March 21, 2007


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY

WORLD CLASS ARROGANCE

George W. Bush once said the Constitution is just a "piece of paper." That has been the modus operandi of this administration. The Constitution doesn't matter, ethics and morality don't matter, international law doesn't matter, and treaties don't matter. The only thing that matters is what Bush and his cronies want. We see that same arrogance with the firing of eight U. S. attorneys for blatantly political reasons. The administration has tried to spin this as normal operating administration for every administration, but the historical record is clear. This is highly unusual and deserves a full investigation. This column by Eugene Robinson is at www.washingtonpost.com:

Arrogance has been the most consistent hallmark of George W. Bush's presidency. His administration's simple philosophy of government has been consistent: We can do any damn thing we want.

We can invade Iraq. We can blow off the Geneva Conventions. We can listen to your private phone calls, Mr. and Ms. America, and we can read your private e-mails, too. We can arrest anybody we want and hold them as long as we want, and we don't even have to tell them why, much less file formal charges or hold a trial. We can even defy the laws of science -- or at least ignore the ones that annoy us, such as that whole "greenhouse effect" thing. We can use the troops for photo ops when they come back from war grievously wounded and then basically forget about them.

DEREGULATION FAILS AGAIN

One of the big mantras we've gotten from right-wingers is about the wonders of deregulation. It fosters competition, they say, and drives down prices and gives consumers more choices and lower prices. Just about everything that has been deregulated has become more expensive, less efficient, and more confusing. A great example was the deregulation of electricity in California. We got rolling blackouts and shafted by Enron. Phone bills are higher since deregulation. Airline service is worse. And banking is truly on the precipice. When Bush I was in office a massive federal bailout was required because of the savings and loan debacle created by deregulation. Now we have the teetering of the subprime mortgage business. This article by Robert Kuttner is at www.prospect.org:

In the past decade, as regulators discarded rules, shady mortgage banking companies, financed by the bluest-chip outfits on Wall Street, calculated that they could make a lot of money offering bait-and-switch mortgages to poor credit risks. Default and foreclosure rates would be greater, but higher profits would more than compensate for the risks. So the subprime mortgage industry, enabled by the big banks, invented amazing gimmicks. These included not just variable-rate mortgages, but mortgages that were initially interest-only, mortgages with introductory teaser rates, mortgages with no down payment. No income verification required! No credit check! Subprime operators targeted people with horrific credit histories and families desperate for housing who could not afford the debt they were taking on. Last year, 60 percent of subprime loans required no meaningful documentation.

Then came the morning-after: As higher payments kicked in, people couldn't meet them. Defaults skyrocketed, to an estimated 13 percent of all such loans. At least 25 subprime lenders have gone out of business. The big dogs on Wall Street, who had invested in the subprime operators, took a big hit, too.

It's not clear where this will end. Many low-income families will lose their homes. Innocent investors will suffer the spillover effects on the stock market, and general mortgage rates may have to go up to compensate for these losses of reckless speculation.