Reason Morning Links: Obama to Dress Down Wall Street, Earth Day at 40, Bloomberg's Tax Haven

• Earth Day's midlife crisis.
• USA Today study: Banks that received bailout money cut back on lending, gave larger raises to employees than banks that didn't.
• Obama to scold financial industry today as part of push for financial reform.
• Mayor Bloomberg's offshore millions.
• The man determined to make George W. Bush a great president.

Comments

[JW]

Earth Day's midlife crisis

Let me guess, without RTFA'ing: Environment destroyed: women and minorities hardest hit? Lots of good news, but they refuse to believe any of it? And, they uncritically accept any enviro-doomsday scenario?

Obama to scold financial industry today

Someone needs to switch the Obama-droid out of the default mode.

[highnumber]

Let me guess, without RTFA'ing...

What then was the point of your comment - just to display your biases?

[highnumber]

somebody close that tag.

grumble grumble

[JW]

No, silly. To display my mighty powers of prognosticynicism.

[Jordan Elliot]

"President Barack Obama will return to Manhattan's Cooper Union on Thursday, two years after a campaign speech that laid out his vision for Wall Street, to castigate a financial industry that he will say has too often forgotten the ordinary Americans who have suffered from its reckless irresponsibility."

And what of yours and your cohorts reckless irresponsibility of further burdening the American people with "wonderful" things like Obamacare under the guise of helping them Mr. President? I've not suffered one bit in this recession and many of the people I know have not either simply because we did not make stupid financial decisions in the past. Adding more bullshit rules and laws that will easily be circumvented will not help.

Reckless irresponsibility? I dare say this is the pot calling the kettle black.

[PC Monitor]

I dare say this is the pot calling the kettle black something.

[Nick]

Rephrase: I dare say this is the pot calling the grass green.

[Slim Charles]

That line deserves immortality.

[&]

Half black.

[Nick]

Racist, of course.

[Rich]

There will be children studying pollution in Baltimore Harbor

and soon swimming in it.

[Johnny Longtorso]

Get your Steve Smith jokes ready:

Early humans may have bred with other species ? twice

[STEVE SMITH]

STEVE SMITH SEE NO FUNNY! SCIENCE IS SETTLED!

[STEVE SMITH CHIMERA]

DADDY!

[STEVE SMITH]

TOLD YOU YOU GROUNDED! GET OFF COMPUTER AND GO FORAGE! STEVE SMITH NOT WANT SEE JUNIOR UNTIL JUNIOR HAVE FULL HUMAN SKIN OF BERRIES! STEVE SMITH THINK NEXT TIME JUNIOR LEARN TO RAPE PROPERLY!

[STEVE SMITH CHIMERA]

(POUTS) BUT I LEARNED BY WATCHING YOU!!!! I'M TELLING MOMMA DAGNY!!!

[STEVE SMITH]

STEVE SMITH THROW AWAY ALL JUSTIN BIEBER POSTERS IN JUNIOR'S ROOM WHEN STEVE SMITH GET OFF WORK! GRR!

[STEVE SMITH CHIMERA]

UNCLE EPIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Dagny T.]

The most disturbing thing about this family is not the ape-man father, nor the clearly Stockholm syndrome afflicted mother, nor even the wee little abomination/rapechild. It's the sheer depravity of the words "Uncle Epi."

[Corduroy Rocks]

I would be surprised if Bloomberg weren't using an offshore tax haven.

What I find interesting is that the Gates Foundation refuses to use loopholes in the tax code. Wonder what Buffett thinks about that?

[Gomer Pyle]

Banks that received bailout money cut back on lending, gave larger raises to employees than banks that didn't.

Surprise, surprise, surprise!

[?]

Banks that received bailout money cut back on lending, gave larger raises to employees than banks that didn't.

And those banks grew, while the rest shrank.

Since all that was a predictable (and predicted, even by random assholes on the internet) result of the bailouts, given who got bailed out and what the Fed and the rest of the regulatory machinery have been doing simultaneously, those were intended consequences of the bailouts. Or, at least, the bailouts were effective signals to do those things.

It's not a politically opportune time to set off the doomsday machine. They're hoarding while it powers up. Duh? It seems pretty duh.

[Rich]

"I take no satisfaction in noting that my comments have largely been borne out by the events that followed," [Obama] plans to say. "But I repeat what I said then because it is essential that we learn the lessons of this crisis, so we don't doom ourselves to repeat it. And make no mistake, that is exactly what will happen if we allow this moment to pass ? an outcome that is unacceptable to me and to the American people."

Come *on*, Mr. President. No one will take you seriously if you sound like Ron Paul.

[Ska]

Oh, another scolding to Wall St. dudes who know the prez is full of shit. Please, do repeat yourself. Your message has accomplished so much already.

When is someone going to grow the balls to just stand up, say "Go fuck yourslf Mr. President," and walk out on the guy? How long are you expected to listen to empty threats from someone who gladly cleans up your mess for you, and who harms those he says he is helping? I want to see someone who has the stones to call shenanigans on this bullshit theater.

[Solanum]

Bill introduced to prevent involuntary taint microchip implantation

[Urkobold?]

DRATS--FOILED AGAIN!

[heller]

LOL

[Daze]

GWB vastly expanded government power and launched two big wars. It's inevitable that historians will consider him a great president eventually.

[CoyoteBlue]

Using Lincoln as a baseline for Historians' opinions on "Great" presidents makes GWB a Double Great President for his two wars.

[WWII]

You call those big?

[Jack Donaghy]

On Earth Day, I think it's only right to honor the late Don Geiss. He built GE into the greatest company on Earth, and the Earth into one of the top three planets in the universe.

[Mike Laursen]

Jack, for the win! Close the thread down.

[ed]

I actually saw a GE ad on FOX News yesterday. The End Times are near.

[Pro Libertate]

Top three? Where's your planetary allegiance?

[Death Panelist]

The man who makes George W. Bush a great president may well end up being Barack Obama.

(Don't worry, the next guy will do the same for Barry.)

[J sub D]

Jeffrey Scott Shapiro is on a mission to rehabilitate the former president's reputation.

And I'm going to be rehabilitating the reputations of the Buchanan and Grant administrations. After considerable effort and expense it turns out LBJ's public opinion makeover is a lost cause.

[MacGhil]

"But a free market crony capitalism was never meant to be a free license to take whatever you can get, however you can get it," he said. He will add, "That is what [we in Washington invited to] happened too often in the years leading up to the crisis."

FTFY, O Duce.

[Chris]

"Some on Wall Street forgot that behind every dollar traded or leveraged, there is family looking to buy a house, pay for an education, open a business, or save for retirement. What happens here has real consequences across our country."

Which is why mandating everyone to spend their money on insurance is such a good idea. Mr. President, you are a cocksucker.

[P Brooks]

The person working most effectively to "rehabilitate" GWB is his successor.

[EscapedWestOfTheBigMuddy]

No shit.

[TP]

I'm re-posting my earlier rant from the other thread. If you don't like it, sue me for fraud.

Goldman: SEC Attacks 'Hurt America'

There's no doubt that GS is guilty of major fraud. There's no doubt that there are many throughout the banking industry and government who are guilty of fraud and corruption. How many people from IndyMac and Countrywide have been prosecuted? Answer: none. Nobody has been indicted for writing bad loans and knowingly selling them as AAA. $80 billion from IndyMac alone. If GS says they didn't know, they are liars. Blankfein is a liar. Geithner is incompetent. Bernanke is clueless. Hank Paulson was scared shitless. Greenspan lost touch with reality. Enabling, greed, and incompetence created the perfect storm which caused the meltdown, and allows it to continue. Then, add to all of that, this ridiculous sense of entitlement that many Americans have to own a home which they are not qualified for and can not afford --> Disaster.

Of course this investigation will hurt America. Especially if it leads to investigations of other major firms. But doing nothing (the proposed reforms amount to nothing) hurts America far greater. The Administration through the DoJ should put together a team of real regulators, investigators and prosecutors, and get these people out of the banking system and begin to restore confidence. There are plenty of bankers out there to replace them. Where are they? They are most likely standing in the unemployment line. Because any banker with any sense of integrity in the past 10 years, was fired. "But, but, our financial system will collapse, and we will all be left unemployed and destitute." I say, let it collapse, and rebuild it, bigger, better and stronger. That's what you do when something is broken beyond repair. You tear it down, and rebuild it. Only this time, you let the real entrepreneurs do it, with little or no interference from the government. And shut down that fucking Federal Reserve Bank, for Christ's sake.

I don't expect the government to hold everybody's hand on every credit card agreement and mortgage. What I do expect, is for government to uphold the law. What would happen if there were gangs of thugs going from house to house and stealing people's property and the government did nothing to stop it? People would take the law into their own hands. If our government continues to do nothing about this widespread fraud in the financial system, people should take the law into their own hands and stop paying their credit cards, mortgages and federal taxes. We should not be forced to live in a world where the law means nothing to a select group of very rich and powerful individuals.

Ultimately, I believe the government will do nothing, since they played a major role in all of this. Will the American people simply roll over and say, "thank you sir, may I have another?", or will they actually grow some balls and do something about it?

[EscapedWestOfTheBigMuddy]

"[George W. Bush] stands for truth, compassion and freedom,"

Except for the part where he knowingly kept innocent people locked up at Gitmo because letting them go would interfere with proper operation of the spin machine.

That part doesn't count.

Bush instinctively sees the global picture that every living person has the right to be free.

Unless their enemies sold them to us with firm assurance that they were bad people.

But that's really the last exception.

Except for the bit where the president can become the Decider (with a (tm and tights)) and simply pick people who have to be locked up without recourse because we has super special powers.

But, no, really. George W. Bush was a great friend of freedom.

[/now, if only Mr. Hope-n-Change actually cared to---you know---change any of these policies...]

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