Redistribution: From Joe the Plumber to Robert Rubin
Okay, as we all know now that almost everything about Joe the Plumber is a lie. He doesn't own a plumbing business and apparently is not even licensed as a plumber, but he does raise a legitimate concern about "spreading the wealth around." The only problem is that in this country, when the government spreads the wealth around it usually means redistributing it upward.
That is certainly the case with the hundreds of billions of dollars being used to bail out the banks. The public has a real interest in keeping the banking system functioning. It has zero interest in subsidized the pay checks of wealthy bank executives or enriching the bank's shareholders, which Secretary Paulson is now doing.
There is no question about what is going on here. The public is providing massive subsidies to the country's major banks. The terms of the bailout were far more generous than what the banks could get from the private market. As a result, banks that might not have survived otherwise, or at least would have been forced to make serious cutbacks, can now keep operating as they had been.
This means that their high level executives will continue to draw salaries in the millions or tens of millions of dollars. It also means that the shareholders will continue to receive dividends.
This was not inevitable. Paulson could have imposed serious pay caps on executive compensation. In Germany, the banks that are getting government money can't pay their executives more than 500,000 euros, about $680,000. The United Kingdom also limited executive compensation as part of its bailout.
In addition, the banks in the UK are prohibited from paying dividends as long as they have public capital. This makes sense not only as a punitive measure, but it will also help them to build up the capital they need to stay in business.
It has sometimes been argued that the healthy banks would not take part in a bailout under such conditions. Let's see.
Suppose we apply the compensation limits/no dividend bailout rules, and then give everyone the option to opt in or out. Those taking the opt-out route will not benefit from the government's extension of deposit insurance nor will they be able to count on access to the Fed's discount window. My bet is that no banks go this route, but if any do, there will be plenty of investors happy to short their stock, assuming the government allows it.
But, Paulson went the bank welfare route. Joe the Plumber and everyone else should be very upset about this method spreading around the wealth. The top executives at the big banks will be getting the equivalent of several thousand years of TANF checks for a mother with two kids. And, unlike the mother receiving a TANF check, the bank honchos inflicted serious damage on the economy.
The big question is, which candidate is opposed to this sort of spreading around the wealth?
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Yes, indeed, this is Capitalism -- with a capital S... O-C-I-A-L-I-S-M. Who's to say which is worse, the Marxist Socialism of the New Left, or the Fascist Socialism of the NeoCons on the Right? America should think seriously about a third path, this one clearly isn't working.
What we have is a corrupt corporate state, run by corrupt companies who are merely using our Bailout tax dollars to pay for executive bonuses, junkets, and to buy each other out. It's got to stop--and that means getting rid of those who voted "yes."
It's time to just start over. Throw them all out, Dems and Republicans alike. There isn't an ounce of difference between them anymore anyway. Could the Libertarians or Greens really do any worse than this?
We can start by voting "no" against incumbants who voted "yes" for the Bailout. Don't know who they are? Check out Constituent Response's Bailout Vote Map at constituentresponse.com .
Vote for Senator Obama and Senator Biden and Henry Paulson will be history. Vote for Democrats for the US Senate and the House of Representatives and Republican control of our middle class will be history.
The middle class have been the losers in the last eight years because of Bush and his cronies.
After President Obama takes office in January, 09, let him, VP Biden, Senators and your Representatives in Congress know that irresponsible people should be the ones to pay for the mess that they created.
I did not create this financial mess but I am suffering through it.
My girlfriend and I cast our vote for OBAMA/BIDEN 08 on friday. You must do the same if you want to take back control of our country.
OBAMA/BIDEN 08
last i checked the democrats all voted for the bailout (and the CRA, which manilpulated the mortgage markets. Many republicans did not support the bailout.
Enough talk about the guy.
Move on already, he's irrelevant.
There can be no question that the executive branch has been in control for the most of the last eight years. Congress has been spit upon-both republicans and democrats.
We are a two party system. The party in power the last eight years has totally screwed up, intentionally or unintentionally. Makes no difference. Similar to the football coach whose team doesn't win. He wanted them to win, but they didn't. He's fired.
In the same way, the republicans screwed up; they may not have wanted to but they did. Time to fire them and bring in the relief. If they screw up, throw them out. But for God's sake, let's not keep pounding our head against the wall with the same team.
We need to remember from our Colonial History - "No Taxation without Representation".. which was about the Decision Making Process of who in Government was able to make important monetary decisions to be borne by the People. It was about Wealthy Noble Landowner, King and Parliament forcing the public to pay -without giving the Public a say -in the process. It led to the American Revolution.
Today Big Business , a King (a President who thinks Inaugural means a Crown) and Parliament (Congress & Senate) control where our funds go. And some of them have so many political hands in so many Big Business pockets that we've lost control of our Country. Election Reform so far, has done little to stop it, and John Q. and Jane Q. American Public are again, footing the bills, and having NO SAY.
And, so what has happened... they spent all our money and partied themselves out... now they are out of money ...and want more... so ..they scare us... they'll crash the country ! We'll be defenseless! Unless we do as they say and bail them out... out of this..crater... they blew in our Economy... because we always let them before...right?. Because wearing those Hats in Congress and Senate and the Oval Office and it's various Cabinets make them better than us...right?
If you don't think so... on Nov 4th... TELL THEM - and if they won't comply, then vote them out of office and get those who WILL.
Billionaires for Bush say:
NO to Socialism!!!
YES to CEOcialism!!!
We all know that The old farts entrenched in congress are not going to get anything done until we set a fire under their ass! They have no intention of changing the status quo. We are getting screwed, no kiss, no foreplay,! and the crooks in congress, are going to benefit from this bail out! Change in Washington, is like icebergs in Aruba! Not likely to happen. Maybe when the unemployment rate gets to 50% the people of America will wake up. We need to do something! McBush has a plan! but, it was written by "W"
Lots of good conversation about the problem, but what is the solution. We all know that even if you limit salaries while the money is loaned, there will be deferred compensation. And this isn't just about high bank salaries...it's about obscene executive salaries in general. The massive amounts of money being siphoned out of the system is probably part of the reason we are short of cash for liquifying the monetary system. So how do we get them under control? We know for a fact that there is no 'trickle down' effect. Or if some of the income is spent to promote growth it is in the area of highest return, not what is strategically right for the country or the world. Generally these investments have lower return until the technology is proven.
So if our writter is against "spreading the wealth around" then let everyone keep everything they make. Or maybe we could have a flat tax with no deductions or credits thereby everyone and every corporation pays the exact same portion of their earnings in taxes, say 15% to 20%.
The obscene salaries and golden parachutes awarded to so many executives in the corporate sector need to be curtailed.
Since we are talking private enterprise, here, the dilemma is -- who will do the curtailing?
I do think that there should be a cap on credit card companies charging interest.
Now Joe the Plumber's Helper would probably disagree. Can I go on national news now?
Corporations are chartered by the government. They are creatures of the state. There's really no reason government can't put a cap on executive compensation including deferred compensation, SERPs (Supplemental Executive Retirement Plans) and stock options.
Finally I see some thinking on this site, not just the blind following. Money is money is'nt it. Be you wine sipper, or six pack drinker no one wants someone else deciding who gets their money.
Come on people shake off the kool-aid before it is too late. Unless you want to live in the third world made by Obama and the "new democrats" of Dean and Brazille it is time to sober up.
Obama is just a front man for the real country killers out there who are out to kill ours. At lease we bible thumping, gun toting haters can protect ourselves, I dont know about you peace lovers out there.
"When you ship million of jobs offshore, allow millions of illegal aliens into the country who take jobs from the poor, issue millions of H-1B visas to millions of cheap foreign workers who take jobs from the middle class, meddle with energy until you are sending 100s of billions of dollars per year out to foreign oil producers, strike trade agreements where we buy their stuff and they don't buy our stuff until we run out of money, allow your military to be used to transfer trillions of dollars worth of wealth, transfer a trillion dollars worth of wealth to banks who have backed themselves into a corner with derivatives, and borrow, spend, give away, and waste $11 trillion, you tend to have an economic problem."
Mr. Baker, how close you are to hitting the bulls eye! You see, the USA will become just a cog in the new world order machine. But first the middle class has to disappear, wages must drop, dependency on foreign sources of energy/manufacturing, etc. must increase, our trade deficit must explode, and now we must spend trillions of taxpayer dollars to keep afloat banks that became casinos with depositors' money.
The long-term plan to eliminate the USA as an economic powerhouse and turn it into a source of cheap supplies/resources has just been sped up during these past 8 years. Coincidence? If so, I have a bridge in Alaska I wanna sell ya!
And Obama will continue to grease the slide.
It's a shame that when these plagues hit Wall Street, the victims get hit again, but at least this time Wall Street got a dose of their own "remedies". Speaking of remedies, legal remedies, how about some enforcement of the racketeering laws?
By who...the racketeers? in the 1990's Rhode Island decided to "clean House" in it's political parties seats of corruption ... the chaos that ensued was almost laughable... when the smoke cleared about a quarter of the Seats were empty... ... today Rhode Island is pushing Common Cause... too long to list here, it essentially keeps legislators from being on the same agency boards they vote on... we could definitely use this in the USA Congress and Senate... someone write it up and submit it... there must be at least one honest politician reading this...
Neither candidate, they both voted in favor of the bailout. With McCain, I'm not surprised, but with Obama, I'm very disappointed. I would have thought that a candidate for "change" would not follow the status quo and make a real stand to let true capitalism run it's course. All the other representative were inundated with phone calls and letters. I wrote and called so many times I was afraid they would get a restraining order against me. It's an outrage that the very representatives the we elect choose to totally ignore the will of the people. And it's an absolute outrage that our government has chosen socialism rather than to let capitalism run it's course. Whether it be people or corporations, neither learns a lesson when they are "bailed" out.
Speaking about money! All we hear about is how much money Obama has raised.. So, friends of ours went out to get signs for their lawn and were charged 8$ a sign and 2$ a button.. That is just greedy. With all the money we have donated to his campaign you would think Obama would make his signs and buttons free to us... This really upset me!
I got my signs and buttons for free and no one even asked me if I had donated to the campaign. I had ONLINE. At the campaign HQ they even asked me if I wanted more signs, bumper stickers, and buttons for my neighbors. No one mentioned having to pay for them.
This is the point. Government has no business handing out my tax money to other businesses or farmers or individuals. It is not constituitional, it is not moral, it does not even really work because it causes so many unintended consequences.
If you wanted wealth redistribution why did we not get a constitutional amendment for it?....The answer is that it would never be ratified. When you put this issue in this stark format almost everyone would reject it out of hand.
Joe, regardless of his license status or tax liability, did what none of the MSM dared to do......expose Obama for the socialist that he is. "spread the wealth" he said. No matter what you liberals do......you cannot unring that bell. That is what Obama is....a pure socialist.
You should watch this Stossel piece. This portends what we are up against with ever expanding government. Here is part 1 of 6. The other parts are there too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apsz_1sSTS0
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