The Bailout Is A SCAM!

Yes, they think we're stupid. The current contrived economic meltdown, and it's prescribed antidote both presume that the American people are ignorant cows (no insult to cows intended.) The Bush Administration, in one of it's parting blows, is moving quickly to transfer any remaining community-held national wealth (tax payer money) to their rich friends. They're also taking final steps to "drown government in the bathtub." At last, after eight long years of secrecy, distractions, and smokescreens we finally see what the true agenda of this administration has always been. Now that we know the goals they've been pursuing, doesn't everything they've done so far make sense in that context?...I mean for them.

A critical - and radical - component of the bailout package proposed by the Bush administration has thus far failed to garner the serious attention of anyone in the press. Section 8 (which ironically reminds one of the popular name of the portion of the 1937 Housing Act that paved the way for subsidized affordable housing ) of this legislation is just a single sentence of thirty-two words, but it represents a significant consolidation of power and an abdication of oversight authority that's so flat-out astounding that it ought to set one's hair on fire. It reads, in its entirety:

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

In short, the so-called "mother of all bailouts," which will transfer $700 billion taxpayer dollars to purchase the distressed assets of several failed financial institutions, will be conducted in a manner unchallengeable by courts and ungovernable by the People's duly sworn representatives. All decision-making power will be consolidated into the Executive Branch - who, we remind you, will have the incentive to act upon this privilege as quickly as possible, before they leave office. The measure will run up the budget deficit by a significant amount, with no guarantee of recouping the outlay, and no fundamental means of holding those who fail to do so accountable.

Is this starting to sound familiar? Robert Kuttner cuts through much of the gloss in an article in today's American Prospect:

The deal proposed by Paulson is nothing short of outrageous. It includes no oversight of his own closed-door operations. It merely gives congressional blessing and funding to what he has already been doing, ad hoc. He plans to retain Wall Street firms as advisors to decide just how to cut deals to value and mop up Wall Street's dubious paper. There are to be no limits on executive compensation for the firms that get relief, and no equity share for the government in exchange for this massive infusion of capital. Both Obama and McCain have opposed the provision denying any judicial review of decisions made by Paulson -- a provision that evokes the Bush administration's suspension of normal constitutional safeguards in its conduct of foreign policy and national security. [...] - Source

The true antidote is voting the bastards OUT! The must be removed from the White House (by voting for the Democratic candidates) and they must be removed from Congress (by increasing the number of Democratic Senators.)

You, dear friend, can read a remarkable book that makes clear everything that is occurring before your eyes...and why it is happening, how it fits into a historical context, and how to stop it. Please get yourself a copy of Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine and read it ASAP. She's documented (in very readable form) the history of "disaster capitalism." Arm yourself with knowledge!