After doubling down on it, he's playing dumb like "oh I'm outraged they'd honor their contracts with the 30 billion I just authorized, even though the bill explicitly states they can!"
The feigned populist outrage bothers me.
I agree with you on this. I believe both sides know a lot more than they are willing to let on.
And I fail to see how a video showing Geithner being questioned about those very bonuses before the date he said found about them = "talking point"
It's illustrating he's a liar or an idiot.
Geithner, while an appointee of GW Bush, never should have been renominated. None of these people should have been. IMO, and this is something I have said before, Obama was trying to be bipartisan in his nominations, not necessarily picking the right people for the job.
Also, calling McCain (??) the "King of Deregulation" I don't quite get. I disagree with the pretense as well that you seem to have that deregulation was the precursor to this mess. It was largely government involvement in the mortgage market in the name of "affordable housing." The biggest problem of "deregulation" was the government's failure to regulate their own GSE's, thanks largely in part to Barney Frank and other race baiting congressmen.
There was certainly some gambling going on with the housing bubble, just as with the dot com bubble. But the government was heavily encouraging it. If the government hadn't been tampering I don't think the bubble would have been nearly as big, and I don't think we'd be in nearly as big of a hole as we are now in. I also think we wouldn't be passing bailouts left and right.
Do not assume I was in agreement with GDub was doing it. I wasn't and you could probably search my post history on here and find me saying so.
Apologies for the triple post in a row but I kind of read that thing a piece at a time and responded with the quick reply. I also disagree with the remark that republicans have been "too religious" or whatever, but I'll leave it alone as it's irrelevant to the current discussion.
I have to assume that few were in agreement with what Bush did. My problem is that none of you were speaking up about it when he was doing it. I have a general issue with towing the party line. I think it is ridiculous that Steele was told to pipedown about abortion being a personal choice issue, it's just one issue.
IMO, most of the issues with AIG stem from not necessarily deregulation, but not regulating them at all. They had acquired such a diverse group of businesses that they were supervised/regulated by an agency that had nothing to do with insurance. In addition, in 2004, the SEC changed the amount these companies could leverage themselves from 15:1 to 40:1. This had to have had some impact on where we are. Also, John Kerry holds a ridiculous amount of stock in them. Can you really trust the foxes to regulate the henhouse?
As for religion not being an issue. I think it is, actually, I know it is, and if it doesn't change, it is going to take a lot for people to come back to teh republican party.
