Do you agree with Kucinich on the massive bailout bill that (corrupt) Congress just passed?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAGzLfmV4Ks
"The 0 billion bailout for Wall Street, is driven by fear not fact. This is too much money in too a short a time going to too few people while too many questions remain unanswered.
Why aren’t we having hearings on the plan we have just received? Why aren’t we questioning the underlying premise of the need for a bailout with taxpayers’ money? Why have we not considered any alternatives other than to give 0 billion to Wall Street? Why aren’t we asking Wall Street to clean up its own mess? Why aren’t we passing new laws to stop the speculation, which triggered this? Why aren’t we putting up new regulatory structures to protect investors? How do we even value the 0 billion in toxic assets?
Why aren’t we helping homeowners directly with their debt burden? Why aren’t we helping American families faced with bankruptcy. Why aren’t we reducing debt for Main Street instead of Wall Street? Isn’t it time for fundamental change in our debt based monetary system, so we can free ourselves from the manipulation of the Federal Reserve and the banks? Is this the United States Congress or the board of directors of Goldman Sachs? Wall Street is a place of bears and bulls. It is not smart to force taxpayers to dance with bears or to follow closely behind the bulls."
jeremy: Yeah, that’s a good speech, too!
Forcing taxpayers to bail out Wall Street… sounds like socialism to me! Ironic, capitalism is supposedly the best system, as long as we use socialism to save it when it fails. $700 Billion is a lot of money, why don’t we use it to directly help the people, by paying for health care, education, etc? I agree with Kucinich, just like I almost always do. I think he would have made the best president of all the people who ran in the primaries.
January 22nd, 2010 at 5:02 pmCheck this out
January 22nd, 2010 at 5:02 pmhttp://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,432501,00.html
United States House of Representatives
Statement on HR 1424
October 3, 2008
Madame Speaker, only in Washington could a bill demonstrably worse than its predecessor be brought back for another vote and actually expect to gain votes. That this bailout was initially defeated was a welcome surprise, but the power-brokers in Washington and on Wall Street could not allow that defeat to be permanent. It was most unfortunate that this monstrosity of a bill, loaded up with even more pork, was able to pass.
The Federal Reserve has already injected hundreds of billions of dollars into US and world credit markets. The adjusted monetary base is up sharply, bank reserves have exploded, and the national debt is up almost half a trillion dollars over the past two weeks. Yet, we are still told that after all this intervention, all this inflation, that we still need an additional $700 billion bailout, otherwise the credit markets will seize and the economy will collapse. This is the same excuse that preceded previous bailouts, and undoubtedly we will hear it again in the future after this bailout fails.
One of the most dangerous effects of this bailout is the incredibly elevated risk of moral hazard in the future. The worst performing financial services firms, even those who have been taken over by the government or have filed for bankruptcy, will find all of their poor decision-making rewarded. What incentive do Wall Street firms or any other large concerns have to make sound financial decisions, now that they see the federal government bailing out private companies to the tune of trillions of dollars? As Congress did with the legislation authorizing the Fannie and Freddie bailout, it proposes a solution that exacerbates and encourages the problematic behavior that led to this crisis in the first place.
With deposit insurance increasing to $250,000 and banks able to set their reserves to zero, we will undoubtedly see future increases in unsound lending. No one in our society seems to understand that wealth is not created by government fiat, is not created by banks, and is not created through the manipulation of interest rates and provision of easy credit. A debt-based society cannot prosper and is doomed to fail, as debts must either be defaulted on or repaid, neither resolution of which presents this country with a pleasant view of the future. True wealth can only come about through savings, the deferral of present consumption in order to provide for a higher level of future consumption. Instead, our government through its own behavior and through its policies encourages us to live beyond our means, reducing existing capital and mortgaging our future to pay for present consumption.
The money for this bailout does not just materialize out of thin air. The entire burden will be borne by the taxpayers, not now, because that is politically unacceptable, but in the future. This bailout will be paid for through the issuance of debt which we can only hope will be purchased by foreign creditors. The interest payments on that debt, which already take up a sizeable portion of federal expenditures, will rise, and our children and grandchildren will be burdened with increased taxes in order to pay that increased debt.
As usual, Congress has show itself to be reactive rather than proactive. For years, many people have been warning about the housing bubble and the inevitable bust. Congress ignored the impending storm, and responded to this crisis with a poorly thought-out piece of legislation that will only further harm the economy. We ought to be ashamed.
RON PAUL
January 22nd, 2010 at 5:02 pmIn most cases, a fiat monetary system comes into existence as a result of excessive public debt. When the government is unable to repay all its debt in gold or silver, the temptation to remove physical backing rather than to default becomes irresistible. This was the case in 18th century France during the Law scheme, as well as in the 70s in the US, when Nixon removed the last link between the dollar and gold which is still in effect today.
Hyper-inflation is the terminal stage of any fiat currency. In hyper-inflation, money looses most of its value practically overnight. Hyper-inflation is often the result of increasing regular inflation to the point where all confidence in money is lost. In a fiat monetary system, the value of money is based on confidence, and once that confidence is gone, money irreversibly becomes worthless, regardless of its scarcity. Gold has replaced every fiat currency for the past 3000 years.
The United States has so far avoided hyper-inflation by shifting between a fiat and gold standard over the past 200 years.
http://www.kwaves.com/fiat.html
So now we have billions more dollars worth of inflated money. Wonderful.
January 22nd, 2010 at 5:02 pmPaul Craig Roberts the former Treasury Secretary under Regan – a Republican –
His blog is on vdare.com
Type in his name and then go to archives
Has deregulation sired fascism ? The bail out is a Fraud ….
And a lot more
Please check it out – he is a very interesting smart guy
January 22nd, 2010 at 5:02 pmI do. If the $810 billion bailout is such a good investment that the U.S. government is expecting a decent return in the future –at least to break even, why not leave it with the people on Wall street who bought it? Wall St. is a legalized casino and ponzi scheme. CEOs are at the top. Wall Street players used to be at the bottom, but they can’t play anymore because they’re broke. The U.S. Government folks holding hands with Wall Street, with some back breaking effort have managed to pull and drag the heavy, barely movable Great Pyramid over the top of the U.S. Taxpayer base. *** It’s a new world wonder. It’s a pyramid unlike any other.***
U.S. Treasury Secretary Paulson, Fed Reserve Chairman Bernanke, Senate Majority (74+, 25-), House Majority (263+,171-) and let’s not forget "W" and Cheney, and wishy-washy Pelosi are expecting us to believe tax payers will be protected and insulated. Please… I expected a presidential candidate either Rep. or Dem. to distinguish himself from the other with their vote on the bailout bill: When, what to my wondering eyes should appear: Obama, Biden, and McCain disregarding "We – the people."
January 22nd, 2010 at 5:02 pm