Thursday, September 18, 2008

Kleptocracy


The fuckers are actually going to do it. Bail out Wall Street while the rest of us struggle under credit card debt at 30% interest, onerous mortgages, $4 a gallon gas and rampant increases in the cost of goods. A kleptocracy is a term applied to a government that extends the personal wealth and political power of government officials and the ruling class (collectively, kleptocrats) at the expense of the population. Our government has abandoned all pretense of being interested in the welfare of the people. If the government has the resources to assume the cost of billions of dollars of bad debt from financial institutions and manage these investments, then the arguments against socialized universal healthcare seem a bit specious, don’t they?

The architects of this disaster should be arrested and sent to prison, not allowed to retain their stature in finance and hoard their ill-gotten lucre. Why the hell is the government using my tax money to bail out private companies? Is there no way to stop this? From what I understand Congress has to sign off on the bailout and I am going to send my senators a copy of this post and let them know in no uncertain terms that I consider this vast transfer of wealth from the workers to the super-rich as nothing short of treason. And why does the government only nationalize the companies that lose money by the fistful? I think if they are going to start seizing corporations why don't we nationalize a few of the big profitable corporations as well? Exxon would be a good start. They seem to make a decent amount of money.

As a letter-writer to the NY Times succinctly put it, “A bailout like this is anathema to those who responsibly sat on the sidelines while avaricious moneylenders and their debtors made wildly risky bets that have now gone terribly wrong.” I say it again, if we can nationalize" our most hallowed financial institutions with no debate and no public discussion, why can't we nationalize health care and energy development in the same way?

3 comments:

Harry the Carver said...

I was listening to Laura Ingraham on my way home last night. Don't ask -I'm a masochist for shrill right wing lunatics. However, I was fascinated to learn from her that the Clinton administration and their penchant for multiculturalism are to blame for the current mess on Wall Street. According to Ms Ingraham, because the Clinton administration pushed legislation for equal lending practices into law, it's they (low income minorities) who have brought about the latest bailout at taxpayer expense. O well, I guess, when in doubt blame the niggers.

Mark said...

It surely wasn't the desire to increase minority home ownership that inspired the loosening of underwriting standards for home mortgages. What was driving that train was Wall Street's insatiable appetite for mortgage backed securities. The new bubble that everyone raced too after the dot com bubble burst. As usual, greed was the motivator. There is very little altruism in evidence on Wall Street, and even less eminating from the Fed. The excuse of "calming the financial markets" which has been tossed about by the politicians is just a smokescreen for a huge Wall Street bailout.

Mark said...

Oops, I meant raced "to"