Bailout Disaster

The US government's bailout plans are a huge mistake and, if not revised, will prove to be the undoing of this great nation. Here are ten reasons why.

1.Bait and Switch. The way that this emergency was handled was the most astoundingly brazen attack yet on the democratic process by the Bush Administration. Congress was held hostage. “Give us the money or die!” They fell for the big bait and switch, wherein, at the last moment, the Bush Administration inserted one little sentence about restrictions on executive compensations when the government bought troubled assets at auction. But then the Treasury Department injected the funds directly into the companies instead, creating a giant loophole through which the executives are now free to jump toward their bonuses and compensation packages, thank you very much.

2.No Trickling Down. Hardly any of the $335 billion handed out so far, money that was supposed to liquefy the frozen credit markets, has actually flowed as credit out of the coffers of the banks and institutions that received it. The myth of “trickle down:” busted.

3.Homeowners Still Screwed. People were cajoled into buying homes they could not afford by the Republican-led government, which promoted homeownership because the real estate, insurance, construction, and mortgage lending lobbies were their “BFF's.” Nothing has been done to help people work toward staying in their homes.

4.Credit Schmedit. Now, between the housing slump and much stricter lending practices, everyone has maxed out their credit limits, even if more money is available to lend.

5.Monopolies. The results of the government handouts of billions of dollars to institutions that they claimed were “too big to fail” are the consolidation of these institutions into monopolies that are even bigger. Bigger is not better.

6.No Accountability. No one is being held accountable, not the Treasury Department, which is full of industry insiders who are looking after their buddies; not the executives who allowed their big institutions to fail because of pure greed; not the investors who collected fees by gambling away everyone's pension funds on complicated financial instruments that no one understood; not the lawmakers who insisted on a free-market free-for-all.

7.Workers' Rights. In the mad scramble to find solutions to keep failing corporations afloat, unions are being painted as greedy, lazy, corrupt, and (gasp!) socialist. This broad vilification of all unions, based on the actions of a few, sets all workers back and lessens their ability to negotiate in good faith with the management. Worse, it glosses over the fact that the executives have been raking in disproportionately high incomes. The bailout does nothing to address this kind of corporate structure.

8.No Nation Treasury. By emptying the the coffers of the National Treasury, government can then be drowned in the proverbial bathtub, and the small-government ideologues can live out their dreams of no government services or oversight, nothing but the police and the military. Banana Republic, here we come.

9.State Versus State. With a severe lack of federal funds, states will compete with each other to attract businesses by offering the lowest taxes and the least oversight. This will free the businesses to put downward pressure on wages and benefits, and the working classes will fall farther and farther behind the executive classes.

10.A Nation Divided. The final results of all of this will be a nation split by economic factors, where the wealthy will be the only ones able to afford educations and other means to keep themselves floating high above the lower classes. The great free market system will prevail, where private companies replace government entities, and these companies will be free to continue to hoard all the wealth by not paying taxes or living wages, polluting at will, and making profits any which way they can.

This is the picture that might very well unfold if We, The People do not stand up for Democracy and Accountability. What do you call a fallen Democracy, where The People no longer have a voice and the corporate leaders gain total control of the wealth and the government? It's called Fascism, and yes, it could happen here, if we are not careful during these difficult economic times to come.