She seems to get all of her questions off of the fringier conspiracy sites.
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At some level, being in Congress is all about performance art, where the audience is your constituants. (It certainly isn't about actually doing stuff, which pretty much all happens in the executive branch.) I'm sure Water's constituants eat this stuff up.
Good explanation as any. I think its an elaborate psychology experiment to see how long we last before someones head explodes. It almost happened to me once.
This is all an elaborate plan to makes us feel sympathy for Geithner.
And it's working...
What, she couldn't include Jews and the Gnomes of Zurich?
Fringier conspiracy sites? Do you mean Rolling Stone?
I'm not normally a fan of Taibbi's, but I thought his latest article did raise some interesting questions about the role of Goldman employees and alums in architecting the bailout. Of course, it's more of a network than a conspiracy, but that doesn't mean that suggesting that there may be something unscrupulous about these sweetheart deals is somehow beyond the bounds of rational discourse.
"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public..." - Adam Smith 1776.
I guess Smith was bringing on the crazy before it was cool.
This was brilliant. Whoever orchestrated this should be promoted.
There are valid questions about TARP money - who got it, who got paid with it...etc
However, with a simple five minute line of questioning on national televison, Maxine has rendered them moot.
Now anyone who brings up the subject will appear to be just as bat-s**t crazy as she is.
Again - brilliant.
"Wall Street types?" Is Aunt Esther profiling?
Rep. Fred Sanford requested that Rep. Waters yield some of her time by announcing "Listen, dummy!" Rep. Waters refused to yield her time, at which point Rep. Sanford grabbed his chest and announced that he was going to join his beloved wife, Elizabeth, in the hereafter. Rep. Sanford is a small-business owner and is often at odds with Rep. Waters, who he refers to as "Aunt Esther" and "Ugly".
"I'm not normally a fan of Taibbi's, but I thought his latest article did raise some interesting questions about the role of Goldman employees and alums in architecting the bailout."
Taibbi's not the only one who's raised questions about the role of Goldman Sachs in the bailout. Remember the NY Times article about "Government Sachs" last fall? I also doubt I'm the only one who has asked how tight Goldman Sachs alumni are, given how it's not uncommon to find them on both sides of various deals.
As I recall, Goldman Sachs made money, billions, last year betting that mortgage back securities were going to go down. The MBS market didn't go down because GS had some nefarious connection. Thus they enhanced their reputation as 'the smartest guys in the room;' scary perhaps but also maybe helpful when you're asking for your money to be spent wisely.
John Paulson probably made more money himself betting against subprimes than Goldman Sachs did on the same trade in 2007, and unlike Goldman Sachs, he didn't need to get bailed out by the government last year. Goldman Sachs might be "the smartest guys in the room" if that room only contains the largest investment and commercial banks.
If Republicans were smart, they'd stop spending their commercial time on "Country First" slogans, but just feature Ms. Waters without editorial for 90 seconds.
Fringier conspiracy sites? Do you mean Rolling Stone?
EXACTLY!! Taibbi hit this one out of the park, so of course the establishment apologists like Megan are diverting attention away from the real story. That's not a conspiracy, it's just narcissism. Megan and the company she keeps simply can't fathom that there might be valid reason for populist outrage against Goldman Sachs cronyism.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/26793903/the_big_takeover/print
Congressmen really ought not be allowed to use the Internet without adult supervision.
Does she knows what a CEO is?
Aunt Esther aside (ouch!), is the notion being pushed that all such conspiracy theories are crazy? Or just this one concerning GS? While I don't have much of an opinion on the latter, the former simply doesn't seem to accord to historical fact(unless one wants to go the No true Scottsman route, I suppose.)
So if the former is held to be false in general, how does one distinguish between a crazy conspiracy theory, and one that is absolutely true? At the margins, that is - let's dispense with the precious bodily fluids sort from the get-go.
Has the usual standard of verifiable facts become too heavy a burden?
The problem isn't even that she is alleging that GS may have had too strong an influence in governmental decision making, the problem is that she clearly has no idea what is actually involved in having such influence. Watching this looks like someone reading the talking points off a conspiracy site, just because she is so divorced from a greater understanding of the economic situation.
She's just trying to do her job. Maybe if more of our representatives were interested in uncovering conflicts of interest between special interests such as Wall Street and the US Government (regulations, tax code, Fannie Mae, etc...), we wouldn't have gotten into this situation to begin with.
Hey! If I were a performance artist, I'd be insulted!
The Washington Examiner weighs in, "Goldman Sachs: Masters of the Bailout". Are they bringing the crazy too?
Just like I said.
They trot out the craziest membor of congress they can find, arm her with questions to which there should be valid answers, and have her make crazy for the cameras thus negating the effects of these stories they knew were coming.
Brilliant.
"membor"
LOL
I get your point, but as I mentioned in a comment that was held for Megan's approval, Maxine Waters isn't really crazy. I'll wait to see if Megan approves the comment, before reiterating my explanation.
Dave, I'm guessing that your comment did fell short of the (never made explicit) minimum length requirement. In my experience, comments are only withheld for this reason, and, when withheld, they end up going into a black hole. Of course, something may have changed with the upgrade...
If your comment really was too short, I'd recommend padding it and reposting.
A couple more clips.
I kind of like it when Barney Franks tells Bachmann to shut up.
Especially when the trade is government employee.
That last comment was in response to Bearded Spock's Adam Smith quote:
"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public..." - Adam Smith 1776.
I hit the REPLY button, but my comment still ended up at the bottom. I guess Moveable Type 4.2 is still a bit buggy.
So far I've seen Reason and some others mocking her. Apparently she hit a Kochtopus nerve.
OK, looks like the comment I wrote that got held for approval disappeared beyond the event horizon, so I'll make it again, this time without the link.
Maxine Waters is neither crazy nor stupid, as some here seem to think. She and her family members seem to have done quite well in business dealings trading off of her position*: she has to have some savvy to have been able to do that and not get in trouble with the law (at least so far). Since her family's success in business seems to have been from rent-seeking, she probably assumes that's how big business works too, which may explain her apparent contempt for corporate CEOs. In the case of Goldman Sachs, she may not be entirely off base. It's certainly not unreasonable to ask questions about the ubiquity of Goldman Sachs alumni in influential positions, and how that may have influenced government policies that, so far, have been very good for Goldman Sachs.
*For details, see the recent NY Times article about her role in getting TARP funds for a local bank, and the recent Tim Rutten column in the LA Times. I've linked to both on my site if you search for "Peering Under the TARP: Foul Waters".