The Sky Is Still Falling

Why not begin this with a possibly irrelevant aside?

About thirty years ago my boss at Columbia Pictures, David Begelman, was sentenced to community service for the embezzlement of a paltry few hundred thousand dollars. I noticed that a couple of days later a black welfare mother of eight was sentenced to several years of hard time for stealing a few thousand dollars from the Welfare Department.

"Ain't that just great?" It does give one reason to question the existence of justice in America... Sadly, not much has changed in the last 30 years. There might indeed be equity in the system, but it is mostly difficult to find.

I wrote about the "Paulson travesty" almost three months ago, and it is interesting to think that we have just witnessed a contemporary "Great Train Robbery," perpetrated by the soon to be departing administration either as an outright theft or by the massive dereliction of their fiduciary responsibilities.

It would appear that white collar criminals are not pursued with appropriate vigor as evidenced by recent events on Wall Street.

We most certainly have people with big guns protecting our banks from armed robberies, yet we appear not to have "law enforcement" with green eyeshades, sharp pencils and calculators looking at the banks as well as other financial institutions.

All that Paulson and his people did was to hand over a trillion plus dollars to their friends leaving the rest of us to pay it back, if they do not. At worst, there was/is big time fraud, and at best there was massive incompetence perpetrated by the Feds, as well as the private sector, or both.

Was there any criminal activity committed by anyone anywhere?

What were the "regulators" doing when this stuff was going on?

The "cookie jar" has been emptied and it appears that the investigations necessary to put these felons in jail are just not happening.

Of course, following the "Paulson Emergency" that the really big guys love so much, many are rushing to Washington to get bailed out by the Feds. How could this stuff be happening with the Republicans, of all people, in charge?

What are these "crooks" up to now? What is their latest "let me scare you to death and then I can do whatever I choose to do to you?" What a fail proof system!

When Secretary Paulson arrived on the scene in front of a Banking committee or two he told us that "the sky is falling" and would indeed do that if we didn't pony up a paltry three quarters of a trillion dollars immediately. This may indeed have been needed, but based on the history of the Bush administration who knows what is real or what is not real.

Secretary Paulson, like Professor Harold Hill from the stage play and movie Music Man has sold us "proverbial" band instruments and uniforms.

"Well, either you're closing your eyes
to a situation you do now not wish to acknowledge
Or you are not aware of the caliber of disaster indicated
By the presence of a pool table in your community.
Ya got trouble, my friend, right here,
I say, trouble right here in River City ."

A gloom and doom Paulson spoke to the trouble we had, not in a fictional River City but in the real United States. I was astounded by his implication that he had no responsibility in the matter, and that someone else had allowed "the pool table" to be in our town. He also had the chutzpah to ask for all of that money without congress having any oversight.

Does three quarters of a trillion just show up one day as "missing"? Hadn't anyone noticed that there was a problem a couple of months ago? And this is in addition to a paltry few hundred billion that we have recently dispersed.

Did Paulson think that the missing money was somehow left in another pair of pants or on top of a desk somewhere?

I know that it is silly to ask questions concerning such a trivial sum of money, but good grief!

The question for now and not for later is: Who the hell is responsible for this?

Where the hell is the Sheriff?
Who should go to jail?
Who was watching "the store?"
Why isn't there a cop around when you need one?

Who has this money? And how do we get it back from those who have it??

One of my media friends suggested I stop whining about the responsibilities of the television broadcast networks.

While this is not an easy thing for me to do, I more or less promise to stop complaining about television, but not now.

So how come not one investigative documentary has been done since this trillion dollar "heist" happened? Can you expect that General Electric, News Corp, Viacom, the Walt Disney Company and the rest of the supplicant media giants will rat out the Administration?

I now will suggest another aside.

I realize that this does not directly connect to the financial disaster that engulfs us all, but rather is an integral part of the Bush "rob from the poor and give it to the rich" philosophy.

Also, I have been appalled by the constant Republican description of "those tax and spend Liberal Democrats."

As part of the "what do I know about this stuff" this all seems to me to be a part of the same Republican scenario. It is the intention of the rich to get richer, and lumber the poor with the obligation of repaying the debt associated with the process.

When George Bush took office in 2000, Clinton had left him a 200 billion dollar surplus and about a 5 trillion dollar national debt. When Bush leaves office the deficit will be well over 500 billion dollars, and will have an 11 trillion dollar national debt.

The Bush administration supervised enormous spending, and reduced taxes on the wealthy. What do you suppose is wrong with that scenario?

In the immortal words of Mel Brooks from his comedy CD The 2000 Year Old Man with Cark Reiner,

"A lion is chewing my foot off, will somebody call a cop!"

-- Norman Horowitz