Tramp After Hours: Beard Reaching Out to the People Edition

This post has a couple of purposes:

1. To announce that Tramp will have a slow day tomorrow due to some traveling. Posts will occur as allowable.

2. According to a post on Business Week, B squared is going to holding town hall meetings in Kansas City on July 26.

Fed Statement:

Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben S. Bernanke will participate in an hour-long town hall-type meeting with local citizens at 7 p.m. EDT (6 p.m. CDT) on Sunday, July 26 at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, 1 Memorial Drive, Kansas City, Mo. The event will be moderated by Jim Lehrer, anchor and executive editor of The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

Well well well. Is Ben doing a little campaigning for himself to keep the job as Chief Money-Money Man? Be far from us here at Tramp to speculate about why all the transparency, but we'll give it a shot:

BEARD (interior monologue): A certain someone that has the same initials as body odor is all about the transparency...this might be a good move, because he's pretty good at those town halls and then we'd have something to talk about other than how Tim has probably never gotten laid since he's been in DC and the girls here are easy...and I'm from the South. I can do this. I'm folksy. Missouri-types will like me. They're a folksy bunch too.

But also a certain other someone has decided that he's not wearing socks anymore and he's getting a little too comfortable thinking he can just waltz in after being at that geekshop DE Shaw and Harvard and start running things because he didn't have to deal with Paulson and C-3P0-John Thain and Ken Lewis calling at 3 am completely smashed going on about how no one in New York likes him and W...don't get me started....

Fed Chair Bernanke to Hold Town Hall on Economy [Business Week] Sphere: Related Content

Live Blogging Ben Bernanke's Testimony Wrapping Up

Rep. "I'm from Baltimore" Cummings: I get it Ben. I get it man. But actually I'm confused. You say, you expressed concern about the MAC. You didn't believe that KL was up for the job. Yes or no?

Ben: That's not a yes or no answer Baltimore.

Baltimore Cummings: So he's just dumb when it comes to material...uh....MAC's? But then you said, "Ken I'm smarter than you, just do what I say"?

Ben: Basically.

Baltimore Cummings: Everyone in this room understands that KL was peeing his pants. Except for Kapture over there who only wants to talk about BlackRock. Would you want Paulson to use the Vietnamese water torture on Ken Lewis?

Ben: I didn't tell Mr. Clean to do anything. What did I say about repeating myself?

Rep. Clay is up now and he's sitting next to Pink Lady Watson which has got to be distracting. The dude needs some shades if he's going to be sitting next to her.

Clay: Are people better off when they're uninformed about a bank that was going down like the Titanic.

Ben: Probably.

Clay: Was it really necessary to save AIG? I mean, c'mon, really, was it?

Ben: Look man, I wasn't willing to go down the rabbit hole. This is not fucking Alice In Wonderland. I pulled the trigger. I'd rather you just said "thank you" and went on your way.

Ben is one cool dude. These questions are flying off of him like bullets off Superman. He finally unfolded his arms though so he might be cracking.

Rep. Fortenberry has some kind of gray Rod Blagojevich thing going on. He yields his time to Rep. "who's a liar" Burton, who barely gets the question in and Ben scoffs.

Rep. Welch: KL said Merrill was a good deal but just left out that little thing about the losses. When he does drop that tidbit, he says everything's cool because the Fed and the Treasury would have our backs. True or untrue?

Ben: Pretty much I guess.

Rep. Kanjorksi (?): Threats. Lies. Not sure I'm down with those words. I'm looking at you, Burton. Tell us how fucked up things were so people don't forget that we were on the brink.

Ben: Finally. Things were bad. Real bad. Not bad, like Michael Jackson, Bad. Like breadline bad. Like Mel Gibson/Mad Max, Kevin Costner/Waterworld/Postman, [enter other crappy apocolyptic movie here] bad.

Rep. Turner has voted against every bailout, thankyouverymuch. This guy is taking the opportunity to say that he introduced an amendment to the Constitution that would prevent the Federal Govt. from owning equity in a private company. There is no question coming....He wantsBernanke's thoughts on the Amendment. Of course.

Ben: Dude. You're out of your league. Failure is good but BIG FAILURE is not good. You've got to approach big failure like trying to get ahottie in the sack. Slow, controlled, methodical, and then SCORE! Or something like that.

UPDATE:Finally, they're wrapping up at 1:10 EDT. Issa and Burton win the grandstanding awards for this particular session. Both of them think Ben is a liar. Burton is going on about socialism and just feels like yelling at Ben.

Ben unfolds his arm to point back at Burton, so he's obv, pissed.

We're cutting out of this early. No chance for Maxine Waters gives us an out. Sphere: Related Content

Live Blogging Ben's Testimony Part II

Rep. Burton: Is Ken Lewis a liar?

Ben: In general or about the us telling him he would be out on his ass if he didn't close this deal?

Rep. Burton is mostly interested in whether people are liars or not. He's shuffling papers frantically because he's old and just woke up obviously.

Burton: I used to be the Chairman, thankyouverymuch and when people are lying, they don't remember stuff.

Ben: Fine. I don't recall.

Burton: Does Alvarez work for you?

Ben: Yes.

Burton: Are you his boss?

Awkward pause because, this question is obviously the same as the previous and is therefore idiotic.

Staffer awkwardly interrupts...and...time expires...Whew.

Foster asks two questions and is finished. Wow. Not expecting that.

Ben is such a gangsta, Last three responses:

1. Meeting was about an hour, yes.
2. I don't know
3. No.

NEXT!.

Rep. Jordan can't handle this.

Jordan: Can you see how this seems like you were giving the KL the Vietnamese water torture?

Ben: Not if you're an informed individual, which you're obv not.

Rep. Speer looks like she belongs on Housewives of New Jersey

She can't believe that Ben doesn't crunch the numbers himself and that doesn't know who did.

Ben: I don't carry a calculator around in my jacket pocket, contrary to popular belief.

Speer: SEC is involved aren't they?

Ben: Nah.

Speer: We're all one government aren't we?

Ben: They're on need to know basis. They didn't need to know.

Speer asks continues to ask questions that obv below Ben's paygrade and she looks continuely stumped by his responses. She yields the rest of her time because she has an appointment to get acrylics done.

Rep. Chaffetz of UT is not buying Ben's story.

Chaffetz: If I was Ken Lewis and you said that to me I would have pissed myself.

Ben: Yes. You would have.

Chaffetz is reading emails now and basically says Ben is a two-face.

Chaffetz: did you threaten them?

Ben: C'MON GUYS! LOOK AT THIS BEARD! DOES IT LOOK LIKE I WOULD THREATEN A PUGLE, LET ALONE KEN LEWIS, WHO IS MUCH MORE CUDDLY?

Rep. Connolly: Because for me, it's opposite day, I'm confused about who's threatening whom.

Connolly: Did you feel that should be telling the American people that if this deal didn't happen that the world would explode?

Ben: We put that on Ken, he has 24/7 liquid courage.

Connolly just wants to say that Ken Lewis is a gunslinger and Beard and Bald are the ones are the real victims here. GOSH.

The last Rep was incredibly yawn-worthy. Moving on...

Rep. Kaptur is the Maxine Waters of this committee: HERE. WE. GO.

Kaptur is talking about money creators, counterfeiters, BlackRock, Bank of America, Fannie Mae, is there a question in our future?

Kaptur: What year did something happen?

Ben: I don't know

Kaptur: Do you think it's important that you know?

Ben: Are you kidding me, lady? NO.

Kaptur: Well, I think it is. There could be Fed collusion (THERE IT IS!) with BlackRock. How can you assure us that there isn't?

Ben: You want the contracts? I'll give you the bloody contracts.

Kaptur: The contracts that are posted on your website have things missing, mysteriously, I might add.

Ben: We have a website?

Kaptur: BlackRock contracts are at the heart of this thing and I hope we can get to the bottom of this.

Ben looks appropriately confused.

Rep. Souder is talking about Asian flu and other things and gets scolded by Towns for not talking into the microphone. He mentions Bank of America, which is the first time it is brought up in the last 15 minutes. Tax dollars at work people, tax dollars at work.

Rep. Watson is PINK today for the big show. She's from L.A. so she might be channelling some Maxine Waters madness...She'll state questions and then you'll answer them Mr. Bernanke. No respect, no respect.

Watson: Do you think KL was suprised about the losses at Merrill?

Ben: How the hell would I know? I do know that he can drink enough to drown.

Watson: Was KL's threat to invoke the MAC for real?

Ben: Do I have a huge-ASS sign around my neck that says, "I LOVE REPEATING MYSELF"? Sphere: Related Content

Live Blogging Ben Bernanke's Testimony

We thought we might less this pass since it's being live-blogged all over the Web but then the questions started so we couldn't resisit.

Again, late in starting:

Ben gave his statement and is totally stonewalling Edolphous Towns's questions with one word responses.

Towns: FDIC said they aren't down with the BofA/Merrill Lynch, why did you blow them off? Are they not as smart as you?

Ben: We explained it to them and turns out they were actually cool with it. Similar what we did with KL

Issa's turn. He's the Bernanke/Nixonian conspiracy cover-up theorist.

Issa: Richmond Fed guy said there was pressure related to the MAC. Well?

Ben: Two things: 1.

Issa: Nevermind, I'll interrupt to give you some of my conspiracy theory.

Ben: Two things...

Issa: No, we're not finished. Did you want to fire them?

Ben: I never threatened KL, except after he said he didn't like my beard.

Issa: So it's true that you threatened him?

Ben: Can I finish my second point?

Issa: No. We don't have time.

Ben: Okayyyyyy

Issa is going on and on and on and on and on and on.

Issa isn't talking about the stability of the financial system. Who gives a damn about that Ben? I want to find out that you giving the Reservoir Dogs/Michael Madsen treatment to Ken Lewis!

Issa goes on for what seems like eternity and sums it up as: did you say do the deal or else?

Thank god Issa's time has expired.

Kucinich is spending his 5 minutes reading email. Questions are apparently not useful in his view.

Oh. Here's the question: did you have concerns about the deal?

Ben: Yes.

Ben looks thrilled to be there.

Kucinich: Do you supervise anything?

Ben: Yeah, a DQ in Princeton. Sphere: Related Content

Redneck Said, Beard Said

Because we can't resist a good grandstanding session, we're putting everyone on notice to set the TiVo for The Beard's testimony next Thursday in front of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

No, Maxine Waters is not on this committee. Yes, we too are disappointed by that fact.

What we are looking forward to is Ben pretty much lying his bearded ass off about how he didn't encourage Paulson (during a bike ride we'll remind you) to "make it happen" via scaring the coveralls off Ken Lewis.

Awaiting Bernanke, House Panel Subpoenas Fed [DealBook/NYT] Sphere: Related Content

FROM THE NOT-SO-SURPRISING DEPARTMENT: Maxine Waters Doesn't Make a Damn Bit of Sense

Maxine Waters is doing her constituents proud again today folks. In today's version of AIG crucifixion, she's throwing out the whole Goldman Sachs conspiracy theory as it relates to the eventual dismantling of the entire economy so that GS can be the supreme ruler of the universe. This is sure to fly with the likes of T. Geith and Ben.

Can't BFrank put a stop her batshit insane rambling? I mean, the 5 minutes (or wtf it is) allotted to each member of the subcommittee is one thing but if a committee member can't form a clear and coherent question that is of some relevance to the hearing in under 30 seconds, the chairperson should have the power to call a forfeit for the rest of the time and the cost to the taxpayers of said time should be tracked. Maxine Waters (and reps like this) have clearly done more damage to the poor saps at CSPAN than can possibly be quantified.

Maxine Waters Puts On Her Goldman Sachs Conspiracy Hat [Clusterstock via Daily Intel] Sphere: Related Content