The Dismantling of America

There is a gangster-like irrationality to our country's version of democracy. When Hank Paulson came a-begging, bowing to Nancy Pelosi on bended knee, our Congress, in its slavish devotion to the rich failed to extract even the most basic guarantees for us, the unwashed and lowly ... you know ... the ones who are footing the bill.

Where the Brits insisted that any bailout earn them voting rights with seats on their bankers' boards, a 12 percent annual dividend paid to the government, a suspension of dividend payments to shareholders, restrictions on executive bonuses, and a legal requirement that the banks lend money to homeowners and small businesses, we American nitwits won the right to get stiffed.

If we are to believe our servile Congress, we taxpayers deserve no controlling interest in return for those 700 billions of dollars, no votes nor seats on the board, and a mere five percent in dividend payouts even as Wall St. shareholders continue to make billions and its executives don their golden parachutes while pocketing end of year bonuses for having frittered away staggering amounts of money.

Congress' spineless sell-out was so disturbing even Bloomberg News is asking the courts to force the Federal Reserve to disclose the securities the central bank is accepting on behalf of American taxpayers as collateral for $1.5 trillion of loans to banks.

As Bloomberg rightly points out:``The American taxpayer is entitled to know the risks, costs and methodology associated with the unprecedented government bailout of the U.S. financial industry,''

The Great American Swindle: Private profits and Socialized losses

If President Obama is serious about reforming the way America does business he would be advised to learn from our friends up North.

In Canada for a commercial bank to acquire an investment dealer-- like say Goldman Sachs-- it must adhere to strict regulations. Naturally their banks howled about "losing competitiveness" until the crisis hit and those sensible government policies kept them solvent. You see for Canadians the notion of democracy is not to screw one's neighbor out of house and home, but to form a more perfect union. Radical notion that-- too bad it's not in our own Constitution... oh wait...

The idea that America's "union" was in part conceived specifically to "promote the general welfare" has been discarded since the "Reagan Revolution". Instead, it has become an article of faith that government policies such as a progressive tax rate are somehow anti-democratic. As a result, even as unmanaged speculation threatens to sink our entire economy, Paulson and his Wall Street cronies are determined to drain the nation's coffers to feed the private sector's addictive habit.

A Quiet Windfall For U.S. Banks
With Attention on Bailout Debate, Treasury Made Change to Tax Policy
By Amit R. Paley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 10, 2008; Page A01

The financial world was fixated on Capitol Hill as Congress battled over the Bush administration's request for a $700 billion bailout of the banking industry. In the midst of this late-September drama, the Treasury Department issued a five-sentence notice that attracted almost no public attention.

But corporate tax lawyers quickly realized the enormous implications of the document: Administration officials had just given American banks a windfall of as much as $140 billion.
The sweeping change to two decades of tax policy escaped the notice of lawmakers for several days, as they remained consumed with the controversial bailout bill.



As Naomi Klein observes in the upcoming edition of The RollingStone: The Wall Street bailout looks a lot like Iraq — a "free-fraud zone" where private contractors cash in on the mess they helped create.

There are over 10 weeks left before the Obama inauguration. If it is not yet clear that the neocons intend to effectively cripple the next administration consider this: On the same day that he allocated the first $125 billion to the banks, Secretary Paulson hinted -- not that the markets required greater regulation but that the crisis demanded "greater fiscal responsibility and entitlement reform". In other words good-bye, Medicare and Social Security. If the Wall St. wizards stole your pension, shipped your job to Brisbane and left you in debt with a case of ulcers-- maybe you can head South and join up with the 'wise guys'.



NYSE Chairman Richard Grasso Embracing A FARC Commander

Like the hockey-mom said--this is the Real America, Now, Aren't you glad-- it ain't Canada!