More Sand For The Sandbag Job

Helicopter Ben is certainly doing his bestest job in order to get the Democrats to PASS THE UBERBAILOUT NOW OR WE'LL ALL BE LIVING IN CARDBOARD BOXES!!!one!1!!

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told the U.S. Congress Tuesday that financial markets are under severe stress and urged immediate action to buy up hundreds of billions of dollars worth of tainted mortgage assets.

"Despite the efforts of the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, and other agencies, global financial markets remain under extraordinary stress," Bernanke said in remarks prepared for delivery to the Senate Banking Committee that were obtained by Reuters.

"Action by Congress is urgently required to stabilize the situation and avert what could otherwise be very serious consequences for our financial markets and our economy," he said.

Remember the GOP Plan, class:

1. Make the Democrats PASS THIS NOW OR WE'RE DOOMED!
2. Vote against Uberbailout and blame Obama, Nancy, Harry and Bush.
   
3. Win back House, Senate, and take White House in faux populist uprising/demotivated Dem base collapse.
   
4. Continue to urinate on Constitution and American taxpayer and get filthy rich while doing it.

Why does Ben Bernanke have a job again? I'm just curious.

[UPDATE] And David Brooks explains everything with his Village Idiocy Beam.

The Paulson rescue plan is one chapter. But there will be others. Over the next few years, the U.S. will have to climb out from under mountainous piles of debt. Many predict a long, gray recession. The country will not turn to free-market supply-siders. Nor will it turn to left-wing populists. It will turn to the safe heads from the investment banks. For Republicans, people like Paulson. For Democrats, the guiding lights will be those establishment figures who advised Barack Obama last week — including Volcker, Robert Rubin and Warren Buffett.

These time-tested advisers, or more precisely, their acolytes, are going to make the health and survival of the financial markets their first order of business, because without that stability, the entire economy will be in danger. Beyond that, they will embrace a certain sort of governing approach.

The government will be much more active in economic management (pleasing a certain sort of establishment Democrat). Government activism will provide support to corporations, banks and business and will be used to shore up the stable conditions they need to thrive (pleasing a certain sort of establishment Republican). Tax revenues from business activities will pay for progressive but business-friendly causes — investments in green technology, health care reform, infrastructure spending, education reform and scientific research.

If you wanted to devise a name for this approach, you might pick the phrase economist Arnold Kling has used: Progressive Corporatism. We’re not entering a phase in which government stands back and lets the chips fall. We’re not entering an era when the government pounds the powerful on behalf of the people. We’re entering an era of the educated establishment, in which government acts to create a stable — and often oligarchic — framework for capitalist endeavor.

After a liberal era and then a conservative era, we’re getting a glimpse of what comes next.

Yes, just what we need, more elite Smart Wall Street Guys running the country, unlike the last 30 years. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.