Take me for a damn fool?
It appears that some of you and your Wall Street-oriented counselors view ‘main street’ Americans as damn fools.
Here are several prominent instances where you, elected officials, have illustrated your condescension for me.
First you tell me that we must spend billions of taxpayer dollars to save ‘too-big-to-fail’ financial institutions, and that there must be no rules or oversight over the billions of taxpayer dollars that you propose to spend.
Then you tell me that the automotive companies, who employ tens of thousands of blue-collar workers, are not too big to fail. Taxpayer dollars should not be spent on saving the jobs of ‘main street’ Americans.
Do you take me for a damn fool?
Next and Via A.I.G. you give billions of United States taxpayer moneys to foreign financial institutions.
Do you take me for a damn fool?
You tell me that we cannot violate the contracts of Wall Street’s institutions and workers. You consider Wall Street contracts as sacrosanct, thus it is unconstitutional to stop A.I.G. from paying billions of taxpayer dollars to other financial institutions who gambled on credit-default swaps and millions of taxpayer dollars to buffoons who helped create this economic and financial calamity.
But you do not hesitate to demand that automotive, blue-collar workers rip up their contracts so that their wages and benefits can be lowered to the level of the workers at foreign automotive companies.
Do you take me for a damn fool?
Now, you – elected official – wish to use taxpayer dollars to purchase a trillion dollars in assets that the market considers to be almost worthless. All to ‘save’ financial institutions who gambled on these investments. In the mean time, my home is foreclosed, my retirement acount is decimated, my job is transferred to a foreign country, my health care insurance is gone with my job and my environment is polluted.
And you, elected official, emote surprise and curiosity as to why I’m so damn angry.</strong<strong>>
Update:
Over at Firedoglake, economist James K. Galbraith describes how the facts belie the central assumption of the Treasury Department's latest plan to buy toxic assets.
Below is a sampling of Galbraith's article:
"Recovery rates on sub-prime residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) so far appear to belie this assumption [i.e., Treasury's public announced assumption that sub-prime mortgages will eventually pay off]. " James K. Galbraith