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You are here: Home / Things fall apart

Things fall apart

by DougJ|  July 19, 20114:45 pm| 79 Comments

This post is in: Good News For Conservatives

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Yesterday, commenter Cat Lady wrote:

NotW existed for 168 years, and it was gone in one week. The Church, the banks, the full faith and credit of the US, all going down. Some of us knew it was all bullshit, but now it’s becoming common knowledge. We’re being launched into uncharted territories, and we’re going to need a bigger boat.

I’d been thinking for a while that Murdochalpyse reminded me of the scandals in the Catholic Church. The abuse was so widespread and ignored for so long that when it came to light, it was stunning. I suppose the banking collapse was that way too, so many banks doing crazy stuff with subprime crap that any sane person had to know would blow up some day.

I’m having a hard time putting this in a way that won’t sound like an unhinged liberal rant against conservatives, but all of these scandals seem uniquely conservative to me, not just because they all took place within conservative institutions, but because they were driven by an unreflective, faith-based mode of thinking. With the Church, it was God’s on our side, so what we do is right. With the banks, it was the rational market is perfect so what we do is right With News Corp, it was we run the country so what we do is right. With the possible credit default, it’s tax cuts raise revenue, so what we do is right.

Maybe I’m wrong to think that this kind of unthinking belief in self-serving dogma is the hallmark of contemporary conservatism.

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79Comments

  1. 1.

    Redshirt

    July 19, 2011 at 4:48 pm

    “It’s the End of the World as we know it…. and I feel” fine, I guess.

    Clearly, we’re undergoing some pretty radical shifts in human history. Our population is SOOOO much larger than it’s ever been. Our tech is reaching Sci-Fi levels of wonder. Our culture/politics is being dragged along.

    I get the distinct sense that those in the know are grabbing what they can while they can, for soon enough, the entire foundation will be swept away (oil), and replaced by something else.

    There’s always pain in transition, but hope for improvement on the other side.

  2. 2.

    Han's Big Snark Solo

    July 19, 2011 at 4:50 pm

    I’m having a hard time putting this in a way that won’t sound like an unhinged liberal rant against conservatives

    These days the GOP is so reality adverse everything related to reality sounds like a rant against conservatives.

    What you are describing is what happens when ideology goes up against reality. The two don’t mix well in their pure forms very often.

  3. 3.

    Nutella

    July 19, 2011 at 4:51 pm

    Well, if the Murdoch scandal is conservative then you have to consider ‘New Labour’ to be conservative since Tony Blair was a major participant.

    Maybe it’s just that people in power, no matter where they came from, get to be raging conservatives (like Obama on whistleblowing and torture issues, for instance).

  4. 4.

    WereBear

    July 19, 2011 at 4:52 pm

    I’m having a hard time putting this in a way that won’t sound like an unhinged liberal rant against conservatives

    Oh, it’s hinged, baby, it’s hinged!

  5. 5.

    DougJ in Damascus

    July 19, 2011 at 4:52 pm

    Well, if the Murdoch scandal is conservative then you have to consider ‘New Labour’ to be conservative since Tony Blair was a major participant.

    I do to some extent. Moreover, Murdoch himself is conservative, he just likes to bet on winners.

  6. 6.

    ruemara

    July 19, 2011 at 4:54 pm

    I’ll just give you props for Chinua Achebe, because I’ve been sitting in a financial meeting for an hour. Things are falling apart all over, and it seems that our officials are cutting them at the seams and calling it sewing.

  7. 7.

    geg6

    July 19, 2011 at 4:55 pm

    Maybe I’m wrong to think that this kind of unthinking belief in self-serving dogma is the hallmark of contemporary conservatism.

    Nope, Doug, you’re not wrong. That is exactly the hallmark of conservatism today. You know it every time you talk to some dimwit who believes Obama is commiefacistKenyanIslamist and that lowering taxes is, prima facie, the best and only way to make the government live within its means and who, despite all evidence to the contrary and no matter how that evidence piles up repeatedly in opposition to their faith, that they are right.

    It’s a fucking religion. And I hate, hate, hate, hate fucking religions.

  8. 8.

    The Moar You Know

    July 19, 2011 at 4:55 pm

    Maybe I’m wrong to think that this kind of unthinking belief in self-serving dogma is the hallmark of contemporary conservatism.

    You are. It has been the hallmark of those who would stand athwart human progress, yelling “stop”, since the beginning of time.

  9. 9.

    someguy

    July 19, 2011 at 4:55 pm

    It all comes back to the right’s epistemic closure. They are unable to accept reality, so pretty much all these disasters are, in fact,their fault. That they get away with it so often and don’t wind up lined up against a wall somewhere is testimony to one of liberals’ big failures, which is trusting people to generally do the right thing and not be batshit insane and destructive.

    I don’t see a way out unless you can figure out how to make conservatives suffer the consequences of their choices.

  10. 10.

    NonyNony

    July 19, 2011 at 4:56 pm

    With the Church, it was God’s on our side, so what we do is right.

    Nope – that would be an Evangelical scandal or perhaps a more general Protestant one.

    If you look at the pronouncements coming down from the hierarchy of the Church, you don’t get a “God is on on our side so we’re right” vibe. What you get is “we are the Church – what we do is right by definition. So shut up and get back in the pews” vibe. There have been things written by folks in the hierarchy that rise to the Nixonian level of “if the President does it it can’t be illegal”. The hierarchy doesn’t justify its actions based on what God proclaims – it justifies its actions because it is The Church and if it does something than it must be right.

    And, frankly, this probably supports your thesis even more than if they really were hiding behind God’s invisible robes to declare themselves right.

  11. 11.

    sashal

    July 19, 2011 at 4:58 pm

    Maybe I’m wrong to think that this kind of unthinking belief in self-serving dogma is the hallmark of contemporary conservatism.

    since many years ago I noticed irrational behavior, dogmatism, rigidness and total obliviosness to the facts , desire to rewrite history, progressing craziness in many GOP members propped by endless, subtle and not propaganda and lies from approved sources(and whatever else comes from anywhere else getting rejected on the spot), I immediately had flashes of memory- that is exactly how devoted communists behaved in the old country, absolutely no difference , just a different dogma and different Pravda(FOX).

    Mind you , my first years in USA I was voting straight repub, just reflexively going for an opposite of what I had before.

    boy , how wrong i was.

    opposite? not at all.

    i wonder if modern average teabagger could meet the old USSR communist, i bet they would find a lot in common, i even say if those brainwashed humans by the freak of nature happened to be born in USSR they would have been devoted communists and many would make a carrier in KPSS apparatus.

    that’s how their mindset works.

    Give them a dogma and they will follow

  12. 12.

    DougJ in Damascus

    July 19, 2011 at 4:58 pm

    If you look at the pronouncements coming down from the hierarchy of the Church, you don’t get a “God is on on our side so we’re right” vibe. What you get is “we are the Church – what we do is right by definition.

    Yeah, you’re right.

  13. 13.

    PeakVT

    July 19, 2011 at 4:59 pm

    The abuse scandal in the Catholic Church seems like more like a classic circling the wagons action than something driven by ideology or hubris among the elites. Something fucked up happen, then the elites got involved. In the other cases the elites fucked up on their own.

  14. 14.

    Marmot

    July 19, 2011 at 4:59 pm

    Maybe I’m wrong to think that this kind of unthinking belief in self-serving dogma is the hallmark of contemporary conservatism.

    Only an Islamofascistcommieleft-liberalfar-leftleftist would second-guess himself!

  15. 15.

    beltane

    July 19, 2011 at 4:59 pm

    An unthinking belief is self-serving dogma is the hallmark of authoritarianism past, present, and future. The essence of Conservatism is the belief that if the little children just shut up and do what Big Daddy says, there will be ponies and rainbows and a make-your-own ice cream sundae bar at the end of the day.

  16. 16.

    DonkeyKong

    July 19, 2011 at 5:00 pm

    Oh, for most of human history laws have been for the little people. We really don’t know what we have had in the last fifty years I fear, even when it slips away.

    I went to a dinner over the weekend in San Frncisco with some friends that are educated and doing well. The husband was railing against the 99’ers as lazy and the source of the country’s budget woes.

    I said “a few banks piled twenty trillion dollars together, lit it on fire and fed the flames with the middle class of which you’re a part! The 99er’s are not anywhere close to the problem you think they are.”

    He just shrugged.

  17. 17.

    Chris

    July 19, 2011 at 5:00 pm

    Maybe I’m wrong to think that this kind of unthinking belief in self-serving dogma is the hallmark of contemporary conservatism.

    No, it pretty much defines them to a tee. Doesn’t mean they have a monopoly on it, but it’s still a staple of everything they do.

  18. 18.

    bkny

    July 19, 2011 at 5:01 pm

    #1 — bingo.

  19. 19.

    Violet

    July 19, 2011 at 5:02 pm

    It’s “We’re rich and powerful. What we do is right.” That’s the real issue and can be applied in any of those instances you name.

    Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. In each of your cases, the players became so powerful and so corrupt that when the truth came out it was astonishing.

  20. 20.

    BO_Bill

    July 19, 2011 at 5:02 pm

    Yes DougJ, you are wrong. First, we note that NewsCorp is a business, not a political organization, loosely identified with the center right. Now we turn our attention to the behavior of Progressive Religionists:

    1. A group of Progressives physically attacks the editor of the Onion, breaking this young lady’s leg and smashing her face. The Onion is ironically a Progressive organization itself.

  21. 21.

    jwb

    July 19, 2011 at 5:03 pm

    “Murdoch himself is conservative, he just likes to bet on winners.”

    And, yet, he bet against Obama. Curious.

  22. 22.

    Phildo

    July 19, 2011 at 5:03 pm

    And don’t forget: We support “family values,” so whatever we do outside of our marriages is right.

  23. 23.

    stuckinred

    July 19, 2011 at 5:04 pm

    Tweety has Joe Walsh on and he’s not playing Rocky Mountain Way.

  24. 24.

    ornery

    July 19, 2011 at 5:05 pm

    “so many banks doing crazy stuff with subprime crap that any sane person had to know would blow up some day.”

    So if they had to know, they did know. Hmmm. So what does that mean?

  25. 25.

    JGabriel

    July 19, 2011 at 5:05 pm

    @Redshirt:

    Clearly, we’re undergoing some pretty radical shifts in human history. … Our tech is reaching Sci-Fi levels of wonder.

    Remember the sci-fi of the 60’s & 70’s, with space ships, and flying cars, and robotic vacuums, and flat screen TVs, and ubiquitous computers?

    Well, the robotic vacuums, flat screen tvs, and ubiquitous computers are here now. Hell, with the right software, most of today’s computers can even talk and obey spoken commands. We’re halfway to Star Trek / The Jetsons! And maybe a lot closer to Neuromancer than any of us want to think about.

    .

  26. 26.

    Chris

    July 19, 2011 at 5:06 pm

    Well, if the Murdoch scandal is conservative then you have to consider ‘New Labour’ to be conservative since Tony Blair was a major participant.

    Honestly, at this point I think we’re not far off from the U.S. Gilded Age model, where you had a party of Corrupt Bastards on one side of the aisle and a party of Not Quite As Corrupt Or Perhaps Just Corrupt In A Different Way Bastards on the other side, both beholden to the robber barons.

    Blair’s New Labour and Clinton’s Third Way ideologies were better than the alternatives, but they did signal a major shift away from the traditional center-left platform their parties had had for most of the twentieth century.

  27. 27.

    Chris

    July 19, 2011 at 5:09 pm

    If you look at the pronouncements coming down from the hierarchy of the Church, you don’t get a “God is on on our side so we’re right” vibe. What you get is “we are the Church – what we do is right by definition. So shut up and get back in the pews” vibe.

    Really?

    All I got from them was the vibe that we hear from the military after every prisoner abuse or war crime scandal: “yes, it’s just AWFUL, but the REAL story here is that there are nasty enemies of the church/country who’re playing this way up in order to attack us, and we have to present a united front against them.”

  28. 28.

    MobiusKlein

    July 19, 2011 at 5:10 pm

    Can’t have this discussion without mentioning Enron. Us in Cali still hold a bitter grudge about their screwing the electrical grid for some petty cash.

  29. 29.

    BO_Bill

    July 19, 2011 at 5:10 pm

    2. One hundred and seventy eight (178) leaders within the Progressive Church falsify hundreds of thousands of standardized test scores within the Atlanta School System, pocketing the FedCash and sending the students away without an education. This act amounts to child abuse on a scale that dwarfs the Catholic Church.

    I’ll stop here for fear of being Banished (again) as a Heretic.

  30. 30.

    El Cid

    July 19, 2011 at 5:12 pm

    __

    …all of these scandals seem uniquely conservative to me, not just because they all took place within conservative institutions, but because they were driven by an unreflective, faith-based mode of thinking.

    The difference is that instead of taking millenia to be confronted with reality to some degree by the publicly involved section of the population and even by organizations and institutions, it takes less time to be exposed.

    After exposure, though, it doesn’t mean it goes away.

    In modern times it used to be much easier to show this sort of defiance-of-all-observable-reality in the 3rd world, given the extremes of forms of government and the catastrophic scales of the problems.

    In Mao’s Great Leap Forward, it wasn’t just the stunningly, mind-blowingly horrendous drought and the lunatic uninformed move to collectives for farmers to each produce backyard “iron”.

    The party’s leadership used insane ideologies to convince themselves that you could ignore ‘bourgeois’ methods of agriculture and use principles of Maoism-Leninism to make plants produce more yield.

    [T]he central Government decreed several changes in agricultural techniques based on the ideas of Ukrainian pseudo-scientist Trofim Lysenko.[7]
    __
    One of these ideas was close planting, whereby the density of seedlings was at first tripled and then doubled again.
    __
    The theory was that plants of the same species would not compete with each other [i.e., proletarian wheat solidarity]. In practice they did, which stunted growth and resulted in lower yields.
    __
    Another policy was based on the ideas of Lysenko’s colleague Teventy Maltsev, who encouraged peasants across China to plow deeply into the soil (up to 1 or 2 meters).
    __
    They believed the most fertile soil was deep in the earth, allowing extra strong root growth. However in shallow soil, useless rocks, soil, and sand were driven up instead, burying the topsoil.

    Several tens of millions of Chinese died of starvation, and yet officials couldn’t tell the truth about what was going on else they’d be eliminated — both jobwise and biologically.

    If the modern conservative movement had the sort of power Mao did, we’d be seeing Ark-based conservation strategies. More of them, I mean.

    Apart from its power given the ability of a totalitarian regime to implement it, is there anything more silly in the proletarian agri-science revolution of Maoists than there is in the global energy budget increase deniers?

  31. 31.

    Xenocrates

    July 19, 2011 at 5:13 pm

    It is my considered opinion that you are 100% correct. So there.

  32. 32.

    Chris

    July 19, 2011 at 5:13 pm

    First, we note that NewsCorp is a business, not a political organization, loosely identified with the center right.

    I do love how absolutely every conservative, no matter what his previous standing in the organization, immediately, immediately becomes “center-right,” a “RINO” or even “a liberal” the second he gets caught with his hand in the cookie jar in a way they can’t spin.

    Poor George W. Bush. And to think how much they loved you just in 2004.

  33. 33.

    stuckinred

    July 19, 2011 at 5:14 pm

    BO_Bill

    You are such a fucking moron that heretic doesn’t scratch the surface.

    You left this part out didn’t you?

    “It’s also a tacit indictment, critics say, of politicians putting all bets for improving education onto high-stakes tests that punish and reward students, teachers, and principals for test scores.”

    Your fucking boy genius W instituted this crap didn’t he?

  34. 34.

    Turgidson

    July 19, 2011 at 5:14 pm

    unthinking belief in self-serving dogma

    That’s maybe the best bullet-point descriptor of the modern GOP and affiliated conservative movement I’ve seen. It pretty much explains everything they’ve been doing for the past 30 years, and last couple years in particular.

  35. 35.

    jlowery

    July 19, 2011 at 5:15 pm

    It’s amazing to watch the conservatives moan about how taxes are killing the economy, and how cutting government spending will provide jobs, and about the wonders of deregulation and the free market, even now.

    I’m certain that the educated ones know it’s self-serving bullshit, but the advent of a perfect media echo chamber destabilized the system, indoctrinating enough of the electorate and electing enough know-nothings to seriously damage the machinery of governence.

    There’s a lot of enraged ignorance out there, convinced that Obama caused the recession and government mortgages to the poor caused the financial collapse, and that if we just cut medicare and social security enough their kids will be able to find jobs. Confirmation bias rules, fed by NewsCorp and high-volume political advertising. Most will never learn, regardless of how much pain they endure at the hands of the well-to-do and the powerful.

    I don’t know if there’s a way back from here. I hope there is, for my kids’ sake.

  36. 36.

    JGabriel

    July 19, 2011 at 5:15 pm

    jwb:

    [DougJ:]

    Murdoch himself is conservative, he just likes to bet on winners.

    And, yet, he bet against Obama.

    Murdoch tried to broker a peace between News Corp. and Obama, and arranged a meeting between Obama, Ailes, and himself way back in 2008, before Obama won the election.

    Apparently Ailes and Obama didn’t hit it off.

    The point I’m making is that, yes, Murdoch is a pretty far right conservative, but even in the UK he can still make peace with Labour — if it suits his needs and desire to back winners.

    One has to conclude that, in the US, Ailes is dragging Murdoch even further to the right than Murdoch’s own natural inclinations would typically lead him.

    .

  37. 37.

    Brandon

    July 19, 2011 at 5:16 pm

    I certainly hope this is not at all like the church or banking scandals. I both cases hardly anyone went to jail and those Bishops and Masters of the Universe are still around behaving like even bigger arseholes than ever. If that is the fate of Rupert and News Corp, please shoot me now.

  38. 38.

    Marmot

    July 19, 2011 at 5:16 pm

    @ BO_Bill #19

    1. A group of Progressives physically attacks the editor of the Onion, breaking this young lady’s leg and smashing her face. The Onion is ironically a Progressive organization itself.

    Bill, you are a fucking liar. There’s nothing about the political affiliation of this mob, and nothing about the victim in question that would’ve suggested her workplace to the mob. Oh, and nothing about her own political leanings.

    But I’m curious why you do it. Why do you just lie like that to protect conservatism? Don’t you care about, well, truth? Is your allegiance to the Right more important than everything?

    Seriously, I’d like to know. It fits into the thread topic, even.

  39. 39.

    El Cid

    July 19, 2011 at 5:20 pm

    The man portraying himself as the possessor of a baked-clay based heating system is a parody troll.

  40. 40.

    fuckwit

    July 19, 2011 at 5:20 pm

    You missed one: the fall of the Soviet Union. Same thing: an unthinking, unreflective, unyeilding adherence to a rigid ideology, and a complete reliance on lies, bullshit and intimidation to keep itself in place– just like the catholic church, the capitalist banking system, the Repugs and their voodoo economics, and the Murdoch press.

    Totalitarianism, really, is what all this is, and the USSR in Stalin and post-Stalin was a deeply conservative kind of institution, despite its “revolutionary” rhetoric dating back to 1917 and earlier.

    You can rule based on bullshit and fear, for a long time, but when everyone knows you are full of shit, and is just playing along because they are either too afraid or too lazy to speak up (or both), then your system has already rotted from the inside, and it takes only a strong breeze to knock it all down!

    This is what we are living through right now: the great unwinding of right-wing bullshit like religion and “free market” capitalism.

  41. 41.

    NonyNony

    July 19, 2011 at 5:21 pm

    @Marmot

    But I’m curious why you do it. Why do you just lie like that to protect conservatism?

    Because he’s a troll.

    I mean come on – you don’t think that BO_Bill is really here to have any kind of discussion? He’s here to get people’s goats and then laugh when they reply to him. And possibly post even more inane responses and laugh when people reply to those too.

    He’s not even a terribly funny troll. We used to get a much higher quality of troll around here (though, to be honest, most of them were probably DougJ in one form or another) and lately the trolls have been just weak.

  42. 42.

    Marmot

    July 19, 2011 at 5:21 pm

    @ El Cid #37

    Ah crap. Fished in. Suits me right for taking a breather from work!

  43. 43.

    Villago Delenda Est

    July 19, 2011 at 5:26 pm

    What pisses me off is that the free market faithful obviously never read Adam Smith. Pretty much how the Jeebusites are unfamiliar with all four books of the Gospel.

  44. 44.

    A Mom Anon

    July 19, 2011 at 5:26 pm

    @28,wtf are you talking about with this “progressive church”bullshit? Do you live here? Do you have any freaking idea what the problems here are in our schools? Hint:It’s WAY deeper than this freaking cheating scandal. And here’s another helpful hint,the APS system has around 60,000 students not hundreds of thousands. Shut up you purposely and willfully ignorant twit.

  45. 45.

    Brandon

    July 19, 2011 at 5:28 pm

    @JGabriel,

    Murdoch never made peace with Labour. The evidence is pretty clear that both Blair and Brown debased themselves before Murdoch and Brooks and in exchange for their obeisance, Labour was tolerated for so long as labour could withstand the humiliatory let them do anything they wanted

  46. 46.

    policomic

    July 19, 2011 at 5:28 pm

    No, you’re not wrong, DougJ. What’s frustrating is not just the faith-based nature of these enterprises, but the faith-based tenacity with which the 27-percenters (and their MSM enablers) continue to defend the indefensible.

    It’s the Stig O’Tracy syndrome: 1. Keep up the denial, no matter what (“I’ve been told Dinsdale Piranha nailed your head to the floor.” “No. Never. He was a smashing bloke. He used to buy his mother flowers and that….”) 2. When presented with denial-shattering proof, explain it away (“But the police have film of Dinsdale actually nailing your head to the floor.” “Well he had to, didn’t he?…I had transgressed the unwritten law.”)


    (relevant section starts at 5:06)

  47. 47.

    Marmot

    July 19, 2011 at 5:29 pm

    @ fuckwit #38

    You missed one: the fall of the Soviet Union. Same thing: an unthinking, unreflective, unyeilding adherence to a rigid ideology, and a complete reliance on lies, bullshit and intimidation to keep itself in place—just like the catholic church, the capitalist banking system, the Repugs and their voodoo economics, and the Murdoch press.

    I’ve wondered a lot recently about whether some people are just predisposed to greater tribalism than the rest of society. It would sure go a long way toward explaining the 27 percenters. And it might help explain how these conservative organizations manage to stick around so long.

  48. 48.

    wrb

    July 19, 2011 at 5:29 pm

    The chimp video at the bottom of that article about the Onion editor is cool

  49. 49.

    lldoyle

    July 19, 2011 at 5:30 pm

    “I do love how absolutely every conservative, no matter what his previous standing in the organization, immediately, immediately becomes “center-right,” a “RINO” or even “a liberal” the second he gets caught with his hand in the cookie jar in a way they can’t spin.”

    For the hard right types, failure and criminality are by definition moves to the center.

  50. 50.

    BO_Bill

    July 19, 2011 at 5:30 pm

    Philadelphia youth are entirely Democrat, as are Atlanta teachers. The modern Democratic Party is nothing like former Democratic Party, which used to support blue-collar causes. The modern Democratic Party is the Progressive Party. As it has become clear to me that my work is not complete, here is one more (provided at great personal risk). Progressive outdoes Casey Anthony, and microwaves her one month old daughter.

    She died because she was overheated,” said Dr. Marcella Fierro, retired chief medical examiner for Virginia. “She was cooked.”

  51. 51.

    Jeff Boatright

    July 19, 2011 at 5:33 pm

    unthinking belief in self-serving dogma

    Sort of like liberals “believing” in Keynesian solutions to economic problems…

    …the difference being that, as opposed to conservative dogma, liberal dogma/Keynesian solutions actually work in the real world…

  52. 52.

    Chris

    July 19, 2011 at 5:34 pm

    Philadelphia youth are entirely Democrat, as are Atlanta teachers.

    Self to fanatically, devotedly Republican young friend from Philadelphia I met in college: you don’t exist!

  53. 53.

    Marmot

    July 19, 2011 at 5:35 pm

    @ BO_Bill #50 Dang parody trolls. And I really did want to ask a real conservative why group membership is so gosh darned important.

  54. 54.

    jefft452

    July 19, 2011 at 5:38 pm

    “…then you have to consider ‘New Labour’ to be conservative…”

    Who doesn’t?

    “the peoples flag is palest pink,
    its not the color that you think”

  55. 55.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    July 19, 2011 at 5:41 pm

    Part of the problem is that it’s not “conservative” but it is “Republican”.

    During the housing boom, it wasn’t just housing that was being sold. It was bundled mortgages, sold as bonds, and bundled bonds, based on those bundled mortgages, sold as bonds, and it was credit default swaps – bets against the mortgages – and, this is the part that kills me – *bundled* credit default swaps sold as bonds.

    At the low end, you had people having to make loans to make money, and to satisfy their superiors, all of whom knew, by the end, that they were playing a game of hot potato, but also hoping they could be the one who wasn’t holding it when the bell rang (or, were counting on pocketing their winnings and quitting).

    But they were making money, see? And making money is good, right? That’s what the Republicans have been telling us for 30+ years.

    But it’s *not*. Just making money isn’t good. The purpose of the economy is not to make money; it’s to provide useful goods and services, hopefully in an ever expanding cycle, where there ends up being more goods and services for everyone. That is a conservative idea – but it’s no longer a Republican one.

    And right now, the unregulated financial industry is showing us that it will just make money without providing useful goods and services. I don’t just mean the housing boom and bust. The dot-com boom was another example. There was a time when *no one* would have made an IPO on those companies; there needed to be a business plan, some stable money making, and a plan for long term profits. After all, that’s what a stock offering is supposed to be – purchase of a share of future profits. But, IPOs were made, a big bubble was inflated, and who got rich? The financial companies… no one else. But for heaven’s sake, don’t regulate them! Because if you regulate them, they might not have a chance to blow up another huge bubble!

  56. 56.

    Villago Delenda Est

    July 19, 2011 at 5:42 pm

    Sort of like liberals “believing” in Keynesian solutions to economic problems…
    __
    …the difference being that, as opposed to conservative dogma, liberal dogma/Keynesian solutions actually work in the real world…

    Those darn liberals “believe” in evolution, as well, which is, you know, a theory.

    So we’ve got two examples of the Inigo Montoya effect (“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”) in play in that last sentence.

  57. 57.

    El Cid

    July 19, 2011 at 5:48 pm

    You want to know the insider’s view of the actual upper class on contemporary economics and politics?

    The guy working for the super-rich’s financial interests telling a famous sociological researcher (no new contact, a decades-long friendship) on how his own clients’ activities and the situation favoring them placed and places our entire society at increasing risk?

    An Investment Manager’s View on the Top 1%
    __
    I sit in an interesting chair in the financial services industry. Our clients largely fall into the top 1%, have a net worth of $5,000,000 or above, and if working make over $300,000 per year. My observations on the sources of their wealth and concerns come from my professional and social activities within this group.

    Consult the source reprinted by the USA’s most accomplished and best researcher of the domination of US economics and politics by the upper classes, G. William Domhoff.

    Unlike those in the lower half of the top 1%, those in the top half and, particularly, top 0.1%, can often borrow for almost nothing, keep profits and production overseas, hold personal assets in tax havens, ride out down markets and economies, and influence legislation in the U.S.
    __
    They have access to the very best in accounting firms, tax and other attorneys, numerous consultants, private wealth managers, a network of other wealthy and powerful friends, lucrative business opportunities, and many other benefits.
    __
    Most of those in the bottom half of the top 1% lack power and global flexibility and are essentially well-compensated workhorses for the top 0.5%, just like the bottom 99%.
    __
    In my view, the American dream of striking it rich is merely a well-marketed fantasy that keeps the bottom 99.5% hoping for better and prevents social and political instability. The odds of getting into that top 0.5% are very slim and the door is kept firmly shut by those within it.
    __
    The Upper Half of the Top 1%
    __
    Membership in this elite group is likely to come from being involved in some aspect of the financial services or banking industry, real estate development involved with those industries, or government contracting.
    __
    Some hard working and clever physicians and attorneys can acquire as much as $15M-$20M before retirement but they are rare. Those in the top 0.5% have incomes over $500k if working and a net worth over $1.8M if retired.
    __
    The higher we go up into the top 0.5% the more likely it is that their wealth is in some way tied to the investment industry and borrowed money than from personally selling goods or services or labor as do most in the bottom 99.5%.
    __
    They are much more likely to have built their net worth from stock options and capital gains in stocks and real estate and private business sales, not from income which is taxed at a much higher rate. These opportunities are largely unavailable to the bottom 99.5%.

    Galtian “job creators” indeed.

    Systematic studies of the power elite involving participation by the elites themselves are rare but by no means unheard of. This analysis by this functional financial expert based on his and his clients’ observations is more related to the points made than an empirical survey of which other super-rich people agreed.

    The picture is clear; entry into the top 0.5% and, particularly, the top 0.1% is usually the result of some association with the financial industry and its creations.
    __
    I find it questionable as to whether the majority in this group actually adds value or simply diverts value from the US economy and business into its pockets and the pockets of the uber-wealthy who hire them. They are, of course, doing nothing illegal…
    __
    …I think it’s important to emphasize one of the dangers of wealth concentration: irresponsibility about the wider economic consequences of their actions by those at the top. Wall Street created the investment products that produced gross economic imbalances and the 2008 credit crisis. It wasn’t the hard-working 99.5%.
    __
    Average people could only destroy themselves financially, not the economic system. There’s plenty of blame to go around, but the collapse was primarily due to the failure of complex mortgage derivatives, CDS credit swaps, cheap Fed money, lax regulation, compromised ratings agencies, government involvement in the mortgage market, the end of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999, and insufficient bank capital.
    __
    Only Wall Street could put the economy at risk and it had an excellent reason to do so: profit.
    __
    It made huge profits in the build-up to the credit crisis and huge profits when it sold itself as “too big to fail” and received massive government and Federal Reserve bailouts.

    Most of the serious economic damage the U.S. is struggling with today was done by the top 0.1% and they benefited greatly from it.

    What a paranoid leftist conspiracy theorist incapable of realizing how much like quantum physics investment banking is, beyond the capability of mortals like us who foolishly dare to have watched with horror our political establishment’s enabling of such destabilizing rapaciousness over decades no matter how many times deregulation exploded into public indebtedness.

    I could go on and on, but the bottom line is this:

    A highly complex and largely discrete set of laws and exemptions from laws has been put in place by those in the uppermost reaches of the U.S. financial system.

    It allows them to protect and increase their wealth and significantly affect the U.S. political and legislative processes. They have real power and real wealth.
    __
    Ordinary citizens in the bottom 99.9% are largely not aware of these systems, do not understand how they work, are unlikely to participate in them, and have little likelihood of entering the top 0.5%, much less the top 0.1%. Moreover, those at the very top have no incentive whatsoever for revealing or changing the rules. I am not optimistic.

    Of course, the problem is all the gubmit spendin’ and the inflation and all the taxes.

    As to the anonymity of the source, (a) the information itself isn’t remarkably new outside its working in front of the person monitoring the rich’s investments; and (b) there are literally decades of empirical research by Domhoff to use to evaluate the reliability of his evidence and work.

    Unfortunately, neither of these so-called experts seems to realize that the problems in the economy are the fault of Jimmy Carter letting Barney Frank give free houses to ACORN.

  58. 58.

    Elie

    July 19, 2011 at 5:52 pm

    We are a spoiled people. We don’t remember national catastrophe and privation on mass scale. The folks who DID experience that — the WWII generation are just about gone. They know. They lived through eating rudabaga 7 days in a row during the depression, the enormous cost in flesh and spirit of the 2nd world war and the dust bowl of the 30’s. We know nothing — NOTHING. We believe if we cuss and swear and turn over tables, flip off anyone who disagrees with us, well, we win, don’t we? Negotiate? Compromise? Respect another’s opinion? Respecting how fragile our vaulted position in the world remains? What that means? No. We don’t.

    But we may be close to finding out. All that bending over and shooting the moon to consequence and handing an intact future to coming generations — the gods don’t like that shit and have a way of sticking it where it really hurts…. We allowed fellow citizens to vote us into insanity and are unable to stop the people who they selected from hurting us badly. Our hope is the skinny black guy.

    I pray every night for Obama and for us — that we be spared what we truly in some ways deserve for the sin of not respecting history.

  59. 59.

    El Cid

    July 19, 2011 at 5:53 pm

    __

    Progressive outdoes Casey Anthony, and microwaves her one month old daughter.

    I remember begging Democracy For America not to back the candidacy of China Arnold for the position of Chief DNC Child Care Advocate, particularly given her “Your child can be done in 30 seconds or less!”

  60. 60.

    brendancalling

    July 19, 2011 at 5:54 pm

    “Maybe I’m wrong to think that this kind of unthinking belief in self-serving dogma is the hallmark of contemporary conservatism.”

    Nope, you’re not wrong. That is indeed a hallmark of their “thinking”, along with a clinical lack of foresight and an absence of empathy. To be a republican is to be mentally ill.

  61. 61.

    Catsy

    July 19, 2011 at 5:56 pm

    @geg6:

    It’s a fucking religion. And I hate, hate, hate, hate fucking religions.

    Actually, I don’t have a problem with the fucking religions–they tend to be pretty mellow and earth-friendly.

    It’s the regular sort that piss me off and do so much damage.

  62. 62.

    brendancalling

    July 19, 2011 at 6:00 pm

    a BO bill: https://balloon-juice.com/2011/07/19/things-fall-apart-2/#comment-2679483

    Fuck you, you stupid lying piece of shit. I live in Philly. That was a bunch of teenagers running rampant. You are a LIAR. What you said was NOT TRUE.

    Typical mentally ill conservative. thatnks for proving my point that you and the rest of your ilk are nothing but sociopaths.

  63. 63.

    Uncle Clarence Thomas

    July 19, 2011 at 6:04 pm

    .
    .

    Yesterday, commenter Cat Lady wrote – “We’re being launched into uncharted territories, and we’re going to need a bigger boat.”

    That’s why I’m here, my dear – because it ain’t the motion of the ocean. But don’t call my home line, use my cel number.
    .
    .

  64. 64.

    Villago Delenda Est

    July 19, 2011 at 6:08 pm

    57 El Cid:

    They are parasites. Pure and simple. Malignant and remorseless.

  65. 65.

    The Populist

    July 19, 2011 at 6:24 pm

    2. One hundred and seventy eight (178) leaders within the Progressive Church falsify hundreds of thousands of standardized test scores within the Atlanta School System, pocketing the FedCash and sending the students away without an education. This act amounts to child abuse on a scale that dwarfs the Catholic Church.

    Fine, one example of teachers NATIONWIDE were caught cheating. Guess what shithead? If your fucking party would stop whining about test scores and let teachers TEACH like they did when I was young (I am a business owner, still doing well) maybe, just maybe, we will see success.

    Should I post the article about the school district in Detroit where there are no administrators? Teachers are like VPs…they get a classroom and teach using the curriculum. Scores and grades are up. Kindly take your dogma and fuck off…thanks.

  66. 66.

    les

    July 19, 2011 at 6:25 pm

    @JGabriel:

    And maybe a lot closer to Neuromancer than any of us want to think about.

    To say nothing of “The Sheep Look Up” and “Stand on Zanzibar.”

  67. 67.

    The Populist

    July 19, 2011 at 6:26 pm

    Fuck you, you stupid lying piece of shit. I live in Philly. That was a bunch of teenagers running rampant. You are a LIAR. What you said was NOT TRUE.

    @Brendancalling

    No surprise. BO is a concern troll. He’s just another worthless idiot talking up his brand of lies to evoke a response. Facts melt him the way water melted the wicked witch of the Wizard of Oz.

  68. 68.

    The Populist

    July 19, 2011 at 6:28 pm

    But we may be close to finding out. All that bending over and shooting the moon to consequence and handing an intact future to coming generations—the gods don’t like that shit and have a way of sticking it where it really hurts…. We allowed fellow citizens to vote us into insanity and are unable to stop the people who they selected from hurting us badly. Our hope is the skinny black guy.

    This. Problem is, we never learn from history. If we continue voting in idiots, we will get exactly the pain we fear. Argh.

  69. 69.

    El Cid

    July 19, 2011 at 6:32 pm

    __

    They are parasites. Pure and simple. Malignant and remorseless.

    When it comes to the super-rich and the extremely powerful, we are required to presume good intentions until we have holographic real-time self-incriminating testimony with simultaneous teleportation of receipts showing ill-intent directly into a meddle-free vault.

    Which we never get. So this means that presuming vile intentions (whatever ideological maneuvers are internally practiced to warp such intentions into well-meaninghood) on the part of the leaders of our economy and our political system is done solely by bizarre and hyperventilating leftists and breathless over-hyped journalists and bloggers.

    When it comes to ordinary folk, then it’s okay to look at people who profit off of disaster (and even deadly negligence), disasters which they helped cause, as being done in bad faith, whether directly (“I AM EVIL AND I FULLY INTENDED FOR THAT PERSON TO SUFFER FOR MY ENRICHMENT”) narrated or simply callous negligence (“LOOK I HAD NO IDEA THAT THAT YOUNGSTER’S HEAD WOULD BE CRACKED B/C OF MY CO’S BICYCLE HELMETS MADE OUT OF EGGSHELLS GLUED TOGETHER BUT IT’S CLEAR LOOKING BACK THAT I REALLY SHOULD HAVE WORKED HARDER”).

  70. 70.

    Bender

    July 19, 2011 at 6:34 pm

    I’m having a hard time putting this in a way that won’t sound like an unhinged liberal rant against conservatives

    No shit, Doug? Wonder why that is…

    These “clapper” posts are always stupid. When all you have is a hammer, I suppose.

    With the banks, it was the rational market is perfect so what we do is right

    You’re working hard to ignore the Democrats’ very non-market “Community Reinvestment Act” and everything Barney Frank ever said or did in the last 3 decades (“these two entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not facing any kind of financial crisis”) which set up the circumstances under which the subprime loan disaster could occur. I can understand why would do that.

    With News Corp, it was we run the country so what we do is right.

    With President “I Won” in the White House pushing through the biggest partisan spending programs in history with zero Republican input, this seems less like a conservative mindset than a liberal one.

    With the possible credit default, it’s tax cuts raise revenue, so what we do is right.

    I could just as easily (with the added bonus of being more correct) say this is a liberal problem — “We have printing presses to pay for entitlements, so what we do is right” — caused mainly by a massive spike in government spending under Obama, rather than a slightly-recessionary revenue line.

  71. 71.

    Villago Delenda Est

    July 19, 2011 at 6:37 pm

    Bender, you realize of course that you’re the poster boy for fucktards, right?

  72. 72.

    El Cid

    July 19, 2011 at 6:44 pm

    None of this would have happened if Barney Frank hadn’t made Jimmy Carter make banks give all those free homes to ACORN. It’s true because it is.

  73. 73.

    Bender

    July 19, 2011 at 7:02 pm

    Bender, you realize of course that you’re the poster boy for fucktards, right?

    Ah, that classic Villago wit. Or half of it.

  74. 74.

    Citizen_X

    July 19, 2011 at 7:04 pm

    caused mainly by a massive spike in government spending under Obama, rather than a slightly-recessionary revenue line

    Umm…no. Obama’s spending only added about 10% of the deficit rise; the recession, over 30%.

    the biggest partisan spending programs in history

    What the fuck does this even mean? Does the ACA have some sort of screening for Republican-Party membership that I missed?

    BTW: for you, your nym sucks. I would much rather hang out with the fake-real Bender, and he’s a misanthropic robot.

  75. 75.

    pluege

    July 19, 2011 at 7:06 pm

    all of these scandals seem uniquely conservative to me

    “conservative” is not an ideology or a philosophy, or government policies. Its a word we use to identify psychologically damaged individuals; hyper insecure, prone to violence, obscenely and obsessively greedy, willfully ignorant, fundamentally sadistic.

  76. 76.

    Bender

    July 19, 2011 at 7:10 pm

    None of this would have happened if Barney Frank hadn’t made Jimmy Carter make banks give all those free homes to ACORN. It’s true because it is.

    That’s not entirely accurate.

    But Barney the Gay Pimp railed against Bush’s push to regulate Fannie and Freddie, saying that everything was just fine. That Frank is a freaking Genius, or so you guys keep saying…

  77. 77.

    Nutella

    July 19, 2011 at 9:47 pm

    @The Populist:

    Should I post the article about the school district in Detroit where there are no administrators?

    Please do. Sounds very interesting.

  78. 78.

    Cat Lady

    July 19, 2011 at 11:03 pm

    W00t! Out doing stuff all day, and find out I’ve missed my own thread. Thanks DougJ – perfect post title, but I think I’d add the tag We’re All Mayans Now. Also, too.

  79. 79.

    priscianusjr

    July 20, 2011 at 9:46 am

    Maybe I’m wrong to think that this kind of unthinking belief in self-serving dogma is the hallmark of contemporary conservatism.

    No, you’re right on the mark. That’s why you cannot find in contemporary conservatism any intellect, ethics, or even strategy. They don’t need any of that old-fashioned stuff. They’re not reality based, remember? — they create “reality”. Or, as much “reality” as needed. But for them the only true reality is that they are the Elect.

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