While the American financial house of cards was crumbling around them, executives of AIG were in an exclusive California coastal resort blowing $450,000 of the $85 billion bailout money that you and I got on the hook for. After all, they weren’t to blame.
Within days, the Congress of the United States, seemingly oblivious to the uproar that 78% of the American citizens were creating against it, passed a bill to infuse an additional $700 billion into the decimated housing financial markets. Fueling the fire despite a 9% national approval rating, the lowest in U.S. History, the Congress tacked on at least $20 billion more in pure pork, (they are still tallying the total). They then spent the first weekend in October crafting glib letters to us, their constituents to tell us why Members of Congress should be considered national heroes for saving us from the disaster of their own making. After all, as they pointed out, they weren’t to blame.
The regulators, led by financial genius Hank Paulson, pointed out that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had created an environment where the investment market and the banks were forced to play the game with those in Congress who wanted to help the poor and unqualified buy homes. Treasury waited until the last possible moment to fess up to the American people that the scheme was in big trouble, and then demanded that Congress fork over $700 billion… or else. After all, they weren’t to blame. But, they assured us, as did the magpie Congress that the bailout would prevent the stock market from collapsing and everything would be rosy. As soon as the bailout bill passed, however, the President and everyone else involved started talking about “the rough waters ahead.” The market, of course, promptly plummeted.
Talk in Washington immediately got on to more important things. If those people who got those loans that they should not have received weren’t making their payments, it was reasoned that they needed help. Cutting their interest rates and their principal payments would surely resolve the problem, or would it? If they’re not working, it doesn’t matter how much you cut the interest and principal, they still can’t pay. But, the argument is, they’re not to blame. They’re innocent victims. How would they know whether not they could afford the payments in the first place? They’re uneducated idiots, which is why they’re low income earners. Oh, I suppose we could foreclose and then turn around and rent the houses back to them, but that seems so unjust, and what would the taxpayers do with all of those titles, anyway?
Oh, I know that there are hardworking Americans who live by the rules. They’re the ones who have had their hours cut back or are unemployed due to layoffs and reasons not of their own making. They can’t make their mortgage payments? Isn’t that just too damned bad? We can’t help them because they play by the rules, so they don’t qualify for help. And, because they had nothing to say about the mess or the bailout in the first place, they must be the ones to blame. They’re certainly to blame for trying to stop the bailout, so let them suffer?
Finally, there’s a Presidential candidate who was intricately involved with ACORN in teaching them how to sign up people to buy the houses and how to pressure the banks and mortgage companies into funding the loans and he was soooo successful at it. Let’s reward him and make him President so that he can cover all of this crap up before any subpoenas starting flying.
What a nice and tidy, neat little package we have. So, my fellow Americans, keep on living your lives with your heads up your asses and remember to go to the polls on Election Day and vote those nice Members of Congress back in.
No comments:
Post a Comment