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Saturday, September 20, 2008

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Atrios draws our attention to this line in the bailout proposal in particular:
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

Yep, read that again. And again. And again.

This isn't funny.

They are literally baldly announcing that they mean to steal our money to give more money to the criminals who already stole from us to get rich, and they don't want to hear any lip from the likes of us about any of it, see?

5 comments:

VVilly said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhf9KwSUQYw

Anonymous said...

The provision barring judicial review protects the Treasury from defending the inevitable nine billion lawsuits that the world's bankers would file after every purchase of a bad debt at firesale prices.

The part about administrative agencies -- if you hearken back to 8th grade civics -- relates to other executive branch agencies such as the SEC, Dept of Commerce, Homeland Security, etc. It is making clear that Treasury is in charge and reporting directly to the President.

Nowhere in the text does it prohibit Congressional review and oversight. Congress keeps and maintains its usual powers in reviewing the actions and decisions of the Secretary pursuant to the Act as it does the entire executive branch.

Dale Carrico said...

What was I thinking? How reasonable they are being, after all.

Look, let me tell you how this is going to work. You don't get to act like a smug know-it-all while you twist the broken bottle glass shards into my face anymore. You don't know better than I do, Mr. patiently deigning to remind me of "fifth grade civics" (those classes don't exist anymore, by the way, because market fundamentalists disapproved of them along the wonderful road to our present distress).

I know when I'm getting screwed (I mean, you know, in a bad way) and I know the thugs and criminals who are doing it.

Go fuck yourself, dear brave bonkers brutal Anonymous, and the reductionist corporatist political economy textbook you rode in on. You don't get to pretend to be "reasonable" while fellating fascists. Sorry.

And one more thing, your assurance that "Congress keeps and maintains its usual powers..." is surreally rich. Been asleep for a decade, Meester?

Sternly worded letters for all the criminals, that'll show 'em, bwa ha ha ha ha ha!

Anonymous said...

There is a lot to worry about in this plan, but a bar against lawsuits from bank shareholders is not one of them. And if authority under the Act weren't restricted to the Treasury alone among administrative agencies, we might wind up with FEMA in charge.

But, since you suggested it, I guess I will go fuck myself. While I'm doing that, you should go here.

Dale Carrico said...

You do have quite the knack for missing the forest for the trees and thinking this makes you distinguished rather than common or garden variety clueless. But come what may, you're quite right in your final insinuation, Suave Anonymous: The sky won't fall at all for some people. For some people everything will be just fine. But you will be unsurprised to find me brutally aware of that little fact of life already. A toast to my Anonymous guest! Here's hoping you're one of the lucky ones who finds their way to the winner's circle in the midst of the slaughterhouse.