Tue, Sep 30, 2008
If you have a real story, you don’t have to make up phony stories. That’s pretty straightforward.
I’ve heard lots of phony stories. Much of the country’s political and economic leadership has been running around raising the prospect of the Great Depression and a breakdown in the banking system (I actually had taken the latter seriously). These stories are absolutely not true.
The free markets are completely discredited. There is significant political space to build a broad consensus for a 21st-Century New Deal that would stop spending our tax dollars on war and Wall Street, and instead help struggling homeowners and build affordable housing; fund job creating projects for clean energy and rebuilding our infrastructure; and fund a universal health-care system that would help American families, while cutting the nation's long-term healthcare costs.
It's time to for a taxpayers revolt against this mind-boggling Wall St. bailout. It's time to build a broad coalition to demand a 21st Century New Deal. This is our best, last hope.
The Institue for Policy Studies has released a plan based around the following elements:
• A stimulus for Main Street: Aid to the real economy
• Make Wall Street speculators pay for the bailout: No more debt
• Shut down the casino: Rein in the unregulated financial sector
• Limits on CEO pay and prohibitions on profiteering from the bailout
By Chuck Collins and Dedrick Muhammad, AlterNet. Posted September 25, 2008.
Who says we need to borrow a trillion dollars to save Wall Street from its own excesses?
I’ve heard lots of phony stories. Much of the country’s political and economic leadership has been running around raising the prospect of the Great Depression and a breakdown in the banking system (I actually had taken the latter seriously). These stories are absolutely not true.
[more]President Franklin Delano Roosevelt outlined the problem clearly in his first fireside chat, a week after taking office. “We had a bad banking situation,” Roosevelt said. “Some of our bankers had shown themselves either incompetent or dishonest in the handling of people’s funds. They had used the money entrusted to them in speculations and unwise loans . . . It was the government’s job to straighten out this situation and do it as quickly as possible.”
[more][AlterNet] Keep families in their homes and loosen credit markets without rewarding Wall Street’s wheeler-dealers for their recklessness.
[more]The point of the bailout is to buy assets that are illiquid but not worthless. But regular banks hold assets like that all the time. They’re called “loans.”
[more]
October 1st, 2008 at 8:47 pm
This is all just a big lie about a depression resulting if Wall Street
doesn’t get their $700 billion dollar welfare payment. FDR saw what
happened in the great depression, and he put in the necessary safeguards
to make sure it would never happen again - unemployment compensation,
welfare, and social security. Those safeguards remain in place today to prevent a depression. Any adverse economic results from the bankruptcy of these Wall Street investment firms will not take away the social saftey net that has been in place ever since the New Deal, and although there may result a great deal of unemployment and bankruptcy, once again the New Deal Satey Net will be there to prevent soup lines and mass homelessness. And all you need is federal hiring, the New Deal
type, to lessen the fallout from the Wall Street resulting unemployment.
October 2nd, 2008 at 10:21 am
The truth about the bailout needs to be told. According to Congressman Sherman (D-CA) , there is no guarantee these funds will go to Americans, American banks, or even banks doing any business with America. The only criteria is that the bad assets must be mortgages on real property. Secretary Paulson told Congressman Sherman that any attempt to limit this to American assets or banks doing business with America WILL BE VETOED.
This is nothing but a redistribution of working American’s wealth to international bankers. It must not pass!
October 3rd, 2008 at 7:42 am
JUST SAY NO look at the real reason Paulson/Bush need this money. Not for Ameicans, not for Mainstreet. Use your common sense PLEASE!
November 10th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
trading securities is NOT in the GNP! why take real money and bail out an industry of arrogants who don’t contribute to the GNP?