Sure, Barack Obama changed his mind about releasing the very scary photos of widespread medieval U.S. war crimes everywhere, but Robert Gibbs cut off that leftist hippie firestorm right quick when he stole a reporter’s telephone and everyone got distracted and forgot about war and stuff. What’s the other terrible thing happening in the world now? Oh yes, money, and how we lost all of it after a few companies had to put up collateral on all those credit default swaps they made in secret, but then they didn’t have any reserves whatsoever, because saving is gay. Well the Treasury is finally releasing a plan to introduce basic, very basic regulations to the derivatives market. Why does the government hate capitalism? MORE »

Orange smoke monster John Boehner tells CNN this: “BOEHNER: Wolf, you have to understand, there was no deregulation of anything in the financial services industries. As a matter of fact, there was an increase in regulation.” Then! “What happened in all of this is that some people got creative in terms of how they could create new products — new products at different parts of the company — that were in the unregulated part of the company that caused this infection of our entire financial system.” Yes, and how do certain parts of the company become “unregulated?” [RealClearPolitics, Washington Monthly]

All it took was for the National Outrage to direct itself at derivatives traders at the World’s Worst Company receiving bonuses, and now Rick Santelli is finally saying: Whoa… hey… let’s cool it down, right? Besides, this outrage over $165 million doesn’t exist in a vacuum. People want government policy towards AIG (”give them the night key to the U.S. Mint”) completely changed now that the very worst individuals in the company are being directly rewarded. The fact that those contracts have to be honored under the present arrangement says quite a bit. [YouTube]

Here’s Massachusetts Congressman Michael Capuano yelling at today’s Capitol Hill hearing with eight big bank CEOs, who demanded that Congress give them a second set of keys to the U.S. Mint (just to make it more convenient during the all-nighter printings, right?) He asks if their companies invest in credit default swaps (”hell fuckin’ yeah”), and then adds, “So basically all or most of you engaged in all or at least some of the activities that actually created this crisis, in my opinion. Because every one of those activities, especially the SIVs [structured investment vehicles], ESPECIALLY the SIV’s — to me, I think they’re illegal. I cannot believe no one’s prosecuted you on this.” Rah rah rah! MORE »