"Stimulus Bill: 'An Abomination Beyond Comprehension' - 'Bernie Folded'"
The Jimmy Dore Show (March 27, 2020)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-7uro3A3qU

Jimmy Dore: "You know his voice. It's Dylan Ratigan, ladies and gentleman, New York Times best-selling author, host of his own show on CNBC, and now you have another show happening, don't you Dylan? Tell people about it."

Dylan Ratigan: "I do a podcast every week with Tom Sosnoff at Tasty Trade, which is more market-centric. And that's the only other public work that I'm doing right now, other than the benefit of having these fun chats with you. Otherwise, my focus is away from the public for the time being."

Jimmy Dore: First of all, lets correct the record. You said 14 trillion dollars on Monday that they were going to pump into the economy, but it turns out it's not. Tell the people what the real numbers are.

Dylan Ratigan: "It amounts to 10 trillion. And I appreciate the opportunity to correct myself. In the conversation yesterday, there was a double count of the Fed's 4 trillion. The insurance is 4 trillion and the stimulus is 2 trillion. There was a double counting of the Fed's 4 trillion with the stimulus and that's how it ended up at 14 yesterday. I appreciate your faith in my reporting to you so I think it's important that I clarify when these things become finalized."

[1:27] Jimmy Dore: "So what they're really pumping in ... I don't understand those numbers. But what I know is that they're going to give four hundred and twenty-five million dollars to the Fed, and then the Fed is going to give out that money to corporations at the Treasury Department's and the Fed's behest. And there's no accounting for where they're going to spend that money before they spend it. There's only going to be a perfunctory, you know, oversight board of five people who are going to look into four point two trillion dollars worth of the money given out.

Dylan Ratigan: "Well again. There's four trillion at the Fed. Then there's two trillion with the government. It doesn't really matter. Your point remains the same, regardless of the dollar amounts or where the allocations are. It's an abomination beyond all comprehension, James."

[2:17]Jimmy Dore: "So, this is exactly . . ."

Dylan Ratigan: "This is a further consolidation of wealth among the super-rich, by giving only the super-rich money at a time when asset prices are down and everything is depressed so that the super-rich can take the taxpayers' money and buy more of all the assets to increase there strangle-hold and hammerlock on America."

Jimmy Dore: "And so, Why isn't anybody screaming about this, Dylan? Why is everyone acting like this is a good bill?"

Dylan Ratigan: "Because people on both the left and the right, although more on the left, I would say, you would think the most obvious people who should be most ashamed of themselvees in this situation would be Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren for obvious reasons, but that's just the beginning of the list. The fear of appearing to try to do something that is outside the scope of the historical corruption of this country at a time when the government is trying to appear to be active in the face of the crisis, the desire or willingness to do something outside the scope of that corruption, it is proven that not a single politician in America has the teeth or the stomach to do that."

. . .

[27:42] Dylan Ratigan: "I was so stunned. I was quite betrayed last time. Now I see it more clearly. It's one thing if a dog that you think is nice bites you, it's more of an offensive thing. But when a nasty dog with rabies behaves like a nasty dog with rabies, you can't take it personally."

Jimmy Dore: "So you were still under the thinking back in 2028 2009, that the people on Wall Street were rational actors?"

Dylan Ratigan: "No. I was under the impression that there was enough policy weight in America to recognize the mistakes that have been made and adjust them. And what I really didn't recognize was that the reason nothing was happening was not because of the resistance of the Republicans, which was obvious and apparent. It was because of the internal resistance of the center-left to do anythng, which is exactly what you're seeing here."

Jimmy Dore: "So, like the Nanci Pelosis and Chuck Schumers, they're not . . . "

Dylan Ratigan: "The Pelosi-Schumer faction is the most dangerous political community in America."

Jimmy Dore: "I agree. And it drives me nuts when I see the blue-checks on Twitter and the assholes at MSNBC calling her a master legislator and she's the check we have on Trump. She just passed his entire legislative agenda, you chumps."

[29:26] Dylan Ratigan: "They're on the same page. . . . They are actively restructuring the American economy in a way that simply consolidates ownership of assets to a smaller and smaller group in the private sector using each catastrophe as an opportunity to use taxpayer money to accomplish that. And then they call it a bailout for the people."

Jimmy Dore: "Yeah. So this is just a big con, because the people who own the government, they're just extracting wealth."

Dylan Ratigan: "That's right. They're just getting free money from the taxpayer to buy distressed assets from Americans at a time when the assets are distressed because of the biological catastrophe. So, basically, because you have a lot of people who are in distress from the catastophe, it's a great opportunity to rapaciously strip them of all their assets and make them your teneant and take away all their ownership. But the only way you can do that is if you have money. And so the only place you can get money us from the government. So you get these big companies that get the money from the government; the big financial institutions get money from the government so that they can then just raid all the assets and take complete ownership of everything. . . . And then Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer call it a bailout and Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren say, 'It looks good to me.'"

Jimmy Dore: "So, we've been betrayed by our entire political class, including our pretend heroes, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders."

Dylan Ratigan: "Unequivocally. . . . Staggerinly so."

[31:04] Jimmy Dore: "So, you're going to see a lot of reports about how Bernie got this language into the bill to protect workers. That's going to be the narrative, right?"

Dylan Ratigan: "I mean, there are all sorts of cutesy little narratives on the edges."

Jimmy Dore: "But the fact is that somebody should have stopped this bill."

Dylan Ratigan: "It's stunning to me because of the politial value of somebody standing up and saying 'This bill is garbage. Sure you have to support the banks. You can't have a financial crisis. But at the same time you must have intense strings attached to any money that comes out, (1), and (2) you have to provide universal income and universal health care, at least for the duration of the crisis.' That is obvious to any human being, regardless of your political persuasion. The willingness to consciously not see the obvious is impressive to me, actually. I have sort of been learning about the degree of huuman mental illness and its ability to only see what it wants to see. And this is a staggering example."

Jimmy Dore: "I don't even want to do the rest of this show."

Dylan Ratigan: "It's going to be great, Jimmy. I don't want to take you to a dark place. Just because the American government is corrupt doesn't mean that America or the world is doomed. Every government in the world is corrupt. It's just that the American government is simiarly corrupt, or uniquely corrupt in its own way. But there is no more merit in the American government than really any other government in the world. And that's a little bit heartbreaking for people who want to believe that it's a different place than that, but it's not. But that doesn't necessarily mean that . . . There are worse places to live than America. Let me put it that way. A lot worse. There is still a standard and quality of function and life here that is deteriorating, yes, and being consolidated by the corrupt government, yes, but it's still vastly superior to many, many parts of the world. I'll put it that way."