Perhaps Sarah just has a broken irony meter? I don't know. I find it hilarious that she doesn't see it as ironic that her first major paid speech is taking place today in a communist country, where she will no doubt mindlessly rail against communism and socialism. I'd bet even money that she doesn't even really know that Hong Kong is now part of China and that China is one of the few remaining communist contries left on earth. I'm sorry, but a woman who once referred to Africa as "a country" rather than a continent isn't winning any confidence points for intelligence from me, nosiree.
In fact
AP/HuffPo has reported that during Palin's speech today she said, "We [America] got into this mess because of government interference in the first place...". Which is of course diametrically opposed to the facts. Now who is makin' things up, Sarah? Apparently a former popular young cheerleader once named Sarah Heath who was not paying close enough attention to the proper things in history and civics classes, that's who. One that suddenly believes herself to be as credible talking about world financial markets as she purportedly is supposed to be when talking about energy development. Even though she's really not qualified to talk authoritatively about either subject in reality. She's aborted her career in both fields of endeavor prematurely. She's hardly an expert in anything. Other than the good old fashioned down home gum smackin' and eye winkin' Wasilla-billy charm she seems to exude.
No, Sarah -- we got into a financial meltdown (again) because we took the controls OFF the banking industry that we had previously put there after the failure of thousands of savings and loan institutions back in the 80s. Read that again carefully, Sarah. Not "too much government interference" but rather "not enough government oversight". Again you have things completely ass backwards Sarah, pounding your meme nails with the skinny end of the hammer. The entire premise of your speech is laughable precisely because it is exactly the opposite from actual reality. Which by the way does not surprise me in the least. (Sarah was never much of a scholar so the idea that whatever she says, do the opposite still applies).
You see Sarah, without any goverment oversite or interference Wall Street, led by investment banking firms helped finance a banking industry that created high risk loans for people who could not realistically pay them back. Then when those borrowers defaulted they repackaged the whole mess into 'default credit swaps' which were then magically made into something of value by rebranding them as 'derivitives'. What made them valuable was because they were insured against failure by AIG. In fact towards the end, it became default practice to bet against the derivatives as 'investments' and collect your insurance money from AIG for the losses you were helping to cause as a banker.
Older readers will recall 'junk bonds' during the 80s. Well meet the new debt boss, same as the old debt boss. Derivitaves are nothing less than junk bonds whose sole backing is debt itself. The idea is that if you're a multi-billion dollar corporation and you need to not pay taxes, you can buy up a few billions worth of these 'investment' derivatives, show them on the books as an investment, but then mark it down to show it as a loss for tax purposes. It's a ponzi scheme, the same one made up back in the 80s with junk bonds only with all new terminology. Terminology with zazz! Whee. Aren't we so damn lucky that the Amercan system seems to foster some of the worst, most unethical, most greedy and opportunistic bastards on the face of the planet to migrate towards MBA degrees?
So Sarah's next answer? She claimed that if taxes were cut and the capital gains tax and estate tax eliminated, the world would "watch the U.S. economy roar back to life." Wrong again Sarah. All that will do is further entrench the wealth of the most wealthiest 1% of Americans. Your overlords. It does nothing for the majority of Americans. According to one conference attendee "she criticized Obama a lot but offered no solutions." Damn. It's almost like having her back as governor! The the gaffe machine, now humming along like well oiled clockwork churned up the idea that she believes "the U.S. has a role in helping China find its future and that the U.S. will always be on the side of promoting freedom...". Which is always the thing communists want to hear. Yeehaw! We loves us some freedom, Sarah Palin! Freedom from an oppressive state controlled political apparatus! Hey wait... ahem. Awkward.
As if that weren't bad enough she then weighed in with her opinion on the Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese problems in China saying she thought their ethnic disputes were "a sign that China lacks mechanisms to deal with regional issues...". I bet the Chinese laughed even harder at that than I am now. That's a hoot! But only because I KNOW it to be yet another classic example of Palin wrongheadedness. Not only does she have no business or basis for offering such insight to her Chinese hosts, she seems dreadfully unaware of the situation back home. Gee I don't know Sarah, seen a news show lately? Town Hall health care meetings? Rampant racism? Disrespect for a sitting President? Any of these ringing a bell for you yet, Sarah? It's as if somewhere, in a parallel universe, they recast that clueless goes to Washington, D. C. girl as a redhead from Idaho except we're actually living in that parallel universe. At least we are in Sarah's bizarre mind.
-Laz
