Look I'll be really honest here. None of this stuff has infringed upon MY personal liberties one bit. And no, that's not the point AT ALL. By your logic then if I was a man of the 1920s then I shouldn't have been concerned about womens sufferage because women not being able to vote doesn't infringe upon MY rights. If that's your viewpoint then I guess we're just going to have to agree to disagree. But my opinion is that just because it doesn't affect you right at this moment doesn't mean that it's ok. I'm not arguing whether it is worse or better than any other piece of legislation that's been passed or is on the table at the moment. I wasn't even that concerned about the Bush administration using it against people in this country due to the widespread public outrage at the Patriot Act in general and how the whole situation was put under a microscope thus discouraging abuse. What pisses me off is that laws like this stay on the books well past their intended life span and who knows what kind of president's we will have in the future. It just exposes all of us to a huge risk because of the lack of oversight and its inherent vagueness.
Also I don't think I ever said Obama's policies are all peachy keen. Honestly I think he's doing a pretty lousy job right now. I find it hilarious that he's listening to Geithner and Summers about how to fix the economy when they are the typical Wall Street insiders that caused much of this mess. Talk about letting the foxes guard the hen house.
A couple of exerpts from a decent article on the issue:
Click Here for the Full Article
Also I don't think I ever said Obama's policies are all peachy keen. Honestly I think he's doing a pretty lousy job right now. I find it hilarious that he's listening to Geithner and Summers about how to fix the economy when they are the typical Wall Street insiders that caused much of this mess. Talk about letting the foxes guard the hen house.
A couple of exerpts from a decent article on the issue:
What Geithner does not want the public to understand, his ‘dirty little secret’ is that the repeal of Glass-Steagall and the passage of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act in 2000 allowed the creation of a tiny handful of banks that would virtually monopolize key parts of the global ‘off-balance sheet’ or Over-The-Counter derivatives issuance. Today five US banks according to data in the just-released Federal Office of Comptroller of the Currency’s Quarterly Report on Bank Trading and Derivatives Activity, hold 96% of all US bank derivatives positions in terms of nominal values, and an eye-popping 81% of the total net credit risk exposure in event of default.
The five are, in declining order of importance: JPMorgan Chase which holds a staggering $88 trillion in derivatives (€66 trillion!). Morgan Chase is followed by Bank of America with $38 trillion in derivatives, and Citibank with $32 trillion. Number four in the derivatives sweepstakes is Goldman Sachs with a ‘mere’ $30 trillion in derivatives. Number five, the merged Wells Fargo-Wachovia Bank, drops dramatically in size to $5 trillion. Number six, Britain’s HSBC Bank USA has $3.7 trillion. After that the size of US bank exposure to these explosive off-balance-sheet unregulated derivative obligations falls off dramatically. Just to underscore the magnitude, trillion is written 1,000,000,000,000. Continuing to pour taxpayer money into these five banks without changing their operating system, is tantamount to treating an alcoholic with unlimited free booze.
The five are, in declining order of importance: JPMorgan Chase which holds a staggering $88 trillion in derivatives (€66 trillion!). Morgan Chase is followed by Bank of America with $38 trillion in derivatives, and Citibank with $32 trillion. Number four in the derivatives sweepstakes is Goldman Sachs with a ‘mere’ $30 trillion in derivatives. Number five, the merged Wells Fargo-Wachovia Bank, drops dramatically in size to $5 trillion. Number six, Britain’s HSBC Bank USA has $3.7 trillion. After that the size of US bank exposure to these explosive off-balance-sheet unregulated derivative obligations falls off dramatically. Just to underscore the magnitude, trillion is written 1,000,000,000,000. Continuing to pour taxpayer money into these five banks without changing their operating system, is tantamount to treating an alcoholic with unlimited free booze.
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