Sink or Swim

The 700 billion bank bailout was only the tip of the iceberg, between the capital injections; guarantees; indirect loans, and propping up of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, we’ve invested 17.5 trillion into the country’s financial institutions.

Due to increased earnings the stock market is up for banks like JPMorgan- Chase and Goldman Sachs, who are on track for doling out record bonuses. If it wasn’t for the tax payer these financial institutions wouldn’t even exist. Millions of Americans are in foreclosure yet we’re supporting Wall Street with trillions. There’s something wrong with that picture.

Where is the orchestrated outrage over the trillions we’re pouring into Wall Street causing deficits “as far as the eye can see”?

There isn’t any, we only see the outrage over Acorn, not the morally bankrupt actions of the nation’s financial institutions while our government spurs them on.

Having two bankers in a row as Treasury Secretary’s doesn’t help. Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was former CEO of Goldman Sachs and Timothy Geithner headed the Federal Reserve of New York while we bailed out Wall Street Banks.

Secretary Giethner has set aside one trillion to the Public Private Investment Fund, which guarantees the purchaser of “toxic assets” six dollars for every one dollar invested to sell these toxic assets. If prices go up the purchaser wins, if the price goes down the purchaser loses little while the tax payer picks up the difference. That money could be better used investing in ordinary Americans to reduce principals rather than enticing billionaires to buy toxic assets.

FDR's New Deal brought us deposit insurance; stock market regulation, and the separation of commercial and investment banking. Since the seventies our politicians both Democrats and Republicans alike have whittled away these and other protections leaving us in the situation we face today: an economy supported by over inflated values and financing of debt.

In a capitalistic democracy all boats rise not just the yachts. Our economy is experiencing an inverted gravity, only the yachts are rising while all the other boats and dinghies sink in the shark infested economy. This is why earnings are up on Wall Street while Main Street is being boarded up.