Sirotablog

David Sirota is a political journalist and nationally syndicated newspaper columnist at Creators Syndicate. David writes about political corruption, globalization and working-class economic issues often ignored by both of America's political parties.

  • September 25, 2008 7:48 AM

    Remember This When the $700 Billion Bailout Passes

    When you are wondering why they chose the whopping $700 billion price tag for the Wall Street bailout instead of a much smaller number, remember that they chose it for no actual reason:

    In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy.

    "It's not based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. "We just wanted to choose a really large number."

    Yes, you read that right. They manufactured the $700 billion number out of thin air - and they admit it, even as they oppose the few Democrats who are proposing a much smaller package, that would force the White House and Wall Street to come back for more oversight in the future.

    Posted by David Sirota
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  • bluenote [TypeKey Profile Page] :

    Some people have asked, "Will the bailout prevent a crash?" to which I respond, how could it? Does it cover the $1.144 quadrillion in OTC credit derivatives the Bank of International Settlements has stated is still out there with unexposed losses and unknown counterparties? Will it reduce the trade deficit or the national debt? Will it end the war or trillions in war funding? Will it make up for trillions in unfunded liabilities? Will it bring back our outsourced manufacturing jobs; our outsourced economy? Can it significantly or meaningfully expand the economy? Will it create a significant number of new jobs? Will it pay off home owners debts? Will it hold those responsible accountable? My answer to all of these questions and more is no....and don't make me laugh.

    Like many others, including Professor Galbraith, I have warned about this for years and described what we are facing as "the correction from hell" because I cannot see any alternative to the collapse of the U.S. economy and all the ramifications of that disaster; I mean disaster for the People of course, not the ultra rich and often psychopathic subhumans who accomplished the destruction and profitted from it. In my humble opinion, the best thing the government can do at this point is nothing; the best thing they can do is step aside and let it fall. The more they/we do to "fix" it or delay the inevitable, the worse they/we make it. But that is not really the point.

    There is another consideration and I believe it may be the most important of all; we keep circling it but we don't really nail it down. Many of us have been telling people we were on a straight trajectory for economic and currency collapse because that is what thousands of years of monetary history teaches us; the fundamentals are there for us to study and learn.

    I think we need to stop beating around the Bush; If WE could see it; if we knew, then Alan Greenspan knew. Ben Bernanke knew. Hank Paulson knew and so did George Bush, Dick Cheney and various government and financial industry leaders. To them, this was NO surprise at all. These people ALL knew exactly what they were doing; this entire debacle has been carefully planned underway for about thirty years. Some people have focused on 'subprime' and said it is 'theft' but do not seem to grasp the magnitude of it.

    The majority of the People and investors are economically illiterate; living in a fog of propaganda and ideology, they fail to understand the facts of this theft; for it is indeed deliberate theft almost beyond imagining.

    What we are observing is the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of the world; the greatest heist ever conceived; delivering money and hard assets from the poor and middle class into the coffers of the wealthiest elite and the politicians they own; which is virtually ALL politicians (except Ron Paul and a handful of others) and therefore they own the laws and regulations; courts, banks; major institutions; the media and pretty much everything else.

    This robbery; this economic rape of the country, is being conducted in broad daylight right under the noses of the People being robbed. This is so much bigger then a financial 'crisis'. The financial crisis was deliberately created not only to enrich the wealthiest people in the world but to fearmonger and panic the public out of whatever they have left, ultimately creating a feudal society of debt slaves. Our government has been expanded 35% in seven years and is the country's largest single employer; the implications are staggering. We have a militarized Big Government and the Big Brother, police state, surveillance society of debt serfs all rolled into one.

    ToTim McCormack at Rude Awakening, in commenting on the bail-out, asked the question: "Are the American People gullible enough to buy it". I can only add that "buy it" should not refer only to the "bailout" but to the whole sorry mess of the deliberate destruction of this country; this Republic, its laws, economy, currency and its people; brought to ruin by a group of global elite internationalist parasites, who have essentially already moved on, and a public that simply fell asleep at the wheel.

    Posted on September 26, 2008 3:36 PM

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