Bailout rage: "Socialism in America ... Welcome to the Third World!"

Backlash against the unprecedented taxpayer bailout for banks is building, with critics ripping recent U.S. economic policy as "punch drunk," "casino capitalism" and "socialism in America."

"The free market for all intents and purposes is dead in America,” said Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Kentucky, the most vocal bailout critic in the Senate.  “The action proposed today by the Treasury Department will take away the free market and institute socialism in America."

"Dear United States,  Welcome to the Third  World!" wrote Los Angeles Times columnist Rosa Brooks. "It's not every day that a superpower makes a bid to transform itself into a Third World nation."

Housing and economic blogs again crackled with rage against the Bush administration's emergency plan to purchase illiquid assets from the nation's banks and lenders.

"I am livid," commenter "Jenna" wrote on L.A. Land. "Words fail to express how angry I am. I didn't get million dollar bonuses, I didn't use my home like an ATM, I didn't buy a home I couldn't afford. Nonetheless, I am going to have to pay for sgovernmentomething that was completely avoidable. It isn't brain surgery to know that selling homes to people who can't afford them was a bad idea and that someday they would have to pay the piper."

"We are doomed," wrote another commenter on L.A. Land. "I am fresh out of outrage."

Another commenter asked, "How can they do this? The financial system will start the party over again tomorrow. It is so unfair and crooked, stealing from our children to pay for this."

Mutual fund pioneer John Bogle said the U.S. government appears "punch drunk" in its stumbling efforts to rescue the financial system. “We're playing a game of casino capitalism, interfering with the way the market is working,” Bogle told Bloomberg News. “The  seems punch drunk. It doesn't seem systematic.”

Historian Allan Meltzer called the bailout plan "social democracy at its worst." He told Bloomberg News, "
“If they remove financial losses from the financial institution,” the government should ensure that “the financial company will still owe the money,” he said. “Civilized countries like Chile do that.”

-- Peter Viles

Your thoughts? Comments? Follow L.A. Land on Twitter, or e-mail story tips to Peter Viles.

Photo Credit: Bloomberg News photo shows, from left, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, President Bush and Teasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

Comments

[Raul - Los Angeles, CA]

People need to clam down with this outrage against the bailout. You have to remember it ain't personal. It' business. What I mean by that is that we will all have to pay for it in order to get through this mess. Would all the "outraged people" really want to consider the alternative? Would you really want a depression and all its consequences? I too didn't get a bonus from Wall Street. I put 20% down to buy my house. I bought just enough - nothing more or less than what I needed. I acted responsibly and paid my mortgage on time. But so what? This does not entitle me to be "outraged". I am not willing to throw away the baby out with the bath water. This outrage is misdirected. You want to direct your outrage? Vote against the people who have been running this country for the last 8 years! They are truly the outrageous bunch!

[Christina]

This is so wrong. The financial institutions are reaping what they sow and they should take the consequences. Does that mean other people will be affected? Yes. Bad decisions also hurt other people and the financial institutions should pay restitution for that too. If they have to go bankrupt and sell their assets, then they need to do that. Government should not bail them out. The financial institutions wanted a free market and they got it. Bailouts are not free market.

[jeff]

This conservative administration railed and whined about the funds spent on welfare for the poor. Yet, it has no qualms whatsoever in shoring up the corporate welfare system, giving billions of dollars to those who are already rich. At the same time, we have bloggers who whined and moaned that capitalism is dead in this country and we are turning into socialism by bailing out these companies. What these people need to understand is that capitalism has its limits. The government had to step in because the unfettered capitalism that these bloggers have been championing is leading this country right into the dumps.

[MyLessThanPrimeBeef]

Future historians have trouble verifying who said it, but the quote goes like this: "I found Washington DC built of gold and left it built of brick."

Some argue it was Greenspan. Some attribute it to Bernanke, Bush, Wilson, FDR or the Congress.

[Nick]

Amidst the total disaster that is our government's unmitigated crusade to create the next Great Depression (Biden yesterday even mentioned that people need to get with the new "deal"), I find myself unable to really muster any more rage.

Everybody knows the bailouts are a disaster for our economy, the free market, capitalism, and financially responsible Americans. Everybody knows the CEO's and executives who milked the country for billions are walking away laughing. Everybody knows the Fed is in bed with them, and actively betraying the rest of the country. Everybody knows the "loans" the bankrupt financial institutions are not going to be paid back, the underlying assets are worthless, and the taxpayer will eat the losses. Everybody knows the huge investment banks are broke, there will be trillions more in housing loan defaults, the losses are inevitable, and the society will pay for them in the greatest socialist bailout in human history. Everybody knows we're going along the exact same socialist path which created the Great Depression and still underpins the long-term bleak financial position of the US today. Everybody knows all of this.

There's no light at the end of the tunnel, no happy ending to look forward to. We're on a path, determined by mass unthinking social behavior, as absolute as it was in 1929, when our country first walked it. All the rage in the world isn't going to change the nature of politicians acting to appease the masses, or make the masses smarter, or prevent the idiot masses from willfully destroying the freedoms which gave them their prosperity. The next time you see a socialist plan greeted with elation, remember, "this is how democracy dies, with thunderous applause."

[Tristan]

$500b / 300 m citizens = 1.6m per citizen. Why not set up single premium deferred annuities for each American set to begin pay out at age 50? Then get out of Medicare and have private insurers compete for their healthcare premiums. Also exit, Medicaid and food stamps as people can choose how to spend their pay-out.

[Freedom Eagle]

So for a bailout that'll cost taxpayers $7 a person, shouldn't people that weren't irresponsible with their money get at least a timeshare out of those bad mortgages?

[Nancy]

I love all the people who said this bailout had to happen. We delayed what should have been a longer recession in 2001, and now we are lucky if we don't have full-blown depression right now.

All this is doing is delaying the inevitable. And it will probably be much worse than we can imagine. :-(

[LA-renter]

The salve for our outrage is "would you want the alternative?"

From the NYT:
Mr. Schumer described the meeting as “somber,”
Mr. Dodd cut in. “Somber doesn’t begin to justify the words... We have never heard language like this.”
...Although Mr. Schumer, Mr. Dodd and other participants declined to repeat precisely what they were told by Mr. Bernanke and Mr. Paulson.

IT is really bad... but we can't tell you what IT is.

Was there a burning bush in the room?

How can people who didn't see this coming, be trusted to know what is coming next?

[MAtt]

It is amazing that those conservatives who are outraged by these bailouts had no problem with similar amounts of money being spent in Iraq. At least the bailout funds will actually improve a serious problem - a problem caused by the failure of conservative economic policies - while the money spent in Iraq made us weaker and our enemies stronger.

[MattJ]

For those arguing that this is a bailout of the rich - a lot of non-rich people have money in money markets, have pensions, and have life insurance or annuities. All of these are at great risk without some fix. If you are willing to see all of these lose a significant percentage of their value, then stay with your no bailout approach. Otherwise, come up with a different solution.

[JW]

Clinton, Republicans agree to deregulation of US financial system

By Martin McLaughlin
1 November 1999

An agreement between the Clinton administration and congressional Republicans, reached during all-night negotiations which concluded in the early hours of October 22, sets the stage for passage of the most sweeping banking deregulation bill in American history, lifting virtually all restraints on the operation of the giant monopolies which dominate the financial system.

The proposed Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 would do away with restrictions on the integration of banking, insurance and stock trading imposed by the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, one of the central pillars of Roosevelt's New Deal. Under the old law, banks, brokerages and insurance companies were effectively barred from entering each others' industries, and investment banking and commercial banking were separated.

The certain result of repeal of Glass-Steagall will be a wave of mergers surpassing even the colossal combinations of the past several years. The Wall Street Journal wrote, "With the stroke of the president's pen, investment firms like Merrill Lynch & Co. and banks like Bank of America Corp., are expected to be on the prowl for acquisitions." The financial press predicted that the most likely mergers would come from big banks acquiring insurance companies, with John Hancock, Prudential and The Hartford all expected to be targeted.

Kenneth Guenther, executive vice president of Independent Community Bankers of America, an association of small rural banks which opposed the bill, warned, "This is going to begin a wave of major mergers and acquisitions in the financial-services industry. We're moving to an oligopolistic situation."

One such merger was already carried out well before the passage of the legislation, the $72 billion deal which brought together Citibank, the biggest New York bank, and Travelers Group Inc., the huge insurance and financial services conglomerate, which owns Salomon Smith Barney, a major brokerage. That merger was negotiated despite the fact that the merged company, Citigroup, was in violation of the Glass-Steagall Act, because billionaire Travelers boss Sanford Weill and Citibank CEO John Reed were confident of bipartisan support for repeal of the 60-year-old law.

Campaign of influence-buying

They had good reason, to be sure. The banking, insurance and brokerage industry lobbyists have combined their forces over the last five years to mount the best-financed campaign of influence-buying ever seen in Washington. In 1997 and 1998 alone, the three industries spent over $300 million on the effort: $58 million in campaign contributions to Democratic and Republican candidates, $87 million in "soft money" contributions to the Democratic and Republican parties, and $163 million on lobbying of elected officials.

The chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Texas Republican Phil Gramm, himself collected more than $1.5 million in cash from the three industries during the last five years: $496,610 from the insurance industry, $760,404 from the securities industry and $407,956 from banks.

During the final hours of negotiations between the House-Senate conference committee and White House and Treasury officials, dozens of well-heeled lobbyists crowded the corridors outside the room where the final deal-making was going on. Edward Yingling, chief lobbyist for the American Bankers Association, told the New York Times, "If I had to guess, I would say it's probably the most heavily lobbied, most expensive issue" in a generation.

While Democratic and Republican congressmen and industry lobbyists claimed that deregulation would spark competition and improve services to consumers, the same claims have proven bogus in the case of telecommunications, airlines and other industries freed from federal regulations. Consumer groups noted that since the passage of a 1994 banking deregulation bill which permitted bank holding companies to operate in more than one state, both checking fees and ATM fees have risen sharply.

Differing versions of financial services deregulation passed the House and Senate earlier this year, and the conference committee was called to work out a consensus bill and avert a White House veto. The principal bone of contention in the last few days before the agreement had nothing to do with the central thrust of the bill, on which there was near-unanimous bipartisan support.

The sticking point was the effort by Gramm to gut the Community Reinvestment Act, a 1977 anti-redlining law which requires that banks make a certain proportion of their loans in minority and poor neighborhoods. Gramm blocked passage of a similar deregulation bill last year over demands to cripple the CRA, and bank lobbyists were in a panic, during the week before the deal was made, that the dispute would once again prevent any bill from being adopted.

Gramm and other extreme-right Republicans saw the opportunity to damage their political opponents among minority businessmen and community groups, who generally support the Democratic Party. Gramm succeeded in inserting two provisions to weaken the CRA, one reducing the frequency of examinations for CRA compliance to once every five years for smaller banks, the other compelling public disclosure of loans made under the program.

The latter provision was particularly offensive to black and other minority business and community groups, who have used the CRA provisions as a lever by threatening to challenge mergers and other bank operations which require government approval. In most such cases, the banks have offered loans to businessmen or outright grants to community groups in return for dropping their legal actions. These petty-bourgeois elements have been able to posture as defenders of the black or Hispanic community, while pocketing what are essentially payoffs from finance capital and concealing from the public the details of this relationship.

The banks and other financial institutions did not themselves oppose continuation of the CRA, which they have treated as nothing more than a cost of doing a highly profitable business in minority areas. Loans tied to the CRA average a 20 percent rate of return. Financial industry lobbyists complained that they were being caught in a crossfire between the Republicans and Democrats which was unrelated to the main purpose of the bill.

The Clinton White House threatened to veto the bill if CRA provisions were substantially weakened, in response to heavy pressure from the Congressional Black Caucus and the Reverend Jesse Jackson, whose Operation PUSH has made extensive use of CRA in its campaigns to pressure corporations and banks for more opportunities for black businessmen. But eventually the White House caved in to Gramm, accepting his amendments so long as the program remained formally in place.

The White House similarly retreated on pledges that consumer privacy would be protected in the legislation. Consumer groups pointed to the potential for abuse of financial information once giant conglomerates were created which would handle loans, investments and insurance at the same time. For example: a bank could refuse to give a 30-year mortgage to a customer whose medical records, filed with the bank's insurance subsidiary, revealed a fatal disease.

The final draft of the bill contains a consumer privacy protection clause, but it is extremely weak, applying only to the transfer of information outside of a financial conglomerate, not within it. Thus Citigroup will be able to pass on financial information about its bank depositors to Travelers Insurance, but not to an outside company like Prudential. Even that limitation would be breached if there was a contractual relationship with the outside company, as in the case of a telemarketer which did work for Citigroup and was given private information about Citigroup depositors to aid in its telephone solicitations.

Threat to financial stability

The proposed deregulation will increase the degree of monopolization in finance and worsen the position of consumers in relation to creditors. Even more significant is its impact on the overall stability of US and world capitalism. The bill ties the banking system and the insurance industry even more directly to the volatile US stock market, virtually guaranteeing that any significant plunge on Wall Street will have an immediate and catastrophic impact throughout the US financial system.

The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, which the deregulation bill would repeal, was not adopted to protect consumers, although one of its most celebrated provisions was the establishment of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which guarantees bank deposits of up to $100,000. The law was enacted during the first 100 days of the Roosevelt administration to rescue a banking system which had collapsed, wiping out the life savings of millions of working people, and threatening to bring the profit system to a complete standstill.

As a recent history of that era notes: "The more than five thousand bank failures between the Crash and the New Deal's rescue operation in March 1933 wiped out some $7 billion in depositors' money. Accelerating foreclosures on defaulted home mortgages—150,000 homeowners lost their property in 1930, 200,000 in 1931, 250,000 in 1932—stripped millions of people of both shelter and life savings at a single stroke and menaced the balance sheets of thousands of surviving banks" (David Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 162-63).

The separation of banking and the stock exchange was ordered in response to revelations of the gross corruption and manipulation of the market by giant banking houses, above all the House of Morgan, which organized huge corporate mergers for its own profit and awarded preferential access to share issues to favored politicians and businessmen. Such insider trading played a major role in the speculative boom which preceded the 1929 crash.

Over the past 20 years the restrictions imposed by Glass-Steagall have been gradually relaxed under pressure from the banks, which sought more profitable outlets for their capital, especially in the booming stock market, and which complained that foreign competitors suffered no such limitations to their financial operations. In 1990 the Federal Reserve Board first permitted a bank (J.P. Morgan) to sell stock through a subsidiary, although stock market operations were limited to 10 percent of the company's total revenue. In 1996 this ceiling was lifted to 25 percent. Now it will be abolished.

The Wall Street Journal celebrated the agreement to end such restrictions with an editorial declaring that the banks had been unfairly scapegoated for the Great Depression. The headline of one Journal article detailing the impact of the proposed law declared, "Finally, 1929 Begins to Fade."

This comment underscores the greatest irony in the banking deregulation bill. Legislation first adopted to save American capitalism from the consequences of the 1929 Wall Street Crash is being abolished just at the point where the conditions are emerging for an even greater speculative financial collapse. The enormous volatility in the stock exchange in recent months has been accompanied by repeated warnings that stocks are grossly overvalued, with some computer and Internet stocks selling at prices 100 times earnings or even greater.

And there is a much more recent experience than 1929 to serve as a cautionary tale. A financial deregulation bill was passed in the early 1980s under the Reagan administration, lifting many restrictions on the activities of savings and loan associations, which had previously been limited primarily to the home-loan market. The result was an orgy of speculation, profiteering and outright plundering of assets, culminating in collapse and the biggest financial bailout in US history, costing the federal government more than $500 billion. The repetition of such events in the much larger banking and securities markets would be beyond the scope of any federal bailout.

[Thank You Reagan]

Since the 80's we have heard the cries to deregulate everything. Now this philosophy has proved to be a sham. The Free Market is dead and deregulation killed it. Whats even more ironic is the so called champions of the free market (Republicans) and deregulation presided over its death. Could you imagine if we had privatized social security like the republicans wanted?

Dont get me wrong, Bill Clinton deserves some blame for this too, because he bought into the free market religion that was so prevalent around washington. But today a Republican president, a member of the party who yelled the loudest for deregulation is bailing out the stock market to the tune of a trillion dollars or more.

What we need to do is lookup all the regulatory laws we had before Reagan and reinstate them. The days of deregulation are over, call it socialism, or whatever you like but the economic philosphies of the past are dead. Modern American capitalism is a failure just like Russian Communism.

[gjccks]

I read that the SEC lobbied to let these firms go from leverage of 12 to 1 to a whopping 30 to 1. This is the SEC that now want to bail them out. They created it and in just 4 years the whole thing blew up. Do you think we trust them to do the right thing now.

[sailor7x]

What can we do? I've got one idea....

This will be sold to us as being the only way to save pension funds, world trade, our jobs etc.. which may be true.

But the big winners and what they've done all needs to be publicized - publicized huge so that everybody knows them and understands the devastation they've caused.

Since no journalist would every do this can one of you expert blogosphere types come up with a list of the culprits in this thing beyond Greenspan and the others? A list of CEO's for Wacovia, Fannie and Freddie, WAMU, and Lehman. These guys I assume are living lives of incredible luxury - jets mansions limos etc. -
Get their names out there and send out the call to have them stripped of their possessions, money, and reputations. There is no legal precedent for this of course but I doubt there is legal precedent for the federal govt. purchasing failing private corporations.

It's a start....

[Scott J.]

I am torch and pitchfork angry about this. I am absolutely livid.

I'm spending this weekend writing my representatives. I've never done that in my life. I will also be calling their offices - incessantly. And, come election time, I'm voting out every incumbent - regardless of political party.

And, I'm not alone. My dad - a died in the wool Republican - is doing the same. For the first time in 40 years. So are my neighbors, our friends, and everyone we know. We are all unbelievably pissed - and, while we all have our lives, kids, and jobs to tend to, and have watched this trainwreck from afar to date, this is now going too far. As ordinary Americans, it is time to finally say "enough".

And, if there is a march in Washington about this, I'll be marching. With my torch and pitchfork.

My brother is more than family; he's my best friend. He had to move his family out of CA in 2005 due to the insane house prices out here. These politicians need to explain to my two daughters why their uncle, and auntie, and their cousins are just a Christmas card and a phone call - and why they are spending MY TAXPAYER MONEY in an attempt to ensure it stays that way the rest of our normal lifetimes.

I simply cannot believe this. All the bad debts get offloaded from the banks to the taxpayers, and everyone thinks this is a good idea? The banks - and their executives, commissioned staff, etc. - get to keep all the revenue from the "good years"? Borrowers who binged on credit get taxpayer money - MY MONEY - to help them pay off their gambling debts? Even otherwise solvent banks get to polish up their balance sheets by jettisoning whatever is anchoring it? What country am I living in?

What happened to the America that I knew? That I was taught existed? I used to scoff whem Democrats accused Republicans of "corporate welfare". Now, I join their scorn.

THIS MUST BE STOPPED. Ordinary Americans have to get off their couch, take time out of soccer practice, and speak up. We can no longer be silent.

[LuvMeSumMe]

Why is everyone bashing "this administration" or any president? We as a society need to take responsibility that we allowed greed.
I acted responsibly and did not engage in the housing greed but so what. Clinton and Bush did plenty to hurt this. Bankers did more. "We the people" did the most. Why is everyone complaining if we are all part of the problem.
We elected the officials, we use these banks, we invest in these markets and knew that these over priced loans were out there. And even if someone out there can say they did nothing wrong and spent every waking moment fighting the oncoming injustice which started a long long long time ago get over it. I am a free market supporter and do not believe we should bail the system out but I don't know what they heard in the meetings. I don't know if what they are doing is right or wrong (and I lean towards wrong). But guess what I have a new small business and want to buy a home in the next couple of years. So unless I want to live in Russia, Europe, or Canada I should do everything I can to help the system work and be involved rather than complain about life not being fair.

[RM]

Maybe now we'll be fighting less wars, pretending our systems are the best in the world and the only ones that are truly worth having. So much for the free markets and our capital system. At least in other socialist countries the citizens share in the benefits, where as we only will share the losses. At the end of the day, Bush and Paulson decided better to be a socialist nation then financial collapse. All we now need is more printing presses paper and ink.

[amir]

Many of you fail to realize we don't really know what this bailout entails. Yes, the government will pledge a giant sum of money, but the devil is in the details.

They set up a system to buy assets that nobody wants. The only question is how much are they paying? If they pay only 35cents on the dollar this could actually work. The banks will be able to sell, albeit at great losses. With the government putting a price, some other institutes will buy at 40 cents on the dollar. Yes, some banks will go under, but at least will know quickly who's not solvent.

Then the government, several years later, will be able to sell the securities for slightly higher, let's say 45 cents on the dollar. The bailout could even prove to be profitable. (the same could also happen to the AIG bailout with its 11% return and 85% equity stake in one of the biggest insurers in the world, but I digress...)

And here's the best silver lining, this buyout of bad debt will allow the debt to be marketed to vultures. They will foreclose on the real estate to get their 45 cents back. It will cause a quicker price discovery for real estate. Prices will go down faster, not slower.

Or, I could be wrong, but my feeling is that the anger about a bailout is being felt at the Fed and treasury as well.

The truth is that we don't really know yet what all this means until the details come through, so let's all take a breather.

[Pat]

There will be no acceptance without the appearance of justice.

[CaptHowdy]

We should go get the money back. Seriously. We know where it all went - or at least it's within our power to figure out where it all went.

While we're setting up new federal trusts and funds and comissions and whatnot, we should also create a new investigatory body.

Every real estate transaction of the past 5 years should be investigated for fraud. All profits made by selling worthless mortgage backed securities should be recovered.

Why not? It's no more crazy than the average american taxpayer having to pay for bad loans and the losses of overleveraged hedge funds. Let's go get the money back.

Hell, if we're going to become socialists, then let's do it right - let's go confiscate some wealth.

[David Cee]

McSame said we have to stop those Greedy Wall Street profiteers with legislation and his message of change. This from the next preident who owns either 7 or 11 houses (I'll have my staff get back to you on that).

[somedude]

I don't trust the predictions of unspecified dire consequences. Congress can't, all of a sudden, pretend to understand the problem after watching a little speech on the subject.

And now we just have to trust their solution???? They don't even know what they are solving.

If deregulation was the problem, let it be the solution. Government should keep it's hands off and let the free market show these thieves what it's capable of.

In the end life will go on, and be a little fairer.

[bernanke et al]

Hi there,

My name has been mentioned in your blog so much I felt compelled to clear a few things up for you.
First, please stop thinking that my friends and I didn't see this "problem" developing from the start. (I put it in quotations, because only uninformed keep calling it a problem.) WE created it. Why, you will ask? Well, take a look at the relocation of wealth that has been occuring for the last 30 years or so and will keep going on for the forseable long-term future and you will understand. The owners of the country (and most of the world, I would say) are trying to maximize their returns on the "USA" investment. I mean, if you own 80% of something, isn't it annoying not to own more? If you are enterprising enough and have been running the business for a long period you should be able to further increase your share, right? (And God know that it has been owned by the same group from the beginning.) The other reason is that it is really annoying to have to deal with this threat of civil discontent all the time. The more liberty and stuff you plebians have, the more annoying you get. Less education and less "civil liberties" makes for more obedient workers. And that's what this business needs - obedient workers. And soldiers.
So, don't panic, don't get angry, don't worry, nothing big and bad is going to happen, we have it under control, we always did. (Do you seriously believe that we couldn't have figured out what is going to happen when you give people loans they can't repay and sell them as securities to other people. Don't you think we got everyone by the balls now? For goodness sakes WE devised the business model! And it was a genius model, think of it - you create and instant wealth transfer and an equivalent of economic 9/11 which you can now hold over people's head forever. Come to think of it maybe I will ask the bosses if they think introducing term "economic terrorist" might not be a bad idea. Hm.)
In conclusion: Please keep this communique confidential. We don't want for people to get a whiff of what is really going on on a large scale. that could become messy, who wants to have martial law or something with a similar name brought in? Keep blah, blahing like you always do, then go to work, drive three hours daily to get there and back and watch some TV. Gay marriage, black president, 70-year old decrepit man and a whatever she is to you guys for VP, legalizing of abortion, war in Iraq and such topics should fullfil your need to feel like you are making a difference by voting and participating. Not actually getting organized and doing something like marching on Washington and New York every day until you get what you need to improve your lot. God knows there is enough of you. That would become messy, but we can deal with it.
Anyway, that's the story and I have a feeling some of you already knew this, but it is worth hearing it from me I think.
Take care.

[sailor7x]

I want to change my name to

TORCH AND PITCHFORK ANGRY!!