I was as gobsmacked as anyone else to see the rejection of the workout plan yesterday.
I know it was mishandled. I know it was mislabeled. I expected Republicans to turn on it for ideological reasons.
What I didn't expect was that people like Kos would turn on it. When liberals make the perfect the enemy of the good we all lose. When liberals decide to act like petulant children in the process, they deserve to lose.
Earth to Digby, to Jane Hamsher, and to the online cocktail party over at Huffpo.
There is no pony.
That is, there is no magical plan that can pop up here to please you, pass the Congress, and win the President's signature. And by January it will be too late.
Let's recapitulate:
- This is a problem caused by Americans. Americans created phony money which could not be priced once foreclosures started, because you couldn't be sure which CDO had how many bum loans in it.
- The $700 billion is not a bailout. The money would be used to buy up this paper, determine its value, repackage it, and resell it. We should make money on this. We're Mr. Potter, picking up some bargains.
- So long as these trillions of dollars we created are seen as worthless, foreclosures will rise and the value of the same paper will go down. The profit we can expect on the conversion could turn into a loss.
- This is a worldwide problem. We are doing more damage to other countries now, every day, than the terrorists did on 9/11, especially to poor people, who are always hit hardest by hard economic times.
I've compared this bill to a laxative, meant to clear the big shitpile from the colon of the world's financial digestive system. Sometimes it takes strong medicine to clear such an obstruction. But if you don't clear it you die.
Barney Frank & Co. knew they had Paulson and Bush over a barrel. They were able to spend a week forcing the Republicans back on every point. The final bill was as good as it was going to get. It had everything your party leader, Barack Obama, said he wanted.
I can understand a doofus like Kucinich voting no. I can't understand the Netroots following him over the cliff.
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