Ordinary Americans Left Out of Bailout

Mark Seifert tours reporters around streets more reminiscent of Baghdad than Cleveland, Ohio. They are deserted. The homes are boarded up, covered in graffiti. Once residential neighbourhoods, they are now hangouts for drug dealers.

At the end stands a nice little ranch with a kept garden. It's the home of an elderly couple who have lived here for decades. Their mortgage is paid off but the value of their home has depreciated by half. They cannot sell. They have nowhere to go.

Now Is the Time

These are frightening and unusual times. The world of finance and the overall economy are both in perilous condition. Almost every day a new crisis erupts. The stock market has plunged dramatically, and is more volatile, than at any time in memory. Loans between banks have dried up. Major financial houses have either failed or merged. Government bailout follows government bailout.

Any Pay Cuts on Wall Street Yet?

Congress assured us that there would be no more big paychecks for incompetent Wall Street bankers when they passed their bailout bill. They told us that the tough pay provisions would put an end to the multi-million dollar payouts to these folks.

Last week, Secretary Paulson mailed $150 billion in checks to the big banks. From that point forward, the CEOs and all the other top executives of these banks are now our dependents. They are living off the tax dollars of school teachers in Iowa, truck drivers in Montana, and even Joe the Plumber.

Rewrite Bailout Rules on CEO Pay

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has executed two fairly slick about-faces since Congress passed the $700 billion Wall Street bailout two weeks ago.

The first makes eminent sense. The second should outrage you.

Let's start with Paulson's positive turn. His original bailout plan would have had the Treasury rush to spend billions buying up toxic mortgage-backed securities. His new plan instead will spend the bailout's first $250 billion buying up part-ownership in America's biggest banks.

The Rising Body Count on Main Street

On October 4, 2008, in the Porter Ranch section of Los Angeles, Karthik Rajaram, beset by financial troubles, shot his wife, mother-in-law, and three sons before turning the gun on himself. In one of his two suicide notes, Rajaram wrote that he was "broke," having incurred massive financial losses in the economic meltdown.