchdog, you should give that money back.

Landrieu: I’m not trying to be a watchdog for BP. I’m trying to be a good Senator for this country and Louisiana. And to bring a balance to our energy policy, which means fighting for our coasts, and energy security and a clean environment. I want to say again John, this is important. We’ve drilled a thousand deep water wells successfully, except for this one. So the fact that you do it 99 out of a hundred right and one wrong doesn’t mean you throw up your hands and then run in hysteria.

King: Even if an ecosystem is destroyed for ten years?

Landrieu: Well, it may not be destroyed for ten years. We will see what happens. I know that there’s going to be some environmental challenges, but we believe that we have the technology to clean it up to compensate for people. But look, if New Jersey wants to give up their oil, if Florida wants to give up their oil, then fine. But their going to have a crash in their economy. We need to have a transition., blah,blah,blah…

Governor Bob Riley of Alabama may have something to say about it. It’s kind of hard to make Louisiana bear the entire risk in case of that one out of a thousand catastrophic oil spill, isn’t it?

At a press conference this afternoon in Mobile, AL, the Wonk Room questioned Riley whether he would reconsider his “Drill, Baby, Drill” stance as the oil spill grows, threatening the destruction of the bayous and beaches of Mobile Bay. After a long pause, Riley answered that he “will have a completely different attitude” if the efforts to protect his state’s shores fail:

That’s a great question. After we get through this, I think all of us can make a better determination than we can now. Because with the resources that have been deployed, and if we can do what I hope we can do in Alabama to mitigate any potential environmental damage here, especially in our estuaries, then I will have a completely different attitude about whether or not it is controllable after something this dramatic happens.

Come on Bob. You can’t just “throw up your hands in hysteria” because of one little massively destructive oil spill. After all it hardly ever happens. Who knows, it might not be so bad. And anyway, the oil companies are really good citizens who have lots of tough regulations already and we need to drill, baby, drill to keep the babies safe and keep the oil companies giving you lots of money for your campaigns. Get your priorities straight.

Landrieu really couldn’t be more of a bought and paid for . This isn’t your normal “industry vs government” argument. She has a whole bunch of constituents who are going to be ruined by this. And unless Rush and the boys succeed in brainwashing all of them that Obama personally blew up this well for political reasons, they are going to want someone to pay. It sure doesn’t sound like Landrieu’s willing to fight for them on that.

We’ll see. Maybe everyone in the Gulf is philosophical about some multinational corporations buying off their political representatives and ruining their state and way of life. Landrieu probably shouldn’t count on it though.

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Historical Revisioneristy

by digby

In his little “Let Me Finish” post script segment today, Chris Matthews tried to make the case that the citizenry likes it when the government is competent.

“Men like men who are competent, women like men who are competent, women like women who are competent and men like women who are competent. Everyone likes people who are competent. The era of the cutie klutz this isn’t. We don’t want a Woody Allen character running our government or our household. Annie Hall, remember, was a comedy.

Whatever. He then went on to talk about how Bush had been incompetent by claiming there were WMD in Iraq and then looked like a fool when none were found. But then he said this:

The incompetence became downright staggering when the Commander In Chief pranced onto an aircraft carrier with a “Mission Accomplished” banner flying overhead. The bozos couldn’t even get the PR right.

I once claimed that it was my life’s mission to remind Matthews of his behavior on that very day, by writing about it every May 1st. This was the only time I forgot. But better late than never:

Happy Codpiece Day Everyone

by digby

It seems like only yesterday that the country was enthralled with the president in his sexy flightsuit. Women were swooning, manly GOP men were commenting enviously on his package. But there were none so awestruck by the sheer, testosterone glory of Bush’s codpiece as Tweety:

MATTHEWS: Let’s go to this sub–what happened to this week, which was to me was astounding as a student of politics, like all of us. Lights, camera, action. This week the president landed the best photo op in a very long time. Other great visuals: Ronald Reagan at the D-Day cemetery in Normandy, Bill Clinton on horseback in Wyoming. Nothing compared to this, I’ve got to say.

Katty, for visual, the president of the United States arriving in an F-18, looking like he flew it in himself. The GIs, the women on–onboard that ship loved this guy.

Ms. KAY: He looked great. Look, I’m not a Bush man. I mean, he doesn’t do it for me personally, especially not when he’s in a suit, but he arrived there…

MATTHEWS: No one would call you a Bush man, by the way.

Ms. KAY: …he arrived there in his flight suit, in a jumpsuit. He should wear that all the time. Why doesn’t he do all his campaign speeches in that jumpsuit? He just looks so great.

MATTHEWS: I want him to wa–I want to see him debate somebody like John Kerry or Lieberman or somebody wearing that jumpsuit.

Mr. DOBBS: Well, it was just–I can’t think of any, any stunt by the White House–and I’ll call it a stunt–that has come close. I mean, this is not only a home run; the ball is still flying out beyond the park.

MATTHEWS: Well, you know what, it was like throwing that strike in Yankee Stadium a while back after 9/11. It’s not a stunt if it works and it’s real. And I felt the faces of those guys–I thought most of our guys were looking up like they were looking at Bob Hope and John Wayne combined on that ship.

Mr. GIGOT: The reason it works is because of–the reason it works is because Bush looks authentic and he felt that he–you could feel the connection with the troops. He looked like he was sincere. People trust him. That’s what he has going for him.

MATTHEWS: Fareed, you’re watching that from–say you were over in the Middle East watching the president of the United States on this humongous aircraft carrier. It looks like it could take down Syria just one boat, right, and the president of the United States is pointing a finger and saying, `You people with the weapons of mass destruction, you people backing terrorism, look out. We’re coming.’ Do you think that picture mattered over there?

Mr. ZAKARIA: Oh yeah. Look, this is a part of the war where we have not–we’ve allowed a lot of states to do some very nasty stuff, traffic with nasty people and nasty material, and I think it’s time to tell them, you know what, `You’re going to be help accountable for this.’

MATTHEWS: Well, it was a powerful statement and picture as well.

A Cod-piece can fool them all
Make them think you’re large
Even if you’re small
Just be sure you don’t fool yourself
For it’s still just imagination
And to be sure it works like a lure
And will raise a wench’s expectations
But have a care you have something there
Or the night will end in frustration

Oh Tweety.

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TITF

by digby

Atrios explains the whole issue with the Fed in a paragraph:

It’s a little weird that reporters are hesitant to clearly spell out what happened. Basically the Fed printed a huge amount of money. Some of that money they used to do what TARP was originally supposed to do, buy up Big Shitpile at inflated prices. Some of that money they lent to banks at basically 0 interest. Of course there were plenty of other things they could have done with 2 trillion bucks, if preserving the executive compensation at megabanks wasn’t thought to be crucial for the survival of the economy. They could have dropped it from helicopters. They could have paid off mortgages directly. They could have given it to state governments. They could have bought me a SUPERTRAIN. But, no, they decided that propping up an obviously failed system of financial intermediaries was the important thing, so that’s what they did.

The emphasis there is mine and I can’t emphasize it enough. The ruling elites truly believed that the best way to bring back the economy was to ensure that jackasses like this weren’t unduly inconvenienced, the thought being that even though they were the ones who caused the problems, we couldn’t possibly do without them. I think this is an important corollary to Too Big To Fail — Too Important To Fire. TITF.

And it’s utter nonsense. There may be institutions that have to be rescued lest they take down the whole country, but this myth of the indispensable John Galt is self-serving swill. There are three hundred million people in the country and these guys just aren’t that special.

For instance, this guy: James E. Glassman, managing Director and Chief economist at JP Morgan, the self-described “grown-up” who sent around an arrogant little screed yesterday in which he hilariously wrote this:

From the perspective of economic literacy, last week’s hearings before the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations had to be, well, not memorable, or inmemorable (as infamous is to famous)… The hearings exposed an unnerving ignorance of fundamental principles of market economics by folks who have a hand in remapping rules of finance that will be with us for a while. Flip assertions about what is and is not socially valuable reflect a confusion about our market economy that is as fundamental as knowing that George Washington was the first president of the United States.

Uhm, it’s not every day you see someone call others illiterate in the same sentence in which he proves himself to be … literally illiterate. (“Inmemorable” is only a word in Spanish — and it means “immemorial.”)

Worse, of course, is the fact that this Master of The Universe feels qualified to decide what is and is not “socially valuable” and then conflate that with our “market economy.” Of course, if we had a real market economy people like Glassman would be working at Long John Silver’s serving popcorn shrimp after what they did. That’s assuming they weren’t serving fish sticks at the closest minimum security prison. I think everyone in the country would probably agree to the social value of that.

He writes:

“The low level of economic literacy is plaguing financial reform. Reform is dangerous–it produces unintended consequences–if we don’t understand the connection between incentives and economic behavior.

“Folks may like to hear that someone else is to blame for the mistakes they made, but everyone knows–including those who bought houses far beyond what they could afford and then walked when the promise of endless capital gains died and including the investors who bought funky financial instruments that enabled the housing bubble out west and in Florida to inflate–that Wall Street isn’t the only culprit in the housing debacle. “Sir, Goldman was no more culpable in the housing debacle than Congress. Because Washington is mostly focused on appeasing (or stoking) political outrage, the financial reform legislation in its present form seems likely to do little to fix the flaws and is heavily focused on changing things that had little to do with the housing debacle.”

Let’s look at that shall we? First, he says reform is dangerous because it produces unintended consequences. One might worry a bit more about that if it weren’t for the fact that without the reforms the consequences have already been so dire, unintended or otherwise. And indeed, the connection between economic incentives and economic behavior among the Wall Street titans couldn’t be more obvious. There is no personal risk to any of them, unlike the people who made bad bets on their suburban tract homes and went bankrupt, or investors who are now proud owners of condo complexes in Florida that are worth ten percent of what they paid for them. These fine Wall Street fellows, on the other hand, are considered so valuable that the only “haircut” any of them took was a temporary deferral of their ill gotten gains. (And oh did they cry about that …)

The final paragraph is nearly incomprehensible. He asserts without any explanation that Goldman is no more responsible for the debacle than congress. Ok, fine. Stipulated. But you’ll notice he then makes a rather jarring sleight of hand and tries to transition into an argument that financial reform is the problem. I suppose this is understandable since he can’t admit that the government’s responsibility lies in having given the banks free rein to rape the country blind. So he awkwardly shifts to a series of cliches about the congress being political and makes an untruthful assertion that averting another housing bubble is the only item on the agenda. It’s pretty much gibberish.

Anyway, let’s just say this isn’t the smartest defense of Wall Street any of us have ever read but it probably presents the best evidence that the biggest mistake the Fed and the government made was in putting their faith and our money in the Wall Street MOUs after the meltdown. They obviously just aren’t that bright if they can’t even shut up and take the mild, mostly ineffectual medicine their lackeys in the congress are prescribing. This daily flurry of whining complaints reveals far more than they realize. And if they keep it up they may even manage to get Americans to look up from their taser porn and Brangelina gossip long enough to notice — and then they really might have some problems.

If these TITF titans of the street are the smartest people in the world and the only ones who can save us, we are in much deeper trouble than we know.

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GFY

by digby

I’ve been getting a fair amount of criticism for my alleged “cloying, liberal sanctimony” about taser torture. And I’m sure it does sound exceedingly sanctimonious to sadists who enjoy watching the police electro-shock non-compliant citizens. What can you do?

I do have a response, but I think Jon Stewart says it so much better than I ever could.

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The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c