ATTN Americans: Constitutional Crisis

[J]

Don't bother Uraniun, you're just going to get more "I read this on the Market Ticker" and "this peer-group agrees!" before the inevitable boorish "I told you so" self-fellatio and obnoxious "I'm still making money off of it."

Well that's good to hear. I guess the ongoing Congress and Senate investigations into the Fed backed BSC buyout is just government busywork, and there's no concern at all over the legality of the whole deal. I guess Congress just didn't have anything better to do this past week than calling up Ben Bernanke and other key players and making testify before the House and Senate finance committees.

I guess you just have more important things to worry about, like how many times your girlfriend is going to fellate you this weekend.

[Big Phil]

I guess you just have more important things to worry about, like how many times your girlfriend is going to fellate you this weekend.

(I hate agreeing with IP but...) I'm pretty sure you forgot to add an "I told you so" and that you're making shitloads of money off energy futures.

To the point of the OP, I suspect you'd have a hard time finding a Presidential administration that hasn't caused a constitutional crisis, from Adams' Alien and Sedition Act, Polk's invasion of Mexico, Lincoln's suspension of habeus corpus, FDR's Executive Order 9066, to Shrub's varied and wide-ranging abuses of power. It's hard to get riled up about this because it's happened so many times before, and usually things get fixed.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Heaven forbid anyone critique the manner in which you present a case for your point of view and hypotheses about what is going to happen - you guys have alienated a lot of people and this tendency is very strong in this subculture. But its definitely not helping spread the word and raising interest as much as it could.

In this instance, there is jack I can do about it, not being an American citizen and in any case, the damage is done. The US banking industry has helped drag the rest of the world into this retarded work practise and now we're all going to pay for it. The legality of the Bear Stearns bail out is of concern, but not to me all that much. I'm more concerned about the domino effect this event and others will play out.

[MKSheppard]

The article is basically just more lolbertarian bullshit "constitutional crisis!!!!" crap.

Well, if you don't do whatever is necessary to reverse what happened with Bear Stearns and mete out punishment for that blatant violation of our Constitution, you WILL wake up one day to find out that some General in Iraq, or some Homeland Security person, or some other agency or arm of government just decided to pick your pocket and spend without the appropriation of those funds by Congress, effectively legislating without ever seeing the chambers of the House or Senate!

It is INEVITABLE that if we do not step up right here and now that this will happen again.

And again.

And again.

The line must be drawn here and now.

If we fail to do so we may as well flush one of the remaining pieces of our Constitutional Republic down the toilet, and cede to a "New World Order" in which you can and WILL be taxed without a vote and without representation of any sort and where laws will be imposed by fiat of the executive whenever they damn well feel like it without the prior approval, debate and consent of Congress.

Remember that 230-odd years ago we went to war over this EXACT issue - taxation without representation. The British King saw fit to spend and tax the colonists as he saw fit without any sort of redress to or vote by the colonists, and to impose laws via unitary decision, with the costs of implementation forcibly extracted from the Colonists' wallets.

This guy reminds me of Darkstar screaming about his entire "Battle of Britain" garbage.

PROTIP for Valdemar and J: Don't post 44 pages of lolbertarian bullshit here and then expect us to read it all.

But I'll humor you guys once:

you WILL wake up one day to find out that some General in Iraq, or some Homeland Security person, or some other agency or arm of government just decided to pick your pocket and spend without the appropriation of those funds by Congress, effectively legislating without ever seeing the chambers of the House or Senate!

Someone, find the author of this screed and execute them.

PLEASE

This has already happened repeatedly; when the Army goes to Congress and says:

"Oh, hey guys; you know that Iraq thing? Uhm, yeah, see we had to spend $500 million this past month to rectify a dangerous situation at our forward operating bases; the money was used to buy x amount of [insert equipment bought], along with the services of x thousand contractors who delivered the job in record time. So uhm, we need the money now."

CONGRESS: "Okay, I'll tack this request onto a war funding supplemental in the Farm bill."

*congress then votes and passes the war funding supplemental*

[Admiral Valdemar]

Congratulations, then. Your country is already quite broken and you see it as being something so old and common as to not even elicit a reaction of outrage (and, AGAIN, I point out I'm not all that interested in the Constitution, just the impact of what the parties involved are doing on the economy which kind've affects us all, being the world's largest).

Go America!

[Simplicius]

I personally thought the linked article sucked, because a) I prefer analysis to breathless ranting, and b) because I couldn't even gather what the issue was from that article; this thread was by far more informative.

But this is simply a non-point:

you WILL wake up one day to find out that some General in Iraq, or some Homeland Security person, or some other agency or arm of government just decided to pick your pocket and spend without the appropriation of those funds by Congress, effectively legislating without ever seeing the chambers of the House or Senate!

This has already happened repeatedly; when the Army goes to Congress and says:

"Oh, hey guys; you know that Iraq thing? Uhm, yeah, see we had to spend $500 million this past month to rectify a dangerous situation at our forward operating bases; the money was used to buy x amount of [insert equipment bought], along with the services of x thousand contractors who delivered the job in record time. So uhm, we need the money now."

CONGRESS: "Okay, I'll tack this request onto a war funding supplemental in the Farm bill."

*congress then votes and passes the war funding supplemental*

Those supplementals are one of the many ways our appropriations are fucked seven ways from Sunday, but as long as Congress signs off on them - exercising their power of the purse - they are legit.

[Uraniun235]

Oh, right. Gitmo, Iraq, Iran-Contra, Watergate et al were/are all mere "acts of negligence" compared to the High Crime of bad fiscal policy. My bad.

Strange. I could've sworn THIS thread was about the government's fiscal policy and not about anything else I have expressed outrage on elsewhere. Care to stay on topic or kindly shut the fuck up, sir?

Sorry, I guess I shouldn't have called you out on a really badly-worded post; at least, I sure hope that's what it was. I'd hate to think you consider torture and warmongering to be acts of "negligence".

But, funny, I could have sworn from the OP that this thread was about the legality of the Federal Reserve's actions, not over the prudence of the bailout. I could have sworn this thread was about a CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS which could set dangerous precedent. At least, that's the assumption I was operating under when I compared it to other actions which could be considered "CONSTITUTIONAL CRISES".

If you want to call it bad fiscal policy, then fucking call it bad fiscal policy! Don't get pissy when people start picking apart the validity of calling it a "CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS" and don't get all butthurt when I call you out on blowing it out of proportion.

In any case, my outrage is at American apathy, as I've repeately stated on this board. That Bush is wiping the floor still with your laws is something I don't lose sleep over. But when your fiscal policy upsets the global gravy train, I take issue.

The legality of the Bear Stearns bail out is of concern, but not to me all that much.

You don't care that it's a "constitutional crisis", despite the title of the thread, you're just pissy that the American public is acting completely within character and not rising up against this Fed policy like you wish they would.

And what about the oft-argued point around here that the public should stay out of affairs it cannot comprehend? "Hey you guys really need to get involved in the financial sector BUT SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT NUCLEAR POWER", right? Don't get me wrong, I love nuclear power, but we can't exactly have our cake and eat it too. How can we argue that people should somehow manage to educate themselves in global finance to the degree that they can make informed decisions about such matters and apply pressure to their elected officials accordingly... and then argue that the very same public should delegate such decisions to "trained professionals" (which, I'll remind you, is what comprised the management of Bear Stearns and other irresponsible banking institutions) when it comes to other highly complex and technical matters?

Not to mention the entire issue of whom they should even trust to give them an education in responsible finance to begin with. I mean at least with engineering and science you can generally trust the education you get out of a university, but can you - YOU, Admiral Valdemar, YOU PERSONALLY - can YOU trust the majority of economists in universities throughout the US to deliver an education which would permit their students to recognize the folly of the Stearns bailout as clearly as you have?

I submit that this thread was started on false pretense, because as you yourself have stated you do not care that the act is in fact illegal (never mind Constitutional or not) and yet the whole opening post was basically about "this is illegal you guys should be pissed about that". Not because you have any interest in the rule of law here, but because - it would seem - you hoped to spur us into political action on your behalf. I sure hope you weren't trying to spur people into political action on false premises; that almost sounds like it could be slightly dishonest.

I submit that it has been demonstrated that the reaction of the American public was completely predictable, if not inevitable, and that therefore your "outrage" is as impotent and useful as it would be at cursing a bird for shitting on your head.

Congratulations, then. Your country is already quite broken and you see it as being something so old and common as to not even elicit a reaction of outrage.

Pretty sure I've already said that a couple of times before on this forum. But, if it makes you feel better to say it some more, go ahead; should help take some of the stress off, which it sounds like you need.

I guess the ongoing Congress and Senate investigations into the Fed backed BSC buyout is just government busywork, and there's no concern at all over the legality of the whole deal.

I for one am not disputing the illegality of the actions at hand, especially now that someone has explained the relevant aspects of the Federal Reserve Act. The whole problem has been that this thread was framed within the context of "UNPRECEDENTED CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS" as claimed by The Market Ticker and has failed to live up to that claim, seeming instead to be basically "business as usual".

[brianeyci]

Looking as a non-American outside observer, I would find overbudget or illegal pork less of a threat to the American constitution than wiretapping domestically. When I think constitutional crisis, I think of Terry Schiavo or civil rights, and not government doling out money. That I would actually classify as corruption.

The point isn't that they accept the status quo: the point is the way the financial argument is framed to be as dangerous as loss of civil rights, Gitmo, declarations of war without congressional approval, and so on.

Here's some food for thought: as long as the US is in the red, the crash will eventually happen. But it is the creditor's to lose. It's not as if China can send repo men and do margin calls on the US government. So as long as the US is in the red, and can never get out, might as well spend as much money as possible before the bust to create infrastructure that cannot be reclaimed. Go in the red, deep in the red, to create social programs and infrastructure. This might not be the best use of said money, but it's hard to get riled up about something that cannot be stopped, only mitigated.

If someone came on the board and called it a "constitutional crisis" when 5 billion dollars disappeared from Canada's coffers a few years back, I would laugh in his face.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Sorry, I guess I shouldn't have called you out on a really badly-worded post; at least, I sure hope that's what it was. I'd hate to think you consider torture and warmongering to be acts of "negligence".

Negligent, illegal, horrific, totally uncool. I can list off many synonyms for the evil that this government and others have caused through action and inaction. I sure as hell am not shrugging them off, but they are neither the focus of this thread either.

But, funny, I could have sworn from the OP that this thread was about the legality of the Federal Reserve's actions, not over the prudence of the bailout. I could have sworn this thread was about a CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS which could set dangerous precedent. At least, that's the assumption I was operating under when I compared it to other actions which could be considered "CONSTITUTIONAL CRISES".

If you want to call it bad fiscal policy, then fucking call it bad fiscal policy! Don't get pissy when people start picking apart the validity of calling it a "CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS" and don't get all butthurt when I call you out on blowing it out of proportion.

I used that title because that's what the damn article was called. You have issues with the title? Fine. I'll remember not to bother quoting another author's headline next time.

And it's only blown out of proportion because your system truly is broken anyway. Am I shocked over this happening? No, as I said. I am shocked by the lack of any tackling of this or related problems, because I've come to expect little good from the incumbents in Washington now.

You don't care that it's a "constitutional crisis", despite the title of the thread, you're just pissy that the American public is acting completely within character and not rising up against this Fed policy like you wish they would.

You damn right I'm pissy over that. Given the ranting I see online both here and elsewhere, I'd expect more. Which is why Obama quite simply has to win and actually get work done, else there really is no end to the death spiral the US is going down. Maybe when China and India overtake the US, then people will really take action. I still doubt it.

And what about the oft-argued point around here that the public should stay out of affairs it cannot comprehend? "Hey you guys really need to get involved in the financial sector BUT SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT NUCLEAR POWER", right? Don't get me wrong, I love nuclear power, but we can't exactly have our cake and eat it too. How can we argue that people should somehow manage to educate themselves in global finance to the degree that they can make informed decisions about such matters and apply pressure to their elected officials accordingly... and then argue that the very same public should delegate such decisions to "trained professionals" (which, I'll remind you, is what comprised the management of Bear Stearns and other irresponsible banking institutions) when it comes to other highly complex and technical matters?

That's part of the problem: the complexity. What they need are referendums on certain issues, select committees on others. No single system is perfect, but I do wonder whether the Westminster system would be better as some argue. In this case, it's an easy case of kicking out the big corporations who are buying out all leaders. You don't need a degree in economics to grasp that. Most people are just apathetic. If the effort put into upholding gun laws was put into fighting corruption, you'd be getting somewhere. Passion does wonders for a cause.

Not to mention the entire issue of whom they should even trust to give them an education in responsible finance to begin with. I mean at least with engineering and science you can generally trust the education you get out of a university, but can you - YOU, Admiral Valdemar, YOU PERSONALLY - can YOU trust the majority of economists in universities throughout the US to deliver an education which would permit their students to recognize the folly of the Stearns bailout as clearly as you have?

I can't trust most of them in power to educate the public in the media, that's for sure. Having taken some economics in high-school, I know how easy it can be to twist around and dress up in a way that favours your views. It's not exactly rocket science, but the subject is beyond the grasp of many people it would seem, while there is more than good enough reason for people to at least have rudimentary knowledge of how to organise personal finances. If they at least understood that, they might consider the leveraging going on now to be a bad thing. That some express shock when being called on debts to be repaid after time is just baffling. And as with all non-science subjects, objectivity is at a premium.

I submit that this thread was started on false pretense, because as you yourself have stated you do not care that the act is in fact illegal (never mind Constitutional or not) and yet the whole opening post was basically about "this is illegal you guys should be pissed about that". Not because you have any interest in the rule of law here, but because - it would seem - you hoped to spur us into political action on your behalf. I sure hope you weren't trying to spur people into political action on false premises; that almost sounds like it could be slightly dishonest.

You got me. I'm Jefferson reincarnated. We need to dump T-bills in the Boston harbour, stat.

I submit that it has been demonstrated that the reaction of the American public was completely predictable, if not inevitable, and that therefore your "outrage" is as impotent and useful as it would be at cursing a bird for shitting on your head.

Being shown to be not as cynical as some make me out to be... hurts.

Pretty sure I've already said that a couple of times before on this forum. But, if it makes you feel better to say it some more, go ahead; should help take some of the stress off, which it sounds like you need.

I am a veritable ball of angriness right now.

I for one am not disputing the illegality of the actions at hand, especially now that someone has explained the relevant aspects of the Federal Reserve Act. The whole problem has been that this thread was framed within the context of "UNPRECEDENTED CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS" as claimed by The Market Ticker and has failed to live up to that claim, seeming instead to be basically "business as usual".

Okay, it's not a crisis like that because no one gives a shit about the Constitution (except in cases involving guns and religion, it seems) and the government has pissed all over it like a drunkard's urinal since time immemorial. But, the legality of this whole affair is not as cut and dry as has been stated by others. There was an illegal vote. The money from taxpayers will be at risk of being lost if things get worse (and they ain't getting better, Sonny Jim ). Was the Market Ticker article somewhat hyperbolic and filled with emotion? Yes. Did it alert me to an issue I can see snowballing? Also yes.

In the next six or so months, we shall see how this event affects your nation's, and by extension, every nation's economy. Right now, the spin doctors of CNBC and their ilk are happy to make any bad news seem like it's A-OK if it's less than the Apocalypse, which is what they did with company profit reports at the start of the year ("Hey, HSBC only lost a dozen billion this past month. Phew, I thought it was going to be bad").

The thing of it is, this financial credit crunch doesn't interest me as much any more, least, not right now. What is on my scope now is the food inflation going on, which affects a great many more people more immediately. But I'm sure posting a food crisis thread would only get negative reviews anyway, so I'll lay off that particular idea until half the world is dining on fine Rattus rattus three times a day.

[brianeyci]

Uh, looks like the article is called "Off the Reservation."

Food crisis thread would not get negative reviews, because it's actually happening in many countries right now: Russia, Egypt, Thailand, etc., etc., with price of food going up and up. The crash has not happened for oil yet, or the financial market crash.

Honestly, if you are convinced that economic theory is utter bullcrap, and needs to be reconstructed to take into account assets, there is hope for the US. Think of a friend lending a friend a CD. Now, the friend keeps it, and doesn't want to pay a cent. What can the lender do? Going to the friend and beating him up is not a possibility, since the friend is far stronger, in fact hundreds of pounds larger. The only possible course of action is to cease being friends and stop lending him anything. But of course, he keeps what he already stole. The lender is the loser, not the thief.

The friends in real life are China and the US. If current economic theory is bullshit, the "ripple effect" should not happen.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Uh, looks like the article is called "Off the Reservation."

Hmm, I was going by the page I found it linked to before finding the original format. Guess the heading on that made the "Off the Reservation" one seem like a sub-heading. Besides, that isn't an informative title anyway, regardless of whether this Constitutional malarkey is worth getting worked up about.

Food crisis thread would not get negative reviews, because it's actually happening in many countries right now: Russia, Egypt, Thailand, etc., etc., with price of food going up and up. The crash has not happened for oil yet, or the financial market crash.

But not here, yet. The idea doesn't impact on people the same way until it actually happens to them or people they know. That's one reason the fuel shortages in diesel don't seem to get the attention of those over here complaining about fuel tax being the bigger burden, not physical shortages.

Honestly, if you are convinced that economic theory is utter bullcrap, and needs to be reconstructed to take into account assets, there is hope for the US. Think of a friend lending a friend a CD. Now, the friend keeps it, and doesn't want to pay a cent. What can the lender do? Going to the friend and beating him up is not a possibility, since the friend is far stronger, in fact hundreds of pounds larger. The only possible course of action is to cease being friends and stop lending him anything. But of course, he keeps what he already stole. The lender is the loser, not the thief.

The friends in real life are China and the US. If current economic theory is bullshit, the "ripple effect" should not happen.

The economics will have to adjust one way or another simply to keep the ship afloat. Brown came out yesterday saying the system is flawed because of WWII era practises, and I'm sure some prominent people dealing with major policies and business will agree. The current trend is assuredly not sustainable, not with the burden on the governments to bail out the Northern Rocks and Bear Stearns of the world.

[SirNitram]

The cries of 'Constitutional Crisis!!!!!!' would ring better if A) People weren't dying right now because of other ones. And B) It was still the first Bush Administration.

As we autopsied dead savings and loans, we were absolutely amazed by the number of ways thrift rogues were able to circumvent, neuter, and defeat firewalls designed to safeguard the system against self-dealing and abuse. One of the favorite methods was to link up like-minded thrifts in the daisy chains through which they could circulate inflated assets and hide their rotten loans to each other and to each other's customers from regulators.

Banks that need to get money to a troubled securities affiliate will do exactly the same thing. By linking up three or more banks, each with its own securities subsidiary, a daisy chain will facilitate a round robin of reciprocal loans in times of need. Then, the next time we have a Black Monday on Wall Street, this daisy chain will swing into action as a handful of mega-banks try to prop one another's securities subsidiaries and their customers as the market plummets.

In such a scenario, billions of federally insured dollars will disappear in the twinkle of a few program trades.

That will happen, not might happen but will happen, and when it does these too-big-to-fail banks will have to be propped up with Federal money. In the smoking aftermath, Congress can stand around and wring its hands and give speeches about how awful it is that these bankers violated the spirit of the law, but once again, the money will be gone, the bill will have come due, and taxpayers will again be required to cough it up.

Seventeen years later and you look like someone who just noticed we have a space program.

No shit the current system is unsustainable. 'ATTN!!!!' titles just make you look damn foolish. It's been unsustainable for a while. The Republican party merely accelerated the decline by ruthlessly removing all those handy regulations designed to stop a new Great Depression, or twisting them so they would bring down government as well as markets.

Remember, there's no need for enviromental conservation. Jesus is coming.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Glad to see I'm not the only one that thinks that ATTN! headlines and generally "OMG GUYZ" alarmism and crap is just insulting the intelligence of the posters and community which have digested logic and evidence regarding sustainability and economic crisis...in the last three dozen threads. Now its getting tedious; maybe if there was a silent crusade to silence you it'd be worthwhile. God knows, I tried the same emotive and over the top tack when the reality of the situation set in - but it is foolish, and I'm not the only one who thinks so, and this isn't a sudden and unprecedented event.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Well that's good to hear. I guess the ongoing Congress and Senate investigations into the Fed backed BSC buyout is just government busywork, and there's no concern at all over the legality of the whole deal. I guess Congress just didn't have anything better to do this past week than calling up Ben Bernanke and other key players and making testify before the House and Senate finance committees.

Well then I guess it isn't just being ignored and the Constitution isn't total toilet paper and no one needs to bail out quite yet.

I guess you just have more important things to worry about, like how many times your girlfriend is going to fellate you this weekend.

Believe it or not, there are people on the forum with money riding the market, and trying to help themselves and put themselves in a better future. But not all of us feel that reading Broomstick worry about her husband and unemployment and the like or people who're losing everything means we should show our sympathy by telling them how much smarter and better off we are.

[Simplicius]

You damn right I'm pissy over that. Given the ranting I see online both here and elsewhere, I'd expect more. Which is why Obama quite simply has to win and actually get work done, else there really is no end to the death spiral the US is going down. Maybe when China and India overtake the US, then people will really take action. I still doubt it.

This isn't that different from Franklin Roosevelt's first two terms, though. There was a highly vocal segment of the US public that hated Roosevelt, absolutely despised him because they felt his programs were destroying the country - and FDR did provoke something of a constitutional crisis, at least until the Supreme Court "switched in time" and started upholding FDR's programs instead of overturning them. But were there riots, were there protests? Not that I know of; I think the anti-Roosevelt crowd mostly bitched and wrote angry letters to the editor.

I can only speculate as to why, but protest here seems to be largely the province of oppressed social groups and moral crusades.

[Illuminatus Primus]

There was the fucking Business Plot with Major General Smedley Butler, there was the court packing, there was the multiple rulings against the NRA et al.

[Uraniun235]

You damn right I'm pissy over that. Given the ranting I see online both here and elsewhere, I'd expect more.

I don't know where else you frequent, but remember that the demographics here are going to be skewed considerably. Even the below-par members here at SDN tend to be far better informed about current affairs and political realities than the public on average, even if sometimes only because of what they read through threads posted here.

A huge number of Americans are getting the vast majority, if not the totality, of their news from popular television and maybe their local newspapers; neither of which is likely to offer any coverage of substance on such issues as the Stearns bailout or the unviability of current financial practices in general. How can they be outraged about something they don't know about? I'll agree there's cause to be annoyed that people don't mind being in the dark, but I think there's greater cause to be angry that the media hasn't given this issue any decent coverage.