Enclave Mike wins the bumper sticker contest with, “Hey Rick Santelli: HONK if you want Jon Stewart to rip you another one.”
Besides the pithy headline and funny video, Mike also reports on important issues. Just this week he hit Metro’s storm water fees controversy, TN GOP hypocrisy, Senator Corker’s union busting, Woody Guthrie, and tax breaks for the wealthy.
Rick Santelli’s televised rant against the “losers” and “deadbeats homeowners” that kicked off last week’s “spontaneous” Tea Party rallies was aimed at the wrong target, says Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) and bearded high-profile economist (there’s a club).
At the risk of spoiling a promising artistic and commercial venture, people should know that Mr. Santelli is firing at the wrong target. The big gainers from the latest plan to help homeowners are not “loser” homeowners, but rather banks and investors, who will earn far more on their loser loans than would otherwise have been possible.
This is easy to see if we just adhere to the most basic rule in policy analysis: follow the money. When we follow the money, we see that the government checks do not go to homeowners.
The government checks are all made out to banks and loan servicers. In millions of cases where homeowners were not keeping up with their mortgages, the government will send checks to banks and investors that make up for much of the shortfall. In addition, the government could send them several thousand dollars more for their efforts in allowing people to stay in their homes.
Hat tip: Truthout
Who knew that Playboy had such a crack investigative reporting team as Mark Ames and Yasha Levine? [I did. -- Freddie]
What they uncovered about Rick Santelli’s populist rant against President Obama’s foreclosure relief policies on CNBC and the rallies that resulted will make you say “damn.”
Turns out that his “spontaneous” call for a “Chicago Tea Party” actually one cog in a giant wheel of coordinated attacks on President Obama’s economic policies. Ames and Levine ask all the right questions:
But was Santelli’s rant really so spontaneous? How did a minor-league TV figure, whose contract with CNBC is due this summer, get so quickly launched into a nationwide rightwing blog sensation? Why were there so many sites and organizations online and live within minutes or hours after his rant, leading to a nationwide protest just a week after his rant?
So who’s really behind Santelli’s populist grassroots movement? According to the Playboy reporters it’s familiar names from the Republican rightwing machine including PR operatives who “specialize in imitation-grassroots PR campaigns”, bigwig politicians, and notorious billionaire funders.
I never thought I would say this but, go over to Playboy.com now and read Backstabber: Is Rick Santelli High On Koch?. And remember, no clicking around.
Hat Tip: Crooks and Liars.
UPDATED: Because the original link to the article is no longer active, it has been updated with a new link.
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