Question Everything!

According to our federal government and the Treasury Secretary this recession began with the meltdown on Wall Street caused by sub prime mortgage holders defaulting on their payments.

How does the meltdown on Wall Street translate into the state of Massachusetts laying off 1,000 state workers and the state cutting aid to cities and towns by 10%? Many will state the easiest and simplest answer, it’s the recession.

But how does this happen? Former managing director for Goldman Sachs Nomi Prins states in the Nation magazine that “subprime mortgages have been blamed for the financial crisis, but we’re spending more than five times more money (in Fed loans, injections, bailouts and guarantees) that the value of every subprime loan in the country combined. Of the subprime loans issued during the boom years between 2003 and 2007, roughly 1.5 trillion are outstanding. If the system weren’t so leveraged, and each of them defaulted to zero (which hasn‘t happened), they would represent a 1.5 trillion loss. It should be clear by now that something other than subprime loans defaulting or a “housing correction” as Paulson puts it-is wrong with the system. How were those loans packaged and leveraged into what amounts to a 140 trillion global pyramid of junk?”

What’s wrong with the system could be the federal regulators like Darrell Dochow who during the 80’s delayed regulatory action on Charles Keating’s bank, the Lincoln Savings, which when it failed cost the tax payer 4 billion. This same federal regulator allowed Indy Mac a failed mortgage bank the FDIC took over this year to cook its books which led to an 8.9 billion dollar tax payer bail out.

Thomas Jefferson urged us to question everything. There is more to this recession and Wall Street meltdown than we’re being told.

That 350 billion doled out by the Feds to the banks is being used for these large banks to buy smaller banks which will result in even bigger banks “too big to fail”. Will we bail them out too when they fail because federal regulators allow them to cook their books? After all it’s been shown to them that if they take too much risk and pay no heed to responsibility and then fail, we the tax payer will have to bail them out thanks to a government that thinks corporations are more important than citizens.

The first thing the new president elect can do if he’s serious about more transparency in government (which is dubious) is to open those books on the 350 billion doled out to the thieves on Wall Street, get to the bottom of this “sub prime meltdown” and look into this regulatory agency that protects the FDIC, the Office of Thrift Supervision where Darrell Dochow was a senior official.

Christmas Billions

The Bush administration has decided that we’re bailing out GM and Chrysler, but with the stipulation that the UAW make concessions one being to accept the same pay as foreign auto workers receive.

The only reason they’re making the UAW accept more cut in wages and benefits is because it means more profits for the few.

Ever wonder why the stock market goes up when unemployment comes in at high numbers? Less workers means more profits for those at the top and the select share holders.

We’ve given billions to the banks who in turn use that money to buy smaller banks and pay out dividends. We were told that this bail out money would free up the “clogs in the system” and help the economy which hasn’t happened. The money we’re giving to big auto is not going to help our economy or save jobs.

They don’t care about us, Rick Wagoner CEO of GM thanked the White House for their decisions to “lend” big auto billions. First of all that’s an insult but more importantly it just goes to show how little the corporate CEO’s think of us. Does he even know where these billions are coming from? Mr. Wagoner needs a visit from the ghost of Christmas present to show him the suffering that’s behind those billions he’s so thankful to be receiving.

Unionizing Struggles

Senator Bob Corker has said that the Senate almost came to a deal to bail out big auto, but thanks to the UAW and three words the deal fell through. That’s right let’s blame the unions and the union worker.

My father started a union back in the seventies that still exists today with more people joining.

The lesson I learned is that when you do something to help the little guy and make the workplace fairer for all, then you and your family will be punished, severely.

My mother had died before I went into third grade so my father got a job as a janitor at the school department to be closer to his kids.

A few years later when I was in sixth grade he started organizing a union. It was at this time that my father’s boss changed his hours so that he was forced to work the 2 to 10PM shift after he had been working the day shift, which created difficulties for us.

In the light of these facts, it not hard to imagine the decades long struggle American workers faced in the past.

When the unions were first organizing and calling strikes, the governors of those states would call out the National Guard to shoot the strikers. Something unheard of today.

There was a time in this county when if you were hurt on the job, that was your tough luck, there was no compensation and you were on your own. If you were sick and couldn’t go to work you’d lose the day’s pay, there was no such thing as sick time. Nor was there such a thing as the forty hour work week or the eight hour work day.

If you wanted to go to a funeral you had to find a worker to act as your replacement and if you didn’t and went to the funeral you were fired. Today it’s almost incomprehensible to think we’d be denied the right to funeral attendance.

Get rid of unions and it won’t be long before we face many of these struggles anew. The greedy robber barons are in control and at a time when there aren’t many people like my father with the intestinal fortitude, determination and foresight to leave a lasting legacy which empowers the worker with bargaining rights and protections on the job.

Killing Capitalism

In 1776 Adam Smith wrote his book on capitalism “The Wealth of Nations” in which he said government should not be involved in the markets. The only time government should be involved is to regulate the markets to protect people from cheaters.

The exact opposite is true today. For decades our government has reversed and eliminated any and all regulations that protect the public, and thanks to tax payer funding the government has now become the markets. We‘ve bailed out Wall Street, the banks, insurance companies, and now the Big Three auto makers want 34 billion up from the 25 billion two weeks ago.

Chrysler is a privately held company; GM and Chrysler have already been in merger talks. After we bail out the Big Three, GM and Chrysler will merge taking those tax dollars with them.

The CEO of Chrysler whined to the politicians on Capitol Hill to think of the ramifications of not bailing out the auto industry would have on this country, for instance think of all the jobs that will be lost. Even with a bail out they’ll still close dealerships and plants have been closing for decades in this country, jobs will still be lost.

The disdain these CEO’s have for us is evidenced by their showing up in luxury planes on their first trip to DC to ask for tax payer money. They get the jets and we get the debt. Do we the tax payer own a share in the proceeds Big Auto will make when they sell their fleets of jets as they said they would?

Since this government has staked the future of our capitalistic society on nationalizing debt to bail out the financial industry, we should nationalize the auto industry, jettison the CEO’s who failed miserably at producing a salable product and start back on the path towards economic equality.

What we have now is not capitalism, it’s oligarchy, control is in the hands of the moneyed few and the astronomical debt is forced on us all. That’s not America.

Happy Trails for Some

The Bush administration said “provided the financial situations don’t change, they’d leave half of the bail out funds for the next president.” By January20th, with the amount of good taxpayer money being thrown after the bad, that bail out money will be long gone by the time Obama takes office. Meanwhile our cowboy president and his crooked cronies are allowed to ride off into the sunset with trillions of taxpayer dollars, never to be seen again.