Joe the Bartender Intrudes on Obama Discussion

The repeal of Glass Steagall lead to the banks and brokerage activities that brought down these institutions. I'm not defending Raines or anybody else but be assured Graham's (and others there is plenty of blame to go around here) "market reforms" are what brought the house down. The community reinvestment act worked well enough until the foxes raided the mortgage henhouse with predatory lending and mortgage fraud. (Rember here, that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac don't make loans, banks and brokerages do. You can't promote economic anarchy as policy without these kinds of results. Now, about Graham-Leach- Bliley, the Enron loophole and my other points? Tune into Rush and get back to me.
And, I'm sorry but what does $4/gasoline have to do with this topic?

You said of the black columnists convention,"The civil discussion - like the conference - centered on what Barack Obama might accomplish "

then you said, "My colleague and I roared when I called our interloper "Joe the Bartender," using a similar nickname that Obama's opponent"

So much for civility. Narrowminds often consider civility as relative to where they are at and to whom they speak.
Civility just left the building.

The repeal of Glass Stegal was zip to do with the Melt down. Go back to "Jimma Carter's" Community Reinvestment Act and forcing lenders to make loans in bad areas to people who could not pay them back. Can you say ACORN. They held banks to get these loans funded. Banks could not buy another bank, open a new facility, etc. etc. Until ACORN gave them their blessing, it was bad under Carter and even worse under Clinton.

Then Democrat Franklin Rains got into Fannie and cooked the books to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars and Chris "Countrywide" Dodd and Barney Frank turned a blind eye to the corruption. Then they even sold MBS as "government guaranteed" investments, and when the loans started to default they said "Who ME?"

Add to that denying oil companies the right to develop our own oil reserves gave us $4,00 a gallon gasoline.

thank you dumbocrats.

But Dude, You're leaving out the big role Phil and the Missus Graham's played in all this. Remember Graham-Leach-Bliley? No, of course not. Ever hear of Glass-Steagall? Must have slipped your mind.How about the Enron loophole?

The mandate for affordable housing didn't make for the loan products or the securitized mortgages or the credit default swaps that make a bad idea worse. These magnified the problem exponentially and are what has caused the global credit melt down. Phil was the guiding genius behind all those "reforms". The whole idea of supply side economics is bogus, hasn't worked since 1980 and will never work because, as Alan Greenspan recently confessed. The fundamental beliefs that underly it are flawed.

Dude, go do your homework instead of just parroting Rush.

My bff and I were having a glass of Chardie after a hard day with the White Women Journalists, when our bartender, Joe the Bartender, ha, ha, ha, said that we should be ready for another four years of the Clinton administration. No way, I said, a little tipsy, bobbing my blond head in the direction of the door, where Bill was cuddling up to a cute grad from one of the seven sisters, a newbie in our group – Bill, btw, was our key note speaker after our HUGE donation from our own Foundation, but it was worth every penny – anyways, Bill, I mean the President, will have to disclose where he’s been getting his stash. Hillary will NEVER be SOS. Duh, besides, it’s way too risky for BO to be calling the shots at 3 a.m. You know, BO wants to negotiate directly with his pals in Kenya and Pakistan. Have you noticed, POTUS-elect is really dragging, lately. Not nearly so cute anymore. Must be that he has learned all that trash-talking about Bush wasn’t quite as true as his speech writers said…oh, an all that back-peddling he has to do now that he’s been elected and can’t do all those things he promised. Gotta go. Bye now. Joe the bartender just brought me a Cosmo thanks to that cute white guy in the corner. OMG, it’s RUSH!!!!! And look – there’s Barbara!!!!

What this reader really wants to know is, "is Joe the Bartender white?"--because you usually tell us. That always seems to be an important point to make in your writing.

And am I mistaken in the assumption that you didn't have the balls to tell Joe the Bartender that he is a racist in referring to your opinion as socialism?

Why not Joe and Josephine Sixpack?
You do realize that those people do not exist, right?

...no racism in this bunch. Can you imagine the rancor about an association of White Columnists?

Dude - I really hate to take the sugar out of your left wing cool aid, but every time I run across one of your folks who let others do their thinking for them I have to laugh.

Ya see, although it's an article of faith that Bush43 is responsible for the current economic mess, it is not true. Makes a GREAT sound bite tho!

The current "malaise" was caused primarily by the Democrat Congress during Bill Clinton's tenure in the White House. Some smart person decided that since the Dems were in charge, they could do anything they liked, and they liked the idea that ANYONE could own a house - it's the American Dream, right? So Congress passed legislation that REQUIRED the banks and mortgage companies to loan to unqualified borrowers. (And I think even Bill warned them that it was probably not such a good idea) So, the banks followed the law.

But following the law in this case was the equivalent to the banks committing financial suicide. What to DO? They figured out that if they could bundle those risky bad loans that Congress made them make, they could lay off the risk by selling 'em to the Saudis and other idiots around the world - including domestic investors like CalPers.

When the bad loans started defaulting, the word was out - the special commercial paper the banks sold (the bundled bad loans) was worthless... CRASH!!! went the financial house of cards. (I recently heard someone say, "That rustling sound you hear is the sound of the whole house of cards falling down.")

Bush is somewhat culpable in that he didn't have his Rubber Stamp Republican Congress reverse the Dem's bad law. That would have mitigated the situation considerably - but Bush43 didn't - so yes, he bears part of the blame.

If you have further questions about what happened, shoot me an email. Be happy to explain it to you.