Just Say No to Corporate Bungling and Greed
In rapid succession here's how my (me the taxpayer) pocket has been picked: $30 billion to Bears Stearns, $200 billion to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, $85 billion to AIG. It gets better. Waiting in line with their hands out are the automakers (possible $50 billion payout) and the airlines (literally the sky is the limit on that one). The corporate bunglers, cheats, and plunderers saber rattle me with if you don't give us the dough, kiss away housing and business loans, your pension funds and 401 K plans, health insurance, and thousands of jobs.
The government shills for this doomsday scenario while steadily lightening my pocket until the next bad behaving corporate hand is held out to lighten it even more. And make no mistake there will be a next time, and why not? If I knew that I could blow someone else's money and when the inevitable happened and it's gone, get even more to blow, why not? I'd stick my hand out too for more more more.
If I knew my reward for being inept, irresponsible, profligate, and flat out corrupt in the rush to fatten my bank account and damn the consequences I'd be a giddy supplicant too. But I'm not, so the message then to the government is remember Nancy Reagan's immortal words, just say no to the corporate bunglers and greed merchants!
While sex and money are two things that run the world, the economic crisis can’t be blamed on Wall Street. It stems from the housing market and the Einsteins who were given mortgages reserved for people with a credit rating above 700. The banks were partially to blame too for giving loans to anyone who wasn’t in a coma.
So a short while later, when the banking institutions found themselves up the proverbial creek without the proverbial paddle, they redesigned their lending policies. Now it is nearly impossible to get a home loan without 20% down, a near perfect credit score and the ability to recite the Declaration of Independence while riding a racehorse.
So government intervention, where the sins of a few million are paid for by the other few million, may be the only way out. No one knows how it’s going to work because the stock market has continued to be skittish, but had President Bush not come up with that seven hundred billion dollar plan, then the next sound we hear may be the one of the economy flushing down the tubes.