The Big Guys, $700 Billion ...
The Little Guys, Nothing.
Yep, that's right. Those who lost everything in the mortgage scam will get nothing from Paulson's proposal to bail out the hot shot financial geniuses who caused the meltdown but an increased tax burden and an even shakier economy. Joan Vennochi made that clear in her column published today in the Boston Globe.
Some aspects of the Wall Street crisis are tough to understand. But one economic principle is pretty clear.
When a really big company goes bust, the little guy pays with his home or job. But those CEOs and money managers who boldly march their corporate empires into bankruptcy just get paid millions and millions of dollars more.
From Washington, inconsistency is the policy order of the day. ...
But no one wants to help taxpayers who are losing homes and jobs. In the grand scheme of American capitalism, they are overreaching specks, too stupid, presumptuous, and inconsequential to spare. ...
The country's conservative moralists shake their finger at low-income home buyers who dared to make a grab for a humble piece of the American dream. When the dream turns nightmarish, the foreclosed-upon are held personally accountable for their bad debt.
But there's no personal accountability for those who actually understood the fine print behind those shaky loans, because they wrote it. No one tells them to hand back their bonuses. If they are eventually forced out, they walk out with huge paychecks.
Exactly so.
I don't know which is more stunning: that Washington really believes that rewarding those who caused this financial crisis will guarantee that it will never happen again, or that Washington believes that the rest of the country is too stupid to notice or to care.
The proposal from Treasury Secretary Paulson, as it stands, stinks, and the Democrats in Congress had better do more than hold their noses and pass it without some huge changes. Earlier today, I suggested one provision that has to be struck in its entirety, the one which gives the Treasury Secretary absolute power over the bail-out with no congressional or judicial review.
Here are a few more suggestions, some of which have been offered by people like Bernie Sanders and Barney Frank, and by people like you and me.
Add provisions that strip the executives of these financial giants of all bonuses awarded in 2008 and of any golden parachute they were counting on should they be forced out.
Add rules and regulations on this seamy part of the market so that robbing the rest of us gets more difficult.
Add a provision that gives bankruptcy judges the power to alter the terms of the mortgages that drove the home owner into that court.
That would be a good start. If this bail-out is so essential, and I admit it may very well be, lets not just give the money away. Let's make those assholes earn it.
Yep, that's right. Those who lost everything in the mortgage scam will get nothing from Paulson's proposal to bail out the hot shot financial geniuses who caused the meltdown but an increased tax burden and an even shakier economy. Joan Vennochi made that clear in her column published today in the Boston Globe.
Some aspects of the Wall Street crisis are tough to understand. But one economic principle is pretty clear.
When a really big company goes bust, the little guy pays with his home or job. But those CEOs and money managers who boldly march their corporate empires into bankruptcy just get paid millions and millions of dollars more.
From Washington, inconsistency is the policy order of the day. ...
But no one wants to help taxpayers who are losing homes and jobs. In the grand scheme of American capitalism, they are overreaching specks, too stupid, presumptuous, and inconsequential to spare. ...
The country's conservative moralists shake their finger at low-income home buyers who dared to make a grab for a humble piece of the American dream. When the dream turns nightmarish, the foreclosed-upon are held personally accountable for their bad debt.
But there's no personal accountability for those who actually understood the fine print behind those shaky loans, because they wrote it. No one tells them to hand back their bonuses. If they are eventually forced out, they walk out with huge paychecks.
Exactly so.
I don't know which is more stunning: that Washington really believes that rewarding those who caused this financial crisis will guarantee that it will never happen again, or that Washington believes that the rest of the country is too stupid to notice or to care.
The proposal from Treasury Secretary Paulson, as it stands, stinks, and the Democrats in Congress had better do more than hold their noses and pass it without some huge changes. Earlier today, I suggested one provision that has to be struck in its entirety, the one which gives the Treasury Secretary absolute power over the bail-out with no congressional or judicial review.
Here are a few more suggestions, some of which have been offered by people like Bernie Sanders and Barney Frank, and by people like you and me.
Add provisions that strip the executives of these financial giants of all bonuses awarded in 2008 and of any golden parachute they were counting on should they be forced out.
Add rules and regulations on this seamy part of the market so that robbing the rest of us gets more difficult.
Add a provision that gives bankruptcy judges the power to alter the terms of the mortgages that drove the home owner into that court.
That would be a good start. If this bail-out is so essential, and I admit it may very well be, lets not just give the money away. Let's make those assholes earn it.
Labels: Corporate Welfare, Economy
posted by Diane at 12:00 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home