Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain
(Economy • )
Gee, here’s a surprise: It seems the guys in the U.S. Treasury are approximately as forthcoming about what they’ve been doing with our bazillion-dollar taxpayer-funded banking bailout as the guys over at the Pentagon and State Department have been about what they’ve been doing with the bazillion-dollar Iraq war defense contractor bailout:
“It’s a mess,” Treasury Inspector General Eric Thorson tells the Washington Post. “I don’t think anyone understands right now how we’re going to do proper oversight of this thing.”
I disagree with Thorson. I think the folks managing the federal government understand oversight and transparency very well.
They just have no intentions of ever practicing it.
Just ask Bloomberg News Service, which is in the midst of a Freedom of Information Act suit against the Federal Reserve after the fed refused to provide any information whatsoever about banks and institutions that have recently received nearly $2 trillion in taxpayer-funded emergency loans.
“Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would comply with congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system,” Bloomberg noted in a report Tuesday. “Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that in separate rescue programs that didn’t require approval by Congress, Americans have no idea where their money is going or what securities the banks are pledging in return. “
But does it really matter? I mean, maybe the Trickle-Down Theory never worked because we as taxpayers never came together before to enrich board directors and investment bankers to the true saturation point. Like sponges, they can’t really trickle down until they’re full to bursting first, right?
And for icing on this expertly baked cake, may I present the following from this morning’s New York Times:
“The Treasury Department on Wednesday officially abandoned the original strategy behind its $700 billion effort to rescue the financial system, as administration officials acknowledged that banks and financial institutions were as unwilling as ever to lend to consumers. “
As Larry the Cable Guy would say: Now that there’s funny – I don’t care who you are.
→ B.Dunn, Nov 13, 2008, 05 44 am
Democrata and Republica are not the answer, though. Yet, we (in general) just keep on voting for them. I voted libertarian as I mostly do, thinking that this time, maybe, there’d be enough people sick of the same tired old mess to vote along with me and throw a shock into the two ruling parties.
Yeah. Right. I think 4%, about, was the highest where there were choices of D, R, or L.
I don’t buy the capital “L” schtick, nor does any real libertarian, but we are not ever going to get rid of the crap we have now unless we vote them out or have a real revolution. It just ain’t gonna happen.
— jdallen Nov 13, 09:38 am #
---------------------
The macro view is that we pay our taxes to the banks, and they would also have us pay 32% interest as well! These are well practiced thieves. We are robbed, but who to call?
— nancy hentschel Nov 13, 03:51 pm #
---------------------
