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Friday, September 19, 2008

Do Americans understand that WE are going to pay the bill for this?
Posted by Jill | 6:03 AM
Imagine getting invited to dinner by someone very wealthy, who selects the nicest, most pricey restaurant in town. You have a delicious, beautifully-prepared and presented dinner, thinking how nice it is that this person chose YOU to invite to dinner. Then, when the check comes, your dining companion pushes the check over to you and says, "You didn't REALLY think I was going to foot the bill for this, did you?" -- and walks out the front door.

That's what's happened to the American taxpayer this week, as the government bails out AIG, and is now preparing to buy up the banking industry's bad debt, along with bailing out the Big Three automakers, whose short-term greed had them cranking out SUVs even as fuel prices rose.

Isn't it funny how Republicans are all about accountability and the notion that actions have consequences -- when the misfortune falls upon the poor and the sick and the middle class? But then when the so-called financial whizzes push their companies to the brink of bankrupcy or the world to the bring of global economic collapse, it's open the wallet and "How much do you want, sir?"

How often have we heard that we can't afford Social Security and Medicare? How often have we heard that we can't afford schools, roads, and investment in research? How often have we heard Republicans screaming that we can't afford universal health care, or that single-payer coverage is "socialized medicine"? Can we please stop the "socialized medicine" meme, now that the government has had to take over companies buffeted by the so-called "free market"? Today in my local newspaper, an ignorant moron had a letter printed bemoaning the tax burden on the middle class that goes to pay for the poor. Has this guy been living on Neptune? Or does he think that the executives from AIG and Merrill Lynch and WaMu and other companies are poor people?

For nearly thirty years, Republicans have equated "government spending" with "welfare." But by "welfare", they mean payments to help poor people keep a roof over their heads and feed their kids. But when it comes to corporate welfare, well, that's a necessary cost. And Americans have bought it, hook, line and sinker. The increasing powerlessness of working people to the benefit of those who run these companies into the ground has us continually looking down the ladder. The question now is whether, now that the layoffs and the foreclosures and the gutting of 401(k) balances and pensions are hitting the middle class, if they're going to wake up, or if they're going to buy this nonsense that John McCain, a man who never met a regulation he didn't want to gut entirely, is somehow an agent of accountability and responsibility in corporate America.

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6 Comments:
Blogger D. said...
Ahem. Avedon Carol's pointer to and essay about the Republican business record. I think it is time to give Good Old American Historical Amnesia a well-placed kick in the slats.

Otherwise, have a good Talk Like a Pirate Day. (How apropos.)
9/19/08, 12:36 PM  
Blogger missy said...
We, as individuals, have more than $790 billion in credit card debt while also struggling with re-set mortgages and home equity lines of credit, but we are being allowed to fail: to drown in debt, lose our homes, go into bankruptcy.

Since we're a consumer-based economy, this is a recipe for disaster.

Congress should immediately cap all credit card rates in the U.S. at 10%.

In addition, credit card interest should be deductible from personal federal income taxes for five years.

This won't help me at all: we are lucky enough to be indebted only to our car, our home and our student loans.

But if the U.S. economy - and thus the world's - is to be kept out of a major recession that borders on another Great Depression, U.S. consumers must be at the center of any plan. And yes, I do believe the top 2% - who will ride out the recession just fine, thank you very much - should be the ones to pay for it. After all, it is our consumption that has allowed them to amass such wealth in the first place.

A one-time tax credit or stimulus check won't be enough this time.
9/19/08, 1:14 PM  
Blogger O’Hollern said...
I think Americans have put up with this nonsense because we're conditioned to believe that if we work hard, save our money, invest,etc., we'll be one of the rich ones someday. I think the current crisis is tearing apart that classic American trope.
9/19/08, 3:18 PM  
Blogger Cujo359 said...
The automotive "bailout" is actually a loan at prime rate. If the right conditions are attached, I have no problem with that one. It will pay off in the long run.

The financials, on the other hand, really will end up being a bailout, near as I can tell. They fired the folks who run Freddie and Fannie, and they won't get their golden parachutes. They seem to be the exception, though. The folks who screwed up all those other financial corporations seem to be walking away unscathed.

There's something desparately wrong about that.
9/19/08, 8:32 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
cujo,
The Frannie-ites WON'T get their obscene payouts??!!
You have a link for that?
Last I saw they were walking with half the National debt!
9/20/08, 8:41 AM  
Blogger Distributorcap said...
jill

you forgot another industry that is on the govt checkout line

the airlines -- they will also be bailed out

everything socialized

except health care
9/20/08, 10:23 AM  
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