Who Will Show Some Backbone Against the Bailout?

RALPH NADER
COUNTERPUNCH
Thursday, September 25, 2008

Congress needs to show some backbone before the federal government pours more money on the financial bonfire started by the arsonists on Wall Street.

1. Congress should hold a series of hearings and invite broad public comment on any proposed bailout. Congress is supposed to be a co-equal branch of our federal government. It needs to stop the stampede to give Bush a $700 billion check. Public hearings should be held to determine what alternatives might exist to the four-page proposal advanced by Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson.

2. Whatever is ultimately done, the bailout plan should not be insulated from judicial review. Remember there is a third co-equal branch of government – the judiciary. The judiciary does not need to review each buy-and-sell decision by the Treasury Department, but there should be some boundaries established to the Treasury Department’s discretion, and judicial review is needed to ensure that unbridled discretion is not abused.

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3. Sunlight is a good disinfectant. The bailout that is ultimately approved must provide for full and timely disclosure of all bailout details. This will discourage conflicts of interest and limit the potential of sweetheart deals.

4. Firms that accept government bailout monies must agree to disclose their transactions and be more honest in their accounting. They should agree to end off-the-books accounting maneuvers, for example.
5. Taxpayers must be protected by having a stake in any recovery. The bailout plan should provide opportunities for taxpayers to recoup funds that are made available to problem financial institutions or to benefit from the financial institutions’ rising stock price and increased profitability after being bailed out.

6. The current so-called “regulators” cannot be trusted. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), “the investigative arm of Congress” and “the congressional watchdog,” must regularly review the bailout. We cannot trust the financial “regulators,” who allowed the slide into financial disaster, to manage the bailout without outside monitoring.

7. It is time to put the federal cop back on the financial services beat. Strong financial regulations and independent regulators are necessary to rebuild trust in our financial institutions and to prevent further squandering of our tax dollars. The Justice Department and the SEC also need to scrutinize the expanding mess with an eye to uncovering corporate crime and misdeeds. Major news outlets are reporting that the FBI is investigating American International Group, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Lehman Brothers.

8. Cap executive compensation and stop giving the Wall Street gamblers golden parachutes. The CEOs who have created the financial disaster should not be allowed to leave with millions in hand when so many pensioners and small shareholders are seeing their investments evaporate. The taxpayers are bailing out Wall Street so that the financial system continues to function, not to further enrich the CEOs and executives who created this mess.

9. Congress should pass the Financial Consumers’ Information and Representation Act, to permit citizens to form a federally-chartered nonprofit membership organization to strengthen consumer representation in government proceedings that concern the financial services industry. As the savings and loan disasters of the 1980s and the Wall Street debacles of the last few years have demonstrated, there is an overriding need for consumers and taxpayers to have the organized means to enhance their influence on financial issues.

10. The repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, separating traditional banks from investment banks, helped pave the way for the current disaster. It is time to re-regulate the financial sector. The current crisis is also leading to even further conglomeration and concentration in the financial sector. We must revive and apply antitrust principles, so that banking consumers can benefit from competition and taxpayers are less vulnerable to too-big-to-fail institutions, merging with each other to further concentration.

11. Congress should impose a securities and derivatives speculation tax. A tax on financial trading would slow down the churning of stocks and financial instruments, and could raise substantial monies to pay for the bailout.

12. Regulators should impose greater margin requirements, making speculators use more of their own money and diminishing reckless casino capitalism.

Ask your representative a few questions: “What should be done to limit banking institutions from investing in high-risk activities? What should be done to ensure banks are meeting proper capital standards given the financial quicksand that has spread as a result of the former Senator Phil Gramm’s deregulation efforts? And, “What is being done to protect small investors?”

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10 Responses to “Who Will Show Some Backbone Against the Bailout?”

rich Says:
September 25th, 2008 at 9:41 am
Ron Paul has been speaking against it, upon deaf ears though !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm_xX1Ur43I
Buckaneerthom Says:
September 25th, 2008 at 10:31 am
Once upon a time there was a magical kingdom full of lots of people. There were poor people who got to stay poor, middle-class people who got to lose their money and there were rich people who got to get all the money. Unfortunately only about 2% of all the people were actually rich. One day the rich decided that they wanted more so they said “Let us loan money to the poor people and the middle-class people so that they can buy whatever they want and they can just pay us back double the interest.” It sounded like a good idea, but what happens when you give a glutton candy? He wants more.
The king and his court thought that this was a wonderful idea since they needed money too. So all the people started getting all the loans they wanted until one day there was no more money to loan out! “Now what?” said everybody! And so it was that in a fit of wisdom (no sarcasm here…) the King and his advisor came up with an idea: Give more money to the rich so they can loan out more money!!!

Make sense? NO, of course not. And neither does the government’s current bail-out plan.
If you believe in Socialism and think that the government is supposed to take care of you then I encourage you to let it have its way. However, if you believe in freedom and democracy and the free-market, then you will SHOUT and CALL OUT and say “NO WAY!” And you will demand REREGULATION and AUDITING of the Government and the Federal Reserve by an independant organization.
Candy Says:
September 25th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Q: Who Will Show Some Backbone Against the Bailout?

A: No one.

Our “representatives” represent AIPAC and the Zionist Jews on Wall Street, not the American people. The only thing that we are good for is paying their bills.

While we lose our jobs and our homes and “restructure” our lives, the Wall Street Zionists will not lose theirs, and in fact, will become more wealthy.

These Zionist scum are the BIGGEST WELFARE QUEENS ON THE PLANET.

How dare they ask for this money?

Get used to it people. Congress is owned by them, and that means that they (Zionists) own us.

If you think that you life is bad now, wait and see what the zionists will be asking for and getting next. In a few years, you will look back at these times as the “good times.”

There used to be a time when this country was run by men that would take action against these Zionist traitors. Too bad the men in this country act like neutered sheep.
Think! Says:
September 25th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
THE RICH USE THE MIDDLE CLASS AS A CONDOM TO FUCK THE POOR AND THEN DISCARD THE MIDDLE CLASS IN THE TOILET!! WAKE THE FUCK UP AND FIGHT THEM WHILE YOU STILL HAVE TIME!
Paul Bartron Says:
September 26th, 2008 at 1:01 am
The actual debt is 9.3 trillon, a bail out of only 700 billion is only the tip of the iceberg. It is money that builds houses and not demand, if there is no money then there is no demand. As the American economy collapses there will be more and more foreclosers not less. A house without heat in winter will deteriate very quickly. There are 8.8 million unemployed Americans an economy depends on wage earners and not consumers, if there are no wage earners then there are no consumers. It makes no difference how cheap Wal Mart is if you have no money Wal Mart will close. Only tarrifs and trade protection can prevent America from going bankrupt, free trade was the policy of the South, free trade leads to slavery.
The Bush regiem will not abandon free trade therefore the economy will continue to sink. The American economy is now a service based economy. Even food is being imported. Politicans have no clue as to how an economy works. Even the ordinary Joe Blow can understand how a family economy works and a nation’s economy is the same. If you max out your credit cards the credit companies will stop lending you their money. When the Dollar becomes worthless, and that is the direction we are headed, oil producing nations will no longer accept Dollars for their oil. The same thing happened in Germany after the first WW. Farmers would no longer accept worthless Marks for their food. Germans began to starve. A third party promised an end to the poverty. Before the Great depression of 1929 they had about 1.7% of the vote in 1933 they came to power. By the year 1939 Germany had full employment. It took the National Socialists only 4 years to get to power, from the start of the Great Depression. The coming to power by a Nationalist Government in America is inevitable, it will come either by elections or by force of arms. The government has no hope of establishing martial law any more that the British did. That government rules by the consent of the governed is an absolute. During the storming of the Bastille it was the soldiers who turned their guns on their officers. The ordinary American Soldier is not going to use his gun against the Citizens,
COX Says:
September 26th, 2008 at 2:02 am
WE NEED TO LISTEN TO RON PAUL, AND UTILIZE THE CONSTITUTION.
WE NEED TO GET OUT OF THE UN.
WE NEED TO START PRODUCING PRODUCTS (WE NEED TO START MANUFACTURING AGAIN)
WE NEED GET RID OF THE GLOBALISTS INSIDE THIS COUNTRY (ALL OF THE GLOBALIST CRIMINALS, BY CLEANING HOUSE IN GOVERNMENT AND THE GLOBAL ELITE).
WE NEED TO STOP UTILIZING FORIEN OIL (START UTILIZING DOMESTIC OIL SUPPLIES. AND WE NEED TO INCORPERATE OTHER ENERGY SOURCES).
WE NEED TO BRING ALL OF OUR MILITARY HOME.
WE NEED TO SECURE OUR BOARDERS.
WE NEED TO WAKE-UP AND JOIN OUR FORCES (WE NEED TO STOP BELLY-ACHING ABOUT RON PAUL, ALEX JONES, AND OTHERS TRYING TO FIGHT THE NEW WORLD ORDER).
GOD HELP US ALL.
WE ARE IN FOR A ROUGH RIDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WE MUST TAKE CONTROL OF OUR NATION-NOW OR WE ARE MOVING INTO HELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
FINACIAL FAILURES.
ENDLESS WAR, WHICH WILL BRING US INTO A NUCLEAR CONFRONTATION WITH RUSSIA AND CHINA.
WE WILL LOOSE OUR GUNS, HOMES, PROPERTY.
WE WILL END UP STARVING TO DEATH IN SOME DAM FEMA CAMP.
AMERICANS WAKE UP, AND JOIN WITH REAL PATRIOTS, OR WE CAN JUST THROW OUR FREEDOM AWAY.
GOD BLESSED US BY GIVING US TRUE PATRIOTS LIKE RON PAUL, ALEX JONES, AND OTHERS.
Paulson is an idiot Says:
September 26th, 2008 at 3:59 am
I have been a lifelong Democrat, but their stupidity + cowardliness = Bush’s stupidity.

The Republicans seem to be the only ones with the balls to stand up to the bailout.

Is it just me? Because every time I see Barney Frank I want to slap him in the face. What a cowardly, pathetic, clueless excuse of a man he is.

And how about Pelosi? Mrs. Plastic. She is so fake that I can almost see the Botox running out and down her frankenface. A millionaire who claims to represent the lower 80%? Who worked directly to block any impeachment talks. Who sabotaged all efforts to follow the rule of law.

And Paulson? Mentally handicapped despot. Who thinks he can take money from us to bail out his friends on the failed Wall Street. The ones who simply gambled and beat the system. The ones who created and contributed nothing to the real economy. The ones who believe that a single man can actually EARN billions of dollars without creating a technology or a service. The ones who KNEW the system was corrupt, yet played the game anyway because they figured it was “too big” to fail. And now they have the temerity to not only ASK for a bailout, but to DEMAND one???

Backbone???

Don’t talk of backbone and then speak of bailouts. That is the talk of someone with the backbone of an earthworm.

Backbone?

THIS is backbone. Paulson — “We must have a bailout.” Congress — “No.”

Nothing wishy washy. Stand firm. Tell them, “NO.”

Then after Paulson cries and runs home to momma, the government can be put into bankruptcy reorganization, and we can correct all the mistakes of the last 40 years by bringing back the Bretton Woods agreements with the nations states of the world.

Tell the IMF, “Your done.”
Tell the Fed, “Get out of here.”
Tell the World Bank, “Take a hike.”
And most importantly, tell the fascist, pig-headed, Nazi, NWO, Oligarch, synarchist, drug running, free trade, London, Wall Street banking crowd, “Go to Hell.”

THAT would qualify as BACKBONE.
http://larouchepac.com/news/20.....ilout.html
rich Says:
September 26th, 2008 at 5:49 am
great solutions, but in time, they’ll be over-run or repealed !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM5xGLS6eUY
Hologram5 Says:
September 26th, 2008 at 7:15 am
IT IS TOO LATE, THE DAMAGE IS DONE. WE ARE IN FOR A TOUGH NEXT TEN+ YEARS. THE ONLY FIX NOW IS TO IMPEACH, AND START A REVOLUTION TO START OVER AND GO BACK TO THE BASICS, PEOPLE ARE RIGHT!! WAKE UP AND START THE REVOLUTION BEFORE THE MILITARY UNDER THE COMMANDER IN CHIMP STARTS HAVING THEM FIRE ON OUR OWN PEOPLE. IT IS COMING, MARK MY WORDS…
MG Says:
September 26th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
It seems a pivotal theme to this large issue is the practice of usury–lending and charging borrower interest. It seems if this were outlawed (as in earlier times), many current points would be solved.

Further, I am finding little use the for the function of banks in society, exporting such debt. Correct me if I am wrong?