If You're Wondering If The Fiscal Cliff Matters....
Posted 2012-12-20 22:04 by Karl Denninger

Any questions?



That would be 50 S&P points pretty-much straight down, or if you prefer, about 300 DOW points.

Oh, while some of that has been recovered the futures are sliding again.

This, right into Options Expiration, which is tomorrow incidentally.

What triggered this? Boehner's latest butt-faced move trying to bring to the floor a vote he didn't have the votes to pass (his "Plan B"), and when he realized it and pulled the measure, well, you see what happened.

Word is that he was threatening people again. That's what people do, see, when they can't persuade. They threaten. They bully. They scream and shout and tell you how you're going to pay for your "insolence."

To both Republicans and Democrats: You haven't seen insolence yet, but if you don't cut this crap out, you will.

And I mean really cut it out.

You all need to start with some truth-telling.

You can start with the fact that the government cannot spend more than it taxes, and quit deficit spending. You can have the discussion and debate about what we want from our government and what we're willing to pay for, and if both are not the same, then we don't get it. Got it? That's a start.

Next, you can cut the crap about how we should accept "reasonable" restrictions on firearms while you hide behind a Capitol Building that is armored and armed like a damned fortress. It was not that long ago that I went to lobby in Washington DC (personally, for a cause I believed in) and walked right into the Rotunda. Try that today; the last time I was in DC I damned near had to be strip-searched before I could set foot in the basement annex. That's the people's House you infest, in case you're unaware. I'll agree with you that we should have a discussion on firearms for all of us when you quit hiding behind your guns and so does the President.

Incidentally, I don't expect you or he to do that, nor should you. But since you don't think it's appropriate to do so you can shut the hell up about us doing so. If you want to do something useful about crazies with guns start looking at the problems with our monopoly health care system that to a large degree creates crazies who have zero inhibition when it comes to murder, with no small part of it linked to drugging kids with black-label medications that have warnings on their side effect lists that they can cause rage in various forms. In the meantime our teachers and principals deserve the option (but not the obligation) to defend themselves, exactly as you demand for yourself, because there is evil in this world (if you want to see some of it up close and personal go look in the damned mirror; anyone who would dance on the corpse of a dead child for political purposes deserves to burn in Hell for all eternity.)

The Republicans, in short, need to man up and tell Biden and Obama that they either stand down now or they're going to bring impeachment proceedings -- the Second Amendment is not a suggestion.

Finally, you can start arresting and prosecuting some of these banksters that you've been blowing under the desk for the last four years. I'm tired of this **** and so is the rest of the nation. HSBC and UBS are just the latest examples; no, these tiny little fines are not acceptable. Yank corporate charters and indict corporate officers.

That would impress me instead of taking yet more corporate bribes, er, "lobbying suggestions."

-- snip --

So here's the deal: I call on Americans to boycott Congress. And the best and easiest way is to stop working hard. Stop making more than you have to. Pull in your horns. Pay less -- or no -- taxes the legal way, by reducing your income and living on less. Apply for every benefit, suck on every single government tit you can find as hard as you can and use your teeth to bite down hard while you're at it.

Force Congress to cut the crap, tell the truth, the leave us the hell alone instead of playing this damned game with both we the people and the markets.

Take your puerile crap and go home Boehner, McConnell, Reid, Pelosi and all the rest. I'm tired of seeing all your lying mugs on CNBS every 15 minutes and so is everyone else.

Congress and The White House have had 16 months to solve this problem after willfully and intentionally voting for both the expiration of the tax cuts and the sequester.

Both have willfully and wantonly abdicated their responsibility to negotiate a solution and solve the problem. Both refuse to tell the truth because they are liars in their hearts, sociopaths in their minds and incapable of admitting that they've been screwing everyone in this nation, most especially those who are too young to have a voice and those who are too old to do anything about it.

The time for this crap has passed. Oh, I know, there will be excuses and finger pointing. Sorry, no dice. Neither party and no participant who tries to run that old tired line about "We can't touch Medicare and Social Security" or "We made promises" has a place at the microphone -- or the negotiating table.

You all knew damned well that medical expenses have been rising at or near double-digit annual rates for 30 years. You know how to do middle-school math and if you don't, you own a $5 calculator from WalMart that can. You know damn well this has nothing to do with Medicare or Medicaid because the same price ramps are happening in the private side of the industry.

You not only have done nothing about it you caused it by lying through your damned teeth for decades, passing laws that have enabled monopoly practices the entire time and making it worse, including but not limited to Medicare Part "D".

You have covered it all up with lies, deceit and bull**** including two massive bubbles -- Internet and Housing -- and now you're trying it again with government bonds.

This must stop now and we should go off the cliff, then find another $600 billion per year in spending reductions. That would balance the budget.

The best, most-just and easiest way is to yank all the monopoly protections from the medical industry -- drug reimportation, price maintenance, anti-trust exemptions, the whole shooting match.

Demand level billing; apply Sherman, Clayton and Robinson-Patman to drugs, devices and procedures and tell them to cut this crap now or go to prison for racketeering -- end of discussion. Get in front of the microphone and explain to the American people that they're paying five times what they should for good, decent medical care and it's going to end today. Then throw Obamacare in the garbage can, because at 20% of what we pay now nobody will need it -- they can pay in cash.

Someone has to eat roughly $1 trillion a year, in short. The right people to eat it are the people who have exploited their lobbyists to gang***** the American people -- the medical industry. You won't talk about this because if the public becomes educated on it your careers are doomed, but that's where the problem lies and you know it.

-- snip --

Read more at link above.

Unless and until everyone stops lying, I have no interest in listening anymore. Every single one of them is guilty of lying to the American people. If they had a conscience they would quit playing the game and resign.

Yup, "LIARS" is probably as good a one-word description of the whole lot of them in DC as there is.