12:30 at night, just past the witching hour, and the
RATS come scurrying out to the cameras like proud peacocks announcing they almost have a deal on the $770 Billion dollar
bailout deal. The low line staffers will now put the deal down on paper (but not available to us the general public) and tomorrow fish it out to members of Congress, and deal friendly members of the press. The deal is a stinker any way you slice it. Here are some of the flaws they do not want us to know about:
1. Remember not giving
robber barons at the companies entering into this program huge salary and bonus...that seems dead. Seems that
Mr. Paulson after speaking with his lobbyist buddies has all but convinced Congress that limiting executive pay as a part of the bailout is a deal breaker. Fine, break the deal, and those companies can go under. Let's be clear, this bailout is not going to end the suffering on Main Street, more of us are going to lose our houses, lose our jobs, and our government knows this. We get nothing out of this but lowered property values, lost equity, and a higher tax bill while the assets of the rich and elite are protected.
Negotiators were still arguing over lawmakers' demands that Treasury require firms participating in the bailout to ban "inappropriate or excessive" compensation for their senior managers. Hello, here is a loop hole to drive a truck through. Define specifically what senior managers are, and define specifically what constitutes inappropriate or excessive compensation. Without those SPECIFIC definitions, we have nothing more than a paper tiger. Additionally, this language indicates it is fine for NON SENIOR MANAGERS to earn excessive compensation.
2. Seems that Wall Street (through their lobbyist) want the money as quickly as possible, with few strings attached. Look for the Republican hopes of private insurance and investment to go bye bye. More importanly, notice there is NO RESTRICTION that forbids using our tax dollars to BAIL OUT FOREIGN BANKS!
3. Seems all parties agree to an oversight committee. Big deal. In the mean time, those on said committee are not to have any conflicts of interest, which leaves out Bloomberg and Buffett, as well as almost everyone else associated with Wall Street and Washington.
4. The bonds/mortgages will be sold at Auction, with the Treasury getting the BOTTOM OF THE BARREL...simply stated, though everyone involved is trying to tell us otherwise, we will be getting/taking over the worse of the worst investments, getting the most distressed properties.
Noticeably absent...anything so far for the man/woman on the street, and even if there is something, it will be a token scrap from the feasting table of some small amount of help to those mortgage holders in foreclosure, or in danger of going into foreclosure. As we suggested in an earlier article, time to STOP PAYING YOUR MORTGAGE.
Pelosi has said she hopes to put the proposed bill out on the Internet tomorrow/today for a full day, and then voting on it...first, do we the American Middle Class get to see this document, and have time to make our views known to our elected official (Congressman John Hall) on it before it is put to a vote, or is Pelosi going to try to SNEAK IT THROUGH, making the deal fate-a-compli before we on Main Street know just how badly we have been raped?
Our first ever "Blowing Smoke Up Your Ass" award goes to one
Lawrence Kudlow who tries to convince us the reader that this deal is a WIN, WIN, WIN for taxpayers! Give us a break Lawrence, we may be from Main Street, may be the lower and middle class of America, but we are not as stupid as you must think we are. The deal is not and never will be a win, win, win for Main Street Americans, it contains nothing but our spilled blood and additional heart ache for us, while once again the assets of the rich and elite are protected.
There is going to be some kind of a bogus auction where well heeled mega billionaires like Buffett will show up and pluck up for their own the best of the assets going on the block, the ones likely to pay the highest return on investment in the shortest amount of time. Treasury is going to be getting the ROTTEN APPLES at the bottom of the barrel, the squalid spoiled, fetid refuse found at the bottom of the can. Your argument that we are going to be seeing ten percent interest on these holdings until they are sold is a red herring. These loans are in foreclosure, the homeowners cannot afford to make their mortgage payments, many of them cannot even find a decent paying job because our government refuses to deport illegal aliens who are violating our laws in working in this country, in depressing the wages of the lower and middle class workers of America. But, in your need to win access to the dark inner corridors of Congress you seem to have made a blood oath with the devil, penned an article of lies and deceit to gain favor with the demon spawn lobbyist and corrupt politicians that walk the halls of Congress.
That's why you have been awarded our first "Blowing Smoke Up Your Ass" award...may your fingers cripple up with arthritis in the hopes it will cripple your ability to spread such lies out into the public domain.
In closing...noticeably absent from the hastily called midnight press conference...Senator John McCain.
The whole Wall Street Bailout Scandal has Americans in the lower and middle class rightfully angry, and it has many of us taking a much closer look at our federal government, and how they are SPENDING our money. One way in which great amounts of our TAX DOLLARS are being spent to build economies in foreign countries, to protect the corporate assets (by mitigating risk) of American companies moving American jobs offshore is a little known quasi-private part of our government called the OPIC (Overseas Private Investment Corporation) http://www.opic.gov/
