It's so weird that the Democrats are not sticking it to Wall Street right now in the much-blathered-about Financial Reform Bill, considering they have the votes and there is a bipartisan public outcry for real reform, right?
There has never been a better chance to help the little guys, right?
Wrong. While the time is certainly ripe for reform, there is unfortunately an election this fall and, therefore, the financial titans are in the perfect position to play one side against the other to get the watered-down 'reform' they want.
If incumbent Republicans don't use every childish trick in the book to delay votes, reject amendments, and extract toothless compromises, they won't get any money and they will lose their elections to even-more-nutjobby Teabaggers.
If Democrats (who receive more funding from Wall Street than the GOP, by the way) stand tall and clamp down on derivatives (among other issues), Goldman Sachs--who stands to lose 41% of their earnings--will make sure Republicans won every seat in November to overturn the law before it takes effect.
Thus, the pickle we are in and why we will stay in this pickle we have been in for quite some time now. Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and those pesky SEC lawsuits against Goldman will ultimately amount to little more than huffing and puffing and a whole bag full of money for a bunch of lawyers.
Sadly, in order to perform any potential future good, the Democrats need to take a dive in order to stockpile every penny they can get from Wall Street or the Republicans nutjobs will crush them and the nation will be handed once again to the heedless, farting toddlers obsessed with deficit nonchalance, corporate tax cuts, propaganda, environmental destruction, "family values for you not me," and the raping of the middle-class-cum-working-poor.
The really bad news, however, is that there will always be another election waiting in the shadows and there will always be those--on either side of our two-headed monster--that will vote against what is just in order to line their pockets with gold.
...and you wonder why not a single city in the United States made it into the top thirty in Mercer's Best Places to Live in the World survey (Honolulu was 31st).
How have all these other (European, Canadian, Oceanic) nations figured out how to bribe and steal while also giving the people a better quality of life? Are they just slightly less greedy? I might have to head over to Germany and do some research...
Gute Nacht!
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