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Stoon
QUOTE
Friends,

Let me cut to the chase. The biggest robbery in the history of this country is taking place as you read this. Though no guns are being used, 300 million hostages are being taken. Make no mistake about it: After stealing a half trillion dollars to line the pockets of their war-profiteering backers for the past five years, after lining the pockets of their fellow oilmen to the tune of over a hundred billion dollars in just the last two years, Bush and his cronies -- who must soon vacate the White House -- are looting the U.S. Treasury of every dollar they can grab. They are swiping as much of the silverware as they can on their way out the door.

No matter what they say, no matter how many scare words they use, they are up to their old tricks of creating fear and confusion in order to make and keep themselves and the upper one percent filthy rich. Just read the first four paragraphs of the lead story in last Monday's New York Times and you can see what the real deal is:

"Even as policy makers worked on details of a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, Wall Street began looking for ways to profit from it.

"Financial firms were lobbying to have all manner of troubled investments covered, not just those related to mortgages.

"At the same time, investment firms were jockeying to oversee all the assets that Treasury plans to take off the books of financial institutions, a role that could earn them hundreds of millions of dollars a year in fees.

"Nobody wants to be left out of Treasury's proposal to buy up bad assets of financial institutions."

Unbelievable. Wall Street and its backers created this mess and now they are going to clean up like bandits. Even Rudy Giuliani is lobbying for his firm to be hired (and paid) to "consult" in the bailout.

The problem is, nobody truly knows what this "collapse" is all about. Even Treasury Secretary Paulson admitted he doesn't know the exact amount that is needed (he just picked the $700 billion number out of his head!). The head of the congressional budget office said he can't figure it out nor can he explain it to anyone.

And yet, they are screeching about how the end is near! Panic! Recession! The Great Depression! Y2K! Bird flu! Killer bees! We must pass the bailout bill today!! The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

Full article:
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?id=235
Wayne
How could anyone question the wisdom of George W. Bush in a crisis? If working people like ourselves must cover a trillion dollars in bad loans made by Wall Street, then so be it. If they say that the people who blew our fortune should also be in charge of cleaning up the mess, and that America needs to rush this bill through and make them immune from accountability, then who are we to wonder why?

plodder
The Treasury department made a secret conference call to a long list of financial institutions about the proposed bailout bill. No, you weren't invited. You're paying for it; you're not supposed to know how the money will be spent. You can listen as an mp3 or another mp3, or via bittorrent.

Upshot: Paulson will evade basically all the restrictions that were supposedly put on him. It's all in the audio. If the Dems vote for this, they've been completely had once again and Nancy should be called "patsy" instead.

Executive compensations limits have no effect whatsoever on the existing executives, the ones that caused the mess (around 7:30-9:00)

The program is primarily directed at funneling money to perfectly healthy companies.

No equity need be given if a company's net is below $100 million. With modern "financial wizardry" any deal with any company could be broken into $95 million bits via a CDO and then passed to the Treasury in shell companies. So no equity whatsoever for the taxpayer.

Staging is fake. They can get the whole $700,000,000,000 within weeks. Technicalities allow them to evade the Congressional veto, if the President helps.

mp3

http://www.filesavr.com/sifma

Or use

bit torrent

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4418763


more

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/09/mus...-in-action.html


more

http://dealbreaker.com/2008/09/live-bloggi...ry-cal.php#more
plodder
Corporate Welfare at it's finest.........

The 110-page bill, intended to ease a growing credit crisis, came after a frenzied week of political twists and turns that culminated in an agreement between the Bush administration and Congress early Sunday morning.

more

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/29/business...l?th&emc=th
plodder
THE ROYAL Bank of Scotland is to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the planned $700 billion bail-out that comes courtesy of the American tax-payer if the US Congress gives the financial rescue package the go-ahead this weekend.

The bank's share of the bail-out will enable RBS to offload billions of dollars of questionable assets.

more

http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnew...2453817.0.0.php

more

http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/28/news/econo...dex.htm?cnn=yes

more

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1222565390...ign2008_mostpop

more

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNew...E48O8KJ20080926
CowboySteve
I'm not convinced that I see ANYTHING to benefit the American Citizen from this plan. It was cast as $700B - 1.8T so that we could swallow $250B easily. That's a year of the Iraq War. These number are so immense, that we only know them in relative terms. and $10B/month for the Iraq War, why, that's PENNIES. Except it isn't pennies. Or more correctly, it's a whole shebang worth of pennies, 10^12.
Spyderbyte
Truly amazing that a lame-duck pres, who's been flat wrong or lied about everything he's done in his term, still have enough lemmings around him to pull this off.
In 3 months and 22 days this country is going to wake up to a serious hang over, and a fugly person in the bed.
kernaljessup
QUOTE (CowboySteve @ Sep 29 2008, 07:36 AM) *
I'm not convinced that I see ANYTHING to benefit the American Citizen from this plan. It was cast as $700B - 1.8T so that we could swallow $250B easily. That's a year of the Iraq War. These number are so immense, that we only know them in relative terms. and $10B/month for the Iraq War, why, that's PENNIES. Except it isn't pennies. Or more correctly, it's a whole shebang worth of pennies, 10^12.


They just voted on a resolution to not allow new amendments. Went down in flames 8 yeas to a shitload of neas... clap.gif

Isn't debate a way to hammer out more issues? Why try to not allow any more amendments? This is the point where the sword gets polished. dry.gif
dfnj2006
It is in everyone enlighten self-interest to increase the purchasing power of the median wage in this country. The dollar's value is directly proportional to the purchasing power of the median wage, that is, the middle class.

For 32 years the purchasing power of the median wade has been declining:
http://www.demos.org/inequality/numbers.cfm

Only one 5 year period in 32 years has theee purchasing power of the median wage increased as shown in the graph for web site I have provided.

All the corruption, all the bailouts, all the money being printed reduces the purchasing power of the median wage.

Without a strong middle class tax base where is the money going to come from to pay for the juicy no bid military contracts we so desparately need to protect us from our fears? Where is the money going to come from to pay for the 700+ foreign military bases we have around the World?

Osama Bin Laden had a plan. The CFR had a plan. Once the dollar's value is destroyed we will no longer be able to send military aid to Israel. No more military aid from the US dollar and then the Arabs win! I do not want to see the dollar collapse to nothing. I do not want a new North American currency like the Amero. The corruption is bad enough with the dollar. Adding the Mexican politicians to the mix is only going to make the corruption worse!

What we need to do in this country is dramatically increase the purchasing power of the median wage. We already have laws for minimum wages. How about we pass a law for maximum compensation package. I think a fair maximum compensation (wages + stock options) would be 144 times the lowest paid worker's compensation package. I do not care what tactic is used. But the importance of balancing CEO pay with the worker's median wage as never been more important! We the people are suffering.

Money is a medium of exchange. Wealth comes from leveraging consumers. If our consumers are incapable of purchasing leverage then wealth becomes worthless! This is why CEOs and rich people must keep a balance between their compensation and worker's wages. Otherwise, their wealth will become worthless.

Liberals need to stop attacking the rich and powerful and concentrate on the real business and hard work of increasing the purchasing power of the median wage.
visionari
How do we know this audio recording is legitimately from Treasury Dept? Is there a link back to Treasury?
justiceforall
Citibank, which I understand is owned by the Saudis, has just purchased WaMu.

Bush takes care of his Saudi buddies.
5by5
QUOTE (Spyderbyte @ Sep 29 2008, 05:55 AM) *
Truly amazing that a lame-duck pres, who's been flat wrong or lied about everything he's done in his term, still have enough lemmings around him to pull this off.

That's my point.

Tell Bush "We're either giving this money to the American people, or we're giving it to no one. Piss off if you don't like it."
roborok
QUOTE (justiceforall @ Sep 29 2008, 06:55 AM) *
Citibank, which I understand is owned by the Saudis, has just purchased WaMu.

Bush takes care of his Saudi buddies.


JP Morgan bought WAMU!! rolleyes.gif
justiceforall
QUOTE (roborok @ Sep 29 2008, 08:33 AM) *
JP Morgan bought WAMU!! rolleyes.gif

my bad
Llydis
Citi did buy Wachovia though.
LibLaw
and the Japanese are buying up Lehman bro.
pestone
Boehner's on the floor on the floor right now blustering that this needs to be passed. MFer is saying it's an "imperfect product," but that it MAY work..... drunken asshat.
justiceforall
Bank bailouts sweep Europe
European governments, including Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg and Britain, intervene to prop up weakened banks as crisis deepens.

LONDON (AP) -- European governments had to step in with a flurry of major bank bailouts from Iceland to Germany as fear and turmoil from the U.S. credit crisis spread through the financial system....

http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/29/news/inter...ut.ap/index.htm

What's this all about? It looks like a bank shake-out.

Capital consolidation.

Get rid of the little players. Make way for the big boys. B of A, Wells Fargo, Citibank are taking over.
uriel81
QUOTE (Wayne @ Sep 29 2008, 01:32 AM) *
How could anyone question the wisdom of George W. Bush in a crisis? If working people like ourselves must cover a trillion dollars in bad loans made by Wall Street, then so be it. If they say that the people who blew our fortune should also be in charge of cleaning up the mess, and that America needs to rush this bill through and make them immune from accountability, then who are we to wonder why?


I know that you mean that sarcastically. The only problem is that that solution was already tried by Pres. Hoover, bailing out the banks as Thom Hartman was saying this morning. And, what it lead to was more failures a few years later which could happen again.
pestone
Steny Hoyer quoting Spiro Agnew to make a point? blink.gif
Dem4Life
Take your money out of banks and put it Credit Unions...at least for now...too much is happening too fast and furious.
bs.gif
banghead.gif wtf.gif
uriel81
QUOTE (Dem4Life @ Sep 29 2008, 10:27 AM) *
Take your money out of banks and put it Credit Unions...at least for now...too much is happening too fast and furious.
bs.gif
banghead.gif wtf.gif


Is that safer, and is it always so?
justiceforall
"When rules limiting speculation were cut during the first big Republican deregulation binge during the administrations of Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover (1921-1933), it created a speculative fever that led directly to the housing bubble of the early 20s (which started in Florida, where property values were going up as much as 70 percent per year, and then spread nationwide, only to burst nationally starting in 1927 as housing values began to collapse), then the falling housing market popped the stock market bubble and produced the great stock market crash of 1929. That speculation aggregated enormous wealth in a very few hands, crashed the housing and stock markets, and produced the Republican Great Depression of 1930-1942. "


http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/09/26
egghead
QUOTE
And yet, they are screeching about how the end is near! Panic! Recession! The Great Depression! Y2K! Bird flu! Killer bees! We must pass the bailout bill today!! The sky is falling! The sky is falling!


Tired of hearing that we're looking into the precipice or the abyss or that none of these Reps. of the people really want to be there voting FOR this bill. rolleyes.gif

I like to watch drama on an actor's stage, but not on the people's stage. I would like to hear the truth once in a while.

QUOTE
Pelosi compared Palin's resume to that of President Bush's before he assumed the mantle of commander in chief. "I have a very high standard for president of the United States," the Speaker said. "I guess George Bush has proven that anybody can do it, but can they do it well? I think he has not. I think he has done great harm and damage to our country. I don't think this is something that you'd take a chance on. I think I've yet to see the credentials and the depth that the most powerful position in the world, the president of the United States, that somebody with her resume is able to take over that job."
justiceforall
The face of evil:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/159439

check out photo #5

creepy

NEWSWEEK SEPT. 29 COVER:

http://prn.newscom.com/cgi-bin/pub/s?f=PRN...;tr=3&row=1


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