Monday, June 8, 2009

Who's watching TARP?

...and what the hell is her agenda?

Oh, it's not an actual question -- more of a metaphorical question. I know who's watching TARP. Officially, it's Elizabeth Warren. If you're not familiar with her from the talk show circuits, let me give you the Spork's eye view: She's a Haaavad Law professor that goes on all the talk shows. She comes across as approachable and homey and then goes on to tell us how all the debt we have is just not our fault. It's those wicked credit card companies and marketers and advertisers and banks and all those awful people asking us to spend money and we cannot help ourselves, boo hoo hoo. It just costs sooooo much today as compared to our parents, who had it so good with their backbreaking labor, 1200 square foot houses, 3 fuzzy TV stations and total lack of iPhones. Oh, the humanity. In the richest country in the world, we just cannot earn enough to pay for our poor sad lives. It's not our fault. Someone needs to save us.

Oh, please. And she is the one now chairing the TARP Congressional Oversight Panel. When I've heard her talk about THAT she's livid (of course) trying to find out where the money went. (I'm sure the problem is with the evil companies that got the money, not with the idiots that were dishing it out with a big soup ladle.)

Anyway, the semi-point of this semi-rant is that she's written a new study on bankruptcy due to increased medical expenses in the US. Oh my god, if you read it, you'll find out medical bankruptcies have increased to 70% of all bankruptcies. And oh my god, we're all going to die. We're all going to go broke and it isn't our fault. Someone help us please. Now, I must remind you again: She's a Haaavad Law professor, specializing in bankruptcy. And she's put out previous boo hoo medical bankruptcy studies that have been criticized because the statistics included bankruptcies of which only $1000 were medical expenses.

Her agenda is clearly that the government owes us free health care. So before you swallow any of her bait or shed any tears from her boo hooing, check out this article exposing her ability to lie with statistics. Sure, while medical bankruptcies might now account for 70% of bankruptcies... the actual numbers of medical bankruptcies in the studied period are half -- yes half -- of what they were in previously studies.

Oh, but I'm sure that was an honest mistake, right?

I can't wait to see what her oversight committee will come up with.

[Later edit: a second followup article by the same author.]

9 comments:

bigjohn756 said...

Soup ladle, hah! Try a LeTourneau L-2350.

Furthermore, in case you haven't noticed, no one is in any way responsible for anything they do in this world anymore.

Spork In the Eye said...

I had to google to finger out what a L 2350 was. Sweet ride! Ellie... can I get one?

bigjohn756 said...

Yeah, Ellie! This would cut down greatly on gardening time!

bigjohn756 said...

I, too, had to google to determine out what an L-2350 was. I new it was, but, I didnit no what it was called

Next--huge fox pas. One of my formerly favorite podcasts, the SGU, has failed me greatly. They have abandoned the English language in favor of popularity. This is something that they wood never do in the case of something that they actually new something about. Lissn ta dis an tel me watcha tink.

http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=202. About 00:33:10, IIRC.

Spork In the Eye said...

54 ft^3 FEL! You could probably put 2 of my tractors in the bucket. My bucket is about 1/3 a yard.

...but back to your link. I think your podcast begs the question of exactly how language changes over time.

Spork In the Eye said...

Ah, this is how Lizzie reached her conclusions:

http://graphjam.com/2009/06/08/song-chart-memes-knowledge-bankruptcy/

Kari said...

I think you stand a better chance of getting a track hoe than the L-2350.

Spork In the Eye said...

Sweet! That was so easy. The next tractor auction is on the July 4th weekend. We can use it to dig a basement. Oh this is going to be so fun.

Kari said...

I said you stand a better chance. The odds are still not in your favor. ;)