Captain, We Cannot Withstand Another Attack

[AllentownJake]

So now we have Senator Dodd saying:

"I can't write regulations, this is way beyond the competency of Congress"

Really Mr. Dodd?

How about "Bankruptcy Reform"?

How about the CARD act, which as you can see from my Ticker yesterday, was instantaneously circumvented by the banks. Instead of "jacking interest rates" they simply put a CALL feature into their account disclosures, which now means you get raped by having the entire balance on your card due and payable literally on demand. (As an aside, how hard would it have been to say "no adverse actions" as a consequence of universal default, instead of what was actually done? Oh, and did banking lobbying interests recommend the language you did adopt?)

"The business community needs certainty on this issue," he said. "We ought to leave it to them to make the recommendations."

Really? Like the business community "recommended" OptionARMs, automated underwriting, blacklisting appraisers that didn't participate in outright fraud on property valuations, bankruptcy "reform", Credit Default Swaps, Synthetic CDOs and more?

Who's on the other side of the table? What other voice is there on input into this process?

None.

Now let's look at results. I would have no quarrel with a wildly business-friendly environment if it produced prosperity.

But it did not.

It instead produced asset-stripping, fraud, scams of various dimension, a huge housing and credit bubble and threatened the nation, if Hank Paulson is to be believed, not just with economic depression but literal martial law.

If I in concert with others took actions that threatened the destruction of our government by force, and thus gave rise to an argument that martial law would have to be declared, I would (justifiably) be held on charges of seditious conspiracy. Can someone explain why firms and individuals, acting between themselves in a fashion that leads them to effectively demand a $700 billion bailout lest the tanks roll, fails to meet this definition under the law?

http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/2039-Captain,-We-Cannot-Withstand-Another-Attack.html

Don't you love it when someone sums up what you see better than you could ever dream of.