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MARKET BAILOUT BENEFITS ONLY THE RICH AND POWERFUL
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- MARKET BAILOUT WILL NOT HELP THE ECONOMY
MARKET BAILOUT BENEFITS ONLY THE RICH AND POWERFUL1. THE BAILOUT WAS BORN OUT OF CORRUPT CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS AND LOBBYISTS William John Cox is a retired supervising prosecutor for the State Bar of California, October 3, 2008. “Betrayed by the Bailout: The Death of Democracy,” Global Research, Accessed 12-10-2008, Individuals working for Wall Street finance, insurance and real estate companies and the companies’ political action committees have contributed more than $47 million to the campaigns of Senator Obama (three of top five sources) and Senator McCain (top five sources), both of whom voted for the bailout. More to the point, Wall Street has contributed more than $1.1 billion dollars to congressional candidates since 2002. Nine of the top ten House recipients of Wall Street largesse, who each received an average of $1.5 million, are on the financial oversight and taxation committees. 2. THE BAILOUT WAS BY AND FOR THE FAT CATS IN WASHINGTON AND WALL STREET Stephen Dinan and Jennifer Harper, October 1, 2008. “'Bailout' by any other name sounds sweeter,” THE WASHINGTON TIMES, p. A1.
"Everyone acknowledges something must be done with the financial situation, but the bailout bill was not what Americans wanted," he said. "After the vote in the House, I looked out my window and the sky had not fallen, so America indeed has yet another day to resolve this mess." 3. THE BAILOUT WILL ONLY BENEFIT THE RICHEST PORTIONS OF SOCIETY, NOT MAJORITY William John Cox is a retired supervising prosecutor for the State Bar of California, October 3, 2008. “Betrayed by the Bailout: The Death of Democracy,” Global Research, Accessed 12-10-2008, The Latin adage, Cui bono, asks "to whose death are you going?" Law enforcement investigators quickly learn that the guilty party can usually be found among those who stand to gain from a murder or other crime. There is no doubt the bailout will most benefit some of the richest and highest paid individuals in the American economy. But, why did the politicians betray the wishes of those who elected them in favor of the criminals who committed the fraud? Perhaps the answer can be found in another Latin phrase, quid pro quo, meaning "what for what; something for something." 4. BAILOUT FUNDS WERE UNNECCESSARY AND ONLY MAKE THE RICH RICHER THE MINING GAZATTE (editorial), November 13, 2008. “Bailout is corporate welfare,” Some companies receiving money through the government's program to "bail out" beleaguered financial institutions do not seem to have been in trouble at all. They are using the funds to get bigger and richer through acquisitions of other firms. We do not believe that is what most Americans had in mind when Congress approved the enormous bailout bill a few weeks ago. 5. WALL STREET PAID OFF CONGRESS IN ADVANCE TO SECURE BAILOUT William John Cox is a retired supervising prosecutor for the State Bar of California, October 3, 2008. “Betrayed by the Bailout: The Death of Democracy,” Global Research, Accessed 12-10-2008, Even more telling, the bipartisan Congressional "leaders" most responsible for pushing the bailout through Congress, Senators Dodd and Gregg and Representatives Frank and Blunt have taken almost $20 million from Wall Street sources during the last 20 years. Dodd recently received $6 million in contributions during his presidential primary campaign, and Frank has collected $720,000 this year. Other key players also have been well compensated this year: Congressman Kanjorski received $755,000 and Congressman Bachus banked $704,000. MARKET BAILOUT WILL NOT HELP THE ECONOMY1. THE MARKET BAILOUT DOES NOT ADDRESS THE ROOT CAUSES OF OUR ECONOMIC CRISIS Emanuel Kohlscheen, Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, The University of Warwick, July 2008.“Debt, bailouts and constitutions,” ECONOMIC INQUIRY, vol. 46, no. 3, p. 480. Economically, the plan could never work. It does not treat the root of the problem, which is that big banks made bad loans. If they are bailed out, the only lesson the market hears is that it always pays to take risks, whether your horse comes in or not. At the same time, the added tax burden would feed back into financial markets through weakened consumer confidence and further mortgage defaults, creating new bad debt just as the old stuff is being purged.
William John Cox is a retired supervising prosecutor for the State Bar of California, October 3, 2008. “Betrayed by the Bailout: The Death of Democracy,” Global Research, Accessed 12-10-2008, In passing the "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008," Congress ignored the "great concern" expressed by almost two hundred of the nation’s leading economists who pleaded with Congress "not to rush, to hold appropriate hearings, and to carefully consider the right course of action,..." In addition to its ambiguity and long-term effects, the economists believed the bailout plan to be "a subsidy to investors at taxpayers’ expense" and to be "desperately short-sighted." Ultimately, more than 400 top economists, including two Nobel Prize winners, voiced opposition to the bailout. 3. THE BAILOUT SUNK THE ECONOMY INTO GREATER DEBT BY OVER $2 TRILLION Chris Lugo, Green Party of Tennessee candidate for US Senate, September 23, 2008. “Just Say No to Corporate Bailouts,” OpEdNews.com, Accessed 12-10-2008, Americans do not understand what the cost of the proposed bailout is in real terms, and many Americans do not realize the amount of debt that the federal government has already accrued, which is a burden to be passed on to our future generations. In real dollars, the proposal by the treasury department will cost the average taxpayer five thousand dollars and ten thousands dollars for a household of four. That is ten thousand dollars of debt that President Bush and his cabinet will leave as a legacy to compete with the shared cost of the war in Iraq, which will cost the average household nearly an additional ten thousand dollars in debt. That is a total of twenty thousand dollars in debt per household multiplied by millions of Americans equals nearly two trillion dollars that we are deeper in debt as a result of the war in Iraq and the recent proposed bailout which will in all likelihood sail through Congress this week. 4. WALL STREET IS A FAILED MODEL OF CAPITLISM. THE BAILOUT WILL NOT HELP Emanuel Kohlscheen, Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, The University of Warwick, July 2008.“Debt, bailouts and constitutions,” ECONOMIC INQUIRY, vol. 46, no. 3, p. 480. Instead, a new structure for the monetary economy needs to be considered. Congress and the treasury should appoint a council of the wise to begin the process of replacing the now defunct 20th-century model of financial capitalism which something more robust. It is not a question of standing by and letting Wall Street fail. Wall Street has already failed.
Nelson D. Schwartz and James Kanter, Staff Writers, September 8, 2008. “How many corporate bailouts are too many?,” INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE, Accessed 12-10-2008, What about the moral hazard problem? The solution to that seems to be to wipe out the shareholders in companies that are rescued and force out the executives who brought about the disaster, said Byron Wien, a longtime veteran of Wall Street who is the chief investment strategist at Pequot Capital. "The government is saying that they'll help but the guy who comes to Washington to ask might be the first to go," Wien added. "And they're telling shareholders, 'If we provide help, you might be wiped out."' Download 343.42 Kb. Share with your friends:
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