The Trillion Dollar Wrong Thing

[marmar]

Published on Saturday, September 27, 2008 by CommonDreams.org
The Trillion Dollar Wrong Thing
by Larry Beinhart


Reason #1 to be suspicious of the Big Big Bailout, is George Bush.

This is not a Bush bash, it's actually an analysis.
All major George Bush initiatives, and most of the minor ones too, have certain things in common.

#1: They're failures.
#2: They leave a big mess for other people to clean up. Someday.
#3: They make matters worse.
#4: Some small group of people profit from it, and they profit hugely.
#5: That profit comes from using the government to take money from ordinary people and give it to people who are already very rich and well connected.

The Bush initiatives include:

1. The decision, before 9/11, to ignore Al Qaeda and concentrate on ... who knows exactly what.
2. The invasion of Afghanistan for the purpose of capturing (or killing) Osama bin Laden & the rest of Al Qaeda.

When thinking about this war, and the others below, keep in mind that an unknown amount of the spending - but certainly more than half - goes to private contractors, the defense and the intelligence industries.

3. The invasion of Iraq.
4. The occupation of Iraq.
5. The reconstruction of Iraq.
6. The reconstruction of New Orleans.
7. The Medicare Care enrich the pharmaceutical companies bill
8. The tax cuts that would promote jobs - "good jobs" - and growth.
9. When the tax cuts failed and led to a recession, more tax cuts.
10. The theory that tax cuts would not create deficits and would pay for themselves.
11. Anti-regulation efforts. There were thousands of these. They came through setting policies, executive orders, selecting pro-industry, anti-regulation, incompetent - and sometimes corrupt - staffers.
12. Hyper-low interest rates from the Fed. This created the flood of cheap money and created the conditions under which the most profitable thing that banks could do was to borrow from the Fed, turn around, make loans as fast as possible, then rush back for more. It was the equivalent of giving free coal to power companies and not anticipating that they would then proceed to create more pollution.
13. The attempt to privatize Social Security.

If we step back a moment from the crisis, and look at it as if we're not involved, the likelihood is that saving Wall Street - in this fashion - will do exactly the same thing. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/09/27-0

[CrispyQ]

1. k&r

Here's the part of this article I like best:

snip...

The real problem is that we have moved from a production economy to a consumption economy. Even worse, a consumption economy that supports the production economy in other countries. When we start to consume more than we produce - which we have - we must borrow. That means we're selling off or mortgaging our assets. If we were to do that to create more production which would ultimately pay for the investment, that would be alright. But we're not, we're just consuming more.

You can't borrow your way out of too much debt. At least not without a plan to create more income.

You can't consume your way out of an over-consumption problem.

If we don't address the fundamentals now, we will have to do so later. At that time, they we will be worse. Both by themselves and with the addition of the new $700 billion debt.

The ultimate problem is remaking ourselves into a production economy.

[avaistheone1]

2. After all these years it is still stunning looking at all of Bush's failures.

most of which have been major disasters for the people of this country. Bush is the undisputed Master of low expectations and the Master of disaster. He truly has sunken below any lowly expectations I ever had of him.

Well in a few short months it will be good riddance Bush/Cheney.

[indepat]

3. I would proffer all these stunning failures of junior are instead stunning victories achieved:

rape, pillage, plunder and desecration for benefit of a few at the expense of the many, i.e., rewarding friends and punishing enemies, privatizing profits and socializing losses. :P