Not Breaking: System Is Rigged

I would like to be able to say that this surprises the hell out of me, but sadly, it does not.

“The simultaneous selling of securities to customers and shorting them because they believed they were going to default is the most cynical use of credit information that I have ever seen,” said Sylvain R. Raynes, an expert in structured finance at R & R Consulting in New York. “When you buy protection against an event that you have a hand in causing, you are buying fire insurance on someone else’s house and then committing arson.”

Yes, In a Nutshell...

Captain Obvious (aka, Robert Reich)

Bottom line: Genuine financial reform will be almost as difficult to achieve as real universal health care. Immense private interests are amassed against the public interest in both cases because staggering amounts of money are at stake. But they are the two most important domestic issues right now. Keep careful watch, and weigh in.

Immense private interests are amassed against the public interest

There's your problem right there.

Republican Morality

So this is what they meant by "Drill, baby, drill!" -

The reports portray a dysfunctional organization that has been riddled with conflicts of interest, unprofessional behavior and a free-for-all atmosphere for much of the Bush administration’s watch.

[...]

The investigation also concluded that several of the officials “frequently consumed alcohol at industry functions, had used cocaine and marijuana, and had sexual relationships with oil and gas company representatives.”

The investigation separately found that the program’s manager mixed official and personal business, and took money from a technical services firm in exchange for urging oil companies to hire the firm. In sometimes lurid detail, the report accuses him of having intimate relations with two subordinates, one of whom regularly sold him cocaine.

[h/t Atrios]

Things That Piss Me Off

I question whether the libertarian "left" is really "left" - you don't get to call yourself a liberal just because you're pro-choice and drive a Prius.

The most harm done to workers has been by Democrats (yes, I'm looking at you, Bill Clinton) who pivoted away from the notion that the power of government ought to be a counter-balance to the power of business, and sold out the New Deal to a bunch of greedy, corrupt boodlers.

I'm reading Thomas Frank's new book, and getting angrier by the minute. (I'll post a full review if I can keep from making the entire thing one long blue streak of angry swear-words.)

Revolution may be our only hope.