Why Should We Pay for All the Bad Loans of All the Banks in the World?

There are three unconscionable parts of this federal bailout plan.

1. It now includes not just US banks, but nearly all of the major international banks. Why should the United States taxpayer single-handedly pay off all of these bad loans? If these foreign banks want our help, they should ask their governments to chip in. No deal until they do.

2. The lobbyists have already gotten their claws into this and the bill has been expanded from bad mortgage assets to all of their bad loans. That's insane. Wall Street is about to dump every bad mistake they have made in our lap and run for the hills. I guarantee you all of these companies, and the executives running them, will be back to making a tremendous amount of money very shortly. But we'll be stuck with their "toxic assets." This should be our response to this proposal -- Hell no!

3. The executives of these failed companies still want to make millions of dollars upon their exits from the companies they sunk. They're threatening not to play ball if they don't get to keep their millions. Great, go away. Deal with your own mess in your own way then.

They are in no position to threaten us. They're the ones coming for the bailout. If the Republicans want to make a stand on this issue, be our guest. Make our day. Please argue that these failed CEOs should get tens of millions of dollars as we spend $700 billion in taxpayer money to bailout their companies. Please make that case to the American people and see how that works out for you.

In the video below, I explain why we should say "No Deal" to these bankers, even if the Democratic proposals are completely adopted:

Watch The Young Turks Here

Follow Cenk Uygur on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TheYoungTurks

Comments

[canow]

Thanks for the great info, we linked to your article in our Bailout 101 post at the CA NOW blog: http://www.canow.org/canoworg/2008/09/bailout-101.html

[TakeNoNeoConPrisoners]

Time for a good old fashioned Boston Tea Party.

The Repubs are about to raise our taxes by $700 BILLION or else just run up more debt. The fiscal Repub conservatives must be furious. They should stop this lunacy. Where or where are all the sensible Repubs now that their 30 year deregulation mantra has been thoroughly debunked. Time to rethink Economics 101 Repubs. Sensible regulations work and are essential to the health of the economy.

[milurOH]

Spot on Cenk. I've read your posts here for a while now, but haven't checked out your site. Well I can tell you I am creating an account now so I can continue to watch and listen to you. Thanks and keep up the good work.

[standforpeace]

I remember the last time I felt pressured to support something that I knew was inherently wrong. It was the fall of 2002, and Colin Powell was standing in front of the United Nations with computer generated cartoons of what a mobile WMD truck would look like. Condi and Dick were screetching about mushroom clouds at every turn. The media was towing the party line with their war on terror graphics and refusal to do any real investigating. And many Democrats were falling all over themselves to line up with the Republicans in an effort to appear tough on terrorists, shore up their commander in chief in waiting credentials, or appeal to swing voters.

Now here we go again. Once again we're being told that the world as we know it will implode if we don't hand over all authority to Bush and his gang. We're being told that the situation is so bad that there is no time to debate, no time to consider, no time to investigate other options. The only solution is to put all of our trust in the very same officials who just weeks ago were telling us that the worst is over. And we're being asked to bail out the greedy bastards that have made billions while working class wages slipped and millions of Americans went without healthcare. And we know that the same foks sounding the alarm now will make a united stand against universal health care labeling it "socialism." WTF!

[Fez]

This whole issue of the bankers refusing to cooperate with ANY provisions of a bailout needs to be shoved down their greedy white throats. Seems to me if Congress approves a bailout that caps executive salaries at say $400K (the President's salary and the highest paid position in the federal government) and the bankers say, "We won't do it," then these vermin are guilty of treason and should be called out into public view. Bankers are in no position to dictate ANY terms of a bailout and they should be glad that such a plan is even being considered. If they refuse to accept the terms of a bailout (whatever they may be), then Congress should just walk away from their sorry asses and let the blue chips fall where they may. The reality is that there will be massive suffering and loss of property and capital REGARDLESS of any bailout. The damage has been done, the genie is out of the bottle, and no foreign investor is likely to invest any more money in the USA Casino until he sees that the fools who caused this mess are no longer calling the shots. One last thought: EAT THE RICH! They might not have any more money, but they are high in protein and fat.

[Pdubya]

The claim that the market caused all this is so staggeringly foolish that only politicians and the media could pretend to believe it. But that has become the conventional wisdom, with the desired result that those responsible for the credit bubble and its predictable consequences - predictable, that is, to those who understand sound, Austrian economics - are being let off the hook. The Federal Reserve System is actually positioning itself as the savior, rather than the culprit, in this mess!

• The Treasury Secretary is authorized to purchase up to $700 billion in mortgage-related assets at any one time. That means $700 billion is only the very beginning of what will hit us.

• Financial institutions are "designated as financial agents of the Government." This is the New Deal to end all New Deals.

• Then there's this: "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency." Translation: the Secretary can buy up whatever junk debt he wants to, burden the American people with it, and be subject to no one in the process.

There goes your country.

Even some so-called free-market economists are calling all this "sadly necessary." Sad, yes. Necessary? Don't make me laugh.

[Pdubya]

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Dear Friends,

Whenever a Great Bipartisan Consensus is announced, and a compliant media assures everyone that the wondrous actions of our wise leaders are being taken for our own good, you can know with absolute certainty that disaster is about to strike.

The events of the past week are no exception.

The bailout package that is about to be rammed down Congress' throat is not just economically foolish. It is downright sinister. It makes a mockery of our Constitution, which our leaders should never again bother pretending is still in effect. It promises the American people a never-ending nightmare of ever-greater debt liabilities they will have to shoulder. Two weeks ago, financial analyst Jim Rogers said the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made America more communist than China! "This is welfare for the rich," he said. "This is socialism for the rich. It's bailing out the financiers, the banks, the Wall Streeters."

That describes the current bailout package to a T. And we're being told it's unavoidable.

cont...

[maatpublish]

I think the American People should be alot more alarmed than they are right now.

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/army_homeland_090708w/

This is not for national disasters. This is for the inevitability that the people are going to be ticked off enough to rise up and say, "NO MORE!"

Welcome to the United Police State of America.

[researcher]

do not bother me ok

I am shopping and will not quit until i drop

i am american and do not have time for politics

and give me my irs check so i can shop some more

my point nations deserve their politicans

until we figure that one out and quit blaming our politicans nothing will change in america

few will understand these words: universal law demands that capitalism self destruct

we are living through that self destruction and all we can do is blame politicans

myself included

the demos will fold like a deck of cards always have always will

jefferson time in america

[JPHR]

Cenk,

Consider this: This bad debt held by foreign banks probably originated from US mortgages brokered and securitized by investment banks and sold on to foreign banks "guaranteed" by the investment bank and a US rating agency.

Paulson & Bernanke will then probably forced to do this. Ever considered what standing the US has left within the international community.?

NEOCON in lying with respect to Iraq, Georgia. Conventions of Geneva. Nearly breaking the world financial system for the second time in a decade and this time by mismanagement and ideology. Refusing to adapt while using 25% of world energy with less than 5% of world population.

[boing007]

The problem is worldwide. How to fix it? Especially considering how much fun (and profitable) it has been for those who have created this mess.

[aFlyoverPerson]

Follow the money - Bail out homeowners and not banks!!

[joebhed]

First, forget about the CEO pay.
That's a red herring issue.
Every second spent there is a distraction.

Next, of course they are throwing all of their liabilities at the taxpayers.
Why not?
Did you not hear Paulson yesterday actually admit something that no one has ever said before.
THE TAXPAYERS ARE ALREADY ON THE HOOK FOR ALL US DEBT !!
It's a little complicated.

But most important, Cenk, is the point about the foreign "bank" debt being helped.

This is step one in a well-designed plan to transfer the public money power contained in the U.S. Constitution to an offshore banking cartel, made up NOT of nations really, but of private central bankers throughout the world.
That's where you want to focus here.

And, the ONLY solution to getting that power back into our hands is to move as quickly as possible to abolish the private US banking cartel known as the FED, and most importantly, its debt-money creation powers (the SOURCE of all this problem), and replace it with a government-issue, debt-free money creation mechanism, making Treasury-issue credits legal tender in this country again.

Like Abraham lincoln did when the bankers wanted 36 percent interest to fund the Civil War effort.
read this.

http://www.monetary.org/amacolorpamphlet.pdf

Monetary reform NOW!

[boing007]

This scandal isn't just confined to the U. S. A., it's worldwide. We need an international approach to this whole mess. That'll be the day...

[joebhed]

I think I agree here.

All of the western (BrettonWoods) central banks are modeled after the FED in their money creation powers.
That is private-banking, and debt-money based.
The problem with trying to address this problem on its global scale are several.

The greatest of which are the facts that WE have a Constitutional right to have a public money system in THIS country, and the other that, although I consider myself a global citizen, I do not elect a global Congress that gives me that global power all over again.

I have written elsewhere, this is just the latest episode in a well-written script to divest the American people of that Constitutional right.

Once we see the trans-national, private central bank proposals, they will UNDOUBTEDLY contain a transfer of my present monetary rights to the worlds central private bankers.

So, to me, acknowledging the global nature of the problem is one thing.
Trying to ADDRESS it globally would require a non-existent geo-political structure, and until that structure is created by free people acting in an informed manner, in which I still have my right to public, debt-free money, I want to stick with solving my part of the problem first.

[avraamjack]

.
For .7 trillion you could set up a bunch of new banks.
.

[newunderground]

I got one thing to say to the CEO's: Remember TATA motors. Watch your back. We've had enough.

[AmericasMostGangsta]

It's too bad mccain didnt have a chance to privatize social security and health care before this went down. That woulda been great, my friends.