I love the fact McCaskill called the Wall Street Execs "Idiots"

[KansasVoter]

Sen. Claire McCaskill — steaming mad and not going to take it anymore — on Friday called Wall Street executives “idiots” and proposed limits on some of their salaries.
Her proposal would force companies taking federal bailout money to limit compensation for any employee to what the president of the United States currently earns: $400,000 a year.

“Is that so unreasonable?” the Democrat from Missouri asked. “It’s eight times the median household income in the United States of America. … I don’t think that sounds like a bad deal.”

The idea lit up blogs, Web sites and TV screens across the nation, with many applauding her attack on wealthy bankers and investors.

“They don’t get it,” McCaskill said on the Senate floor. “These people are idiots.”

I LOVE IT!!!

[JNelson6563]

1. Yeah, when I heard that I thought

You Go Girl!! :toast:

[dave29]

2. but then how will I pay for my 20 million dollar home?

:sarcasm:

[glowing]

3. Oh, it was really great. AND in this time of economic uncertainty, everyone is

going to have to sacrifice. This means wealthy CEO's... AND no problem in trying to "attract tallent".. There are many people out of work. Many people with degrees and a good business sense that would be willing to step in and take $400,000.00 in compensation. There are many small to mid-size companies and banks in America that do work ethically and for the betterment of whole company and who actually look at employees like and addition and necessary, rather than a "liability".

[Merlot]

7. What bank will hire those people?

The ones with good work ethic and business sense? Those people won't play "the game." They will actually try to earn their money, making all the others look bad.

Nope, banks won't hire those types.

[terisan]

4. Give her BEST ACTRESS for her role in PHONY BAILOUT OUTRAGE-she pushed the bailout in Oct

knowing it had no controls . She excoriated and ridiculed those who would not vote for it.

The bailout got us deeper in the hole.

She should be resigning not demagoging.

[proud2BlibKansan]

11. I don't remember it that way at all

She is from here and was interviewed by local media. Claire was very hesitant when the bailout was proposed and said she really didn't want to vote on it without some accountability for the recipients.

[terisan]

12. She was on MSNBC insisting that Republicans needed to sign on as is even though

we could pass it without Republicans. (back in October). When challenged on that she stated that the reason we needed Republican votes was that "the world" wanted our parties to work together.

I found this to be unbelievable, hence my thinking of her even then as an actor. The name calling she uses (greedy jerks etc) seems designed to push our hot buttons but is substituting for laying out the facts we need to make logical decisions.

She is a US Senator and I think there is a limit to party loyalty when massive borrowing and indebtednss is passed to us to shoulder and we have nothing to show for it. To have had doubts and voted for it anyway just seems worse to me.

I have among the worst representatives in the Senate and House. They were going to vote for it and even blathered about how they did not want to but that it was necessary (they behaved and spoke the same way she did)-----but when their constituents went crazy with rage, they backed down.

....and in the end the bailouts-presented as urgent-did nothing. They may have made the situation worse. This was surely Bush's "Fool me twice" moment and McCaskill and our party were complicit (they are not stupid).

The executive compensation and bonuses are hot button issues and politicians, such as Claire, are playing to citizen's anger. But what they are presenting is a distraction from the real question: What is giving more billions going to get us? and what are the guarantees that it will succeed ? Such simple facts to be laid out so that we can decide whether there is merit in the plan. But neither the administration nor Congressional leaders are doing so. We are not privy to essential information and we need that information.

The bank execs will never be limited to $400,000 and will get bonuses. It will simply be taken from other pots of money they have available.
Everyone in the Senate surely knows this and I believe there are beginning to be a few news stories coming out to address this fact.

The "I don't like it as it stands but we have to vote for it" stance in October was what most senators voting for it claimed-that stance was to assuage the anger of the people and was a tactic. Of course they did not like it-that is irrelevant. The fact is they did and in doing so operated against the interests of the taxpayers.

At the time McCaskill claimed that the bailout had protections and courses of action which were either not in it or which could be overridden by the fact that Congress gave Paulson complete freedom to do whatever he wanted and gave banks similar freedom

from October 2008: <http://kansascity.bizjournals.com/kansascity/stories/2008/09/29/daily23.html>

McCaskill said the revised bill has more protections for taxpayers, who would assume ownership of weakened assets if Congress passes bailout legislation.

“The problem we have right now is that these assets don’t have a price,” she said. “We’re not sure what they’re worth. This caused a freezing of the credit market. Once we put a price on them, loans can resume.”

McCaskill said she has talked to many experts the past few days who think the “toxic paper” the government would buy is “worth something more than what we’ll pay for it” and could be sold for more at some point.

It’s “pretty important” for the Senate to pass a bill Wednesday night, McCaskill said, to help settle the market’s swings.
=======================================================================================
They never bought he so-called assets. The market is still swinging. They are calling the bankers names and taking no responsibility for what they themselves have done and are doing to our economy.

There are no heroes in the administration or Congress right now. No profiles in courage.

[The Brethren]

21. I don't know all the background on McCaskill

regarding her support to one the biggest scams to the American taxpayers, also known as the Wall Street Bailout. However, I thought you and anyone else reading this might be interested in the TIME article called: "Obama Urges Congress Not to Block the Bailout"; http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1871532,00.html

I am disgusted right now with ALL politicians who were involved in helping to pass this piece of legislative crap. The same piece of legislative garbage as noted by TIME that "Half of that money has already been used up by the Bush Administration" Half of billions and billions of dollars already used up.....and our economic crisis nationwide has increased, not improved. And not only is there a record number of workers our of workers, likewise more and more employers/businesses are closing which means there is a record number of Americans now looking for work when there is even less jobs available.

The original bailout proposal was est. at about 700 billion worth of "pork" handouts to supposedly stop the "economic bleeding" as one commentator put during that time. It ended up being approx. worth 850 billion of taxpayers monies that was due to even more pork hand-outs. And that is what this is -- our Republican and Democratic politicians gave billions of our money over like money falls from the sky. And then everyone one of the politician......both repugs and dems, who were interviewed after voting to support this bill that I watched on news, tried to avoid admitting that they supported like it had the effing plague. However, they were happy to tell the press what they didn't like about it.

Except there is one little problem: they did support it and it passed. What a politician says about a bill means very little -- what they do with their powers to vote on it is what matters.

[Zynx]

25. The bailout actually did accomplish some thigs. Credit spreads in certain

areas are narrowing. Inter-bank lending rates are substantially lower than they were. Banks have higher capital ratios now due to the government infusions. The problem is that the bailout, as currently implemented, is less than 3% of GDP. Compared to the scale of the problem, that is insignificant. We have probably 15-20% of GDP out there of bad debt.

[Lerkfish]

18. that is my memory as well

[proud2BlibKansan]

20. 2 to 1

LOL

[Zynx]

24. The bailout in of itself was not the wrong thing to do. She made the mistake of trusting

Paulson to do a credible job.

[proud2BlibKansan]

27. Well put

[Lint Head]

5. They are what they are.

:dem:

[lapfog_1]

6. Actually, they just got the taxpayers to fork over

$18.4 Billion for their bonuses.

Hardly makes them idiots if they get away with it.

More like thieves and criminals. But not idiots.

[global1]

8. I Happen To Agree With Another Poster In Another Thread......

the idiots are the ones that let them get away with this.

[AtomicKitten]

9. It was great to hear, but she also was a little squishy on rectifying it.

I got the impression they intend to correct that moving forward. Perhaps there isn't anything they can do other than shaming those that took advantage of the first $350 billion.

[proud2BlibKansan]

10. I love Claire

She was awesome on the Senate floor yesterday.

[terisan]

13. I see Claire as name-calling to distract from her complicity.I could say the senators who pushed for

and voted for the legislation (McCaskill included) were idiots---but the fact is none of them are idiots. They including McCaskill are manipulating liars and many are thieves.

[proud2BlibKansan]

14. Who are your senators?

Where is your profile?

[Sky Masterson]

15. She does my state proud

:)

[IGotAName]

16. Idiots? In the commercials I see, they're "talent!"

BWAHAHAHAHA!

"Talent" in executives. (snort)

[Sky Masterson]

17. Jim Talent?

:D

[bvar22]

19. Idiots?....not so.

Greedy, selfish, immoral, sociopaths....undoubtedly.
But they have walked away with BILLIONS.
None of them will be caught holding an empty bag.
They won't suffer a single day.

The politicians who voted FOR a no strings attached "Bailout" are also NOT idiots.
They KNEW EXACTLY what they were doing.
They KNOW who butters their bread, including McCaskill, and voted FOR those they really represent.

They won't suffer.


The ONLY IDIOTS are the lower 98% of Americans citizens.
We, and our children, and their children, will suffer for a LONG time.

Thanks Democrats.
Thanks Republicans.
Now THAT is "Post-Partisanship".


"There are forces within the Democratic Party who want us to sound like kinder, gentler Republicans. I want us to compete for that great mass of voters that want a party that will stand up for working Americans, family farmers, and people who haven't felt the benefits of the economic upturn."---Paul Wellstone

[The Brethren]

22. I am glad McCaskill,

and anyone else for that matter, is verbally getting mad at Wall Street for exploiting taxpayers through the Wall Street Bailout and then has the nerve to pay it's employees/investment brokers 18 billion dollars worth of bonuses over the past year. And I am very happy, likewise, that Obama got "angry" as the press called it the other day for the same reason and called them "shameful" And I am very pleased to hear the McCaskill is "proposing" legislation to limit "some of their salaries".

However, one thing I do not agree with Sen. McCaskill on is that they are "idiots". Quite the contrary, they are very, VERY smart. Smart enough to know how to use oru political system to get what they wanted, smart enough to then exploit the situation even further by channeling much of the money back to themselves ---not out economy as we were told. They are not idiots, nor fools, and I doubt very much that anyone of them even cares that Obama gave them a verbal lashing. Nor do I think that because of Obama's speech that they will suddenly choose to be descent people......and oh my, actually stop giving themselves grotesquely lavish bonuses after pleading as paupers for federal handouts. And what would be even more decent and outstanding of them would be to actually give back the billions of dollars they took because they clearly don't need it after all.

I'd like to think the angry comments by politicians lately such as by McCaskill and Obama towards Wall Street are not only genuine - and not just being calculating, as some commentators have questioned, but they are more then just words. Because if words are all they are, they are useless including McCaskill's proposal.

If Obama and our congressional members do not make Wall Street pay back what they took and McCaskill's proposal does not go anywhere, then the Wall Street brokers will having a great time, I'm sure, laughing about all of this as they ponder how they want to spend their incredible wealth thanks to us taxpayers. If the majority of taxpayers let Wall Street get away with what they've done to us, and we don't pressure our leaders (if they do not already take the initiative and do so) to get this money back - ASAP, then we're the ones who are the "idiots" along with our so called leaders in government, not Wall Street.

[RedEmpress]

23. Right on, Claire

One of my favorite senators.

[ClarkUSA]

26. McCaskill 2016

.. and she's from Missouri, no less.

[Jakes Progress]

28. Populist Grandstanding unless

it gets a roll call vote.

I'll give McCaskill and Obama a pass as just being too naive for words if they thought the fat cats would be decent about this. If they don't rectify it with excess profit taxes and a vote on McCaskill's bill, they are complicit.