MSNBC Live! and the Chortling Dumbass

I rushed home to watch Cenk Unger's show on MSNBC and was confronted with three distinct guests:

 Moore, Senior WSJ Economic Writer

This is the gist of what Stephen Moore maintained when discussing Elizabeth Warren, banks, and banking regulation: Banks don't need regulations, Elizabeth Warren is anti-bank so she would be the last person anyone would want to regulate banks, bad loans are the fault of consumers, and banks aren't loaning money so we want to do everything we can to make sure banks loan money. He said all this in between braying like a jackass when Cenk was speaking.

Let's discuss. 

Back in the day, banks were regulated less and that is when they caused the Great Depression. (This was the 20s and 30s for those looking to complement with a cocktail -- I recommend the Aviator). So, Congress, which was full of good, fiscally conservative Republicans and morally suspect Democrats, REGULATED them. The intent was to force banks to exist on margins, profits of small percentages, which would force them to make fiscally conservative decisions and not to take risks, or make risky loans, or risky deals. Every single time these regulations have been loosened banks have fucked us royally: the savings and loan crisis, credit card fees and rates, junk bonds, bizarre loan packages, and now mortgage loans. 

This is history, it's actual history. It's not news to anyone in business. I didn't look any of this shit up, I know it. Everyone knows it. For a senior economic writer of a major news publication devoted to business, for him to sit down in a television studio, with the camera light on and a news anchor asking him DIRECT questions, for him to pretend that none of this happened, to flat out DENY that deregulation was the direct and immediate cause of every single one of these banking crises, that regulation is not only warranted but imperative, that regulation will only, happily, thankfully, force banks to make good, sound fiscal decisions...I am speechless. For him try to desperately assert with a straight face that consumers don't need protection or advocacy against banks and that it's banks who need protection against consumer protection agencies... 

I am fucking flabbergasted. He can't be that stupid. He has to be a bought man. I hope he chokes on his $200 bottle of wine tonight at dinner. 

Also, and an economist should know this: We don't need more loans; we are drowning in loans. We need more money and for things to cost less. Like medical care, food, clothes, cars, housing, appliances, credit, loans, and banking. But that's about us, the people, and what we need. Why would a Wall Street Journal writer give a shit about actual people.

Pat Buchanan 
I was glad to see him, as I always am. I only agree with him about half the time, but it seems to me that Pat Buchanan is an honorable human being who replies in a thoughtful, measured way with his own analysis. Actual analysis. No one hands this man a script or sends him a get-on-board-memo. He is his own man. I like that.

Donald Trump
Cenk showed footage of Donald Trump making some sensible points: That the Paul Ryan plan is not smart or fiscally feasible, that Paul Ryan was not smart for presenting it, and that the wars are insanely costly. It made me want to smack him. If this man had shown up instead of that clown that was pre-running for president, he could have changed history.