Disqus - Latest Comments for Jarl Osbiorn

Re: Welfare Added to Bailout to Appease Liberals

Jarl Osbiorn — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 14:17:46 -0000

Yes, it's all the liberals' fault. How dare all these "gamblers" take advantage of the innocent, defenseless financial institutions! It's a plain and unambiguous fact that the borrowers had each and every one of these lenders over a proverbial barrel and forced them to lend money they didn't want to lend. Or not...

The ultimate responsibility for this "crisis" sits squarely on the shoulders of lenders: they made risky loans; pawned off the risky loans as infallible securities to anyone they could entice; and leveraged themselves well beyond "what they could afford" [to finance lavish consumption, like sub-letting 10 floors of the Time Warner building in Manhattan]. If the lenders had bothered to analyze the loan applications with any kind of scrutiny, they'd have seen the red flags.

A final note: of the people I know personally who are having serious mortgage-related payment problems, all but one of them are DIE-HARD, BUSH-LOVING, LIMBAUGH-WORSHIPPING CONSERVATIVES. And the funny thing about that is - they are clamoring like mad for the "liberal-appeasing" relief you so disparage.

I don't like the idea of giving away $700 billion to anyone for any reason--especially where it absolves corporations of the consequences of their abysmally deficient governance--but don't try to characterize this mess as the big bad government pulling a Robin Hood. It's preposterous.

Re: Bailout Bill Is Unconstitutional Delegation

Jarl Osbiorn — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 14:31:49 -0000

You abdicated the right to claim any act is UNCONSTITUTIONAL by supporting, for 7 years now, an administration which has attempted at every turn to eviscerate the very document you now exhort. Did you stand up and decry all of the unconstitutional aggrandizing of authority by the Executive branch over the past two terms? Where were your separation of powers arguments back then?

You free marketeers are all the same: hypocrites blinded by insatiable greed.

Re: Kudos to Republican Study Committee for bailout alternative

Jarl Osbiorn — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 14:41:10 -0000

"It would suspend capital gains taxes to put trillions of dollars of capital in the economy, and set Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which as CEI has documented were at the root of this crisis, on the road to full privatization."

This is your answer to everyting: cut taxes and privatize. I say F*ck it with the PG-rated plans. Let's just go full-bore right now and carry your ideas to their logical conclusion: Corporate Feudalism. It's just like feudalism of old, except that instead of the landed gentry or local lord, we have corporations fulfilling that role. We can still call them "employees" but they'll really be serfs in all but name. We can put four year olds back to work scrubbing floors and get rid of all those pesky safety regulations. And who could live without air so thick with pollution that people have to wear masks to breathe? Or water that even Mexican burros wouldn't risk drinking? Hey, at least there'd be free trade!

Man, it's really a shame this whole regulation thing is such a scam.