Let's just talk this out

I've long been a believer that 'Too Big To Fail' means 'Too Big To Exist', and that mergers and acquisitions (M&A) have no benefit for anyone outside of executives and stockholders (the former is entirely 1%ers, and the latter is about 60% 1%ers).

And I knew that this process of consolidation was also leading the government to send big subsidies the way of those companies.  And I'd recently learned that those subsidies were basically the entirety of the profits of the banking industry.

But it was still a bit of a surprise to find out that the FDIC had been quietly settling fraud cases with minimal settlements for a number of years.

Yeah, that'll get them to stop.  Sure it will.  As will Holder's recent admission that he is unable to prosecute these people.  Uh huh.  I'm just going to hold my breath until that works.

...

Bad B-randing

For the most part, I think Senator (it still kills me to say that, and not in a good way) Rand Paul is, quite simply, batshit insane, especially when it comes to social issues. (Which is particularly galling, given that his professional background is in medical care where most of his patients were medicare recipients. You'd think that would give him a healthier (hah! I kill myself) perspective on those sorts of issues.)

But I wanted to say kudos to him for his filibuster yesterday over Brennan's appointment to the CIA. Drones are an important issue that is getting ignored far too much. The fact that (AG) Holder can't say, categorically, that is clearly illegal (actually worse, unconstitutional) just blows my mind. This idea that some sort of back-room deliberation that follows no known process would qualify as "due process" as guaranteed by the constitution would seem to be, on its face, absurd.

"Trust us" is not an acceptable response.

Let's hope that more Senators (and Congressmen, for that matter) start asking this question, because if the answer isn't "It's illegal", then we do not live in anything resembling a democracy.