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With his singular style, Tom Toles tackles the complex issues of the day. This Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist skillfully targets political, economic and social concerns — in particular complicated environmental issues — with a clear-eyed precision that hits the mark every time.
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Comments (34) (Please sign in to comment)
4my10851cs said, 10 months ago
O gave them your money
corzak said, 10 months ago
Bush gave them your money. The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. $700 billion. Then Sec. of Treasury Paulson demanded it. With no conditions. I watched it with my own eyes.
Bush signed into law as TARP – aka the “Bank Bailout”.
ARodney said, 10 months ago
Anyone who thinks that liberals are the ones who defended the lack of regulation in banks is not a rational actor. Skip, yes, we really think you are that stupid. Because you work so hard to make it evident.
Tue Elung-Jensen said, 10 months ago
@
Yes you are, and you constantly admit to it with your comments. Corzak provides proof not just random comments.
TheTrustedMechanic said, 10 months ago
@4my10851cs
WRONG!!!!!!! The bank bailout was initiated, developed and implemented under your golden boy, babay bush. Why else do you think there were no safegards against it being used for undeserved, unearned bonuses?
.
I realize the truth and facts don’t matter to you and your kind, but when you post lies, please at least make them hard to refute, and not simpe common knowledge.
MortyForTyrant said, 10 months ago
@corzak
Yeah, that was really cool. The first version even contained a passage that this law and the Sec. could never be reviewed by a court of law or otherwise held responsible for the consequences. At that moment all my alarm-bells went of! Luckily Congress removed that passage. BTW: rumor has it that this law quite literary started it’s life on the back of a napkin…
MortyForTyrant said, 10 months ago
@ARodney
I agree that TODAY’S Dems are no longer defend the lack of regulation (anybody still doing must have lived in a cave during 08). But in the interest of fairness I have to point out that Glass-Steagal was repealed under Bill Clinton. That was a big mistake by the Big Dog, but everybody had been fighting against G-S for years. Can you say “legislative fatigue”?
-
Okay, now we know better, twice a depression should teach even the dumbest dog. But G-S is still not reenacted. Hopefully Dodd-Frank can keep a leash on the banks until President Obama has solid majorities behind him to finally show the banks and mega-corps that the U.S. is not yet for sale!
emptc12 said, 10 months ago
Years ago, when interest rates for CDs and other savings accounts were very high people could count on interest money to nicely supplement their spendable incomes. However, since in most cases the interest was taxed upon maturity of the account, people had problems paying the taxes all at once on their income tax returns – the money was already spent, not enough in reserve. /
There was discussion in Congress to have interest income deducted in a similar way that wage taxes were. The banks were upset, and I remember receiving little memos in my statement envelopes from whatever bank to write Congress to protest the idea. I sent them in – apparently a lot of people did. As a result of this protest campaign by banks, Congress backed off. /
I also seem to remember that Reagan allowed financial institutions such as banks and savings to no longer pay interest set at a certain amount for passbook accounts. (For many years it was Banks: 4.25 percent; Savings and Loans: 4.5 percent.) He said the market could determine the rates and it was as likely that rates would go up as go down (due to market competition, don’t you know). NOTE: This happened a long time ago, I rely on memory for the above, details might be wrong. Both political parties share the blame. /
As we should have suspected, rates dropped. (Savings and Loans eventually became rare, as they could no longer give an extra .25 percent beyond banks’ passbook interest.) They’ve continued to drop until we’re at this point where interest rates are in small decimal amounts below one percent. /
We no longer live in a truly free economic society; the market no longer determines what happens. Interest rates on government financial instruments are purposely set low to “stimulate the economy.” Banks set their rates to those of the Government. People who thought interest income per their savings would supplement their retirement incomes in a meaningful way are out of luck.
This situation has been called by some The Senior Tax. But in the “Smile Now – It Gets Worse” category, be aware there’s a possibility that rates could go NEGATIVE! Read the following: /
http://www.suntimes.com/business/savage/13994636-452/negative-interest-rates-are-possible.html
Over the years, financial institutions have cried Wolf many times. Most of time, the government gave into their requests for better treatment – and each time, within six months, the banks were invariably making record profits. As it turns out, they would more truthfully have squealed, “Oink.”/
Financial institutions are now international, and they have such a stranglehold on government policy— it’s an historical scandal, to put it mildly. Those who run the biggest ones have no apparent real shame, witness their disgraceful actions during the recent crisis. Wall Street led the way, of course, but the banks followed. For now, we vote in one rascal after another, hoping that will make things better. It doesn’t. /
People should have to take only so much. How will this all end – in larger and larger protests, in armed conflict?
jack75287 said, 10 months ago
@corzak
Come on you know the reason for the bail out was loans the Democrats demanded the banks make. Even if the borrower could not pay it back.
Chillbilly
said, 10 months ago
Does anyone here seriously believe that bankers don’t own both parties? The problem is a moral problem — our country has evolved to equate the accumulation of money with merit and now it’s infected our political system like a cancer. One really good teacher is worth a thousand millionaire bankers.
jack75287 said, 10 months ago
You just can’t say, just bankers, there is industry and energy companies to. To blame everything on one big industry just makes us all look bad.
One of the big dichotomies of the left is they are afraid of big oil and they are afraid of big military industrial complex (the first warning was done by Eisenhower a Republican) but they now want a military, Energy & Industrial complex from windmills and solar power.
charliekane said, 10 months ago
@jack75287
Not that BS about the CRA again. . .
The claim that the Community
Reinvestment Act (CRA) led to the
foreclosure crisis is a falsehood that
persists despite irrefutable evidence to the
contrary and repeated attempts to correct
the misperception.
http://www.ccc.unc.edu/documents/CRA_Did_Not_Cause_Foreclosure_Crisis.pdf
josefw
said, 10 months ago
@Chillbilly
The bankers own more than that!
http://www.iamthewitness.com/DarylBradfordSmith_Rothschild.htm
Pay particular attention to the words “Illuminati” & “Bavarian Illuminati.” The Illuminati is responsible for “The New World Order.”
Look @ 1913, the beginning of the Federal Reserve."
The reason I share all of this with you is your avatar. The “eye” is the symbol if the Illuminati and the put it on our currency to show their power. The “eye & pyramid” symbols can bee seen around the world. Look at the lights on the new Olympic stadium in London. Do some google searches, you will be in awe.
One last thing:
1963: On June 4th President John F. Kennedy (the 35th President of the United States 1961 – 1963) signs Executive Order 11110 which returned to the U.S. government the power to issue currency, without going through the Rothchilds owned Federal Reserve. That November JFK was assassinated.
STLDan said, 10 months ago
@jack75287
Crawl out from under that rock you seem to have been living under and research the subject you seem to know nothing about. Then you can try and make a comment that is true, why does the right have to lie about EVERYTHING? Repeating lies over and over do not make them facts, it just makes you like stupid…
TheTrustedMechanic said, 10 months ago
@jack75287
The government NEVER required the banks to make sub-prime mortgage loans. Those were initiated, and accelerated in the interest of profits for the banks. It was the pure unadulterated greed of the banks that pushed them into the realm of if you could fog a mirror you got a loan. And as for Fannie and Feddie, they were pushed into the sub-prime arena by shareholders who were demanding bigger profits like the big banks were getting on these toxic instruments. The government had little to do with it and that’s the problem. Had the government been more involved they could have seen the impending disaster and tried to head it off. Of course with the redumblicans at the wheel the banks had free reign and nothing would have been done anyway, the redumblicans would never have fought their friends.
.
When you post an opinion could you please at least base it on fact? Your party rhetoric is getting really old. I understand that you subscribe to the redumblican playbook tenet, tell a lie often enough and the weak-minded will begin to believe it. Or are you the weak-minded sheep?