The Errington Thompson Show 4-18-09
This is a great show. It takes place after the famous tea bagging parties, so I go out of my way not to talk about tea, tea bags, tea baggers, taxes, tax cuts or anything else that has to do with tea bagging. The subject has been done so many times. We can’t go there anymore.
Aaron is preparing to go to a broadcast convention in Las Vegas. We spend a little time talking about Vegas and some of the great comedians that I’ve seen in Vegas, including Bill Cosby, Jackie Mason and Bob Newhart. I also talk about some of the great shows which can be seen in Vegas, which would include Cirque du Soleil.
The torture memos, four separate documents, were released this week. The first is a memo by Jay Bybee, who at the time was Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel. The second memo was written approximately three years later by Stephen Bradberry, acting Assistant Attorney General at the Office of Legal Counsel. Steven Bradbury has a second memo from that same date, May 10, 2005. This is the third of the four memos. Finally, Stephen Bradberry writes a last memo on May 30, 2005. These memos are eye-opening. I have had an opportunity to read all of them. Of course, Marcy Wheeler has.
A new law in Afghanistan is passed in which a man does not need to have consent in order to have sex with his wife. This is crazy with a capital “C.” I’m figuring the phrase “human rights” and “Afghanistan” don’t belong in the same sentence… at least not at this time.
Elizabeth Warren, who is overseeing the TARP funds, is on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. They’re in the middle of an interesting yet depressing discussion about how we have handed billions of dollars to these large corporations with little or no accountability. Just as I think Jon Stewart’s head is about to explode (and mine), Professor Warren launches into a thoughtful history of banking regulation in the United States since the early 1800s. It is a famous explanation and I play her whole discussion point. It is extremely insightful. As Jon Stewart said, “That was like financial chicken soup for me.”
Credit default swaps, no-money-down mortgage loans, deregulation… I spend a good deal of time trying to make sense out of the craziness in the financial system. Basically, I don’t think that there’s any one thing that has caused our financial implosion. Instead, I believe it was a series of things. I guess the point of my discussion is that we need more regulation of the financial industry in order to prevent meltdowns like this in the future. Expect a financial institutions to push back against any regulation. There’s going to be significant opposition both from Democrats and Republicans over reigning in the banks.
Why is everything so complex? I discuss some recent trouble I’ve had with my blog. I’ve had trouble posting and updating my blog. My computer gurus were somewhat stumped at what was wrong. I’m not sure that there’s anything else in American society that can be so frustrating as a computer or computer program that is not working as it should. I’m not sure why it’s so frustrating but it is. By the way, we did figure out the problem with my blog and it’s now up and running.
I cover these topics and more. My podcasts are also available on iTunes. Enjoy!
