Nathan Scandella (personal)

« Small Minded | Main | Shameless Plug »

Thursday Feb 12, 2009

Blind Leading the Blind

I've had it with people. Absolutely had it with the stupidity that surrounds me. I was listening to talk radio on the way into work. I actually listen to both the left and right-leaning stations in town (KTTH 770 and AM1090). I was able to stand about 5 minutes of one before I had to shut it off, and switch to the other. At that point, I was listening to some caller ranting about the bailout. He was speaking in fairly poor english, although he was clearly a native speaker. This is fairly typical of the ignorant trash that calls in to talk radio, usually to be humiliated by the host.

The caller was complaining about Trickle Down Economics. On the whole, I agree with him, and have blogged about it here. But, then he said something about how you can't give money back to the rich, because, and I quote:



"they'll just squirrel it away, or invest it"

Uh huh. And what exactly happens when you invest money? (we're assuming it's not invested in a Sealy Posturpedic ETF) That money gets used by the recipient of the money to buy new stuff, grow their business, or turn around and invest in something else that they think can get an even higher rate of return. It doesn't just disappear.

I was pretty frustrated by such a simpleton argument, even though, I actually agreed with the spirit of the man's point. I was just about ready to switch the radio off altogether, when I heard the radio host chime in "I have to agree. As always, thanks for your time, Congressman". Are you fricking kidding me? The guy I thought was some uneducated hick (and probably was) turned out to be a Congressman. We are screwed.

Today I read this article about Treasury overpaying for TARP preferred stock. Chris Dodd said, "No one is expecting perfection between the price you pay and what you think you're getting. But that's a pretty large disparity." Actually, Senator, I would expect Treasury to pay exactly as much as what they're getting in return. Not approximately. Exactly. We have open markets for a reason. To make pricing transparent and fair. That's why CDS is such a scam. Over-the-counter? Overpaid? Who knows?

If we keep electing idiots like this, how can we ever expect them to solve any problems?

Posted at 12:29AM Feb 12, 2009 by Nathan in Politics | Comments[0]