The Lint Screen

Tag: lobbyists

  • Cry, America, Cry

    Think of the saddest tearjerker movie you’ve ever seen, now prepare for it to become #2 on the soggy hankie list.

    The documentary Inside Job is a must-see film about the financial meltdown that crippled the world thanks to the piggy greed of fat cat pin stripers on Wall Street and in the government.

    It's all they can eat, and we'll pick up the tab.
    When a country allows five financial lobbyists for every politician and $5 billion in annual lobbying funds, what else could we expect but the best politicians money can buy?

    There’s plenty of evil bastards to blame: financial firm scumbags, shady politicians in the pockets of lobbyists and academics getting their palms greased to concoct and support the tools for raping the public to benefit the rich.

    Inside Job brilliantly shows us how we’ve gotten to the place we are today–– with 1% of the nation’s population controlling 23% of its wealth.

    There are heroes in this movie; people who spoke and wrote and questioned the madness that was going on, all to no avail. Reason lost out to greed; the greed of financial firms to gamble, the greed of politicians to allow the rules to change to protect the greedy and the greed of the public to actually believe they could get something for nothing (or next to nothing).

    None of it would have been possible had the laws not been changed and had regulation been enforced. But it wasn’t. We let Alan Greenspan and the Wall Street goons lead us down an ideological path to the guillotines.

    The fix was in–– the bastards won, our economy almost collapsed and the public bailed out all those responsible.

    The saddest part of all is this: nothing’s really changed except that we’ve had our coffers raped. The rich are richer. Too big to fail is now super-sized too big to fail. Politicians are still funded shills for our corporate overlords.

    Inside Job lays it all out and you can see many of the worst elements of our society on camera actually trying to support their cases. In the end, we’ve all been played for suckers, and while I’d love to say this is a movie that could never be made again, I’m afraid such is not the case.

    As Charles Ferguson, the filmmaker said in his Academy Awards acceptance speech for best documentary, “Not one of these guys is in jail yet.” And the very same people responsible for much of the robbery are still empowered in government, still lobbying, still playing three card monty with bad debt. We can all sleep well knowing the foxes are guarding the hen house.

    Cry, America. Cry enough to wring your hankie because your wallet’s already been wrung dry.

  • Politicians Hit BP Piñata

    An easy target for political gain. Make hay with Hayward!
    It was open season on BP CEO Tony Hayward yesterday in D.C. as politicians on both sides of the aisle beat on him in a great display of what passes for leadership these days.

    “You shouldn’t have allowed this massive oil leak to happen,” said one representative. “There ought to be a law against such things.”

    “Obviously you are worse than the byproduct of Hitler and Stalin’s gene pool,” said another frustrated lawmaker, “you can’t expect government to regulate you and fix you. Everyone knows government doesn’t work. It’s your fault this happened, I suggest you promise us that this will never happen again.”

    “I believe you are Satan himself,” said another representative, “you should have been better about ensuring safety so that this tragedy could never happen. I mean, come on, you’re part of the free market system– can’t you just make sure accidents like this never happen again? I demand it, and my constituents deserve it! Thank you, and folks back home, please remember to vote for me this November. I do your bidding and do it very well!”

    Finally, one representative spoke out on behalf of BP. “If we hold BP responsible, it will be damaging to their profitability and the oil industry. We need the oil industry, it is the lifeblood of our economy and we must protect it at all costs. Let’s just clean up this mess, fix the problem without government intervention, lower taxes and let the free market rule, as our founding fathers intended!”

    With that, the lawmaker closed his notebook, lifted the canvas bags of money that had been discreetly placed beneath the table and left the proceedings to cheers and backslaps from excited oil lobbyists.

  • Help Save The Bankers!

    A proposal for a more civilized feeding time for bankers.
    As evil self-serving politicians go on a witch hunt against Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street financial types, I’ve become worried.

    What if the dastardly politicos enact regulations that might curb the free marketeers from earning their paltry hundreds of millions of dollars annually?

    What if there are no longer billions of bucks for bonuses, paid for by taxpayers, for losing on aggressive bets made?

    What if financial lobbyists don’t enjoy unlimited budgets to grease politicians and assist in writing laws ensuring future riches?

    In other words, what if stupid laws cap the opportunities for gambling, greed and gouging the little people who don’t even understand how banks make money?

    After many sleepless nights, I have come to a simple solution: cut out the middlemen.

    Rather than the outdated system we currently have– bankers hiring lobbyists to get politicians in the pocket and help write laws that enable financial fatcats to gamble and win big, or get paid-off by taxpayers if they lose– let’s just cut out the lobbyists and politicians and simply have taxpayers pay Wall Streeters directly.

    The market would be much more efficient if we taxpayers simply tithed 5-8% of our income to our banking overlords from the get-go. Why should they have the inconvenience of waiting for our income to be taxed, then passed their way?

    With my bold new proposal, these pinstripers wouldn’t even need to trump-up risky gambles or cockamamie financial instruments. They wouldn’t have to hurt their ivy league brains conjuring schemes to screw people– we’d just fork over the dough up front and acknowledge our woeful ignorance. Then the civilized cufflinked crowd could get back to more important matters, like buying estates on the Hamptons or dandruff control.

    Why must we continue these pointless charades in Washington? Help save the bankers– write your congressional servants and let’s cut to the chase.

  • Health Care Summit A Huge Success!

    To avoid confusion, the President and V. P. had name plates, but no name tags. Fame is sweet!
    Today’s health care summit held at Blair House, across the street from The White House, was a resounding success as democratic and republican lawmakers came together to spitball some ideas of how to deal with rising health care costs.

    The spirited conversation included republican leaders challenging the criticism that they had “no ideas” for reducing the cost of healthcare. “I think we should pass legislation outlawing bad health. Let’s nip this whole problem in the bud,” demanded a republican senator. “If people didn’t get sick, they wouldn’t need health care. Problem solved!” The senator dropped to the floor and spun like a top on his back.

    Another republican senator expressed outrage of being branded enemies of progress. “The dems keep saying we are the party of ‘no.’ Are we the party of no? N-O, no! We are not the party of no. Never have been. No, no, no, no!”

    A democratic congressman began an impassioned speech in favor of the House healthcare bill. He lifted the 1,990- page document to punctuate his point, screamed in agony “I’ve ripped a groin muscle!” and toppled over hitting his head on a table. Politicians from both parties huddled around their wounded compatriot. “Thank goodness we have a terrific healthcare system,” one lawmaker was heard to say. “Someone should call an ambulance. A solid gold one.”

    Another lawmaker shouted, “Hey, you guys want to grab a steak and lobster dinner, maybe get some Johnnie Walker Blue– I’ve got a passel of lobbyists waiting outside with platinum AmEx cards at the ready!”

    With that, the room emptied as the injured politician bled. A coyote howled in the distance.

  • 7 Ways To Capitalize on AIG

     

    Now that we own it, let's milk the sucker!
    Now that we own it, let's milk the sucker!

         Last week, we American taxpayers bought ourselves AIG. I’ve never owned an insurance company, but I do have a few proposals about running our new enterprise:

    1. Let’s outsource for cheap labor in China and India.
    2. Let’s not insure any high risk people.
    3. Let’s continually raise premiums.
    4. If there are claims, let’s dispute them.
    5. Let’s hire an army of lobbyists to get politicians passing laws that favor us.
    6. Let’s pay ourselves great big paychecks with huge stock options and bonuses.
    7. If we do happen to get into financial trouble, let’s have some government bail us out.