Fuck what the market wouldn't like. How much of it is inflated by debt? It needs to come down, hard, so people know what is actually valuable and what isn't.

-----------------------------------
I think, therefore I am dangerous.

I just wish they'd drop the fiction of blaming this on Bush.

Its not Bush. Its Bush + Obama + McCain + the senior Dems in Congress + the Senior Repubs in Congress.

The political opposition to this came from the two fringes. The Republican fringe and the Democratic fringe in Congress. This just shows the pro-corporate unitary majority that rules our country, and the opposition that is split between two groups left and right.

But, I wish they'd drop the campaign propaganda that tries to create the myth that this is all Bush's doing. The parts of this bill that gave Paulsen unrestricted powers to do whatever he wants were well known before this passed, and the Dem leadership and Obama gladly helped pass this bill without any attempt to change or limit that power.

Its their fault too.

----------------------------
"To know, and not to do, is not to know"

Make History
http://www.wilypython.net/Make%20History.asp

Naomi is probably right about the "tactic" here - a continued flow of Govt support for the ["private"] banks in the future based on the Treasury Dept. "losing its initial equity investments" [the $750B bailout].

A final parting gift to friends of Bush... not to friends of Obama, by the way. This follows the previous gift of the war in Iraq [worth $50B/mo. to military contractors and weapons makers, plus more-or-less free oil to Exxon etc. from Iraq.

The War on Iraq was based on a phoney crisis, just as this bailout is based on a phoney crisis. Either manufactured crisis' or crisis that just are not the threat that Bush makes them out to be. Its a very old and very successfull tactic.

tactic tactic tactic

Good article and good comments. Bush has never been straight with the people or Congress before and with this bailout everyone just went along with it.....again. In true Bush form, he told us it must be done quickly, yesterday even and to not do so would be disasterous; and once again he was believed! Unbelievable. I'm sitting here in my small republican community and saying, there's nothing I can see that's much different, people still have trouble affording medical care, but they are all driving around with new cars and Dodge Ram 3/4 ton pickups, new SUV's, $4 lattes and Wal Mart is packed as usual, no one has moved from their homes, few seem to have a serious job let alone manufacture anything. People are going on European and sunny vacations. And I wonder when times will get tough and how did I miss out on the above? TV is full of ads about refinancing, scams, insurance, $1 a day health insurance. Then I find myself really really hoping it will get tremendously tough for everyone! The sooner the better. Bankers and investment salespeople first please.

.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec08/nader_10-14.html

Ralph Nader PBS Interview:

If you make the speculators pay for their own bailout, then there's a relief throughout America that there's some fairness coming out of Washington.

A 0.1 percent tax on security derivative transactions in one year -- it's going to be $500 trillion of transactions in one year -- is $500 billion. So that alone would make a sense of equity. And you wouldn't put it on the backs of the taxpayer.

England has that kind of tax, by the way, for years. FDR had it. We helped finance the Civil War with it. But after World War II, it was scrapped.

So people go into a store in all your areas where your show shows, and they buy necessities of life, and they pay 6 percent or 7 percent sales tax. Tomorrow, someone in Wall Street can buy a billion dollars of Exxon derivatives, pay no sales tax. That's where the fairness has to go.

Nader/Gonzalez 2008

And just so we are clear... the one man who saw this coming and who has the will to shut down this scam is the candidate who has no chance of winning, no support from either the left or the right. We are like a wretch locked in a cell, with the untouchable key sitting right there on the table.

The latest company line from the bank robbers is the giveaway: banks wouldn't participate in this "voluntary rescue" if they weren't permitted to use funds for mergers and dividend payments.

IOW, banks would, basically, commit suicide if they weren't allowed to spend billions of taxpayer dollars any way they wanted to without any supervision.

Except that's obviously ridiculous. If a bank doesn't need a "rescue," then why would they "voluntarily" ask for "rescue" money in the first place?

Other fun quotes:

"It looks like a pretty good deal for the recipients and probably a pretty tough deal for taxpayers," said John Kanas, who was CEO of North Fork Bancorp until selling it to Capital One Financial Corp. in 2006. "It seems quite explicit that there's no strings attached to this money...It seems like a gift."

“They’ve been calling us; they want us to participate. They’ve been asking banks to participate,” said Dan Rollins, president of Houston-based Prosperity Bank. “The regulators are pushing us so dad-gum hard, we’re scratching our head saying, ‘If we don’t take it, does that put us on their bad list?’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1081624/Goldman-Sachs-ready-hand-7BILLION-salary-bonus-package--6bn-bail-out.html

I have not seen this carried by any of the US media .

Goldman Sachs has received the equivalent of 6 billion pounds in bailout money courtesy of the US Taxpayer.

They have set aside 7 billion pounds for bonuses for the Christmas season with the average partner receiving 3 million pounds in Bonuses.

This is just looting. They are getting all they can while they can.

PK

Wonder how many subsequent generations they can burden before the well runs dry?
Problem is it is already dry but how much longer can they sustain the illusion? Until they can figure out the next scheme to drain the well until there are no illusions left. That will be a harsh day when reality comes to collect it's due.

This "bailout" makes me apoplectic. I seek revenge.

-30-

We have no control over repugs or dims. They no longer represent us. Strangely, only the market will bring them down. Their corruption is so vast as to be unknowable. The world market will crush their extremist ideology, and unfortunately us along with it. America is a dark and fallen country and it's only a matter of time until the head of corruption is severed from the body. Unfortunately both die. Awaken and find solace in your remaining days, time is shorter than you think.

Thank you Naomi... just a taste of things to come.

Good points, one big glitch:

She says that the newly-elected President will have "enormous moral authority. It can be used to call for a freeze on the dispersal of bailout funds"

Not if he's personally hung the Bailout around his own neck like a dead albatross.

That's what the next President did. He took personal responsibility for the thing, right out there in public. (In case you missed it: I mean that Obama not only voted for it after the Democrats put their own stamp on it, he made phone calls pressuring Democratic Representatives to vote for it, too.) Apparently that $22 million from Wall St. was a good investment.

No, I think we can expect more of the same. Brace yourself, dig in, look to your survival skills.

Oregoncharles

The banks had no intention of lending. Paulson, Bernanke and Bush colluded with these terrorist banksters to hold the world economy hostage. They are nothing but economic terrorists. All the US taxpayers did was help underwrite these terroristic activities along with obscene bonuses these scurrilous institutions will pay out to their thugs. And what was all this talk about Bin Laden being a terrorist?

Alan MacDonald

Naomi, your point is very well illustrated that the "European" empires not only of "Portugal" (which you name) but also the Dutch Empire, the Spanish Empire, the German Empire, the French Empire, and the British Empire all looted their colonial territories --- as early American colonialists well knew.

However, as you know better than anyone, the 'shock doctrine' of imperialist capitalism is not limited to looting and oppressing their foreign territorial colonies abroad --- but also their own citizens at home.

In fact, Hannah Arendt was probably more prescient, and said it better than anyone when, in the Nazi Empire era, she warned of the intertwined political, economic, and military oppressions of all empires on both domestic and foreign people, saying; "Empire abroad (always) entails tyranny at home."

Yes, Naomi, "we've got empire problems right here in River City --- With a capital 'T' and that rhymes with 'C' and that stands for 'corporate'."

Yes, Naomi, we've got 'corporatist Empire' problems right here in River City US of A.

And the biggest problem is that nobody wants to talk about the corporatist Empire problems here in America --- because most of those who could talk nationally, like politicians, and the mainstream media, and the TV pundits, and the candidates in this most expensive presidential campaign ever, are on the payroll of that very same 'corporatist Empire'.

Yes, Naomi, we've got empire problems, and here they are:

Our entire country, our society, our laws, our media, our culture, and our indivisible political economy (which should determine how we reach decisions and share power) have all been almost completely taken-over by a ruling-elite 'corporatist Empire' which controls all this through the facade of its hand-picked two-party, 'Vichy' charade of faux-democracy --- as surely as the Nazi Empire controlled 'Vichy' France.

The problem is that while this much more modrn and sophisticated, domestic, 'corporatist Empire' controls and oppresses us as surely as 'Vichy' France's phony government did the French people, the difference is that this more guileful 'corporatist Empire' doesn't look like an occupying foreign enemy empire, like the Nazis, and it has brilliantly employed a two-party 'Vichy' government (instead of the single party one the Nazis installed), which allows the empire to ping-pong their own citizens back and forth between the frying pan and the fire --- or between junky Fords and junky Chevys, which the corporate Empire's marketing guys figured out 50 years ago.

Yea, Naomi, its a sweet deal for the 'corporatist Empire' --- all hidden and disguised very well, but still allowing the Empire to bomb, invade, occupy, oppress, and loot foreign resource-rich territories anywhere in the world at 'our' country's expense with 'our' army, and the best thing for the 'corporatist Empire, is that they can pull the same dirty tricks on their own domestic peons because they control the government, the banks, the media, the military, and their minds. And if the locals ever get as uppity as some of the foreigners being looted, why the 'corporatist Empire' can just wipe the blood off the empire's spear that they used to discipline Iraqis and deploy the imperial spear at home.

The only thing that could up-set the 'corporate Empire' sweet deal might be if some uncontrollable, unbribeable, uncorruptible, and unthreatenable anti-empire, anti-war, anti-looting, anti-spying, anti-oppression, and anti-tyranny candidate for president ever leveled with the people and pointed out something that our fore fathers knew very well about the British Empire ---- and that truthful something is the ‘corporatist Empire’, like all empires, is the singular cause of all political, economic, military, social, cultural, and educational sorrows that any country with an empire is bound to have. Or as Chalmers Johnson might say, ‘Empire itself, is the signal cause of the “sorrows of empire”.

Do we need more insights into the skulduggery? Our taxes are simply being spent against our will. The speculator bailout was the Demok party's final blank check written to achieve its singular goal: Absolute power. Why does the author of this article try to give ownership of the bailout to the outgoing chimp? Both replacement chimps hitailed it back to Washington to claim ownership of the bailout. This was surprising for O'Bama as it threatens to peel votes away, as everyone knows the great majority of the people support the progressive platform, far to the left of the Demok platform, and specifically reject the speculator bailout. Apparently "team gravy train" felt it could win those angry voters back via $5 million TV ads. What contempt that is for the people. Does anyone think such a plan in action won't have karmic repercussions? Maybe the Iraq war itself was such a karmic repercussion, that is for the apologists. It's a good thing we have third parties, REAL alternatives. If the third parties get 15% of the vote, this will force the two elite parties to think twice about speculator bailouts from the already bankrupt public treasury.

Ralph Nader :
"Capitalism will never fail because Socialism will always be there to bail it out."

"The Bush gang...goal is...a final frantic looting of the public wealth before they hand over the keys to the safe...."

And when the looting's done, cheney and his little monkey will personally stamp any leftover money down the oval office crapper, to leave the govt. as bust as possible.

Umm... Tell me why any of this looting of Amerika's treasury is a big surprise.

Just a few weeks ago the American people were subjected to a cacophony of dim-bulbs on every corporate media outlet shouting that if the government didn't start buying the toxic assets from the balance sheets of the criminal banks the stock market would fall 2,000 points and we'd quickly enter a great depression.

Then instantly the game plan changed.

The money was to be used for "capital injections" instead.

And none of the loudmouths who just days ago were screaming the sky is falling had anything to say.

There was absolute eerie, ink-black, creepy, deafening silence.

They will lie about anything. Everything. That's all they know how to do, that and steal.

Iraq. Lie. Torture. Lie. Spying. Lie. Terrorists. Lie. Election fraud. Lie. Iran. Lie.

The power of the media.

Washington knows it can get anything it wants. Anything.

Just deploy their cadre of paid liars to the front doors of ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, FOX and CNN.

And launch a coordinated unending choreographed attack.

Whoever controls the media controls the country. Period.

Dung Carts and Stretched Rickshaws

It was the day that Main street swallowed Wall street’s worst
no not spicy Blutwurst
but like a sausage it got both ends a goin
more than a breath of excess
for Main streets toxic trillion dollar indigestion

It took quite a little squeeze
to get that worst approval through
the promised bust needed more than a little green
to thin out the mean
like ‘a continental’ style worth
as real wealth looked for a safer berth

Is it too late to look for tar and feathers?
or oil specs with lesser levers?

The dung carts don’t have enough room for all the heads
and the rickshaws don’t have enough stretch for all the execs

So please
build a wall around Wall street
steal their water and their figs
They need check points and tolls
predator deprogramming schools
one hundred percent collateralization rules
So don’t bulldoze their Mc mansions
Let them sing their cherished songs:
‘AIPAC uber alles’
‘Es ist mir Wurst’

It was the day that Main street swallowed the wurst

Three cheers for Naomi Klein! This is one of the most coherent explanations of what the long term impact of the $700 billion bailout could evolve into that I have read: the banks receiving this largess get the federal treasury to indirectly function as an insurance carrier against future failure, in effect threatening to saddle taxpayers with a big chunk of the loss if we commoners ever fail to heed their dire warnings about being "too big to fail". Risk-free capitalism indeed.

The other feature of the recent bailout legislation that struck me was how its timing, and the orchestrated public relations campaign pushing it, were a mirror image variation upon the tactics used by the Bush White House to steamroll Congress into passing the 2002 Iraq War authorization, the Military Commissions Act, and the FISA telecom immunity statute.

On each occasion, just before a scheduled legislative recess for purposes of bipartisan politicking, the executive branch unleashed a blizzard of dire warnings about how the sky was about to fall in unless Congress acted and acted immediately to pass a particular White House drafted bill - or else suffer the dire partisan consequences if Chicken Little's disaster did, in fact, strike as predicted. On each occasion, Bush's confrontational parliamentary tactics produced the desired "bipartisan" statutory end result, with little meaningful amendatory revision.

I sense, however, that unlike the AUMF, the military tribunal/torture bill, and the FISA wiretap immunity bath, the Wall Street bailout hit a raw nerve with independent voters and a portion of the GOP's base because of its staggering price tag and the blatancy of the hubris. Grassroots folks are pissed that they are being manipulated and their political support taken for granted.

The rich fuckers who created and profited personally from the global financial crisis are seen as taking one last long suck on the hind teat of the public treasury, right before the Bush gang saddles up to ride out of Dodge City. This time around, the transparency of the looting is too egregious, and it may well backfire on November 4th.

Bill from Saginaw

A final push for more deregulation:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/30/AR2008103004749.html

My (moderately) progressive House Dem Sam Farr voted for it (the bailout) and that made me want to puke. His email response was all about fear. He took the bait. I don't believe he is lying in his justifications, I think he was blackmailed. I wonder what he has to say now?

Weak. All that money and fear makes people crazy.
Vote Power and Control. Vote Greed and Fear.