Monday, April 26, 2010

Vampire Squid Is the US Government, Not Goldman

And it's set to grow bigger with the imminent passage of financial "reform" bill.

I'm almost ready to give up and stop wasting my breath.

As the so-called financial "reform" is being pushed as if it's a good thing - the "reform" that will give the Federal Reserve, the very institution (privately held, just to remind you) that has been the cause of boom and bust and of untold sufferings by the consumers for nearly 100 years, the very role to protect the consumers, that will create $50 billion bailout fund for so-called "too big to fail" and for so-called "investors" so that they don't lose their money, the questions of the timing of SEC leak to New York Times on Goldman Sachs and the ulterior motive of the Obama government have all but disappeared. (What a surprise.)

Now this corrupt Senator from Montana who is also the chairman of Senate Banking Committee assures us that there will be a bank tax.

Max Baucus: A bank tax is coming (David Rogers, 4/26/2010 Politico)

"It was a short hallway conversation but spoke volumes about the dilemma facing Democrats, hungry for new revenues after emptying the cupboard on health care reform.

"“I don’t think there’s much doubt that there will be a bank tax,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus told POLITICO. And more than ever, the Montana Democrat signaled that Congress will also crack down on wealthy hedge fund and private equity partners who shelter their income as capital gains — taxed at half the top 35 percent rate.

"Three times in recent years, the House has voted to rein in the so-called carried interest provision — only to meet Senate resistance. That’s changing with the pressure to find revenues to pay for other priorities such as a $35 billion measure extending popular tax provisions for businesses and families.

""I’ve asked my staff to look at alternatives ... Carried interest will probably be part of the offsets,” said Baucus. “We were thinking of putting it on later as part of tax reform. But we’re here; we’re here now.”

"Wealthy Democratic donors are sure to scream; Baucus concedes he could face opposition from his own party moderates. But isn’t the chairman himself the “very soul of the moderate Democrat?” a reporter asks. “I’m a ‘Do-the-Right-Thing’ Democrat,” Baucus grinned. "

Like giving another raise to your girlfriend, Senator Baucus? The article goes on and on but you get the idea. Do-the-Right-Thing Democrat and some Republicans (here's one, as usual) will shove the finance "reform" bill down the throat of the public, who, this time around, may remain stupid enough to think it's a good thing. It will punish the bad banksters like Goldman Sachs, won't it?

Keep hoping, sheeples. It's another tax bill, just like the health care insurance "reform" is just a gigantic tax bill, just like the so-called job bill is a tax bill. Just like all these bills, the financial "reform" bill will suck the money out of you. Bank tax? Added cost of banking will be passed on to the account holders, and that's you. Remember what happened when the Congress passed the credit card "reform" bill to "protect" you? The APR shot up, and many people lost credit lines. Some protection.

The Vampire Squid "wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jabbing its blood funnel into anything that smells of money", a famous phrase by a liberal/progressive writer for the Rolling Stone magazine Matt Taibbi, is not really Goldman Sachs; it is the US federal government under this particular administration.

In the meantime, government union workers demand a huge tax increase so that they continue to get paid a generous pay and benefits, and a designer cupcake is all the rage. If you think your head is splitting, you are not alone.

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