February Update

2/12/09 - Is it a stimulus or is it a bailout?  That's a trick question... because it's BOTH.  Yes, we now seem to have TWO PLANS instead of just one.  Obama has pushed the stimulus bill, just under $800 billion, almost all the way through and will likely sign it in the next day or so.

But wait... tax cheat Tim Geithner is pushing for a SECOND Wall Street TARP plan, this time to concentrate on the banking industry.  You know, the industry that sends its executives on junkets to Las Vegas while your neighbor's stuff is out on the sidewalk?  The guys who paid themselves $18 billion in bonuses while your investsments lost 50% of their value?

The plan that tax cheat Geithner is pushing would cost you another whopping $1 trillion dollars, by some accounts.  This is on top of $2.2 trillion in purchases and loans, the $700 + $150 billion first TARP fiasco, and the new Obama AAR plan which will come in at about $800 billion.  So doing the math... your government has (or will have, shortly) seized $4.85 TRILLION from you to fix the economy.

What are we going to get for that money?

Will we get single payer health care?  NOT A CHANCE.

Will we get health care for 42 million without health insurance?  NOT A CHANCE.

Instead, we're going to get a $500 check (thanks to the GOP).  Don't spend it all in one place.

2/07/09 - Here comes the new bailout bill... there is no opposition party any more, just a rival gang.

I am working on the spreadsheet and will try to get an updated version with a backlink sometime this weekend... no promises, but it could happen.

2/6/09 - As promised, Obama has taken the case for the bailout directly to the people and has begun attacking the GOP by name and playing the fear card.  He has published an op-ed in the Washington Post, done a couple of high-profile speeches, and is warning us of horrible, irreversible damage if we don't pass a "stimulus" package right away.  A few CEOs are going to have their salaries limited, which is somehow satisfying but totally ineffective.

The GOP, for their part, keeps raising asinine and incorrect arguments about the bailout.  They claim it has pork like fixing the Washington Mall.  Wrong.  They claim that tax cuts are going to turn this around.  Wrong again.  They are turning to Joe The Plumber for economic advise and since Joe says that capital gains and corporate sales tax reductions are the answer, he's STILL full of crap, too.  Joe is a symbol for the clueless, and the GOP has been clueless about this problem for decades.  They have killed the goose that lays the golden egg, and now they want to finish the job by running it through a meat grinder, feathers and all.

GOP are you paying attention?  This the endgame of Reaganomics; it FAILED.

The answer begins with rebuilding this system from the bottom up.  The nation's economy is based on manufacturing and commerce.  In order for us to have manufacturing we need factories within our borders.  In order for commerce we need people who have disposable income to buy our products.  Both of these problems are addressed by a comprehensive single payer health care system such as what you find in the rest of the industrialized world.  If this is not done first, we can "stimulate" Wall Street all we want with more bailouts; it will accomplish nothing but transfer even more wealth into the hands of those who are well-connected enough to seize it from the money-truck as it lurches by.

2/3/09 - American opinion on the bailout is going south.  In a new Gallup poll, the favorable/unfavorable split on TARP (actually, now referred to as "the stimulus" is now 38% for, 37% against.  This will give the GOP all the ammo it needs to posture about tax cuts, which proves how irrelevent they are and how America is screwed because we don't have functional opposition parties.

The News on 2/3 is generally consumed by stories about Tom Daschle withdrawing his name for consideration as head of DHS, where he would have functioned as Obama's point man to "reform" health care.  Of course, Daschle worked as a health care industry and pharma lobbyist so he is uniquely qualified to make sure that single payer NEVER gets passed. 

Obama is bent on maintaining the employer-based health care system; this is unfortunate because it needs to be trashed and replaced with single payer.  That will effectively cut health care costs by 50%, because currently that's how much money (roughly) that is being taken out of the system by profiteering. 

2/2/09 - Here we are in the morass of post-winter-festival America.  Christmas and the Superbowl all wrapped into one... the past.  The Superbowl had a great finish, at least.  But now the credit card bills are due and the Congress critters are wrangling over how to solve a problem that they haven't even begun to define.  One problem the DID solve, however, was the problem of $350 billion burning a hole in their pocket.  That money is released and will soon go the same way the first "tranche" did... into a black hole and onto your childrens' childrens' tax burden.

There are more bailouts in the pipeline.  There is plenty of political posturing on both sides of the issue, while Americans get ground up like hamburger in the middle.  There is still not one peep coming out of ObamaLand about single payer health care, the most single important act that could be done to fix the economic crisis.  Instead we are engaged in a fight about ANOTHER tax cheat, this time Tom Daschle, who claims innocence but don't they all do that when they get caught?  Daschle's confirmation, which Obama seems bent on, will spell the end of single payer health care expectations.  Daschle will come up with a manipulated "plan" that will include the health insurance companies, one of his biggest benefactors.  Then Obama will claim victory over the health care crisis and we'll move along.

This is similar to what the Democrats did regarding the impeachment movement.  They agreed to a Friday afternoon hearing, which got absolute zero national press coverage, and that allowed them to adjourn and then go home to their voters and claim that they did something about impeachment.

Our government is dysfunctional because we ALLOW them to be. 

January Update

The House just passed another $820 billion bailout, at the insistance of our new President.  It's his plan, he "negotiated" it with the GOP, turning it into nothing much more than another round of tax cuts (we'll each get $500, or a maximum of $1000 per household).  The GOP demanded a string of unpalatable and unworkable compromises, then not one of them voted for it. 

 Now we have tax cheat Tim Geithner at the helm as new Treasury Secretary.  Maybe Eric Holder will get confirmed today and then he can investigate how it is that a tax cheat who had an undocumented alien housekeeper gets to control our economy.

But what's up with Obama taking over where Paulson left off and cheerleading a new giveaway of taxpayer money by trying to get the Democrats and Republicans together on an ADDITIONAL plan? 

Economists are all over the map as to how much money it's going to take to fix this mess and even wonder if any amount will fix it.   The American Society of Civil Engineers released a summary report January 27 that says we'll need $2.2 trillion to fix the nation's infrastruture... the House bill has less than 7% of that for infrastructure.

What do YOU think?  I want to hear from you.  Please email comments and suggestions to me at wexler@bailoutfacts.com

1/27/09 I have decided to get serious about updating this site because every time I open up my internet browser a new blast of bad air comes out about the Wall Street bailout, the loss of another 50,000 jobs, or other rotten news. It seems like every story gets weirder than the last one, so I'm going to start another page where I list the weirdest story I read every day. 

For example... today was full of weird stories.  Yesterday, some typically rock solid companies including Caterpillar announced that they were cutting a total of 55,000 jobs.  Then today, CitiBank, a recipient of a Bailout Bonanza, was found out to be preparing to accept delivery of ANOTHER $55 million corporate jet.  (They already have several of these). 

This happened right in the middle of Obama's sales pitch for the Obama Plan, and that doesn't look very good, does it?  So he intervened PERSONALLY and told CitiBank to return the jet.  Pure politics.  They don't like it when they get caught in the cookie jar.

It has become painfully obvious, even to the negligent and derelict press, that the first half of the original Wall Street Giveaway money dissolved into nothingness.  They JUST STOLE IT.  That's right, $350 billion gone up in smoke , to executive bonuses, to corporate jets, to all the toys everybody ever said they wanted.  But it did nothing to solve the problems we face.

I will delve into solutions on a separate link; however, the first order of business that America should DEMAND is a national single payer health care plan.   That should be considered a down-payment to AMERICA for the "bailout" we've earned by giving up our health, our time, our talents, and now our life's savings so that fat cats can spin around in corporate jets while they're plotting how to take money out of workers' pockets and ship their jobs overseas.  We MUST demand single payer, and we must demand it right NOW because otherwise it will get lost in the shuffle. 

Single payer is good for business, it's good for individuals, and it will begin to bring the standard of living in America up to the same level as other industrialized nations.  Yes, you read that right.  Our standard of living has FALLEN, and we are poorer than "old Europe" by a depressing collection of measures.

Contact your congress critter.  There is a vote coming up shortly to break loose the rest of the TARP money.  Make sure they understand that you will NOT AUTOMATICALLY vote for them next election cycle.  Tie the discussion of the TARP vote into Single Payer.

Bailout on steroids

10/3/08TARP is now a fact.  They changed the name, though.  It's now called the "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008".

The House initially voted it down on September 29.  Then it went to the Senate, where it was expected to pass easily.

What was NOT expected, however, was that the Senate would add $150 billion to the bill.  But add they did.  I have not read the entire bill yet, but it famously included bailout money for Puerto Rican rum makers and NASCAR race track operators.  I know that it included pork for my district.  The Senate cleverly stuffed it full of pork so the House could justify voting for it... or on the other hand, couldn't vote against it due to the danger of being called out for voting against their constituents. 

You can read the final version of H.R. 1424 here.  This is the version Bush signed into law

Bush NATIONALIZES major banks

10/14/08 - Bush orders 7 major banks to accept an infusion of $250 billion taxpayer dollars.  The banks involved are:  Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase, CitiGroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of N.Y. Mellon, and State Street Bank.

The firms will take amounts ranging from $2 billion to $25 billion.  The top 4 banks that will recieve $25 billion are Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo.  Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are each taking $10 billion.

The conservatives are falling all over themselves trying to minimize the plain fact that these businesses are now wards of the state.  They are using terms such as "partly nationalized" and "temporary nationalization". 

You are either nationalized or you are not nationalized.

Watching neocon trickle down economists trying to explain away socialized banking.... priceless.

Nope, check that... it's $850 billion.  And this is JUST THE BEGINNING.

You can read a comprehensive article in the Wall Street Journal HERE

Spreadsheet project

As a continuing project, I am working on a spreadsheet that contains a timeline and other pertinent information about the bailout and its aftermath.  As of 10/12, I still have a lot of work to do.  If you view the spreadsheet and have an item that needs to be added, I will appreciate it greatly.

Contact your congress people TODAY...

The bill has already passed, despite the overwhelming stream of calls and emails.  I heard that calls were running 30 to 1 against the bailout and that the volume was heavy.  Perhaps we'll never know what the actual call volume and percentages were; but it's never too late to tell these people how you feel about their vote.

Senate link - http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

House link - http://www.house.gov/

How did TARP come about?

What legal and political environment allowed this (whatever is going on) to happen?  Why is this being portrayed as an emergency issue that suddenly needs to be solved NOW?  Is it true that if we don't act immediately we will have an economic meltdown or recession?  Why are we contemplating bailing out all these businesses when there are so many people who have been hurt who are losing their homes, still wiped out from Katrina, living on the street, and so on?  How did our national priorities get so skewed that we are suddenly holding a gun to the public's head and demanding $2300 from everyone in the household OR ELSE?

It was my opinion that the more time that we take to craft a solution, the less likely it is that it will be a grievous error made that will keep us paying forever.  However, the House and Senate decided to cram it through no matter what.

It is my goal to make this website FACT BASED.  I will rely on each of my readers to fact check this for me and I welcome your feedback and CONTENT.  If you have articles to submit I hope you will.  You can email content and comments to:

wexler@bailoutfacts.com