Our country is on the precipice of initiating one of the greatest bailouts in the history of the world. It will essentially completely socialize our financial system. And then you can begin referring to me a Camrade Catalyst.
However, there is a chance to stop or at least alter the outcome. All you have to do is contact your Representative, and tell them to oppose any Bailout of Wall Street without a significant tax increase on the Finance system.
For example, this could be accomplished by a 1/4 percentage tax increase on all stock sales. Or by an increase in the estate tax. Or they could raise the capital gains tax.
If Wall Street wants tax money, then they can pay for it through higher taxes. Don't fool yourself, someone is going to have to pay for this, and I don't want it to be me. And I don't want it to be my children. (Well, I don't actually have kids. So I don't want JP's kids to have to pay it.)
Here's the link to finding your representative:
https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml
If your Representative is a Democrat tell them you'll vote for the Republican in the fall. And vice versa, if your Representative is a Republican, tell them you'll vote for the Democrat. I worked in DC for five years, and trust me, Congress pays attention to their constituents, and they are desperately afraid of not getting elected next year.
Anyway, I just called my Congressman. There is no reason we as taxpayers should be on the hook for the greed and stupidity of Wall Street.
Update:
George Bush and the Republican Administration wants unfettered access to 700 Billion dollars to help protect you from financial ruin.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/business/21cong.html?hp
How come this all feels so familiar? Oh yeah, that's what they said about Iraq too.
Raising taxes might pay for the bailout but some type of bailout needs to happen in order to prevent the ‘alternative’ – the downfall of the entire mortgage industry. My understanding is they will have to sell more bonds/securities to pay for this – of course China, Japan and other foreign entities will be buying these – we’ll all be Chinese soon enough.
As a staunch fiscal conservative – I ironically support more regulation = the age of deregulation is over. When my bank hires mensa-level actuarial scientists to figure out how to screw me by holding my deposits, putting my debits/checks thru, charge me over $175 in fees and THEN puts my deposits in – To hell with all these evil corporations. Someone or something needs to stop these evil corps from denying medical treatments, charging fees that should be illegal, and generally trying to screw all of us middle class (Dumb money) Americans.
I dont have all the answers but my only hope now (we’re effed) is our gov’t – As a lifelong republican, I’m jumping ship and I’m voting for Obama – I truly cant believe I just typed that – to regulate the evil that these corporations are. I mean crap, Republicans ARE NOT small gov’t anymore – and if we are going to have large gov’t – the people should have some benefit – not just corps like the war profiteering Halliburton – who has left our country btw and is now in Dubai.
I guess this makes me a socialist. We need a libertarian with some charisma who can stand up to the corruption. all I see is corruption – even Obama wont denounce the wealthy CEOs & corps who support his campaign = everyone is bought.
Here is a very interesting article from http://www.mercola.com – I copied it since you have to be a member to view articles there.
America — The Newest Third World Nation
Between the economy and the political environment in the United States, it’s obvious that we’re on shaky ground. But most would not go so far as to call America a Third World country.
This article from Downside World News, however, does just that:
The U.S. is just starting to see the early stages of systemic problems in the American economy with the fallout from the subprime mortgage problems. The “policemen†of the American economy, and to a lesser extent the entire global economy, have failed to do their jobs, and this has not been an accident. Laws have been changed overturning the post-Great Depression rules designed to save the banking industry from itself.
There are flaws throughout the system that have led to this problem. Some 35 years ago, bribery was legalized in America by allowing PACs (political action committees) to pay off Congressmen — and now the medical/pharmaceutical industry that is more fraud and rip off than real medicine. There is a giant agricultural industry whose genetically modified food is causing far more problems than it could ever solve.
A sign of a Third World country is that its systems don’t work well because the government is for sale. When you can bribe anyone in the government to get what you want, that is a sign of very deep sickness in the nation.
Upon reading something like this, it’s easy to feel disheartened, but I prefer to feel hopeful that change for the better can still occur.
Congressman Ron Paul said it best: “Each of us should choose which course of action we must take: education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes, but let it not be said that we did nothing.”
Sources:
Downside World News August 26, 2008
Cat, I’m very mixed on this bailout. I agree that the greedy million CEO’s of these banks deserve to watch their fortunes go down the drain, and the greedy investors on wall street (namely hedge fund managers) deserve too loose a few million in the market, however I don’t like to see the little guy get stuck holding the bag. And from my understanding this bailout will slow foreclosures because banks will begin to leave teaser interest rates on mortgages alone (since they don’t need the cash) and they will also start lending more money to new home buyers which will allow people facing foreclosure a great possibility of selling before it happens. Now I also know that if the bailout goes through it will mean higher taxes for us all (which I do oppose) but that writing has been on the wall for a long time. Whether we like it or not our country is in too much debt not to raise taxes. The Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and the big corporations have turned out to be a total disaster! (Surprise, surprise). So, am I missing something here?
The bailout might be a bad idea but Letting AIG fail was a much worse one, and at least it slowed the death spiral that was the stock market. We haven’t had a free market in a long while so lets stop mourning the loss of it now.
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From what I understand, AIG insures all of these loans and assests that prop up all of these financial institutions. To let them go under means we pull the rug out from under everyone – everybody hurts, and it’s not necessarily the fault of AIG.
One of the complexities of this situation is that in spite of the fact that only some people behaved badly, all of these institutions are so intimately connected that there is a domino effect when things go sour. It’s the proverbial loose thread that can unravel the entire sweater. So to punish Americans for the behavior of a few is unfair and economically unsound.
But I do agree that it might be a good idea to raise the capital gains tax and so help fund government regulation of these industries.
Remove BUSH and his entire Administration…….NOW!
Corporations remove corrupt and failed leadership all the
time!
Nancy Pelosi has leads us to this failure by “Not Impeaching
Bush”.
Congress as failed!
Only the American People can stop this….March on Washington DC
via…e-mails, & letters to Congress and the Papers….then march
if need be by the millions…and force BUSH to resign!
Agreed! And don’t put a man in his place who is just like him
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And vote for McCain! The maverick!
Someone please tell me they saw the SNL debate spoof last weekend. It was one of the few SNL skits I’ve enjoyed in a looong time.
http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/presidential-debate/704121/
I am disappointed that our elected officials would take a bill like this and fill it with pork: Wool subsidies; A subsidy for a toy company making wooden Arrows; 100 million + for Rum. — Is that because while it will take generations to pay off this debt we can get drunk and not think about it????
Either this is so important we need to fix it or it is just another political football. With all the pork in this bill I am thinking its a political football and there is no real problem.
I am seeing the value in letting this thing go. The market is correcting itself. Inflation is so ridiculous we need things to fall. Housing prices, auto prices, food prices – they’re all too high. If Congress wants to help why don’t they help the local banks and individuals who really need it and leave everything else alone? How about 1 billion instead of 8? Politicians are so tied to big money that they are listening to lobbyist from Ford, GE, Wal-Mart, and Home Depot over their neighborhood voter. This is just another example of bad politics.