Robert Sheer has crunched some big numbers and shared them at TruthDig:
The good news on the government’s “No Banker Left Behind” program is that, according to the special inspector general’s report on Tuesday, the total handout to date is still less than 3 trillion dollars. It’s only $2.98 trillion, to be precise, an amount six times greater than will be spent by federal, state and local governments this year on educating the 50 million American children in elementary and secondary schools. The bad news is that even greater amounts of money are to be thrown down what has to be the world record for rat holes…
Now Summers and the other finance gurus who move so easily from Wall Street to Pennsylvania Avenue assure us that those professionals who made the toxic swap deals are too big to fail and must be entrusted with 3 trillion of our dollars to save themselves from disaster. And thanks to the laws they wrote, the bankers are likely to be covered for their socially destructive behavior by a get-out-of-jail-free card.
My main gripe about the bailout is with the armies of Bernie Madoff fanboys who insist the money be granted with no attached strings.
The diarrhea-mouth voices of talk radio scream "Socialization!!" and "Nationalization" about enforcing some regulations and changing the business model of these companies from the failed and corrupt current one to something that attempts to correct the problems.
And the problems will remain as long as the financial corporations (banking is a tiny part of their business. so let's not call them banks) insist on business as usual.
Any one who invests the majority of the capital in a corporation has a legal right to say how the business is run. If any of these gold plated asses want to avoid government intervention and control, let them put up the money or shut up.
I agree completely.
We should put these failed businesses into receivership – we could then correctly restructure their 'assets' and their cost structures, including 'right-sizing' their executive compensation structures.
This bullshit with 'bailouts' is nothing more than social security for the rich by the poor.