Maybe the film medium helps you think clearly
The Rich Are Staging a Coup Right Now
| Rather than spend billions on bankers and brokers, this commentator would spend it on medical insurance for all. We’d rather bring down medical costs by repealing the privileges that AMA lobbying has won over the years and bring up the ability to pay via geonomics -- de-taxing earnings while sharing society’s surplus. We trim this long 2008 article of September 29, posted at the writer’s website. |
by Michael Moore
After stealing a half trillion dollars to line the pockets of their war-profiteering backers for the past five years, after lining the pockets of their fellow oilmen to the tune of over a hundred billion dollars in just the last two years, Bush and his cronies -- who must soon vacate the White House -- are looting the US Treasury of every dollar they can grab. They are swiping as much of the silverware as they can on their way out the door.No matter what they say, no matter how many scare words they use, they are up to their old tricks of creating fear and confusion in order to make and keep themselves and the upper one percent filthy rich. Read the real deal in last Monday's New York Times:
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"Even as policy makers worked on details of a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, Wall Street began looking for ways to profit from it.
"Financial firms were lobbying to have all manner of troubled investments covered, not just those related to mortgages.
"At the same time, investment firms were jockeying to oversee all the assets that Treasury plans to take off the books of financial institutions, a role that could earn them hundreds of millions of dollars a year in fees.
"Nobody wants to be left out of Treasury's proposal to buy up bad assets of financial institutions."
Wall Street and its backers created this mess. Now they’re angling to clean up like bandits. Even Rudy Giuliani is lobbying for his firm to be hired and paid to "consult" in the bailout.
Treasury Secretary Paulson admitted he doesn't know the exact amount needed; he just picked the $700 billion number out of his head! The head of the congressional budget office said he can't figure out the collapse nor can he explain it to anyone.
And yet, they are screeching about how the end is near! Panic! Recession! The Great Depression! We must pass the bailout bill today!! The sky is falling! The sky is falling!
Falling for whom?
This so-called "collapse" was triggered by the massive defaulting and foreclosures going on with people's home mortgages. It’s not because too many working class idiots were given mortgages that they really couldn't afford. Instead, the number one cause of people declaring bankruptcy is medical bills. If medical attention cost less, this mortgage "crisis" may never have happened.
When you screw up in life, there is hell to pay. Each and every one of you has paid the consequences of your actions at some point. We cannot let there be one set of rules for the vast majority of hard-working citizens, and another set of rules for the elite, who, when they screw up, are handed one more gift on a silver platter.
This bailout's mission is to protect the obscene amount of wealth that has been accumulated in the last eight years. It's to protect the top shareholders who own and control corporate America. Let them pay for the bailout. We are spending 400 million dollars a day on the war in Iraq. Let them end the war and save us all another half-trillion dollars!
This bailout bill might talk about golden parachutes but not about executive salary, those million-dollar-a-month paychecks. There is no direct ownership given to the American people for the money being handed over. There is no guarantee of ever seeing that money again.
Wall Street said either turn over the $700 billion or the first thing we'll start blowing up are the pension funds and 401(k)s of the middle class. If we let them do this, just imagine how hard it will be to get anything good done ever again. We the people, not the barons of Wall Street, need to be in charge of the economic decisions that affect our lives.
I have to stop writing this and you have to stop reading it. They are hoping Congress will act fast before they stop to think, before we have a chance to stop them ourselves. So start telling everyone to make basic reform now!
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Also see: Getting to the Heart of America's Economic Crisis
Another bank sees a half trillion dollars going up in smoke
Part II, Behind the Deflating Stock Market Bubble |
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