Who is next? How much is enough for a bunch of crooks?
By Sinclere Lee
WASHINGTON (BNW) – With a trillion here and a trillion there, before you know it them crooks in Washington will be talking about some real money. To bail out of Wall Street and the crooks who stole the money, even a trillion dollars, won’t solve the money problems this country has.
We are going to have to do more with less, and the crooks on Wall Street who are concerned about their compensation packages when they stole the money in the first place need to take a walk. Not just any walk; they need to do the perp walk straight to jail! The term perp walk is an American slang used when the police intentionally parading an arrested suspect before the public.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson agreed on Wednesday that a proposed $700 billion proposal to bail out financial firms must be modified to put some limits on the paychecks of executives whose firms use it.
As a U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee hearing opened, Paulson said he understood the public anger over the huge salaries that Wall Street executives have been paid, but still appealed for quick support for the package.
"This is a serious problem and I agree. We must find a way to address this in the legislation but without undermining the effectiveness of this program," he said.
Even if they got the money for running the country into the ground, the cure to the problem is worse than the disease. How in the Hell will a trillion dollars solve the problems of so many bad loan decisions made by Wall Street? It’s like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic; the US economy is about to sink anyway.
Paulson's comments marked a significant retreat from his past position that imposing pay limits might make firms avoid using it and stall an effort to rid the financial system of bad mortgage-related assets.
Stupid Bush gave his scheduled televised joke, further appealing to ordinary Americans to support the bailout as a necessary measure to help the broader economy rather than a financial bootstrap for reckless Wall Street executives.
With Main Street up in arms over a proposed $700 billion financial bailout of Wall Street, lawmakers turned to top U.S. officials to make the case for them that failure to act would unleash a financial armageddon.
While most congressional leaders have conceded something must be done to avert an economic crisis, they have had little success so far in explaining to the electorate why Wall Street's misfortune could soon spread far and wide.
Grim economic outlooks from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Congressional Budget Office Director Peter Orszag drew a clear link between financial market turmoil and real-world pain. The White House announced that President George W. Bush would give an economic address to the nation on Wednesday evening.
Less than six weeks away from elections, with the entire House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate up for grabs, congressional leaders were fielding angry phone calls from voters who felt they were essentially being asked to pay for Wall Street's mistakes.
"The problem is, the people asked to clean up all the broken furniture, they didn't even get invited to the party," said Rep. Lloyd Doggett, a Texas Democrat. "That's why so many of the people that are contacting me ... are not just against this bailout, they're very angry."
The Treasury Department has asked for the extra funding so it can buy hard-to-value and nearly impossible-to-trade debts off of banks' books in the hope that they will then resume normal lending and boost the broader economy.
Bernanke and Paulson have repeatedly stressed that the cost to taxpayers would probably be far less than $700 billion because the government would intend to resell the assets -- perhaps even at a profit -- once market conditions improve.
Sen. Charles Schumer, the New York Democrat who chairs the Joint Economic Committee, said he agreed Congress should act and act soon, "but let us be clear: Americans are furious."
While Paulson gave ground on the issue of executive pay, he offered no indication that he was willing to yield to congressional calls that the government receive an equity stake in firms that benefit from the bailout program.
Many lawmakers have argued that forcing companies to yield some equity in return for the right to offload bad assets onto the government would protect taxpayers by increasing the chances for a profit, or at least a reduced loss, when the assets were eventually resold.
"I understand the view that I have heard from many of you on both sides of the aisle, urging that the taxpayer should share in the benefits of this plan to our financial system," Paulson said. "Let me make clear — this entire proposal is about benefiting the American people, because today's fragile financial system puts their economic well-being at risk."
Really, I don’t have a dog in this fight but I hate to see a bunch of crooked politicians and their handlers just fuck over people like they are doing to the American taxpayers.