Pledge to [Bank of] America

Those wonderful wacky, populist, regular guy, small town, main street, non-elitist, backslapping, teabagging, Republicans are on the upswing again, boosted into power as only a Democrat can boost a Republican, as only the Democrats can boost Republicans, as only a lackey can boost a bigger, better, more belligerent, lackey.

First order of business? Rescue our brave bankers from the Abu Ghraib, the Guantanamo of the
Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Law, and stop their waterboarding at the hands of the Financial Stability Oversight Council.

According to the Financial Times of 4 November, Spencer Bachus, a candidate to succeed Barney Frank as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee has warned the black ops members of the FSOC against harming US banks by curbing their adventures in proprietary trading.

You know what proprietary trading is. That's where the banks use some of your money to leverage foolish, ridiculous, insupportable, debt instruments into a "new economy" of foolish, ridiculous, insupportable, debt instruments that will consume the rest of your money.

Bachus says that the ban on proprietary trading-- known as the Volcker Rule in honor of Paul Volcker who never flinched when turning millions out of factory and home when employed as Ronald Reagan's Fed but found religion when confronted with his own offspring-- will "impose substantial costs on the American economy and market participants" [read bankers] while yielding "doubtful" benefits.

Spence worries aloud that implementing the law might spark a mass exodus of clients from US banks to banks abroad, an event which certainly would outrank Katrina, Rita, the earthquake in Haiti [especially the earthquake in Haiti] as a disaster of massive proportions.

And you know why that is too. Goddamit, most of these clients are white. We can't afford to lose them with the Mexicans, and the Guatemalans, and the Ecuadoreans streaming across the border in the millions!

Mr. Bachus, not to be confused with Bacchus, has expressed his concern that the flight of the capitalists might hurt the common people of this country-- the common men and common women of Greenwich, Connecticut; of Kenilworth, Illinois, of Mt. Kisco, New York, of West Palm Beach, Florida who are shareholders of Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase.

I'd wish I could think that the American electorate is made up of suckers and saps, but sometimes I think the electorate is more like the audience at a worldwide wrestling smackdown-- so juiced by the sight of the two juiced goons breaking chairs over each other's head that they start breaking the chairs over their own heads, not realizing until it's way too late that the goons are using fake chairs; that the goons have fake heads.

S. Artesian
November 4, 2010