No Blank check -Robert Reich - TPM Article - Brilliant

[OregonBlue]

Source: Talking Points Memo

What Wall Street Should Do To Get Its Blank Check
By Robert Reich - September 21, 2008, 1:48PM

The frame has been set, the dye cast. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, presumably representing the Bush administration but indirectly representing Wall Street, and Fed Chief Ben Bernanke, want a blank check from Congress for $700 billion or possibly a trillion dollars or more to take bad debt off Wall Street's balance sheets. Never before in the history of American capitalism has so much been asked of so many for (at least in the first instance) so few.

Put yourself in the shoes of a member of Congress, including our two presidential candidates. The Treasury Secretary and Fed Chair have told you this is necessary to save the economy. If you don't agree, you risk a meltdown of the entire global financial system. Your own constituents' savings could go down with it. An election is six weeks away. Besides, in the last two days of trading, since rumors spread that the Treasury and the Fed were planning something of this sort, stock prices revived.

Now - quick -- what do you do? You have no choice but to say yes.

But you might also set some conditions on Wall Street.



Read more: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/09/21/what_wall_street_should_do_to/index.php

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Go and read his recommendations. They're brilliant!

[Demeter]

1. I've Got a Better One--Just Say NO

Make them come back with a better plan--one that has them hurting.

[liberalmuse]

2. Is he advising Barack Obama?

God, I hope so. Fucking brilliant!

[OregonBlue]

3. Yes!!

[liberalmuse]

4. I thought I'd heard that!

Yessssss!!!! :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

[Two Americas]

5. the most amazing thing about this

We have people here defending this latest fraud and swindle by the Republicans, and the Democratic politicians teetering on the brink of caving in - yet again.

The economy isn't collapsing, it is being looted. There is no shortage of money, it is all being stolen. The only danger we are in is from the people claiming to "fix" things. It is a "fix" all right.

How can any Democrat have watched the modus operandi of the Republicans over the last decade or more and not see the pattern here?

The time has now arrived that everyone here and everyone in the party needs to make up their mind once and for all. They need to ask themselves - am I a free-market privatization personal responsibility libertarian, or am I a Democrat? Even many conservative observers are done with this free market nonsense, yet we have Democrats here and in Washington who can't seem to get any clarity about this and fight back?

Anyone who will not fight this and speak out against this, anyone who wants to compromise and cave on this, would do us a favor to switch parties and save us all a lot of grief and confusion.

[marew]

6. You are absolutely right.

The fat cats are at it again. No one should get a blank check. We should all know, rather we have the right to know every bit about where that money is going, all the specifics. It is just another "screw the middle class."

[glitch]

7. Worthy of its own thread. nt

[neverforget]

10. Damn straight!

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

8. Reich is wasted on teaching

Reich is one of the few people who actually has a realistic vision for America in a globalized world, unfortunately nobody left or right is too interested in what he has to say.

[MasonJar]

9. Send it to Congress and especially to Obama. Please someone who

knows how to e-mail the whole bunch at once send it. I am too computer illiterate to do it myself or I would.