Now that everyone's talking about the meltdown on Wall Street, it's cold comfort that the problems on Main Street are getting air time too.
The American Dream is under attack. At a time when working families across the country are losing their homes, their jobs, and the very hope through adversity that sets this great nation apart from all others, it's not enough to talk about the markets. It's not enough to talk about foreclosures. It's not enough to acknowledge the impact on ordinary people without addressing the root cause of the crisis: basic inequality.
We can make this financial crisis a complicated discussion about CDOs and SIVs and any number of acronyms made up in the last few years to describe the trade in structured debt that is now being questioned by the very corporate types who created the system. We can debate the $85 billion set aside to shore up AIG, the $200 billion bailout provided to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the trillion dollar price tag that's been floated to cover all the major financial collapses so far.
But the real problem is simple. We've done far too little to ensure people in this country have good jobs with health care and the opportunity to lift themselves out of poverty. At the same time, we've done far too much to ensure the wealthiest one percent of Americans have every opportunity to take big risks, pay less in taxes, and force the government to step in when their big gambles don't pay off. Now we're demanding ordinary Americans pony up $2,000 a piece to clean up the mess.
No one's arguing that the government shouldn't be stepping in now that there's a crisis. We've got to get on the ball for future crises now.
However, as lawmakers and regulators are scrambling to calculate the ultimate tab for the willful risks of banking and investment CEOs, ordinary Americans can and should make one request of our own: No golden parachutes for failed corporate executives. Taxpayers absolutely cannot be forced to foot the bill for the poor decisions and unnecessary risks taken by firms designed to rake in profits at any cost, while CEOs engage in reckless and damaging behavior without personal consequences.
After tanking our economy and leaving taxpayers to foot the bill, the least that Wall Street's corporate executives can do is finance their next round of golf--on their own dime.
Andy Stern is International President of the 2 million member Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
Pretty interesting poker game going on here! You have foreign holders of several trillion dollars from persistent trade deficits ... mostly because they would not revalue their currencies and we did not devalue ours ... that have invested in and propped up the housing price bubble. Now that the bubble has burst, they will have to write off huge losses AND overvalued mortgages. The intermediaries (banks, mortgage lenders & investment banks) don't want to write down the face value of mortgages, which is the most sensible thing to do, so they have bribed our politicians to either buy these problematic ‘assets’ or inflate the supply of dollars until the imaginary house prices of 4 years ago become 'real' again (due to monetary inflation alone).
Works for me. How about you? Swell bunch of clowns we've elected.
... Any vote to continue this monetary fiasco by providing taxpayer-backed guarantees for mostly foreign dollar holdings (due to ridiculous trade/exchange-rate policies) via 1.4 trillion in bailouts (and counting) will get me active in removing any legislators involved from office!!! Please do the right thing and say HELL NO to anymore bailouts of the sell-us-out crowd on Wall Street.
We could easily start with all those in the House and Senate who were "accountable" for oversight.
Senate:
http://banking.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Information.Membership
House:
http://financialservices.house.gov/who.html
I especially like the lead point on the House Financial Service Committee site:
"The Committee oversees all components of the nation's housing and financial services sectors including banking, insurance, real estate, public and assisted housing, and securities. The Committee continually reviews the laws and programs relating to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Federal Reserve Bank, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, ......"
Every time you sue someone it costs buckets of money.
I'd rather see a bunch of class-action lawyers induced into a fairer apportionment going after the assets of all these hogs than let them all loll away a sweet old-age in their mansions in Westport blowing off the retirement of the voiceless.
Wouldn't it be a grand idea if the future of every executive involved in this mess was one of unremitting time in court?
If they have to have a victory, why not make it definitively Pyrrhic for them.
It's not like there is a shortage of lawyers, or anything.
-gala1
Welcome to America. Ordinary people do not matter and inequality is the way of life.
You can bet the richest of the rich will profit handsomely from this so called "crisis." The cause of course endless American greed and lying Politicians bought by Corporate America.
The combined bailouts will still cost less than the illegal occupation and destruction of Iraq, so hell - what a bargain... and 4300 troops won't have to die for Oil and Arms profits.
America was sold down the river long ago. An ignorant electorate that believed the Bush/Cheney lies are also to blame not to mention a do nothing Democratic Congress with lower approval ratings than congress.
America dug its own grave - Bush/Cheney just handed them the shovel.
You can bet that just like 9/11 an just like the illegal occupation of Iraq - the same Bush/Cheney criminals will profit handsomely form this latest "crisis."
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=email_en&refer=&sid=aSKSoiNbnQY0
If you're going to LIE, at least, acknowledge events EVERYONE remembers and then spin your tale!
Bush's endless wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Pakistan have been fought on borrowed money (and the borrowing goes on). Paul O'Neill, former US Treasury secretary, has said that in 2002 he tried to warn Dick Cheney that growing budget deficits posed a threat to the US economy. Mr Cheney cut him off: "Reagan proved deficits don't matter," he said. With Greenspan's support, subprime mortgages were launched in 2003 to stimulate the housing boom and help re-elect Bush.
The cost of the bailout is estimated at $1 trillion, or more, closely matching the cost of the war. Bush has done things his way - we haven't had to pay for his war while he was President, but in the future we will pay for it over and over and over... In other words, Bush has gotten not only his war, but also everything else he wanted: now America will no longer be able to afford health care, or any of the social programs he hates. Cheney and he must be savoring every moment of their triumph, and looking forward to what McCain and Palin have in store for us: McCain will fire any one who is left who has any competence, and Palin will replace them with her friends from Alaska.
http://www.sefermpost.com/sefermpost/2008/09/seattle-times-e.html
"loan aid in bailout" Okay, does this mean that I will get aid on my loan too? Instead of purchasing a home that I "technically" qualified for at $500,000.......my husband and I decided to purchase a home for $250,000. We knew that we could not afford the $500K house even though we could get a loan to buy it. What about accountability!???!! If you are stupid enough to not do the math on what you can and can't afford.....do you really deserve loan aid??? This whole thing stinks. I am so sick of bailing out this culture of entitlement we have created!
posted Sep 22, 2008 at 12:56:06
Do people deserve the aid? There but for the grace of God go you, and may you find an end to your arrogant ignorance and compassion for your situation when you fall on difficult times.
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." -- Thomas Jefferson
End the Fed. Stop printing money!
Nine (9) different tax write off's including the $225,000 Membership Fee.
Jail time's too good, exile runs the risk of these pirates re-organizing.
These CEOs need to spend a good, long time sleeping beside railroad tracks and under bridges.
Spend sensibly, live within your means. If you give the corporate giants the power to bully you into spending money you don't have, you deserve to face the consequences of your actions.
Obama/Biden '08
Repubs CANNOT govern for shiite! Why do Americans slam their collective heads against the wall, over and over again before they realize the repub party is not a party that should be at the helm of anything?
Obama/Biden '08/'12 = the SMART People's Choice!