NO BLESSED OBLIGE? NOT OUR NOBLEMEN!
BANKERS & BROKERS & BUREAUCRATS ARE NOT LIKE US
THEY ARE UNANSWERABLE. THEY HAVE NO OBLIGATIONS TO ANYONE. THEY SPIT ON YOUR PETTY LEGALITIES. PTUI!
YOUTUBE: MEL BROOKS
"The French Revolution (from The History of The World Part 1)"
Keep your eye on the Count de Monet.
You Filthy Peasants, You! How DARE You Question Your Lords & Masters!!!???
You'll be lucky if they even LET you eat cake, now! They may choose, instead, to cut off your credit lines altogether. They know that many of you technoserfs have been living on plastic, even eating off it, for years. You are as helpless and dependent upon the Lords of Finance as a newborn babe is on his mother's teats.
Suck as ye may, little people, there will be no milk-money for you today. Your tax money went for limousines for our Wall Street princes, the Big People. Limousines and private jets, that they might not have to mix with commoners (that's you) in traffic, or at the airport. Your tax money bought them mansions and memberships in exclusive private country clubs where persons of your smelly ilk can only dream of the luxuries, unless you have a job shining shoes or cutting the grass there, you smelly ilk, you. Phew!
Without such employment, you would be arrested and carted off to a jail built with your own money, if you ever so much as tried to approach these aristocratic domains, and you know it, you low-born swine. Just ask any cop: They only enter such precincts by invitation or appointment. They know which side their bread is buttered on, and it ain't your side. Even if it is your money that buys the butter.
What's that? Why don't your Senators and Congressmen call them to account? HAH! Did you say "your" Senators & Congressmen? Do you think that you own them? Do you think they would ever take a call from you? HAH! And you expect them to call the rich and powerful, on your behalf? How would they dare to? The rich and powerful do not take calls from mere politicians. When they call a politician, it is the politician who snaps to. There will be no calling to account here, my good fellow. Your tax dollars will not be spent trying to find out what happened to your tax dollars in the $700 billion bailout, my dear chappie. Your tax dollars will be funneled right back into the pockets of a select few politicians by the bankers & brokers liege, and the investigation will disappear, mon cher petit homme. Voila!
If you don't like it, you can always vote for change. But you can see how well that works. Try sending an email to one of those addresses where you sent a campaign contribution just a month or so ago. Try responding to the new requests for money by the winners of the recent elections. Try asking them what has happened to your money, and what is going on with the bail-out. Let me know if they give you a meaningful answer. Or any answer at all.
In some grubby foreign country, the peasantry might arise under such circumstances. Ordinary people might march in the streets, and refuse to work until their questions had been answered, and the injustices were made right, and their hard-earned money was returned, or spent on them. No business at all would be done until the people were satisfied. But what are we talking, France, here? They're democrats with a small "d," you stupid peasant. They have socialism for the poor, not the rich, like us. And besides, they're French! Phew!
Relative deprivation, anyone? No, you won't ever hear any tumbrils rolling, or heads, either. Life will go on as always, only worse. Unless, of course, you are born to the purple, and live on the receiving end of public moneys. But that's a real fairy tale for you, ain't it? You cap-doffing, forelock-pulling, knee-bending, flag-saluting peon, you. HAH! I laugh in your common face! HAH! PEASANT!
YAHOO NEWS
"Where'd the bailout money go? Shhhh, it's a secret"
Moi? Je refuse a reponder!
' It's something any bank would demand to know before handing out a loan: Where's the money going? But after receiving billions in aid from U.S. taxpayers, the nation's largest banks say they can't track exactly how they're spending the money or they simply refuse to discuss it. "We've lent some of it. We've not lent some of it. We've not given any accounting of, 'Here's how we're doing it,'" said Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, which received $25 billion in emergency bailout money. "We have not disclosed that to the public. We're declining to." The Associated Press contacted 21 banks that received at least $1 billion in government money and asked four questions: How much has been spent? What was it spent on? How much is being held in savings, and what's the plan for the rest? None of the banks provided specific answers. "We're not providing dollar-in, dollar-out tracking," said Barry Koling, a spokesman for Atlanta, Ga.-based SunTrust Banks Inc., which got $3.5 billion in taxpayer dollars. Some banks said they simply didn't know where the money was going. '
YAHOO NEWS
"AP study finds $1.6B went to bailed-out bank execs"
It's good to be the king, hunh?
' Banks that are getting taxpayer bailouts awarded their top executives nearly $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses, and other benefits last year, an Associated Press analysis reveals. The rewards came even at banks where poor results last year foretold the economic crisis that sent them to Washington for a government rescue. Some trimmed their executive compensation due to lagging bank performance, but still forked over multimillion-dollar executive pay packages. Benefits included cash bonuses, stock options, personal use of company jets and chauffeurs, home security, country club memberships and professional money management, the AP review of federal securities documents found. The total amount given to nearly 600 executives would cover bailout costs for many of the 116 banks that have so far accepted tax dollars to boost their bottom lines. '
CNN MONEY
"How to spend $350 billion in 77 days"
Money? What money? Oh, THAT money! Dunno.
' In two-and-a-half months, the Treasury has used up half of the money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Here's how it came and went so fast. President Bush has grudgingly allowed General Motors and Chrysler to drive away with the last few billion bucks in Treasury's TARP till, which boasted $350 billion a mere 77 days ago. How did it all slip away so fast? The money pot -- intended to save the teetering financial system -- was formally proposed in a three-page missive that Treasury sent to Congress on the morning of Saturday, Sept. 20. Over the course of two weeks, lawmakers debated the potential moral, ethical and financial hazards of handing over unprecedented power and unprecedented sums of taxpayer money to the Treasury. Their responses ranged from gobsmacked to apoplectic. One cause of Capitol Hill's bailout rage: the Treasury has not used TARP money to help prevent foreclosures. Democratic lawmakers, who crafted the legislation and purposefully included language about foreclosure prevention, beg to differ. They have said repeatedly they will not release any more TARP money until the Treasury commits to use some of it to help troubled homeowners. Second, lawmakers are not happy Treasury has given so much capital to banks without requiring them to lend more and do more to oversee how the banks are using the money. Paulson has said Treasury told TARP recipients that it expects them to lend. "But it's not practical or prudent for the government to say 'make this loan, don't make that loan,'" he said Thursday, speaking at an event in New York. '
ABC NEWS
"Why Isn't the Bailout Working?"
Why isn't Congress working?
' Fed Remains Mum on Billions Already Sent to Banks. The word "bailout" was one of the most-searched-for terms on the Internet this year. It's been all over the news. It's been discussed everywhere from Congress to American living rooms. But what happened to that money that was already handed out? What happened to that first chunk of change from the $700 billion bailout that was supposed to increase lending? The plan didn't exactly work. The Dow has dropped 2,000 points since Congress approve those confidence-restoring funds. But there's more. While the media focuses on those billions of dollars, the Federal Reserve Bank is quietly committing trillions of dollars and in return getting collateral from the banks. But they aren't saying what exactly that collateral is. "We have been asked to engage in oversight for the $700 billion that Treasury may be authorized to spend," Warren said. "But the Federal Reserve Bank is out there now, committing trillions of dollars." "We don't even know, in the case of the Fed, to which institutions it's going, much less to what use it's being put," she said. '
THE TIMES OF LONDON
"Henry Paulson - US economy still unstable"
Mea culpa? Nope "It's Congress's fault."
' Henry Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary, has warned that the American financial system remains unstable and indicated that the world's largest economy will not return to growth until well into the next administration. Speaking in New York last night, Mr Paulson said that while he was "rooting for the next Administration", the new President faces a long road of "stability, recovery and then repair - this situation is going to take longer to unfold". '.
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Labels: BAILOUT, Congressional swindle, financial services industry, It's good to be the king, noblesse oblige, TARP, taxpayer rip-off, Wall Street boondoggle, where's the money
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