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After I heard the Kanamits GOP’s incoming House financial-services committee chairman say that Washington’s role is to serve the banks, I was reminded of the great Twilight Zone episode called ” To Serve Man. “It’s about aliens (Kanamits) who come down for a visit and want to gave us very nice gifts because they want to help the cause of humanity. The twist in Damon Knight’s story was that their goal was just to fatten up humans to serve them up with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. Isn’t that what the banking industry did to the world when the crashed the financial markets with the morally corrupt mortgage scandal? They promised Americans the great dream (though not John Boehner’s), which is to own a house of their very own without any of the necessary qualifications or cash. In the end a complete meltdown followed after banks and Wall Street made billions off of it, and then they double-dipped and took another trillion dollars of our money with no sacrifice to their own profession. Now we’re being told by the Beltway media that in order for us to make up the debt that was caused by bankers’ malfeasance, we’ll have to take the pain of possibly losing our Social Security and Medicare and other entitlements. Think Progress: In an interview with The Birmingham News, Bachus made it clear why he opposed stricter regulations for banks in the wake of a huge financial crisis largely caused by Wall Street excess and a lack of prudent regulation. In Bachus’ estimation, the government’s role is not to protect consumers and the wider economy through regulating financial activity, but to simply “ serve the banks ”: Bachus, in an interview Wednesday night, said he brings a “main street” perspective to the committee, as opposed to Wall Street. “In Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated, and my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks,” he said. According to the article, Bachus later tried to clarify that what he meant was “regulators should set the parameters in which banks operate but not micromanage them .” As The Wonk Room explained, Bachus is far from the only Republican on the Financial Services Committee who feels that consumers and regulators should be subservient to the banks. But rarely has a Republican lawmaker laid out so starkly just whose interests he believes Washington is supposed to be protecting… read on Europe is not responding well to the austerity programs being put in place as punishment for the banking mess, as riots are breaking out over a loss of social services that helped the working class families work, eat and educate while billions of bonus money is being handed out to the Masters of the Universe. it would appear that they like their “man” medium rare. NY Times: Swarms of violent groups overtook a general protest against austerity measures in the city center on Wednesday, lashing out at the government and security forces and hurling gasoline bombs that, according to the police, set fire to a bank building and killed three workers. {} While the focus of blame was on the violent fringe group or groups, the dark turn had an immediate effect on world markets. The euro sank to a 14-month low of $1.28 as fears grew that unrest could spread to Europe’s other debt-ridden economies. Moody’s placed Portugal’s debt on a watch for a possible downgrade .