All the talk of an impending "bailout" of wall street is making me a tad uneasy. Last time I checked the map Wall St. was located on Manhattan Island and not Rikers Island. Wall St. lives in penthouses not jail cells but our congress insists that we need to bailout the largest banks in order to restore the credit markets. In some ways I understand and at first I kind of agreed with the idea.
BUT...
The idea was basically slapped together by the Bush appointed treasury secretary Henry Paulson, formerly of Goldman-Sachs, the original plan was three pages long and consisted of 700 billion dollars for Paulson to have the exclusive ability to distribute. It was packaged and marketed as a last ditch effort to save the american economy before certain collapse thus creating the fear. The urgency at which the executive office pushed this plan further fueled the fear - causing the erratic behavior of the market. This is a scare tactic that the Bush administration has used in the past (see Iraq war 2003). Scare the people and congress into a rushed judgement decision and act aggressively and irresponsibly. 5 years later and that plan is still a failure. My point is that congress and the people of this country should not be scared into following the ideas of the precious few. Credibility is an issue at this point.
While I don't doubt that we need to do something about this crisis I do want to step back and see some other options. Shop around a little, don't buy the first thing you see. I don't want to impulse buy at the checkout. I liken this whole situation to shopping at Wal-Mart - you get some groceries, some home goods, maybe a toy for the kids and then you get to the register and there is some high pressure salesman there trying to sell you a house to put it all in but you have to use a high interest Wal-Mart credit card. He says that there is no other way to store and use your stuff except to go along with his idea. (I know that this is a ridiculous example but the bailout maybe a ridiculous idea) Well I'm not buying it - I'm shopping around.
I need to hear the other smartest people around throw out ideas, Paulson and Bush are not the only guys with a thought on the matter. Considering the fact that they didn't seem to see this coming makes me question how bright they really are. The details to this plan are still scarce but every day this drags on I hear more and more that make me uneasy. I hear a lot of the money will bailout foreign investors, I hear that there are ways around capping the executives "golden parachutes". What I don't hear is how Jim is going to pay the mortgage with just 30 hrs a week at work much less feed his family and be a good American by buying a lot of shit he doesn't need so that corporate execs can get big bonuses and hedge the company's future on extremely risky investments!!!! You see what I did there
Bottom line - no to the bailout, not like it is now. I need and want more research and I want to hear alternatives. I need oversight, I need consumer protection (Nader), I need to know where the money is going so lets open up the books and read these proposals line by line. The American people are becoming quite serious investors - we own 80% of AIG and who knows what else we will be buying, are we appointing board members????? I don't want to give the blank check to to a lame-duck president and cabinet - the election is in just 34 days. Talk about the 11th hour - they are putting this together at 11:58, I'm not ready to pull out the credit card on the future of this nation and my future just yet.
Your thoughts and donations are appreciated!
BTW 700 billion $ is approx $2300 per person (that would be a nice stimulus)
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2 comments:
After Kucinich dropped out of the race, I opted for Obama & have been working for his election since. He's the best of the two most likely candidates. However, his vote for the bailout has left me less than convinced of the veracity of his campaign. His vote for the FISA bill was troubling to me as well as to others, (reference the Nation magazine), but his vote on the bailout has left me looking for other options. Nader? Maybe, tho I know he does not have the proverbial snowballs chance. But it is feeling that at some point you have to vote for what is truly best, not just the lesser of two evils.
Check out the website opensecrets.
org. Info there reveals that Obama has received over 3 times the amount of contributions from Goldman-Sachs that McCain has. So, tho he talks about trickle up economics when the pressure is on he votes for more trickle down economics, which is part of the reason we are where we are. Obama speaks of helping "the least of these", but when the chips are down, he votes with the wealthy. He promises he will listen to "the people" when in office, but a vast majority of citizens were against the bailout; so apparently he didn't hear their voice.
Kucinich voted against the bailout & had an alternate proposal as well. Alas, he is not still a candidate.
Wake up Obama supporters; maybe the emporer really doesn't have on any clothes.
P.S. Oh yeah, although at the beginning of the talk about a bailout, Obama said he wanted an economic stimulus package attached to the bill, he took no action to see that happen.
A stimulus package of more generous proportions than the last one, would have done more to ease credit than the bailout boondogle.
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