Tag Archives: TARP

How TARP Begat Obamacare

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Wall Street titans successfully lobbied Congress for TARP in 2008. Their success made Obamacare possible. [Credit: UPI]

Wall Street titans suc­cess­ful­ly lob­bied Con­gress for TARP in 2008. Their suc­cess made Oba­macare pos­si­ble. [Cred­it: UPI]

Oba­macare goes live on Octo­ber 1, when new­ly-cre­at­ed gov­ern­ment exchanges are to begin sell­ing health insur­ance and enrolling peo­ple in Med­ic­aid. The date car­ries an eerie sig­nif­i­cance. Octo­ber 1 also is the fifth anniver­sary of the Sen­ate vote that made Oba­macare pos­si­ble: a 74–25 vote to cre­ate the Trou­bled Asset Relief Pro­gram, the $700 bil­lion Wall Street bailout bill, more com­mon­ly known as TARP. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

David Stockman sez we’re all gonna die! He’s wrong. Right?

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Showtime's Savanarola from The Borgias

Show­time’s Sava­naro­la from The Borgias

Sea­son 3 of The Bor­gias pre­mieres on Show­time this Sun­day . For those not yet ensnared in this addic­tion, the series tells the sto­ry of Renais­sance Pope Alexan­der VI, one of the papacy’s most dev­il­ish­ly inter­est­ing char­ac­ters. Show­time takes the usu­al Hol­ly­wood lib­er­ties with his­to­ry, though Alexan­der, born in Spain as Rodri­go de Bor­gia, led a life that needs no embell­ish­ing. Con­tin­ue read­ing →