Respect Authority

After about a thousand pages and what feels like years of babbling, the apocalypse-averting stimulus-recovery-rescue bailout package has been finally passed and signed. The economy works again! Right? Right?

Um, maybe.

The first point that merits making is that the Republican bitching was kind of intellectually honest — in that the bill wasn’t exactly a stimulus package, nor did it directly address the emergency at hand. They complained that the monies appropriated by the bill are for something called “spending” rather than “stimulating.” Which, according to Republicans, doesn’t equal “job creation.”  

That being said, Republicans haven’t proven themselves capable of crafting sustainable economic policy, so any criticism they offer should be taken with a huge, absolutely inedible grain of salt. However, it still remains to seen whether the Democrats’ bill (with provisions for birth control, education, and energy independence) will fill America with smart, capable and productive citizens who can do something other than manage other people’s money (poorly - I’m looking at you, you fucking bank managers).

And while we’re on the topic of banks - let’s not forget the $2 trillion TARP redo that’s barreling down the track. So with nearly $3 trillion being drafted to serve in the war against our economy - what’s the chance of success?

Who fucking knows. On the one hand, Obama’s bill was a considerable victory. In fact someone on Meet the Press called it an entire “presidency in a box”. But there’s still a lot of uncertainty regarding the bank bailout. First, stress tests? Alright, I’ll bite. Obama’s going to vet the banks to see if they’re capable of surviving the crisis, even with loads of money stuffed in their asses. Good plan, except I think I might have an inkling about where that vetting might lead. The other day I was going through a Money & Banking textbook and I read the section on financial market regulation. The textbook justification for regulation is  to prevent lenders from offering loans to parties incapable of repayment. The banks aren’t even capable of following a textbook definition of financial security, let alone any added stress. Besides, even if they get through the process, chances are they’ll have to withdraw because of taxes they forgot to pay.

Beyond the stress tests, the next brilliant part of the plan is to lure gullible private investors into sharing the burden of the toxic shit “assets”. Ha ha. I guess lemon socialism is getting too sour for Secretary Geithner. I can get behind this in principle, but I doubt there’s anyone with enough money left to take any sort of investment risk, let alone with mortgages that will probably never be paid back.

Anyway, its not like any of this matters. I mean nothing’s really changed. It’s not like things are that bad, not like the Dow’s hit a decade low or anything.