Only a dogmatic right winger could say that with a straight face. And in the later sentence you proved it. You're so convinced it couldn't have been the free market, you are willing to accept any explanation for the economic collapse that pinned most of the blame on the government.

And it's categorically absurd. Yes, absolutely, the gov't played a role, but the overwhelming majority of the collapse was due to derivatives and CDOs. The only conceivable explanation for the gov't being the primary root cause is either they didn't regulate as they should have, which actually ends up being the antithesis of your argument because it advocates gov't taking a much more involved role from here on out, or it's because of initiatives by the gov't to increase homeownership by giving loans out to people who had little chance to pay it back. Of the later, the simple fact of the matter is the vast majority of the subprime loans were given out by subprime lenders, not Fannie and Freddie, before Fannie and Freddie entered into that market. Even when considering in the end all subprime loans including Fannie and Freddie, the odds of default on subprime loans were several fold higher with subprime lenders than Fannie/Freddie.

And why did CDOs containing subprime loans get pushed up into investment vehicles that could be purchased by retirement programs like 401k, etc., which fueled their growth? Fannie and Freddie backed loans and non-Fannie/Freddie backed loans were both in funds rated AAA by ratings agencies that were not regulated by the US gov't. Instead, they were paid by the investment houses that gave them the investment funds to rate in the first place. No gov't agency put a gun to their head and made them slap lipstick on those pigs.

Absolutely, Fannie and Freddie helped to legitimize subprime lending, but the simple fact of the matter is Fannie and Freddie were late to the subprime game. They even thought that they almost had to in order to, survey says, COMPETE THE MORTGAGE MARKET! Oh yes, that's right, they were compelled to enter into these dangerous loans because they were losing market share to the Countrywide's of the mortgage industry. While gov't certainly liked the idea of the result in increased home ownership rates this would cause, no gov't agency put a gun to their heads to issue subprime loans specifically. They chose to jump into those waters.

The Great Recession is in the end more about what happens when the free market, particularly the financial sector, isn't regulated effectively. I don't blame the financial industry for inventing derivatives and CDOs. Both instruments can be used to reduce risk for all parties involved, and potentially to the entire system. But they inadvertently created a system that led to its own collapse because no entity watched over the system as a whole. How could the investment banks have known they comprised entities that should any of them fail, they would cause the entire system to collapse because of the intricate web of these CDOs and derivatives? How could they possibly know AIG was overextended on derivatives? They simply aren't equipped or structured to know this. But some entity should have, and the ONLY possible answer is the gov't. I'm even sympathetic to the view the gov't as is cannot possibly do this, but that means we need to fashion a gov't that can. It's the only answer.

>> ^lantern53:

Now Wall St. may have fouled up but it was the US gov't which was holding the gun to it's head. Only a gov't could foul things up this badly.

>> ^rougy:

^ If the US military leaves on a Sunday, the Taliban will be in power the next Monday.
The place is a bigger hell hole than ever, despite the alleged "millions" that were poured anywhere.
I'm not saying it's your fault or anything, but let's not smear lipstick on a pig and call it a beauty queen.


I agree to your terms, let's just keep the lipstick and beauty queen comparisons off the pre-2001 Afghanistan picture too.

^ If the US military leaves on a Sunday, the Taliban will be in power the next Monday.

The place is a bigger hell hole than ever, despite the alleged "millions" that were poured anywhere.

I'm not saying it's your fault or anything, but let's not smear lipstick on a pig and call it a beauty queen.

Sorry to reveal the truth to you guys/gals... but the president (forget about the whole political party sham) is a figurehead. Pretty much an 'icon' figurehead for the US government. The 'board of directors', which is NOT elected, calls the real shots behind the scenes. Now you know why core policies remain the same across presidents.

You can put lipstick on a pig.. but it is still a pig. Call a pig a flower by name, but it is still a pig.

Democracy? Representative government? When did you last see the will of the majority implemented in any serious and constructive form? Policies -always- benefit corporations first and foremost. They just toss in a carrot for our benefit here and there to shut up the riffraff populace.

>> ^kronosposeidon:

All good points. I would simply say that it's not Obama's style to use the bully pulpit to hammer away at opponents. Instead he's using it to make it clear that he's bending over backwards to try to get some Republicans to work with him in good faith. He'll keep that up long past the point where even the most addle-minded cable news watcher will agree that he gave the opposition a chance to come half way.

As for "letting the other team get ahead", he's got this disconcerting habit of letting the news cycle run wild when it's all breathless about some made up issue, like lipstick on a pig, or death panels. Usually he emerges after 3-4 days of nonstop cable hyperventilation, and then comes out, and says "can you believe the kind of crazy things they're saying?", explains what he's really trying to do, and goes back about his business. It worked out in the campaign, and I suspect it will work again now.

As for the rest, here's my view as an armchair political analyst of what the whole "Obama is dumping the public option" thing was really about: it was a trial balloon. He wanted to drop that out there, see what the reaction was, then deny it. That's exactly what they did.

Mid-week, they dropped hints that they were ready to "go it alone" and pass a bill without Republican support. That too was a trial balloon. They dropped it out there, waited to see the reaction, and then denied it.

So, what were the reactions to the first trial balloon? From liberals, sturm and drang, and threats of primarying everybody they could in 2010. From the Republicans (who the balloon was really for), we got cries of "not good enough". They said co-ops were too much. Asked if the co-ops were dropped, they said employer mandates needed to go. Asked if that were dropped, would they vote for the bill, they were noncommittal. Message received.

To the second? Short-lived, but intense support from liberals. From the Republicans, not much -- you can't really ramp up your rhetoric from cries of fascism and socialism, or pull back support from 0 votes offered. Blue Dog Dems mumbled a bit of concern, but they certainly didn't come out in strong opposition.

To me, that pretty much means it's just a matter of when they give up on Republicans, not if.

In any case, there's not much incentive for Obama to make any big changes in strategy now, while Congress is in recess. They don't come back until September 8th, and I suspect they'll continue to push bipartisanship for only just a bit longer, maybe until mid-October. Then they're going to go it alone.

And when they do, no sane person will dispute that he gave Republicans every opportunity to reach a reasonable compromise with him.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
This video says just let everyone be for god's sake.
No - this video says, "My parents, Sanjay, and pretty much everyone but ME is a stupid, intolerant jackass. And also I am a genius because I was able to build a definitive shelf from the manual that no one else could. Oh - and I'm going to pretend I'm the only understanding person I ever met that says we should be OK with all shelves." It is a pandering, arrogant little video that says very little except how petty and self-aggrandizing the person who made it is. Then it tries to slap a little lipstick on the pig by doing what most intolerant people do and sugar-coat the bias by giving a cute little message at the end.
Know what? How about the author dumps the pettiness, the bias, and the self-aggrandizement altogether? What does it add to the message? Nothing. Jack-diddly-squat. You can chop out the first 7:30 seconds of this vid and just go with the last 30 seconds and get everything of value. The entire first 7:30 is arrogant, self-congratulatory garbage that takes a semi-decent message and craps all over it with a mountain of the author's blatant anti-parent's religion baggage.


The point was showing that different people were picking and choosing the parts of the manual they wanted because they liked the way it went together. The real shelf couldn't support its own weight (without the manuals to hold it up) and even had the letters to spell out "All Bulls**t" if you cared to look.

Overall, I think it was a pretty well made video.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
This video says just let everyone be for god's sake.
No - this video says, "My parents, Sanjay, and pretty much everyone but ME is a stupid, intolerant jackass. And also I am a genius because I was able to build a definitive shelf from the manual that no one else could. Oh - and I'm going to pretend I'm the only understanding person I ever met that says we should be OK with all shelves." It is a pandering, arrogant little video that says very little except how petty and self-aggrandizing the person who made it is. Then it tries to slap a little lipstick on the pig by doing what most intolerant people do and sugar-coat the bias by giving a cute little message at the end.
Know what? How about the author dumps the pettiness, the bias, and the self-aggrandizement altogether? What does it add to the message? Nothing. Jack-diddly-squat. You can chop out the first 7:30 seconds of this vid and just go with the last 30 seconds and get everything of value. The entire first 7:30 is arrogant, self-congratulatory garbage that takes a semi-decent message and craps all over it with a mountain of the author's blatant anti-parent's religion baggage.


Actually, it never represented his friend Sanjay as being intolerant. At that point, HE was the one being intolerant, trying to force off his own religious beliefs onto his friend, who understandably got upset when somebody tried to tell him how wrong his beliefs were. His uncle wasn't shows as intolerant either. This video isn't saying necessarily that religion is wrong, but it IS saying that being close-minded and hateful because of religion is wrong.

This video says just let everyone be for god's sake.

No - this video says, "My parents, Sanjay, and pretty much everyone but ME is a stupid, intolerant jackass. And also I am a genius because I was able to build a definitive shelf from the manual that no one else could. Oh - and I'm going to pretend I'm the only understanding person I ever met that says we should be OK with all shelves." It is a pandering, arrogant little video that says very little except how petty and self-aggrandizing the person who made it is. Then it tries to slap a little lipstick on the pig by doing what most intolerant people do and sugar-coat the bias by giving a cute little message at the end.

Know what? How about the author dumps the pettiness, the bias, and the self-aggrandizement altogether? What does it add to the message? Nothing. Jack-diddly-squat. You can chop out the first 7:30 seconds of this vid and just go with the last 30 seconds and get everything of value. The entire first 7:30 is arrogant, self-congratulatory garbage that takes a semi-decent message and craps all over it with a mountain of the author's blatant anti-parent's religion baggage.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'paris hilton, Rihanna, kyoto, lipstick on a big, fashion police' to 'paris hilton, Rihanna, kyoto, lipstick on a pig, fashion police' - edited by doogle

that BillOreilly account WAS boring me too until I hit ignore and adblocked the lipstick on a pig pic.

Biden often opens his mouth before he's done thinking. I'm sure Obama was more aware of this than McCain was aware that Palin was under investigation for corruption in Alaska and had a pregnant daughter. Biden is actually a pretty chill dude, I've always liked him, but he does gaffe it up from time to time. That's always been true.

That McCain ran lipstick on a pig ads and not "Biden called Obama a clean cut black man" ads pretty much proves once and for all that all that shite Biden got for that comment was nowhere near as racist as people made it out to be. Obama wisely distanced himself from that crap, if memory serves. Calling a compliment racist sure would have seemed petty. Almost like complaining about your opponent using a common phrase like "lipstick on a pig."

^ You both make good points -- the media never should have whipped up a storm over the "lipstick on a pig" just because the McCain campaign waved the red flag "sexism".

That said, once the storm was whipped up, I think Matthews is doing the right thing by spending a whole hour (yes, the whole hour was about this), basically beating the tar out of anyone who a) thought this was real or b) thought this was important.

Hardball is almost always a "metanews" kind of show, so this was definitely the right forum for this kind of a beatdown, IMO.

He did spend a bit too much time doing an O'Reilly-style rant, but I think someone needs to be showing how ridiculous the whole thing is, and tweety did a hilarious job of it here.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'craig ferguson, barack obama, lipstick on a pig' to 'craig ferguson, barack obama, lipstick on a pig, naughty librarian, duty' - edited by calvados

haha - it's a "sexist attack" to say lipstick on a pig... But Palin who should be an icon for womans rights thinks rape is a womans fault and she should pay.

Where's she from again... Iran?

You can put lipstick on a pig, but you can't make him drink. What did John McCain mean when he said this in a recent press interview? While the press debates, the true meaning stands out -- John McCain is accusing Joe Biden of being a filthy drunk. Do you want John McCain as your President? No.

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