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Hang Onto Your Wallet! The Government Is About to Rescue Us
When the financial markets started coming undone earlier this week, the Treasury Secretary and the Federal Reserve stepped in, and with $85 billion of our money (actually our children's money, since they borrowed it from China and Saudi Arabia), bought foundering AIG, the world's largest insurance company, and assumed its colossal pile of crap debt.
That didn't help, and the stock market crashed further, falling to levels not seen in three years. Banks, meanwhile, stopped lending, figuring to just hold onto their money and try to weather the crash. The US Treasury and the Fed stepped in again, this time pumping nearly $300 billion more of our money into foreign money markets, and getting European and other governments to do the same in an effort to get the credit markets open again and to stop the stock market swoon. That was on top of some $700 billion already spent on bailouts.
It didn't work. Thursday, the markets continued to fall, well into the afternoon, and it looked like another seriously down day. But then Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson came up with a new idea. He said he and the Bush administration were considering setting up a new agency to assume all the bad debt of the banking sector--meaning all those bad loans they made, and that they lured unsuspecting consumers into taking out, by way of deceptive marketing techniques and outright fraud.
Note that we're talking about perhaps half a trillion dollars here--of our money again. And remember, much or even most of this money will never get repaid, and we're talking about money that could have funded reduced class sizes in every school in America, a national healthcare system, a crash R&D program into non-carbon energy and (not or) a strengthened Social Security and Medicare program.
The drones in the Democratic Party leadership in Congress immediately jumped on the bandwagon, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) urging her charges to act quickly to get some kind of a bill out there to facilitate the bail-out, which could cost anywhere from $600 billion to $1 trillion, but most estimates.
The thing to remember here is that this is not a rescue of the little guy (though the Democrats say their rescue plan, when it appears, will include some kind of relief for people unable to pay their mortgages). Don't hold your breath. Odds are those people facing foreclosure will still be unable to pay their mortgages, and besides, there's no way there will be relief for the majority of homeowners who aren't missing their mortgage payments, but who are struggling mightily to meet them each month.
Primarily, who gets helped by this enforced taxpayer largesse are the fat cats who own all the stock in these financial institutions, all the executives who pay themselves outsize salaries each year for their lousy management records, all these hotshot traders who make the deals that later turn sour, long after they've run off to another job taking their bonuses with them.
We ordinary people, who live from check to check, will feel the pain of this "rescue" in the form of higher taxes in coming years, and in a devalued dollar--because you can bet that all that money they're printing, and all that added debt they're piling on to the mountain of debt already out there is going to make the rest of the world pretty queasy about holding onto dollar-denominated debt, or about buying any more of it.
When you hear a banker say he's going to help you, it pays to hang onto your wallet. When you hear a politician say he's going to help you, hang onto your wallet. If they're both saying the same thing, and especially if one of them is the head of the Federal Reserve Bank, then you better really hang on tight.
Not that that will do any good.
The real answer to this crisis is, firstly, a massive dose of trust-busting, so that no bank or investment bank or insurance company is so big that its failure becomes a threat to the financial system, and thus the government has to rescue it with taxpayer money, and secondly, a return to the era of Glass-Steagall, when it was illegal for banks to also be in the investment banking busiiness.
All the talk of "efficiencies" and of "better service to the customer" that has been endlessly parroted to justify mergers like Citicorp and Travelers, or JP Morgan and Chase Bank, or now Bank of America and Merrill Lynch is fraudulent. Just to give an example, my bank, once known as Willow Grove Bank, a small family-owned institution, was bought by another bank and became Willow Financial. Almost immediately the staffing levels went down. Recently, the combined entity, which ran into trouble, was bought by another institution, Harleyville Bank. Now there are half as many tellers most of the time. As one teller confided, "Every time we get bought, they lay people off."
Of course they do. That's what mergers always do. To recoup the costs of the merger, management cuts back on service and employment.
The truth is, for all the talk about the efficiencies of bigness, getting a mortgage today isn't any cheaper than it was in the 1950s, when there wasn't even any such thing as a national bank that would be "too big to fail."
The real reason we have mega financial institutions is that mega financial institutions pay mega bucks to managers and make mega donations to the campaign coffers of politicians. They also get to put some of those mega-buck managers into key advisory positions in each administration, Republican and Democrat, to ensure that government polices allow them to get even bigger and even richer--and to ensure that when they screw it up, they get rescued at the taxpayers' expense.
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http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13459.html
Nader on bank woes: 'I predicted this'
By ALEXANDER BURNS | 9/15/08 1:39 PM EST
As banks reeled and presidential campaigns scrambled to react to the crisis on Wall Street Monday, color one man unsurprised.
“I predicted this,” said Ralph Nader, the independent presidential candidate. “All this I’ve written about five, 10 years ago.”
In a meeting with Politico reporters and editors, Nader laid the blame for the current economic upheaval squarely at the feet of corporate America.
'
''Pure greed, coupled with concentrated power on Wall Street and elsewhere” brought about the crisis, Nader said.
.
Ralph wasn't alone. Many of us were writing about the danger of revoking Glass-Steagall, and about the wave of bank mergers. In fact, even the Congressional Budget Office warned against the 1998 bill to end the Glass-Steagall ban on banks merging with investment banks.
The problem, as with every issue in American politics, is corporate money influence on politicians. The banks and investment banks and insurance firms are just too huge, and have too much cash to toss around.
The only answer, short of genuine campaign finance reform, is breaking up the financial trusts, and outlawing national banks.
Visit Dave Lindorff's website at www.thiscantbehappening.net
Mr. Lindorff, excellent piece.
My question...Why is no one suggesting that instead of bailing out the corrupt banks send the money instead to the victims of the crime...those who were "steered" into sub-prime loans.
The banks are not too big to fall, the victims are.
If the banks where the victims got their mortgage from no longer exist allow them to move their mortgage to a bank of their choosing.
This latest comprehensive bankers' bailout is casino self-dealing as naked and ugly as it gets. They're bypassing the people and robbing social security directly through the treasury in broad daylight. It is farce-market theology in service of rigged enterprise.
Dear Mom,
Could you please send some cash right away? Sorry I blew Dad and your's life savings, on those real estate speculations, but you can get some dough from little Jimmie and Mary's college fund, and sell grandma's wedding ring on e-Bay. They're gonna tow away the Testa Rosa any day now. I'm still at the penthouse address, for now.
Love & kisses,
Frankie
This is class warfare, nothing more, nothing less. The wealthy class has written laws that make it easy to rip off the middle and working classes who are politically powerless. Now the taxpayers are being required to bail out huge financial entities controlled by hugely wealthy individuals. It is not "this bank" or "that bank" or "this company" or "that company" that is being bailed out. It is the PEOPLE behind these entities who play golf with the politicians who enact the laws written by the lobbyists. It is crony capitalism. It is whole heartedly supported by both republican and democratic politicians. It is they who have allowed and encouraged fraudulent business practices that are ripping off the poorer classes. It is class warfare, nothing more, nothing less. Screw the peasant taxpayer. Let them eat cake. (And CAKE by the way, is animal excrement, for those who never read "A Tale of Two Cities".)
-- EKATON --
Excellent article Dave; especially liked your last paragraph.
Bush rescue plan to cost taxpayers dearly
The US Treasury Secretary says a rescue plan for the financial sector could cost American taxpayers 'hundreds of billions' of dollars.
Mumbaba: Paulson is vastly (mis)underestimating the true cost of this version of banker welfare, just as this administration grossly underestimated the cost of the Iraq War. This will not cost hundreds of billions; it will cost $TRILLIONS, anywhere from 2-5 $TRILLION.
WASHINGTON - The Senate Banking Committee chairman says the government's financial rescue plan will be costly, and is demanding more details about the program to confront the worst financial crisis in decades.
I think we will need to sell the Pentagram and the rest of the Military Incestrial Complex
to pay for this corporate welfare.
Funny how the Republicans gripe about too much regulation when they are raking in the money, but when the Republican fat cats are losing the money they blame the Democrats and the Federal government for not doing enough regulating. Bottom line, under a Republican administration the rich get richer and rest of us pay for it.
Be realistic. The Dems didn't make this a public issue a year ago, five years ago. It's ridiculous to think it happened overnight. But they're sure rushing to join forces in the bailout. Both parties are neck-deep.
twelvepax is right. Obama has the same Wall Street advisors as Clinton, like Robert Ruben, who pushed through Phil Gramm's bill to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, enacted NAFTA (SHAFTA) and GATT, and liberated off-shore banking. This is indeed a bipartisan rip-off.
Yes, but the bipartisan rip-off has always been led by Republicans/libertarians. People must understand that this group of greedy bastards and outright fools need to be hammered with all their 'let the market decide bullshit.'
Think more broadly. When Clinton came to power he should have pursued the Kissinger/Bush/Reagan string-pullers in the background, the Iran/Contra liars, IRV or Range vote, the whole works. The Democrats have been in position to put real reform through. Instead, they simply enable the Bush agenda, prove that crime does indeed pay. If Bush says WMD's, they abrogate Congressional authority to declare war -- and fund him. If Bush says bailout, they rush to it, and only debate minor details (such as chump change for homeowners).
It is the opposition to the Bush regime that we have to fear most, because they're somewhere between 95 and 101% complicit themselves.
What remains unclear is whether our present form of government is a tyranny, fascism, mafia, or basically just a modern-day forced tribute system. Our leaders answer to the world's wealthiest investors -- Russian banks, German banks, the Chinese, the Israelis and Saudis, etc. The chief job of our politicians is to relieve us of our money, and send it upward or abroad. The Democrats are so hopelessly corrupted that I, along with Nader, would argue they are our chief problem. The Democratic Party is where progressive ideas go to die. It's the source of probably all cognitive dissonance, wasted idealism, youthful hope, and foolishness. Anyone who's a diedhard Republican at this point is probably borderline mentally ill, but anyone who thinks the Democrats aren't fully onboard with crime-does-pay ought to step back and take the wider view. Our country is going to crumble, be invaded, or both.
It may be that we don't have to worry. Nobody is willing to raise taxes, so if taxes aren't raised then nobody will have to pay. Ha!
it is always the simple that is overlooked.
follow the currency rules of the constitution.
no fiat money / contracted debt.
gold / silver coinage as directed by LAW already, not "deals" by the non governmental federal reserve, which serves only the wealthy bankers themselves at the expense of others.
the current "folding" money in your pocket is merely a contract of debt, it is paper period, subject to contractual litigation, and interpretation, allowing opportunities for manipulation.
the old "folding" money was a cheque, a promissory vehicle, much easier to manage than raw gold, but having no contractual elements to possibly litigate, making it less prone to manipulations.
i see the speed that "elite investors" , victims of their own greed, can get relief to the tune of 8-9 HUNDRED BILLION +, yet katrina victims and new orleans are still hurting, a lot of the gulf coast will be looking the same in 4 more years thanks to ike, and who knows what the next storm will bring to where... i sleep so much better.. now that all those millionaires are saved, and can continue to keep us safe from terrorists and the other boogie men out there.. the good times are back.
Thank you for yet another well defined example of class warfare.
-- EKATON --
Yes, school lunch programs will break the budget but banks are too big to fail.
Bush's real program - "No Bank Left Behind"
Socialized risk. They gamble, they lose, the taxpayers cover the losses. It is a gigantic shell game. We are borrowing money from ourselves and we are paying interest (high rates) to . . . ? "Too big to fail" ... what are we the people? Too little to matter?
Actually, Wall $treet is borrowing money from China and churning us around with it.
FrederickJohnson September 19th, 2008 2:48 pm
"Actually, Wall $treet is borrowing money from China and churning us around with it."
If this all goes bad which it may well, China nor anyone else will be willing or able to loan us the money to cover all of the bad debt out there. That leaves only two options, the U.S. government defaulting on the debts or printing up the money to cover it creating run away inflation.
Lobo Gris
"That leaves only two options, the U.S. government defaulting on the debts or printing up the money to cover it creating run away inflation."
For years I have been telling people that THE PLAN is to either allow or to purposely engineer a period of rampant inflation in order to pay off the tens of trillions of dollars of accumulating national debt. Either way, default or inflate, is going to royally piss off the creditors, who would do well to not only stop lending the U.S. money, but to dump those dollars NOW, as quickly as they can. The Chinese win without firing a shot. Its coming.
-- EKATON --
Dave Lindorff is one of the only investigative journalists who is on to this. This could not have been a big surprise. They had to see it coming - all of them Dems and GOP alike. Bush said this morning that they are going to stop short-selling (betting the stocks will go down) by financial institutions as Great Britain did yesterday. How many insiders have been indulging in this practice - not just buying short but spreading info designed to force the value down - for the past few months knowing the ship was going down?
Here's an easy way to understand the present screwing:
Every $100 billion of our money the Fed spends to save a friend of the family costs $800 per taxpayer (not per citizen; numbers are rounded up.)
Based on the rough numbers DL provides above, "we" have already spent over $1 trillion saving said family friends. That's $8000 per taxpayer - do you realize that? You basically just wrote a check to AIG and company for $8000, corporations with reported trillions in assets, after they stole as much as they could without even as much as a wristslap.
Good thing we all had that extra eight grand lying around for a rainy day or civilization as we know it might have already perished...
So, your unborn children are going to start off life another $8000 in the hole, on top of the $80,000 they already each owe before they even draw their first breath. Nice legacy...I bet they spit every time, when they learn to say your names.
No wonder McPalin is against abortion...needs more bodies to share the load
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
"No wonder McPalin is against abortion...needs more bodies to share the load"
LOL ! Yah, but only those nice Christian bodies, not those nasty other ones. (I'm wondering if Palin despises atheists more or less than Muslims.)
Looking at Palin's own Christian views, she does not even favor softhearted Christians such as myself or my wife who can't stand her. I don't think she'll be any nicer to other religions and atheists. Still, I don't think she'll put religion on the front burner but her likely economic and foreign policy plans are a greater worry.
By the way, did you notice that in this election, nobody's talking about the Muslim American vote? I'm assuming Obama has it locked up or something.
I work for a securities exchange (don't hate me, I'm just a lowly computer programmer), and at lunchtime today I overheard one guy from Lehman whine to another guy that he and his wife had to cancel some birthday party and a trip to Europe. Waaaaaaah.
(Ooh, I should have posted this in the Screw Wall Street thread.)
One of the justifications for Mega-Banks back in the 80's was fear that large foreign banks, at that time Japanese, would "buy up the USA". Now, I guess it's no longer a fear but a hope that they'll buy it and bail us out.
Does it occur to anyone, that these people might be able to pay their mortgages if they got a decent raise for a change? Oh, that's inflation and that's bad, unless of course it's inflation of stock prices or inflation in housing prices...
Also, this is just a dress rehearsal for the retirement crisis in a decade. All those who failed to save for retirement and those who saved and lost it in the market will need to be bailed out.
Perhaps there will, at least, be a tidy business in selling buckets.
I would like to see a good article explaining the pros and cons of "global economic collapse" if the debt giants are not bailed out. I understand they screwed us, that it didn't need to happen, etc., etc. But all the mainstream journalists as well as many people from both the right and left say that it's a pity, but now we need to do what is being done to "save the economic system." My tendency is to say, "screw 'em", and see what happens, but I would like someone who knows more than I do explain just what would happen if the gov't does nothing. Or maybe there's something else that the gov't should do?
No one has this answer. It's far too complex. Taking a chance on letting an economic collapse just keep rolling and tumbling down on jobs and pensions, etc. is just not a good option. So, we're stuck with perhaps another trillion of debt to add to all the rest. It's not good for America, but better than disaster. It is interesting when debate turns to universal health coverage and doing good things for the average person, then the Republicans manage once again to spend trillions of dollars that we don't have. With the devestation of war machine spending and now this, just crawling out of our financial hole will possibly take a generation.
No money has actually been lost. The money went to those who sold their house at the peak price. If the banks fail it is because they can't pay their debts. The ones who are owed will lose. The losers will spend less and the winners will spend more. Why should the economy slow down? The losers suffer and the winners are happy. Those who made a lot of money are happy. The economy hasn't lost that money. Those people will spend it or invest it. The panic is about a redistribution of income away from the banks to speculators and management. The banks can fail without the economy going under. The stockmarket can tank without the econony suffering, its just that usually the market goes down when the economy is doing poorly. This is a problem purely for people who make money out of money. It does not affect the rest of us. This is all about bankers refusing to be losers. It would not be so bad if the "financial system collapsed", the financial system doesn't do any work, people do. The financial system is the world of money traders, not our world. They are trying to convince us that we need them and that catastrophe awaits. Yes, it does await. It awaits them and they want to pass the bag to us.
Likewise, people haven't lost their homes. The homes weren't payed so they didn't own it, the bank did. Those with paid up houses don't lose their homes. What you lose is equity, not the home.
The collapse of the housing market is not a bad thing per se, it is a correction. Speculators, and that includes those gambling they can always sell their house at a higher price if they can't make the payments, are going to get burnt, or are going to win. Its a game. When you lose big at the casino, everybody doesn't cry. Just you.
Bottom line: I don't believe not bailing out the losers would be bad for the economy.On the contrary..................... lizard
FredWol September 19th, 2008 5:19 pm
"My tendency is to say, "screw 'em", and see what happens, but I would like someone who knows more than I do explain just what would happen if the gov't does nothing."
What happens if the government does nothing is The Great Depression, the sequel. And it may occur anyway, there is no guarantee that the government bailouts are going to solve the problem. It may end up being too big for the amount that the government can spend. They could just print more money regardless of the size of the bailout needed but then that leads to rampant inflation. We're talking taking a pick up load of dollars to the store to buy a loaf of bread inflation.
Lobo Gris
&YYY&
Mountains of money borrowed and debts from mortages leveraged
Is rampant inflation that is still largely dammed and checked.
The first cracks in the dam have began to flow faster,
When the dam busts we will see floods so much larger.
Devaluation of the dollar like you have never seen it before.
You will think the dollar loss has no bottom floor.
Like the Wiemar Republic, turning money into confetti, in reparations for war,
The Vampire States Republic, in trillions of debt, breaking all financial law.
No one is talking about re-implementing the banking reforms of the 30's. Barney Frank go a long interview on The News Hour and never mentioned it. Whoever men-tioned Social Security is correct--except there won't be any thing left.
Between this plunder and his illegal wars George W. Bush is well on his way to being the world's first Six Trillion Dollar Man.
I agree with the author re the insane money thrown at managers these days.
But for the rest I am just SICK TO THE BONE about this whining: YOU, Americans, have been living on loans and overdrafts none of us in the rest of the world would be able to ever get from any bank. OUR banks wouldn't dole out the kind of mortgage loans you kept getting!!
If you can't afford to buy a house, then you just live in an appartment or rent a place! Most of the world has no problem about that! Just get the necessary legal protection of renters in place that isn't as Third World as too many of yours are.
If you can't afford to buy all the unnecessary gadgets most American homes are filled with, then just DON't buy them, just don't max your credit card all the time! Life isn't about consuming as much as you can while you breathe!!
WE in the rest of the world manage to do without a lot of that unnecessary stuff in other countries, we have to live according to our means instead of living on credit. And believe me: Your quality of life isn't superior to that of any European.
And now the central banks of this world are bailing out a financial system that's about to collapse only because of Americans' eternal greed to amass (mostly tasteless and useless) stuff. The tax money of people around the world who have been prudent with their money is being used to finance the immoral greed of Americans.
This all happened because Americans somehow think that it's their birth-right to live off other people.
So stop that whining. You are getting what you deserve.
The rest of us aren't deserving it at all, though, that's the problem. WE've been behaving like responsible adults and not just like some spoiled kids who want it all and want it now and hope or else they'll scream and expect that Mommy and Daddy will foot the bill one day.
The answer is that you should stop whining about us, and get your government and your banks to simply stop buying our debt. That'll put a stop to us. And stop accepting our credit to buy your stuff, which you seem happy to sell us on credit.
You're not as innocent as you think. We're in what is called a co-dependency relationship. This country is addicted to owning stuff that it can't afford, and other countries, like yours, whichever it is, is abetting us by selling us whatever we want and taking credit for it.
So just stop whining, and start demanding cold hard cash for your goods.
Visit Dave Lindorff's website at www.thiscantbehappening.net
I did not get one of these loans. My tiny house is worth FAR below the median. I live below the poverty level. My iSP and old pc are a gift.
What do I deserve? The EU is not really in a position to be lecturing--neither is any of the west. I dont think you have any idea what it is like in the middle of the country. What kindve choice do I have whether people are lied to about loans and the balue of my house goes down?
Indeed, the US has a lower standard of living then most in the EU. YOu have a social safety net. The US does not. People wil die. I will continue to "whine" about that.
Araquin,
Sorry to pop your bubblegum bubble. I, for one, am not whining about this lending debacle. I only whine when Europeans get a free ride on American taxpayers. I could care less about who started or who finished two world wars in Europe. I don't care if the Russians overrun Europe, I don't care if the Chinese overrun Europe, I don't care if cockroaches overrun Europe. In fact, I don't care if all of the above overrun the U.S.
What I do care about is a loud mouth presuming he is correct about responsible adults and their birthright to not live off others. I care about a loud mouth who, because European housing is way overpriced, whines how Americans can finance a house, as most do and not lose it and don't whine. But the European whiner can't. Oh well. Hey! You can rent, by your own words. I have relatives in Europe, really decent people. If they were to read your whiney tripe they would laugh you off the planet. You don't know how good you have it, bitch. And you come here with loaded complaints? This stupid scam about real estate subprime loans repackaging is not all Americans. It's not even a tenth of Americans. Its about illegal repackaging of real estate loans to the point there is no responsible person. Have you noticed the avoidance of commercial real estate loan data? Have you seen any numbers on that segment. FUCK NO!
So take your little ungrateful ass back to your auntie's house. And STFUP.
OK let me get this straight. The government through massive chicanery, illegal war (and war profiteering) etc. etc. has sucked bazillions of dollars out of the pockets of americans and into the pockets of a few CEOs and politicians. Now the Fed, a privately owned for-profit bank, is going to loan a ton of that money back to us, charging interest of course. WTF?? And no one is talking about it honestly in the media, of course. Economic crash my Aunt Fanny. This is all a well engineered rip-off. How are the personal fortunes of the Bushes, Clintons, Cheneys, Rumsfelds, McCains, etc etc? ALL GROWING at our expense.
At what point will americans get it that they have allowed themselves to be utterly scammed, and hold the thieves accountable? I know, I know, most people are too busy watching TV and believing what they are told to be as outraged as they have a right to be.
The powers-that-be aren't even pretending to care about the little people anymore. All these bailouts are squarely aimed at the connected pals of those in power.
I get the sense that they know the financial system is toast so they're raping and pillaging it now to get all they can.
Now they're talking about a brazen $800 billion fund to take all the worthless securities off the hands of the "poor" banks. Then they want another $400 billion to bailout money market accounts. I wonder where that $1.2 trillion will come from ... hmm, any guesses?
Dave
http://daveeriqat.wordpress.com/
Their connected pals and their own investments. So they get to continue to make millions ... and I get to keep my job ?
Just for jollies, do a Google search on Glass-Steagall. Here's what you get from this second ranking hit in Google from Investopedia in the last sentence of the first paragraph, "Additional and sometimes non-related explanations for the Great Depression evolved over the years, and many questioned whether the GSA hindered the establishment of financial services firms that can equally compete against each other. We will take a look at why the GSA was established and what led to its final repeal in 1999." You like that? Wait, there's more in the third paragraph, "The GSA, however, was considered harsh by most in the financial community, and it was reported that even Glass himself moved to repeal the GSA shortly after it was passed, claiming it was an overreaction to the crisis."
It caps off with this, "Although the barrier between commercial and investment banking aimed to prevent a loss of deposits in the event of investment failures, the reasons for the repeal of the GSA and the establishment of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act show that even regulatory attempts for safety can have adverse effects." The bilge was so thick in this entry that you'd need wings to stay above it all. You can see it here at http://www.investopedia.com/articles/03/071603.asp?Page=2. Oh, btw, did I mention that Forbes owns Investopedia?
Is it a crisis? Or a plan coming to fruition....
I remember reading an article on this site many years ago about the neocon economic plan being to rid social programs of funding by way of massive deficits... At the time it sounded improbable to me, the country was just beginning to move from surplus to deficit. But wars initiated through false pretenses and bubbles have certainly changed that picture.
The administration can't be bothered helping out homeowners, too expensive? Or not expensive enough??? If they saw this bigger fish coming, no wonder! Better for their actual goal.
I hope I am wrong. But my feeling about this whole "crisis" is one of dismay that it is probably contrived.
"I remember reading an article on this site many years ago about the neocon economic plan being to rid social programs of funding by way of massive deficits... "
Social Security and Medicare are toast. Forget about national health care. Get ready for rampant inflation, which has been the plan all along.
OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!
-- EKATON --