OmegaMom

Tea parties have been in the news; they were organized to occur on April 15–Income tax day.  “TEA” in this case stands for “taxed enough already”, and the intent was to riff off the Boston Tea Party.  There’s been lots of discussion in the ol’ blogosphere, so I thought I’d just chime in.  (Those of my readers who have already read my post on the subject on the debate board can skip this, even though I’ve fleshed it out considerably.)

A bud on a board wanted folks to view the protestors’ views as “equally valid”. 

Some (most) of the folks at these “tea parties” were protesting bailouts. I happen to agree with this, thinking that the big banks, financial companies, and insurers were allowed to grow too big in an unregulated manner, and it’s a cryin’ shame that these companies are now considered “too big to fail”. I also think the banks that were teetering on the brink should have been allowed to go over that brink.

Unfortunately, if that were done, a helluva lot of people would be seriously hurt as a result, much more seriously than the general populace is hurting at the moment.  Pretend that Bank of America went under.  And Citibank.  And Goldman Sachs.  And some others.  These are big financial institutions; the FDIC would be paying out boatloads of money to depositors; there would be panic in the streets and riots and disruptions of trade in basic staples and OMG NO DEBIT CARDS WORKING–EEEK!  Much though it pains me to say it, I think throwing the TARP money at the banks and financial institutions has smoothed the disastrous results out.

So right now, what we’re getting is a lot of smoke and mirrors that claims the banks are profitable, but then you take a look at how much they got in TARP $$ (which began under Bush) and you realize that the “profit” is illusory.  One example:  there’s this cute and funny little thing about assets and liabilities where you can either “mark-to-market” (i.e., assume in your spreadsheets that these various assets and liabilities are worth what the current market says they are) or you can “mark-to-the-future” (i.e., assume that your assets and liabilities are worth…oh…whatever you think they should be worth).  Seems that the Financial Accounting Standards Board “eased” the rules early in April, allowing banks and other financial institutions the ability to track the market more closely when things are going well, but less closely when things aren’t going so well.  Which means, in the end, that the banks and financial institutions can decide that their devalued assets aren’t so devalued after all.

Another example:  Wells Fargo rejiggered its fiscal year, and just dropped December–it’s worst month ever–from its calculations for first quarter results.

The bailouts began under Bush, as I noted…No-one was organizing big protests then. Small protests, yes, and a groundswell of emails, phone calls, and letters stopped Congress from agreeing to Paulson’s attempt to run a three-page, oversight-free bailout bill past them–thank heavens. But no more protests after that until now; why when Obama does it, but not when Bush did? Our kids will be paying for this for a long time.

Some (most) of these folks were protesting the stimulus dollars.  I think the stimulus bill was either too much (it should have been zero) or too little (it’s not gonna be enough to accomplish what it set out to do).  In any case, once again, I think our kids will be paying for this for a long time.

Some (most) of these folks were protesting higher taxes.  It leaves me wondering why, because from everything I’ve heard, ninety-five percent of the people out there will get lowered income taxes as a result of Obama’s tax plan, and it’s only businesses that make a profit of $250,000 or more  and people with incomes of more than $250,000 that will see higher taxes.  I have read commentary from folks who are trying to curtail their earnings so they don’t go over the $250,000 threshold, and it just baffles me that they’d deliberately take a (in some cases) steep pay cut to avoid paying a little more in taxes.  Kinda like cutting off your nose to spite your face, IMO.

Some (most, it seems like) of these folks got angry only when the bailouts started including assistance to people who were getting foreclosed on. It appears that to them it was okay that corporations got bailed out, that’s okay, but when you start talking about your next-door neighbor losing his house, well, gosh-darn it, that’s socialism!  Or, perhaps they’re not thinking it’s their next-door neighbors, but “those people” in the poorer parts of town.  I gots news for them:  latest reports in California say that foreclosures are moving up the market ladder, hitting higher-priced areas of town.

Some of these folks are wanting to “go Galt”.  Oy.  Let ‘em.  If they were providing an essential service and made lots of money from that, if they go away, some other bright-eyed, bushy-tailed entrepreneurs will step up and take their place.  I mean, really.  Let’s be realistic here.  They think that they are irreplaceable.  No-one is irreplaceable.

And then…Some–not a lot, but enough–of these folks paraded around with signs that say things like:

• “Stand idly by while some Kenyan tries to destroy America? Wap! (in comic-strip style POW cloud) I don’t think so! Homey don’t play dat!”  The birthers are insane.  Really.  Or just dreadfully deluded.  Seriously:  Do people think that the Republican Party wouldn’t have been all over that if it were true?!
• “My tax dollars pay for illegal immigration”…um…and for that hundreds-of-miles-long border fence, but, hey, let’s not confuse people.
• “Constitution = Liberty Not National Socializm” and “The American Taxpayers are the Jews for Obama’s Oven” and “The new face of Hitler”  These are the Obama-is-Hitler-born-again folks.
• “Obama Bin-Lyin Free The Market Not the Terrorists”  Guantanamo was A Good Thing, dammit!
• “One nation–UNDER GOD!!”  “Speak for yourself OBAMA - We are a Christian Nation!”  Let’s just ignore the Jews, the atheists, the Muslims, the Hindus, the Ba’hais, and the rest.  They (we) don’t count.
• Bitching about Obama (eek!  gasp!) bowing to the Saudi king.  Let’s not mention Bush kissing the Saudi king, y’know.
• The ones who want to secede from the union.
• The ones who claim that Obama is going to take away their guns and ammo…which he hasn’t done yet, surprise, surprise!  (News flash!  Obama “will not seek the reinstatement of a U.S. assault weapons ban“) 

So. Some of these experiences and grievances are, in my mind, “equally valid”.  SOME. But I’ve got a helluva lot of scorn for many of these folks who are protesting. Especially since they were all yelling and cheering when the framework of all the disastrous economic policies were being enacted towards the end of Clinton’s presidency (with a Republican Congress–remember that?! In 1994?!) and the regulations were being cut to the bone early in Bush’s presidency and the SEC was gutted by Bush’s administration and the FBI was told it was more important to investigate terrorism than organized, systemic mortgage fraud and on and on and on…

Let’s put it this way: Eight years of Bush’s policies helped fuel this grotesque economic meltdown.  Where were all these tax-party protestors when it all started?  I’m so glad they’re protesting the guy who got voted in to clean things up.  Gosh, golly, he’s only been in office for 96 days and hasn’t solved things and we’re still spending billions upon billions of dollars to prop up the banks and financial companies and insurance companies that got into this mess…when did things start to fall apart? Oh, yes.  Starting in late 2006.  That’s when the folks who had been told that they could afford half-a-million dollar shacks in California by using no-down, Alt-A, pick-a-payment loans and then selling in a year or two when their property value went up (because everyone knows property values always rise)–that’s when they suddenly discovered that they couldn’t sell their houses and, oh, by the way, the bank is about to jack up your payments.  Which sent the whole stupid deck of cards tumbling to the ground.

But, yeah, for some it’s all Obama’s fault. That damned Kenyan socialist Hitler-wannabe.

Look.  When the Omega Family went to wave signs on a busy highway in Suburban Alaska to support Obama, we made damned sure to not make signs that denigrated the opponents.  I’d appreciate it if the new-wave protestors did the same.  Protest the policies, please.

Some asides–I note that in all the pictures I’ve seen (Flickr, blogs, etc.) I have seen a noticeable dearth of people of color, remarkable considering where some of these protests were held (D.C.?  Atlanta? Memphis?).  Folks…yeah, I know you’ll say I’m “playing the color card”…but Jeez Louise, it’s pretty hard to miss, kinda like the National Republican Convention was.  Just sayin’…The folks in Oceanside actually purchased real bags of loose-leaf tea and dumped them into the ocean.  Woot!  Now that’s authenticity!…I liked the folks whose signs indicated that it was both Democrats and Republicans who have voted for the bailouts.