"Everything I Learned About Politics..."

"...I learned in a liquor store."

Thanks to C-SPAN, the rusted undercarriage of our legislative branch is televised in all of its crumbling glory.

Tonight I watched some of our Senators drone on about the Federal Intervention In Financial Markets. Apparently they’ve called for a mulligan after Monday’s debacle, and will be voting on a new and improved bill before they pass it to the House for round two. What started as three pages then morphed into one hundred and ten, has now ballooned to four hundred and fifty pages. From $700 billion to $850 billion in two days. Growth very similar to that of the leveraged derivatives which partly created the mess we're in. How fitting.

The rescue bill will be attached to the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008. How can you say no to renewable energy and jobs?

Sen. Pete Domenici (R-New Mexico) attempted to explain MBS’s, CDO’s, SIV’s and CDS’s. I felt braincells dying as I listened. I’m not confident that he could explain how to open a can of alphabet soup. There is no way that this man has any understanding of basic economics, let alone this complex mess. I'm 95% sure that he drooled just before stepping away from the podium. Judging by his speech, he will vote Yea on bill. He will also vote in favor of wooden arrows.

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-New Jersey) said that the new plan is an “economic stabilization plan” that “puts the taxpayers first”. “Taxpayers will be treated like shareholders”. The plan will “reward taxpayers with profits while protecting them from losses” and “prevent home values from dropping in our neighborhoods”. Good god, man. The only way to do that is to either artificially support the still inflated home prices, or worse, reflate the housing bubble. The taxpayer is either overpaying or underpaying for these "troubled assets". If we overpay it's a bailout, plain and simple. If we underpay it forces the banks to recapitalize and therefore does not achieve the goal of loosening lending. You can't have it both ways. Senator Menendez went on to say that a vote against this plan “will be punishing the hundreds of thousands of Americans that will lose their jobs”. Newsflash, fucktard: millions of jobs will be lost before we're out of this mess and there's nothing this bill can do to stop that. Senator Menendez will vote in favor of throwing taxpayer dollars at Alaskan fisherman.

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Alabama) provided a surprisingly concise explanation of the credit crisis. In plain english he described how well-meaning but faulty housing legislation opened the doors for foolish, opportunistic, abusive lending. He said that action needed to be taken but that a rush to act would most likely aggravate the problem. Agreed. "The free market didn't fail," he said, "the false market did." Chalk Shelby up for a Nay vote.

And then there was Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina). What little hope I had left was quickly dashed by his display of less-than-mediocrity.

“To those who say that $700 billion of taxpayers money will be spent, and it’s gone, you don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re scaring people. That is absolutely not true. I am convinced we’re goin’ to get most of the money back if not all of it back by the way we’ve crafted this proposal.

And I’m equally convinced that if we do nothing we’re headed to a recession, maybe a depression. If you think it costs a lot now, just do nothing and see what it costs…. At the end of the day I’ve got to rely on the good sense that God’s given me, and sometimes I doubt how much sense I have, and a lot of people obviously doubt it ‘cause they call me a lot.

But I’m convinced that a lot of smart people are telling me things that I can visualize and see with my own eyes. That it’s no longer about academia. I’ve been home. I’ve seen people not be able to get loans to make payroll. I know what’s going to happen if I, uh, don’t act, if I don’t take a risk. If I’m not willing to take a political risk I know what happens to the people that I represent, in large numbers. They’re going to lose a lot more than I’ll lose..."

He added, "...this is about the availability of credit that’s going to be so high that no average working person is going to be able to borrow a dime. This is about Main Street. This is about the people I grew up with, and I didn’t grow up on Wall Street. The people I grew up with, and I’m the first person to go to college in my family, my dad owned a liquor store, and everything I learned about politics I learned in a liquor store. A pretty good place to learn it from.

We borrowed money to make inventory. We owned a restaurant right next door, and my mom worked 18 hours a day. I know what it’s like to see my parents work hard and can’t afford to get sick because there’s no money comin’ in. (a voice interrupted: "The Senators time has expired")

I’d like to just end with this thought: I know this is not a perfect bill and I know this is a bad choice, but I also know from my common sense and my life experiences that I need to act and I need to act now, and I will.”

F- for leadership. A+ for comedy. You can't make this shit up.

Update: Now it's a done deal in the Senate. It looks like about 75% voted yes. If the House passes this bill (I assume they will) and the 850 billion dollar wheels are set in motion, we’ll wait a few days or weeks until the “assets” are actually bought and sold. Then they'll have 48 hours to disclose exactly what they're buying and from whom. At that point I expect market volatility to shift into hyper-drive.

If you're keeping track like me, here's the workflow: The Senate constructs a bill and sends it to the House -> The House says no -> The House constructs its own bill and then says no to itself -> The Senate staples together both failed bills, says yes and sends it back to the House, where they will say yes because we are goverened by monkeys who vote by flinging feces at each other.

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Through his website, I tried sending an email to my congressman but when I clicked on submit I got a message saying "please try back at a later time". I appreciated the "please"; it was nicer than saying "we're not interested in your opinion".

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Tomorrow night’s Vice Presidential Debates should be good for some laughs. Fire up the grill. Moose burgers for everyone.

Gotta go. There's a double header of Flip This House and My House Is Worth What? on HGTV.