Tom the Dancing Bug by Ruben Bolling for January 16, 2010
January 10, 2010
January 17, 2010
Transcript:
Tom the Dancing Bug by Ruben Bolling The White House, West Wing Man: We need to return to heavy regulation of the financial industry NOW! Man #2: Yes! Secretary Geithner: Hey, slow down there. Secretary Geithner: Wouldn't it be smarter to just extend the TARP program, ensuring the flow of capital into the banks? Man #2: Absolutely not! Secretary Geithner: Look, we need to continue to support banks in this very critical time! It's best for ALL of us! Man #2: No, we've been under the banks' thumb for too long! BONK Man: Secretary Geithner! Man #2: Are you okay? Man: He was merely a dreamwalker! An AVATAR! Man #2: A BANKER in a REGULAR PERSON'S body! Man: Tim, welcome back to Wall Street! How did it go? Tim: It was horrible! Tim: There's nothing we can give them that they want! Man: Then it's all-out war! Tim: They keep their money here, here, and here. Man: The fools are just sitting on top of a mother lode of capital! Man #2: Go in there and get it. Man: Let's see how the other 246 banker avatars in Obama's administration are doing. Tim: Yes... Next: Tim: Although..they're such a simple, noble people. And there's something about that Secretary of State...
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Bill LaRocque Premium Member over 14 years ago
Zing. Bullseye.
3hourtour Premium Member over 14 years ago
…I supposedly work until May just to pay my taxes,and,if I don’t have health insurance through work,I’m screwed..yet these billionaire junkies keep collecting their bonuses via my tax dollars…blast those Avatars!!!…
DougDean over 14 years ago
Actually, it’s Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac that ought to have their bonuses rescinded… they were the ones that authorized ridiculously underqualified borrowers and then foisted them on the hapless banks.
aardvarkseyes over 14 years ago
HQ: No, according to the cartoon, the bunch of guys wants to scam the government for bailout funds. I would have thought, being the upstanding right-winger that you obviously are, you wouldn’t want government funds to be abused this way.
3hourtour Premium Member about 14 years ago
…make a profit?!?So that’s what they call stealing now-a-days???..
JFStan about 14 years ago
Today’s strip is better than the actual movie “Avatar”.
napaeric about 14 years ago
It might have been painful to let market forces destroy Wall Street banks and businesses but it would have been capitalism. Making a profit is the goal, gambling with depositors money and losing is also part of capitalism. TARP is Not Capitalism. Government regulation is supposed to keep the US from bouncing up and down in wild swings, and regulation is anti-capitalism. Too little regulation is the reason we have The Great Recession. Gifts to the richest and biggest Wall Street Bankers is Not Capitalism. Regulation of these companies that can ruin the economy is the best protection for Main Street. Most of us live near Main Street, very few live near Wall Street and they live very well.
scotchfaster about 14 years ago
Doug Dean…bought into the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac blame game hook, line and sinker, didn’t ya? Next you’ll blame them minorities for, say, bankrupting Iceland.
“Federal Reserve Board data show that more than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions…” http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/53802.html
The “hapless banks” were entirely in on the scheme. What’s more, they pushed it hard - making serious $ from charging points on bad mortgages, and then selling them as “mortgage-backed securities,” which was essentially bad paper that they got rated as high yield, low-risk investments through some hocus pocus.
Freddie/Fannie may be somewhat questionable, but their mission was to increase home ownership, not to perpetrate actual, criminal, Enron-style outright FRAUD on the world’s markets.