Blame It On The Bossa Nova

Last week, Time Magazine published their ranking of the 25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis. Here is their list:

1. Angelo Mozilo	9. Frank Raines	17. David Lereah
2. Phil Gramm	10. Kathleen Corbett	18. John Devaney
3. Alan Greenspan	11. Richard Fuld	19. Bernie Madoff
4. Christopher Cox	12. Herb Sandler	20. Lew Ranieri
5. Amer Consumer	13. Bill Clinton	21. Burton Jablin
6. Hank Paulson	14. George W. Bush	22. Fred Goodwin
7. Joe Cassano	15. Stan O’Neal	23. Sandy Weill
8. Ian McCarthy	16. Wen Jiabao	24. David Oddsson
		25. Jimmy Cayne

If you do not know who some of those people are or what they did, I will list at the bottom. But more importantly, lets look at some of the most ridiculous entries/rankings on the list

A. George W. Bush at #14 – one can argue many ways to what extent Bush is responsibility for this crisis (I put it pretty high), but ranking him #14 just proves what a bunch of hacks or morons (or both) the folks at Time Magazine are. Bush actually did a few reasonable things (signing Sarbanes-Oxley), but they are far outweighed by the idiotic and greedy policies he pushed/approved that ultimately threw this economy into the toilet (can we start with a $1 trillion non-budgeted, Mastercard funded black hole in Iraq). Second, how the hell did the brainiacs put Bush behind Paulson (#6) – Bush hired Paulson, Bush was Paulson’s boss, Bush (allegedly or was supposed to) approved anything Paulson did (and if he didn’t move him to #1 immediately). From Jan 20, 2001 to Jan 20, 2009 Bush was in charge – and if wants to be like Harry Truman (good luck with that!) – the buck stops here.

B. Phil Gramm at #2 – actually he should probably be #1. Rank him atop the leader board just for calling Americans a “bunch of whiners about the economy” last July, two months before everything tanked. But more than any one move that triggered this crisis – it was the billion$ of dollar$ that banks and brokerage firms “invested” (or rather risked) in Credit Default Swaps (CDS). Without explaining how complicated CDS are – you might as well throw your entire fortune on the pass line at the craps table and expect to roll a seven 20x in a row. Gramm snuck into the 2000 Commodity Futures Modernization Act a provision that exempted over-the-counter derivatives like credit-default swaps from regulation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Since virtually no person in Congress (or America) had a clue what a CDS did – he was literally getting away with highway robbery. We are all paying now. Gramm was also instrumental in repealing the Depression era Glass-Steagall Act. This act kept banks and brokerage firms separate. In other words, if Glass-Stegall was still the law, it would not have allowed Citigroup to get into the high risk collaterized bond business. They would have remained a boring bank making a steady profit. And they wouldn’t be virtually owned by the US Govt today.

In my mind Phil Gramm should be in debtor’s prison holding some very slippery soap.

C. They have Clinton on the list. Yes Clinton signed Gramm’s poisonous Commodity Futures Modernization Act – so he must shoulder some blame. But you know someone is kissing the ass of the right when they mention Clinton’s juggling of the Community Reinvestment Act – in other words – blame the poor people for taking out mortgages they couldn’t afford.

When are wingnuts like Larry Kudlow going to get a brain (maybe after the 33rd line of coke he snorts). No one twisted the banks arms to lend money to people who could not afford it. Yes the CRA had some policies that might have cause stress in the mortgage marketplace – but not nearly enough to bring down the entire banking system. Anytime I hear anyone blaming the poor people for this crisis (like a certain douchebag morning host) I want to…..

D. Burton Jablin – what the hell is the programming chief at Scripps-Howard (owner of Home & Garden TV) doing on the list? Blaming recent cable television programs (that had about 4o people watching) for glamourizing real estate is a bit much. If you want to blame television for getting us into this mess, I suggest we go back a bit further – to January 12, 1981 – the day ABC premiered Dynasty. For nearly 10 years, John Forsythe, Diane Carroll and Heather Locklear told us how great and how important it was to be rich – and that nothing else mattered other than money. More people probably watched Joan Collins and Linda Evans catfighting in the lily pond then watched the entire season of My House Is Worth What? on HGTV. Dynasty spawned a whole slew of if-you-aren’t-rich-you-suck television shows that are still on the air in some form. If you want to blame TV programs for this crisis, then you might as well just Blame It On The Bossa Nova.

E. If you have Clinton on the list – where is the vaunted St. Ronald of Reagan? Reagan came into office only 8 days after Dynasty premiered (how coincidental) and sold American a bill of goods that we are still paying for – that you can have something for nothing. Reagan told America that we could have it all – things, services and the easy life – and it would not cost a thing – as a matter of fact, we will even cut your taxes. To Reagan, there was NOTHING a tax cut for the rich couldn’t do to make all the common folk have a great life. I guess that worked out well until the house of cards came tumbling down. And Ronnie also taught us to hate the government and that corporate America was good. If you ask me, Reagan’s complete snow job on America should actually be the #1 reason we are in the economic hole we are in. Not so much for the things he did – a lot of those got changed and altered over the years, but for the way the great communicator convinced this country that we are the chosen people entitled to have it all – and not sacrifice one single thing.

Fuck you Ronald Reagan.

Speaking of cat fights – this week was that annual cockroach gathering called CPAC. This is the place that has vermin like (and including) Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Mike Pence, Mike Huckabee, Joe the Plumber, Michelle Malkin and a whole slew of other vile-filled douchebags spewing out their messages of hate. This year must of have been a barrel of fun – public kumbayas with each other and private cat fights blaming each other for the complete drubbing they got in the ’08 election and the continued freefall in the polls. Here are some of the catfights going on:

Here are what some of the other people on the list did to insure people not-like them would suffer

• Angelo Mozilo was the head of Countrywide, who made a lot of bad loans (a lot)
• Joe Cassano was the head of AIG’s financial products unit which sold Credit Default Swaps (a lot of them)
• Ian McCarthy runs Beazer Homes, which lied to lenders about buyer’s qualifications
• Frank Raines ran Freddie Mac (into the ground)
• Kathleen Corbett ran Standard & Poor’s – which gave all these firms AAA ratings (and they say colleges have grade inflation)
• Richard Fuld ran Lehman Brothers and basically stole $500 million for himself
• Herb Sandler ran World Savings, who made a lot of bad loans and sold them off. Then he sold World Savings to Wachovia which of course was forced to sell themselves
• Stan O’Neal ran Merrill Lynch and left the company saddled with billions in debt, but he left with $140 million+
• Wen Jiabao is China’s Finance Minister – China has funded a lot of our government’s debt. They have around $1.7 trillion in US obligations. Pretty soon they will take possession of the Statue of Liberty and put in on eBay for sale.
• David Lereah is the chief economist of the National Realtor Association. Said the housing boom would never end. Ha!
• John Devaney – a random hedge fund manager Time picked – they could have picked any of them, they all stole.
• Lew Ranieri – one of the initial developers of mortgage securitization. You can blame him for creating these instruments, you cannot blame him for their abuse
• Fred Goodwin – head of Royal Bank of Scotland. Why him? How about just generic Bank CEO.
• Sandy Weill – bought all the pieces that made Citigroup a group. Left and still charges things like plane trips to the bank.
• David Oddsson – Prime Minister of Iceland – turned the happiest people on earth to the saddest as he leveraged his entire country.
• Jimmy Cayne – CEO of Bear Stearns – liked to golf a lot while his managers raped America.