So the Washington and Wall Street elite are still playing the “Socialized Speculator/Privatized Profit” game as they have for decades. It continually amazes me how the “Trust Us” attitude is so pervasive among them. Though I must admit it’s worked in the past to great effectiveness (Iraq War, FISA, etc.). All one is supposed to see on the surface is “The Sky Is Falling!” scenario. I mentioned in my last post how no detail is given about exactly what will happen if the current crisis is left unchecked. The old “It’s so bad we don’t want to panic you” mind set is definitely in play.
Here are a few points of what’s currently going on I want to mention:
1. Glenn Greenwald relates in his fine blog that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson let Lehman Bros. fail, yet bailed out AIG. Turns out his old pals at Goldman Sachs, where he was CEO, had an exposure of $20 billion or so if AIG failed. Hmmm…
2. At fivethirtyeight.com, it’s noted that of 38 incumbent “toss-up races” only eight voted for the bill. Of the secure incumbents the vote was close to 50-50. Interesting is it not how obvious big money controls our Congress when the connection is thrust into the spotlight by a “crisis”? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out those toss-up incumbents were aware that a vote for the Wall Street-friendly bill would not go well with their constituents.
3. When this “crisis” was first announced, the impression was given that “any moment” the entire economic world would collapse without giving Mr. Paulson an immediate, absolute unmonitored control of $700 billion to bail out the bozos who ripped us off (i.e., the “speculator socialization” model). Well, here we are…some two weeks later and the sky has not fallen. This was just another imminent “mushroom cloud” tactic to try to push an agenda counterproductive to “we, the people.” What’s really painful is that we’re now being told that the $700 billion figure was an arbitrary figure pulled out of someone’s a**. This quote is from Forbes.com: "In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy. 'It’s not based on any particular data point,' a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. “We just wanted to choose a really large number.'" WTF!?!?
4. Now there is word out that a private telephone conference was held between the Treasury Department and “Financial Service Industry Members.” You can find more about this at nakedcapitalism.com. Another fine example of marginalizing the populace in order to keep them in the dark from the wheeling and dealing for the taxpayer’s money.
As each day goes by, more and more egregious (dare I say “illegal”?) behavior is being exposed by our elected officials (who are not representing those who elected them, rather, those who furnished the major bucks to get them elected) and their partners in Wall Street. This has got to stop. Hopefully, this uncovering of the rock these villains are conspiring under will stay lifted until the upcoming election. Perhaps the people will be smart enough to understand and do what they can at the voting booth, though, personally, I doubt it.
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