Larry Kudlow takes his douchebaggery to a new level

Larry Kudlow always looks like he’s pushing out a turtle head.

Previously I have documented what a depraved bankster-humping shill CNBC’s Larry Kudlow is, even more so than his coworkers. I even wrote a sample opinion about this specimen for my ill-fated application to Matt Taibbi’s Supreme Court of Assholedom. Kudlow is a guy who spoke out in favor of government bailouts for Wall Street while advocating cuts in programs for anyone whose job doesn’t including working with a trading platform.

It’s one thing to gleefully espouse the cause of the ruling class oligarchs on television on a daily basis; in fact, it’s almost a requirement for being a mainstream market analyst. But it’s quite another to throw down this gauntlet on national television, as Kudlow did Friday on CNBC. Speaking about the giant earthquake in Japan, where the death toll is expected to exceed 10,000, the plutocratic douche had this to say:

“The human toll here looks to be much worse than the economic toll, and we can be grateful for that. And the human toll is a tragedy. We know that. But these markets are—all these markets, right—stocks, commodities, gold, there is no breakout or breakdown. And I have to look at that as positive.”

Yes, thank god this earthquake didn’t spook the commodities speculators and day traders, who apparently didn’t see much opportunity in trying to exploit this particular catastrophe. And thank god we have Larry Kudlow to remind us that is what really counts in all this. Thousands of Jap workers can be replaced, but markets take a while to recover. We really dodged a bullet.

Now, since taking flak for his comments, Kudlow has issued a mea culpa via Twitter:

“I did not mean to say human toll in Japan less important than economic toll.Talking about markets.I flubbed the line. Sincere apology.”

Does anyone honestly think this guy didn’t mean to say what he said? Watch the clip again and tell me that’s not a man who believes with every fiber of his poltroonish being everything he’s saying. As for his tweet, it’s a typed apology consisting of three sentence fragments and one actual sentence in less than 140 characters. Larry, you didn’t have to go to all that trouble.

- Max

max.canning@gmail.com

I was robbed!

There’s robbery. There’s highway robbery. And then there’s waking up shivering in a snowbank bruised and bloodied with no pants. Such is my situation after being snubbed by Matt Taibbi for his Supreme Court of Assholedom. I want to be clear, I hold no ill-will toward him or any of those appointed to this most esteemed high court which enjoys original jurisdiction, but Jesus was this a bitter pill to swallow after sending him a résumé complete with a killer sample court opinion for this pro bono position. See for yourself. (I’ve omitted some of my personal information.)

Dear Matt,

Please accept my “résumé” for consideration in your search for associate justices for the Supreme Court of Assholedom. I’m a college instructor who holds a Master’s degree in Political Science…I have studied constitutional and international law, and have extensive experience dealing with assholes. For one thing I live in Boston. For another I have held several existential crisis-inducing customer service jobs in which talking to assholes was more than 90% of the job. I also worked as a governmental administrative assistant; and in that capacity my chief responsibility was handling constituent issues, which much of the time simply meant, “troubleshooting with assholes.” Also, I have been known to be an asshole myself on occasion. Just the other day I told a snide customer service rep to go fuck herself. You’d think I’d have some empathy. Nope.

I also have a website, http://www.inebriateddiscourse.com/. (Recommended blog writing sample: http://www.inebriateddiscourse.com/2011/01/sarah-palins-justifiably-unjustified.html.)

Finally, maybe I can put a face to my name, but we briefly crossed paths at your Griftopia signing in Boston/Brookline in November. I think I made a Mapplethorpe joke. Anyway, I don’t know if that helps my case, but it certainly can’t hurt. Unless you thought I was an asshole. But in which case that would demonstrate I have experience in this field. (This position lends itself to some bizarre criteria.)

Even if I’m not selected for a judgeship, I’d be interested in the Solicitor General position, should there be one. Kind of like Elena Kagan was, but without the old-Jewish-man-in-drag look.

I have written a sample opinion from a hypothetical case, America minus Lower Manhattan v. Larry Kudlow. If you have any questions about my candidacy, please don’t hesitate to contact me at max.canning@gmail.com.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Max Canning

AMERICA MINUS LOWER MANHATTAN v. LARRY KUDLOW

Ruling: ASSHOLE

Asshole Gradient: 5,037

JUSTICE CANNING delivered the opinion of the Court:

Petitioners America minus Lower Manhattan (America) allege, inter alia, that Larry Kudlow (Kudlow) has engaged in Assholery on a regular basis via innumerable pro-oligarchy statements during the telecast of his show, The Kudlow Report on CNBC. For the purposes of this case, America has asked the Court to examine Kudlow’s September 23rd 2008 on-air remarks in support of the Trouble Assets Relief Program (TARP), and juxtapose them with Kudlow’s remarks on same program December 7th, 2009.

In championing the bailouts of Wall Street, specifically TARP, on 9/23/08, Kudlow alleged, “This is a bailout…of Main Street, of middle class folks who desperately need credit.” Kudlow was advocating the rescue of the financial services sector by the federal government in direct violation of the very free market principles he said he favored. His prediction that TARP was a bailout of Main Street was dubious then, and seems more preposterous now in light of subsequent developments.

Kudlow’s hypocrisy and deceit alone on this occasion fulfill the necessary criteria for Assholedom. However, the Court’s examination does not end there, being obliged as it is to consider Kudlow’s position on bank bailouts vis-à-vis statements he made on his program the following year. On December 7th 2009, in response to a story about possible money left over from TARP, Kudlow declared that the excess money should go to “pay down the debt” and not to bolster “social safety nets” for America. Thus, Kudlow favored spending $700 billion in taxpayer money on rescuing the nation’s largest financial institutions, but was against spending any leftover money on actual individual taxpayers.

As the Court noted in Working Stiffs v. Evan Newmark and Wall Street Journal, wealthy individuals can have no reasonable expectation of immunity from being deemed an Asshole by this Court (or by people in general) if they advocate, either directly or indirectly, oligarchy, plutocracy, aristocracy etc. However, the burden of proof for Assholedom for working class advocates of oligarchy etc. is greater given that they are more likely to be ignorant of the inevitable consequences of assenting to the principles espoused by such establishment media personalities. This is discussed further in Annoyed Coworkers v. Gomer McYokel. In that ruling, the Court rejected Coworkers’ contention that McYokel was an asshole because he made pro-oligarchy statements at work, having found that McYokel lacked the intellectual capacity necessary to understand the consequences of a flat-rate national income tax, which he advocated.

The Court did however, rule McYokel an asshole after examining the harsh and berating nature of his workplace pontifications. Continuously harping on a given topic, whatever the content and after others have made clear their total lack of interest, is grounds for a declaration of Assholedom, unless it can be shown the ranting is a byproduct of mental defect as defined in Canning Family v. Quasi-Retarded Uncle Phil.

Kudlow is both a well-to-do individual and one that is of reasonably sound mind. (Note that the Court rejected a motion to consider Kudlow’s substantial cocaine use in the 1980s as possible grounds for an Uncle Phil exemption.) The Court thus finds that Kudlow has indeed engaged in Assholedom on the occasions cited above. Therefore, Larry Kudlow is an Asshole, and with a gradient of 5,037.

DISSENT: None.

Larry Kudlow: Plutocratic Douchebag

Larry Kudlow explains why Wall Street needs our money, but we don’t.

I wasn’t going to write anything for this site today, but then I happened to catch part of the Kudlow Report tonight on CNBC. It was thoroughly infuriating. Larry Kudlow was talking about the reduced cost of the Troubled Assets Relief Program. Now, in case you missed that story, from NPR:

“Large banks are repaying the bailout money they received much faster than expected. The administration says the cost of the TARP program will be about $200 billion less than estimated. Big financial firms are making profits again because the government has driven down borrowing costs for banks and safeguarded their debts.”

“Safeguarded their debts” is a euphemism for “saddled the taxpayers with the responsibility for the banks’ toxic assets and have extended huge lines of credit to them.” The government has promised Citigroup that it would cover up to $277 billion in losses for that firm alone!

Anyway, Kudlow was interviewing Senator John Thune (R - South Carolina), talking about the possibility of the $200 billion going towards what the former called a “Democratic slush fund,” instead of paying down debt. Kudlow seemed to be particularly concerned about the prospect of the money being spent on “social safety nets” and a jobs creation plan that might be on Obama’s agenda. Put another way, Kudlow doesn’t want the money going to social programs, such as unemployment insurance, health care, and education.

Ok, so Kudlow’s a stickler for paying down the national debt, and “protecting the taxpayers,” as he likes to say. There’s nothing wrong with that. But wait. Let’s rewind to the days right before TARP was passed by Congress in what was a hideous betrayal of American public opinion. See what Kudlow told Senator Bernie Sanders (I - Vermont) in the first 30 seconds of this clip:

Later in the interview Kudlow claimed of TARP, “This is a bailout…of Main Street, of middle class folks who desperately need credit.”

Bull. Shit. Desperately need credit? What the hell does he think caused this crisis in the first place? High interest rates? A deflationary spiral? Credit was the last thing Main Street needed then or needs now. What the fuck was this man talking about? If anyone can make any sense of this comment, email me or post to the Facebook page.

But back to the main point of this post; Kudlow’s position on TARP and the $200 billion left over from it tell us all we need to know about him and the fuckers at CNBC, and the business world in general. To review, Kudlow heartily supported a $700 billion government bailout of Wall Street financial institutions that were in the shitter for no reason other than their own greed. When it is discovered that $200 billion of the TARP will not be necessary, Kudlow goes out of his way to express concern that the money will go directly to Main Street, which is in the shitter because of the greedy assholes on Wall Street.

If you watched the rest of the video above, (beginning at the 3:35 mark) Sanders pointed out that Kudlow is mortified by the idea that the government spend money for health care or the alleviation childhood poverty, but he has no qualms about forking over hefty sums of money to the giant vampire squids of Wall Street.

Should we be surprised that some douche can go on TV, lobby for the rescue of plutocrats from their own greed-driven death spirals, emphatically state that the extra money from this enterprise has no business going towards “social safety nets,” and then not get his studio burned down by an angry mob with him inside? On CNBC, probably not. The hoi polloi aren’t exactly known for following the business press—or any press for that matter. But one gets the sense that even if, say, some working class teabagger had been watching this, there would be nods of approval at Kudlow’s remarks while ignoring his outrageous double standard: socialism for the rich, capitalism for everyone else.

That’s where we’re at in this country. They don’t even try to hide it anymore. Larry Kudlow can go on television and advocate giving taxpayer money to Wall Street banks, but then say that the government has no business spending taxpayer money on programs for the taxpayers. That is his idea of “protecting the taxpayers.”

Larry Fucking Kudlow, ladies and gentlemen.

- Max