Ranting and Ridiculousness

Two things from today's paper:

First, the soapbox: An article about the weak economy's impact on federal budget negotiations discusses various options under discussion, including things like raising taxes, cutting government spending, providing more fiscal stimulus, extending unemployment benefits, etc.

"Republicans would probably support extending the tax cuts, but not the unemployment aid. 'I don’t know if throwing more money at the problem is going to solve anything,' Reince Priebus, the Republican Party chairman, said Wednesday at a breakfast hosted by Bloomberg News."

In other words, in times of fiscal calamity, the Republican Party would unapologetically look out for the interests of the wealthy while declining to maintain a lifeline for the unemployed.

We realize this is nothing new, and we should no longer be surprised at the misanthropy exemplified by Republican politicians. What we can no longer fathom is how, with policies so blatantly contemptuous of lower-class and, franly, middle-class Americans these people can continue to be elected. There are certainly more lower- and middle-class voters than wealthy ones. Who votes for these people?!?

On the lighter side:

Another article details the increase in the amount of business loans being made by hedge funds, as opposed to more conventional lenders. We don't have anything to say about the article per se, but the writer does quote extensively from a businessman who has received loans from a hedge-fund: the chief executive of Rentech, D. Hunt Ramsbottom.

Some cable network should snap this guy up for a talk-show immediately and pair him up with the recently scandal-plagued congressman from New York: We figure "The Weiner-Ramsbottom Hour" would become instant appointment television.

Solipsistography
"Bank Said No? Hedge Funds Fill a Void in Lending"
"Economy's Woes Shift the Focus of Budget Talks"