Notes on how to stop the bailout:
1) Though there is talk to limit executive pay for CEO's whose companies
have accumulated toxic debt and want your tax dollars to buy that debt,
remember that for years these same executives have been paid millions a year
to package and sell and buy these debt products, and there is no plan to
make them pay back the money they made (stole). Also, just google any of
the names of the executives removed recently after the bailout of AIG, Fanny
Mae, etc. or the bankruptcies of Lehman Bros. etc., or the failure of
Washington Mutual. ALL those executives left with millions of dollars of
severance pay. If you are fired for doing a lousy job, do YOU expect to be
paid millions?
2) The best way to understand 'toxic debt' is to visualize it as a product
built to be sold, a financial widget. The banks created these products
(generally called 'collateralized debt obligations', CDO's) by bundling
together the MORTGAGE DEBT of ordinary people. So they created a faulty
product and sold it to people around the world, making millions in the
process, and kept some of this product themselves, and now the product is
worthless, nobody wants to buy it. Do you think if YOU made a faulty
product, a widget of some kind, which nobody wanted to buy, that the
government should step in and buy YOUR faulty product? Or do you think that
if you BOUGHT a faulty product (because you were greedy and wanted a high
profit margin by selling it on down the line), which you subsequently
realized was faulty and could not sell, that the goverment should BUY that
product from you?
3) Note the bipartisan support for giving away your tax dollars to
millionaire bankers. Note that the third party presidential candidates
(Ralph Nader, Independent candidate; Bob Barr, Libertarian; Cynthia
McKinney, Green;) and former presidential candidates such as Republican
Senator Ron Paul and Democratic Senator Dennis Kucinich are all AGANIST the
bailout. As many of us have been saying for years, there is no fundamental
difference between the Democrats and the Republicans at the leadership
level, BECAUSE THEY RECEIVE CAMPAIGN FUNDS FROM THE SAME RICH PEOPLE AND
CORPORATIONS. The bailout plan shows this clearly.
4) Note that they have already watered down the proposal, because they are
AFRAID of public opinion and AFRAID the voters will punish anyone who votes
for the bailout. If you want to STOP the bailout you must let your
representative know that you will NOT vote for anyone who supports the
bailout. You also need to spread the word to help build resistance. They
want to rush it through because they KNOW resistance is building very
quickly. Don't let the politicians and bankers get away with stealing your
money and your children's money (because the cost will escalate and must be
paid for years).
Various opinions criticising the bailout plan, and actions of resistance,
can be found at the following websites:
http://www.votenobailout.org/
http://housingpanic.blogspot.com/
http://www.freshaircleanpolitics.net/
www.counterpunch.org
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
http://www.lp.org/
http://www.gp.org/index.php
http://www.votenader.org/index.html
