Great job Tea Party, you just re elected FIRE

[blazespinnaker]

http://money.cnn.com/2010/11/05/news...tter/index.htm

The congressman likely to supplant Rep. Barney Frank as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee is asking regulators to carefully consider the implications of a new rule designed to limit risky trading.

Rep. Spencer Bachus, a Republican from Alabama, warns in a letter sent to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and the Financial Stability Oversight Council that an overly-strict implementation of the Volcker Rule will spark a "mass exodus" of clients from U.S. banks to their competitors abroad.

[don]

Re: Great job Tea Party, you just re elected FIRE

Wonder if the Koch brothers know.

[don]

Re: Great job Tea Party, you just re elected FIRE

What about our ruling class? I said a little while ago that it looks incapable of thinking beyond the next quarter. I'd been thinking of writing a book on our ruling class, some sort of hybrid of C. Wright Mills and Vanity Fair, but I set it aside for personal reasons. But I'd like to turn back to it soon. My working hypothesis was that nothing coherent has replaced the old northeastern WASP elite as a ruling stratum.

Though it was often greedy and brutal, it also had a disdain for commerce and an ethic of stewardship that helped it plan the post-World War II order with some degree of actual vision and skill. Its members went to the same schools, belonged to the same clubs, and married from the same small and homogenous pool. But now, to use the jargon of Wall Street, the transaction has replaced the relationship.

It's all about who can make the most money most quickly, and the long term can take care of itself. Can a complex and hierarchical society really be run by such a depraved social formation? Can the U.S. elite reconstitute itself as it has in the past?

For a while, I thought Obama might represent some sort of rationalization of the system, some efforts of repair after the decadence of the Bush years, but it's not turning out that way. Neither he nor his paymasters seem interested in or capable of such a project.

This is another view of our economic problem: I don't think an elite can stay rich and powerful forever while their society's foundations rot underneath it. Am I right in this? Or can the oligarchy barrel ahead while everything around them goes to hell?

Has it become so globalized that it doesn't care what happens at home? Will our billionaires take crash courses in Chinese and Kannada and abandon Manhattan and Greenwich for Shanghai and Bangalore?

I hope there's someone out there who can answer these questions.

Doug Henwood
http://lbo-news.com/2010/10/31/takin...easure-of-rot/

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Great job Tea Party, you just re elected FIRE

overly-strict implementation of the Volcker Rule will spark a "mass exodus" of clients from U.S. banks to their competitors abroad.

The oligarchy plays that card time and again, so far it works perfectly.
Tax me and I'll leave!
Regulate me and I'll leave!
There's no oversight over there, so I can't compete here!

The logical conclusion to that argument is that we must govern like Somalia to retain wealthy individuals, banks, brokerages, and manufacturers.

[wayiwalk]

Re: Great job Tea Party, you just re elected FIRE

I think the elite could care less what happens at home. Home is whereever a private jet can land and security will guard them. Phooey!

[Raz]

Re: Great job Tea Party, you just re elected FIRE

http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthr...79952#poststop