We Continue to Get Fooled Again

Unlike The Who song in the 70s, that states, "we won't get fooled again", it is instead, "we continue to get fooled again".

Remember that $700 billion bail out package for Wall Street financial companies that was supposed to free up money from bad debts for lending to get the economy back rolling? With most of the first half of that money gone or spoken for, it didn't work. A week ago a lame duck president got up on national television and pleaded with financial institutions not to hold on to that money to shore up their financial situation, or buy other failing institutions, but to use it for lending like it was intended. It looks like the original plan which was to buy up "bad" mortgages and eventually sell them at a later date paying back taxpayers when the housing market was higher wasn't really considered too hard to start with. Instead of buying failed mortgages, setting some kind of stipulations on how the money was spent or used to insure that the taxpayer could be paid off, the administration decided that we would just buy up the worthless pieces of paper called stocks from companies that no one else would ever in their right mind buy, because the companies are failing in the first place. It looks like Bush get's his money for his big business buddies one way or another. Now that almost half the money is gone, and they can't get banks to loosen up money for lending, the government is thinking about maybe starting to give the second half of the money to directly help homeowners, let's hope that they come up with a few better rules for regulating that half of bailout money.

Talk about redistribution of wealth? How are the bailed out or soon to be bailed out institutions reacting to the economy downturn? They are paying bonuses in the area of $230,000 to employees making base salaries of $400,000. Makes perfect sense to me. After your upper management loses all your money resulting that your company needs to be bailed out by the taxpayers, your management people need hundreds of thousands of dollars of bonuses to know they are appreciated. What?!! Yes during house hearings I heard that these institutions were paying up to a million dollars a month to people who weren't even working at the company anymore, but who were held on on retainer because the companies were afraid that these people would spill their trade secrets with their competitors. Trade secrets??? Mr. Big Business, you are broke, what is it about your company procedures would anyone want or value? Gee what would these trade secrets be? Something like, "How to Bankrupt Your Company and Get Bailed Out by the Government"? Or maybe, "Screw Your Company and Get a Million a Month for Not Working". And while those guys who make 400 thousand dollars a year and bonuses of 230 thousand dollars are getting paid by the American taxpayer if, God forbid, that taxpayer gets a 1 thousand dollar tax break, it is an evil wealth redistribution plot that will bankrupt the top 1-2% of Americans. While you are thinking about that, think about just how much that health plan or education, or disability is such a drain on society compared to them guys pulling in $600,000 dollars plus a year at your expense.

This is not even touching on all the taxpayer money going towards the war in Iraq or money going to other governments that are fighting wars for us. What about all the money going to the company Dick Cheney has ties to that supplies the instruments of destruction to support the wars around the globe. I bet that is another company that isn't feeling the pinch of the bad economy, the only company other than big oil. It isn't chance that in the movies Batman and Spiderman that more than one multimillionaire's fortune was built up using money from the arms industry, kind of like art reflects reality.

I have a bit of news for them politicians. The market is failing and stalled because the common man, the one that's not in the top 2% of income earners, doesn't have any money to spend on things that aren't absolutely necessary. Hell most of them don't have the money to spend on the things that are necessary. That what happens when you cater to the top 1-2% of the people who make the most, they divvy things up to make the most out of everyone else until everyone else don't have the money to keep the economy going.

These things should make you mad as hell. They should make you want to hold people, corporations, and administrations accountable for the mistakes that make and especially when they do things that either are illegal or should be illegal. The Bush/Cheney administration needs to be held accountable for their deeds while in office, they surely didn't protect the constitution that they swore to protect. They started wars where we had no business, screwed up the economy for their buddies gain, went against Geneva conventions and international law. The first step to fixing things is to find and admit where things went wrong to get to this time in space that we are in, and take steps that these things do not ever have the chance to happen again. Impeach Bush/Cheney. Then prosecute them.