REWIND - A Week of Quotes & Cartoons

SUNDAY

Quote of the Day
December 18, 2011

'Washington Mutual Bank epitomizes everything that went
wrong with the banking industry and contributed to the
financial crisis, so the F.D.I.C. was right to go after
the bank's leadership. Former WaMu executives
Killinger, Rotella and Schneider are truly the 1
percent: they got bonus upon bonus when the bank did
well, but when they led the bank to collapse, insurance
and indemnity clauses shielded them from paying any
penalty for their wrongdoing.'

Senator Carl Levin (D - Mi), chair
of the he Senate permanent
subcommittee on investigations,
Quoted in 'Slapped Wrists at WaMu'
by Gretchen Morgenson

New York Times
December 18, 2011
http://tinyurl.com/7f3ary9

Toon of the Day
http://tinyurl.com/7u5k7v4
Socialist Freeloaders
Pat Oliphant

MONDAY

Quote of the Day
December 19, 2011

'Here's one thing that's emerged more plainly with each
passing day. Right now in Washington, money rules.
Sooner or later Big Oil will ram Keystone, and
fracking, and a thousand other bad ideas down our
throats unless we manage to change the system. That's
what we're going to have to work on next year if we
have any hope of ever bringing climate change under
control. I think part of the problem is: we've come to
feel that money's hammerlock on policy is sad but
completely inevitable. We've let ourselves be cynical,
which is understandable (the Capitol should have an
Exxon sign out front, and a couple of pumps, and a
grubby bathroom) but also a bit weak.

'Instead, I think we need to stand up for a certain
kind of naivete. We need to say it's not right that the
234 House members who voted for Keystone last week had
taken $42 million in dirty energy money. It's no
different than if before next weekend's Patriots-Miami
game, the owner of the Dolphins trotted out to midfield
and handed each referee ten grand. It stinks.'

Bill McKibben, environmentalist,
author, and journalist
350.org
December 19, 2011
http://tinyurl.com/89swgjo

Toon of the Day
http://tinyurl.com/7oohthz
Throw in Newt
Jeff Danziger

TUESDAY

Quote of the Day
December 20, 2011

'If you run a giant bank that defrauds millions of
small investors of their life savings, the bank might
pay a small fine but you won't go to prison. Not a
single top Wall Street executive has been prosecuted
for Wall Street's mega-fraud. But if you sell an ounce
of marijuana you could be put away for a long time.'

Economist Robert Reich
Huffington Post
December 19, 2011
http://tinyurl.com/6wmxxln

Toon of the Day
http://tinyurl.com/7jqgek2
The Dickenses
Tony Auth - Philadelphia Inquirer

WEDNESDAY

Quote of the Day
December 21, 2011

'President Obama likes to quote Martin Luther King Jr.,
who said that "the arc of the moral universe is long,
but it bends toward justice." But it doesn't bend by
itself. Faced with the roadblocks of the right, perhaps
the pragmatic thing to do and the idealistic thing to
do are one and the same: We have to build a movement
that will push our politics and our current president -
and the next one, and the next one, and the next one.
As President Obama said, change is a "long-term
project." That means that 2012 must be about more than
just his reelection. It needs to be about what comes
next, not just who.'

Nation editor/publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel
Washington Post
December 21, 2011
http://tinyurl.com/7tv5tob

Toon of the Day
http://tinyurl.com/6m2t5ua
A Bat for Billy
Mike Luckovich

THURSDAY

Quote of the Day
December 22, 2011

'Yet ultimately, there must be a shift in collective
consciousness. Reform isn't revolution. It arises
through acts of conscience that turn wrongs into
rights. It depends upon an informed electorate that
arouses itself from passivity and cynical indifference.
We aren't there yet. But the air is filled with
discontent and anger, which is a start. The Occupy
movement has stung our conscience. The various types of
social injustice and income inequality have been
publicized over and over. Set against this, however,
one must confront 30 years of right-wing
indoctrination, public apathy, and the discouragement
of the current economic downturn. The contest has been
engaged. Now it's your turn, and mine, to speak the
truth and act on behalf of justice. There is no other
way to create the shift in consciousness that we need.'

Deepak Chopra, Author,
'War of the Worldviews'; Founder,
The Chopra Foundation
Huffington Post
December 20, 2011
http://tinyurl.com/84tsssb

Toon of the Day
http://tinyurl.com/7273erc
A Christmas Carol
Bennett - Chattanoga Times Free Press

FRIDAY

Quote of the Day
December 23, 2011

'But these people don't have shame. What they have, in
the place where most of us have shame, are extra sets
of balls. Just listen to Cooperman, the former Goldman
exec from that country club in Boca. According to
Cooperman, the rich do contribute to society:

'Capitalists "are not the scourge that they are too
often made out to be" and the wealthy aren't "a
monolithic, selfish and unfeeling lot," Cooperman
wrote. They make products that "fill store shelves at
Christmas."

'Unbelievable. Merry Christmas, bankers. And good luck
getting that message out.'

Matt Taibbi
Rolling Stone
December 22, 2011
http://tinyurl.com/6o5gvh5

Toon of the Day
http://tinyurl.com/7ows8y4
God Bless Us
Jeff Danziger

SATURDAY

Quote of the Day
December 24, 2011

'If we expect to maintain any semblance of "normality,"
we must fix the financial system. As noted, the
implosion of the financial sector may not have been the
underlying cause of our current crisis-but it has made
it worse, and it's an obstacle to long-term recovery.
Small and medium-size companies, especially new ones,
are disproportionately the source of job creation in
any economy, and they have been especially hard-hit.
What's needed is to get banks out of the dangerous
business of speculating and back into the boring
business of lending. But we have not fixed the
financial system. Rather, we have poured money into the
banks, without restrictions, without conditions, and
without a vision of the kind of banking system we want
and need. We have, in a phrase, confused ends with
means. A banking system is supposed to serve society,
not the other way around.

'That we should tolerate such a confusion of ends and
means says something deeply disturbing about where our
economy and our society have been heading. Americans in
general are coming to understand what has happened.
Protesters around the country, galvanized by the Occupy
Wall Street movement, already know.'

Economist Joseph Stiglitz
Vanity Fair
January 2012
http://tinyurl.com/84jvp9g

Toon of the Day
http://tinyurl.com/6ndw9ab
Heat on Nick
Rob Rogers

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