Political Irony

The Senate Banking committee started hearings on the recent problems at JP Morgan (which even Mornan’s chairman said were “sloppy” and “stupid” and would increase the pressure for additional regulation). But thanks to generous donations of campaign cash, the hearing got turned into a circus. Committee members weren’t about to actually, you know, investigate any possible problems at JP Morgan. Instead, they were more interested in blaming government regulations for the problems, especially the recent Dodd-Frank bill.

Richard Shelby (R-AL) grilled the regulators, mocking them repeatedly for not knowing in advance what was going on at JP Morgan. (JP Morgan contributed $72,950 to Senator Shelby, making them his second largest source of campaign money).

Bob Corker (R-TN) predicted “the American people are going to wake up” and realize “this Dodd-Frank bill really doesn’t address real-time issues.” (Corker received $61,000, making JP Morgan his largest source of money).

Mike Johanns (R-NE) complained that “regulations become more and more onerous.”

Pat Toomey (R-PA) declared that “we’ve gone down the wrong road” with Dodd-Frank.

There’s just one problem with these statements. The part of Dodd-Frank that would have prevented what happened at JP Morgan is the “Volcker rule“, which attempts to separate speculation and monetary gambling from their government-backed deposits, similarly to the Glass-Steagall law that was repealed in 1999. And the Volcker rule hasn’t been implemented yet, mainly because of Republican efforts to water it down through exemptions and by defunding it.

So the Republicans are trying to abort the Volcker rule before it is even implemented, by blaming it instead of the bankers who actually caused the problem. And even though SEC chairman Mary Schapiro testified that JP Morgan would have been more easily monitored “if the Dodd-Frank rules had been in place.”

But the most ironic thing was Toomey’s solution to the problem. He wants to “let the people in the marketplace make the decisions they will make.”

Yeah, that’s what caused the great recession in 2008. I guess the Republicans like to think of that as the good old days.

© Clay Bennett

I find this comic extremely ironic. It compares deregulation to someone removing traffic signs. When you look at it, your reaction is probably “OMG, deregulation is bad!”. Anarchy and chaos would result! Injury, death, and mayhem in the streets!

The irony is that an increasing number of cities in Europe are doing exactly that — removing all traffic signs. Some are even removing road markings. So far, the result has been that motorists are forced to become more careful, reducing accidents and other problems. Even more ironically, traffic congestion is often lowered.

I’m not against regulations, and I’m not against deregulation. I’m for regulations that make sense, and against regulations that don’t work.

A case in point is the city where I live. A few years back, the city rewrote the health laws that apply to restaurants, removing outdated regulations (that didn’t make sense any more), and removing regulations that mainly served to reduce competition, such as simplifying regulations on small and unconventional restaurants like food stands at farmer’s markets and food carts. At the same time, they made it easier to enforce the regulations that do protect the health of the restaurant-going public.

As a result, the food scene went from boring to bountiful. A major travel magazine rated us one of the top places in the world for street food. Food at conventional sit-down restaurants has gotten much better as well. Why? When regulations make it more expensive to start and operate a restaurant, you tend to be much more cautious and serve foods you know will sell. But with a lower barrier to entry, you can try more adventurous menus. Some of these innovative restaurants will fail because their food doesn’t catch on. But at least they will fail quickly and waste less money failing, so their owners can try again. In just a few short years, we went from a monotonous food scene to one where I can get just about any kind of crazy delicious food from anywhere in the world. That’s deregulation that makes sense!

When Obama came out in favor of same-sex marriage, Republicans accused him of using it as a wedge issue. But it seems that the GOP just can’t help themselves with their gay hating ways. The Republican-led House just attached a provision into the defense authorization bill banning military chapels from performing same-sex marriages. The bill says that military bases “may not be used to officiate, solemnize, a marriage, or marriage like ceremony” that is not between a man and a woman.

That’s not the only irony here. The GOP keeps accusing Democrats of being big spenders, but Republicans increased defense spending in the bill $8 billion beyond the agreed upon limit, breaking the budget agreement that Congress made last summer. So the next time the GOP complains about deficit spending, we should just laugh at them.

Of course, this is probably all political posturing. Republicans seem to be purposely trying to get Obama to veto the bill so they can use it as a political tool.

Oh, and other fun facts about the defense authorization bill — it contains a provision striking the ban on the military using propaganda against the American people that has been in place since at least 1948. In a stunning display of doublespeak, Congressman Mac Thornberry (R-TX) claimed that the current law “ties the hands of America’s diplomatic officials, military, and others by inhibiting our ability to effectively communicate in a credible way.”