Timing is suspicious on the Bailout

[johnlal]

When President Bush got into office, I was amazed at how little time it took for his corporate cronies to start grabbing money. Now, with just a few months left in the Bush Presidency, we're seeing a proposal for a $700 Billion Dollar payout to the Banking and Insurance corporations who have been stealing from us for 8 years now. The timing of these events, and the recipients of this largese can't be a coincidence. They are cashing out. They're getting their last big score before Bush leaves office. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is making it clear that he wants no strings attached to this gift. No Congressional Oversight. No Judicial Review. No punishment to the executives who run these companies we're about to bail out. It's just free money to be doled out to executives in whatever amounts George Bush sees fit.

This bailout comes a few months later than the big money grab perpetrated by Big Oil. With mere months to go in the presidency, gas prices inexplicably rose to over $4.00 per gallon. An oil industry that has been making record profits from uncontrolled price spikes over the last 8 years decided to go for it in the last months-- taking all it can grab on the way out the door. This is only a case of Banking and Insurance doing the same.

This is not to say that we shouldn't be worried about the consequences of failure of these giant firms. Their collapse could wipe out retirements, savings, and businesses globally. It could trigger a new depression. However, we should recognize this "crisis" for what it is-- a money grab. Those executives involved in this economic terrorism should be put behind bars. They certainly should not be given golden parachutes.

Many have said that this is just a case of the banks making bad choices in granting mortgages. These banks knew exactly what they were doing. Banks don't make money by charging interest anymore. They make money by assessing arbitrary and excessive bank charges and "costs". They extended loans to these people in order to get bonuses and commissions based on the number of loans made. Debtors limped along, making interest-mostly or interest-only payments to the bank, until they couldn't take it anymore. Now the tax payer is coming in to absorb the by-product of this very lucrative enterprise, the bad debt. Meanwhile, the Banks keep the good debt, the profit, and the costs and charges.

When the dust settles on this mess, the tax payer will be left holding hundreds of billions of dollars in the bank's bad debt. The executives will have been paid hundreds of millions of dollars. The same faces will be running Wall Street (although they may play musical chairs and move to different firms). Nothing will have changed. They will still be doing what they're doing, and taking their chances on the new president.

[ThomWV]

1. With only moments left to get away the robbers grab what is left and run

[voteearlyvoteoften]

2. Sure looks that way

I agree the timing is just a bit too much of a coincidence. Or its a diversion from an even more nefarious plot.

[mod mom]

3. The bu$h legacy will be of lies, obscene corruption, disasters and transfer of wealth.

There has always been corrupt politicians, but the magnitude of this abuse of power pales all. First, they used Bill Clinton (financed by Bush crony Jackson Stephens-think BCCI, Wal-Mart, WTI Toxic Waste Incinerator) to get get control of the media (Telecom Act of '96); deregulate the banking (repeal of Glass Steagall) and start to kill off the middle class (NAFTA, MF Trade status w China). Then, they used the media consolidation to advance the claim of Bush winning (HE DID NOT) in 2000. The SCOTUS abused their power in handing the reigns over. Along comes 9/11-strange- out it came at such a opportune time despite all the warning from both internal (including a PDB from August that specifically dealt with OBL ad a terrorist attack, but hey it was August and George Bush was on vacation for the month) and external intelligence (French, German, British and Egyptian to name a few) isn't it? What foresight the neocons had in suggesting in their PNAC (Project for a New American Century-the neocon's think tank) that a "new Pearl Harbor" might advance their agenda. An event that lead to war on multiple fronts sure is advantageous for the defense industry. The priority was always corporate profits as they failed to supply proper body armor, safety in adequate wiring of showers or even safe drinking water for the troops, but they sure did help the likes of Halliburton , KBR and Blackwater turn a huge profit. Next, to ensure future success, they handed out billions with HAVA (Orwellianly named Help America Vote Act) and gained control of the outcome of elections. Isn't it strange that the same companies that can guarantee ATM accuracy just can't make an electronic voting machine that records the will of the people accurately? Katrina, another epic failure unless you were on the receiving end of the billions handed out for failing to do a job. Now we have the banking debacle. Deregulation allowed for grotesque profits but at whose expense? The firms who shared in the huge profits for their staff's and shareholders also get to share the debt it caused with the American taxpayer. All a win-win proposition for the cronies!

BTW I think this coup is connected back to the first depression and the Coup against FDR. Funny how the same family name, Bush, appears in both isn't it?

More on the Coup on FDR:

1934: The Plot Against America

-snip
The Congressional committee kept the names of many of the participants under wraps and no criminal action was ever brought against them. But a few names have leaked out. And one is Prescott Bush, the grandfather of the incumbent president. Prescott Bush was of course deep into the business of the Hamburg-America Lines, and had tight relations throughout this period with the new Government that had come to power in Germany a year earlier under Chancellor Aldoph Hitler. It appears that Bush was to have formed a key liaison for the group with the new German government.
-snip

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/07/hbc-90000651



The Whitehouse Coup
Monday 23 July 2007

The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.

Mike Thomson investigates why so little is known about this biggest ever peacetime threat to American democracy.




http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/document/document_20070723.shtml

:rant: