September 25, 2008

Dear Sis~
If I'm irritated sitting on death row, then the average American out in the free world should be really outraged over this $700 Billion bailout for Wall Street. You're looking at the largest transference of wealth (from the public sector to the private) in the shortest amount of time in the history of the world. That's taxpayers' dollars (future obligations on the next generation) going into private banks and financial institutions. Keep in mind that this $700 Billion is only a guess, and a conservative one; the actual cost may exceed one trillion dollars. Also keep in mind that Bush and his Republican cronies in the SEC and Treasury Dept and the Federal Reserve have already, over the last month, committed $480 billion in taxpayers' money (another conservative estimate) to bail out Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns. That's well over a trillion bucks already, at a minimum. This entire "financial crisis", which was entirely predictable, given the pigs-feeding-at-the-trough mentality prevading Wall Street for the last decade, rests on the shoulders of the Republicans. We've had a Republican president for 8 years, a Republican Congress for 12 of the last 14 years, and the heads of the agencies (SEC, Treasury, Commerce, Federal Reserve) are all rich Republicans, appointed by our Republican president and confirmed by our Republican Congress. These agency heads invariably came from Wall Street (Henry Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury, for example, was chairman of Goldman Sachs, where he earned over $20 million per year) they are wealthy Republicans, and they are implementing Republican policies, intended to protect and enrich their fellow Wall Street brethren. These policies can be simply described as "hands off" or "minimal regulation". This lack of agency oversight is directly responsible for the current alleged crisis, and now you have these same folks trying to stampede the Congress (hurry! hurry! rush! rush!) into coughing up this $700 billion to rescue their Wall Street buddies who caused the problem in the first place. I, for one, do not believe their doomsday predictions ("If we don't get the money immediately the financial markets will collapse and the world will fall into a horrendous depression!"). This is the same crew (Bush and company) who stampeded the nation into the Iraq invasion with lies and fabricated evidence; and now we're supposed to just accept their statements at face value? Obama should be able to easily hang all of this on the Republicans, including John McCain who was, for many years, the Chairman of the Senate Committee where he diligently campaigned deregulation of the financial markets. But, Obama is not making his case very well; he's failing to capitalize, failing to make Republicans own this crisis. What kills me is that a bedrock principle of Republican politics is a staunch commitment to "free markets", an insistence that government should never interfere in the markets and that the market will "self-govern" or "self-correct". They love to proclaim their belief in "free markets" as an excuse to not help common folk. But as soon as Wall Street needed a bailout, Bush and his buddies abandoned their alleged belief in free markets! Suddenly, government is no longer the enemy (as Republicans love to assert); suddenly government money (taxpayers' money) must be used to save the Wall Street fat cats from their own stupidity and greed). A moron could hang this whole thing right on the Republicans' doorstep, right where it belongs, but Obama is doing a very poor job of connecting the dots so that Joe Citizen can understand. I'd love to debate McCain on this issue, to make him wear it like an old coat. (McCain has already publically admitted that he "does not really know much about economics". He just takes his clues from the wealthy Wall Street fat cats who constitute his "economic advisors"). This is an issue (the economy in general) which can win the election for Obama if he plays it right (in the end, all Americans really care about is their money. As Clinton was famously instructed 16 years ago, "It's the economy, stupid"). We'll see if Obama figures out how to exploit it to his advantage (so far I'm unimpressed)...
Ok, Sis, I've vented enough. It's past my bedtime (Nightline just went off) so I'm gonna hit the hay. I'll see you soon!
Light & Love,
Bill