Dean Baker made some interesting comments at his blog yesterday, Post Granny Bashers Are Whining for JP Morgan. In it, he discusses how the Washington Post has defended JP Morgan against a civil suit the Justice Department was pursuing against the company for mortgage backed securities that they knew were bad. The Post argued that the government were just a bunch of meanies because 70% of those securities were actually sold by two companies that JP Morgan had acquired (Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual). This argument makes no sense on at least two levels. First, when one company acquires another, it also acquires its liabilities, including its legal liabilities. But even apart from this, that still means that 30% of the bad securities were sold by JP Morgan itself. Baker notes, “This means that it could have been involved in misrepresenting tens of billions of dollars in mortgage backed securities sold to investors.”
What’s most annoying about the whole thing is how the Post (along with pretty much everyone else in the mainstream press) thinks that the law ought to be different for people with money. Dean Baker sums this up perfectly:
That’s always the way. It reminds me of the whole Rick Santelli rant that led to the formation of the Tea Party movement.[1] The TARP program that gave $700 billion to banks might have caused some grumbling, but it was no big deal. But $75 billion for homeowners? That was an outrage! Didn’t the government know that its only proper role was to help the super rich? Helping homeowners was just a bridge too far.
For those in the mainstream press, it is clear that the nation is divided into two groups. There are the right kind of people who must always be helped and can never be allowed to fail. And they should never be criminally prosecuted because that would just be wrong. After all, these aren’t criminals. Just look at their nice suits and dashing haircuts! Then there are the wrong kind of people: the poor and middle classes. It isn’t that the Rick Santellis of the world are actively against them. They just think they aren’t deserving of any help ever. So it’s a perverse kind of communism in America: the rich receive regardless of their needs and the poor give regardless of their ability.
And the la-hand of the Freeeeee!
And the hoooome, of thhhhhe, braaaave!
[1] I think it is probably wrong to say that the rant started the Tea Party movement. Certainly it was a galvanizing event. But if it hadn’t been for Fox News pushing it, there never would have been a movement.