“The Turd-Icing on the Bush-Term Cake”

Perfect! Last night The Daily Show’s host, Jon Stewart, came up with a strikingly accurate description of the meltdown of the US financial system. He called it “the turd-icing on the Bush-term cake”. Using less graphic language but no less damning rhetoric, Senator Christopher J. Dodd (D-CT) told The Associated Press that the crisis was “entirely foreseeable and preventable, not an act of God”. And not only that, Senator Dodd and Senator Richard C. Shelby (R-AL) agreed that the solution that the Bush Administration’s Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke sent to Congress is “unacceptable”. This morning, the New York Times quoted Senator Dodd saying the Treasury proposal is “stunning and unprecedented in its scope and lack of detail.” At the same time, the NYT reported: “One of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month to a firm owned by Senator John McCain's campaign manager from the end of 2005 through last month, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement. The disclosure contradicts a statement Sunday night by Mr. McCain that the campaign manager, Rick Davis, had no involvement with the company for the last several years." And on Tuesday the AP reported: “The Federal Bureau of Investigation has launched a probe of four major U.S. financial institutions whose collapse helped trigger a $700 billion government bailout plan...two unnamed law enforcement officials said the FBI is looking at potential fraud by mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and insurer American International Group Inc. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. was said to be under investigation as well.” In addition, the AP said, “In the past two weeks, the government has taken over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the country's two biggest mortgage companies, with a bailout plan that could require the Treasury Department to put up as much as $100 billion for each of them over time if needed to keep them afloat as mortgage losses mount. Last week, the Federal Reserve provided an emergency $85 billion loan to AIG, which teetered on the brink of bankruptcy. Lehman Brothers was forced to file for bankruptcy after attempts to engineer a private rescue fell apart. All the companies were laid low from bad bets on complex mortgage-related securities.” The people who want to keep these clowns in office cannot be reasoned with. They are beyond all hope. I do believe there are enough of the rest of us to save the United States of America from extinction, however.