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On Wall Street, Union Members Protest Corporate Bailout |
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| No wonder John Mccain “suspended” his campaign to focus on Paulson’s bailout–he had not read the bailout text. |
Near the New York Stock Exchange this afternoon, more than 1,000 union members and other activists rallied against giving Wall Street a blank check in a financial bailout that leaves Main Street taxpayers deserted.
Speaking at the rally, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said:
Our nation is facing a real crisis and we should move swiftly, but we cannot afford to compound our problems with bailout legislation that is hasty at the expense of thoughtfulness and common sense.
We want our tax dollars to provide a hand up for the millions of working people who live on Main Street and not a handout to a privileged band of overpaid executives on Wall Street.
The lunchtime rally was one of hundreds of events across the nation this afternoon to protest a Bush administration plan Sweeney said was a “dangerous” blank check that
gives unlimited authority to the Bush administration to spend $700 billion propping up whomever they wish on Wall Street—no strings, no safeguards, no accountability.
The call for a Wall Street bailout began last week when Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson sought immediate passage of legislation by Congress allowing the bailout, and demanded that it be passed with no changes.
The AFL-CIO says any bailout plan must:
- Be governed by an independent board with transparency and effective public and congressional oversight.
- Use the full array of financial and legal tools available to the government to stop foreclosures and restructure home mortgage loans for working families.
- Address the causes of the crisis on Main Street in addition to the symptoms on Wall Street. Congress should pass a second economic recovery package in its entirety.
- Work to address the weaknesses in our financial regulatory system and corporate governance system that allowed this disaster to happen.
As Sweeney says:
The bailout will not work unless we provide a boost for the real economy to create jobs and help working families. And that means Congress must extend unemployment benefits, send new financial aid to cities and states, and create good jobs by rebuilding our schools, airports, highways, bridges and water systems.
House and Senate negotiators were meeting with White House officials late this afternoon, but details of any proposed bailout were not made public. The original Bush administration plan offered over the weekend, a three-page proposal, called for $700 billion to be spent at Paulson’s discretion. It allowed no oversight and forbid any review of his actions by the courts or Congress.
Yesterday, in what many called a grandstanding political stunt, Sen. John McCain announced he was suspending his presidential campaign to return to Washington and focus on the economic crisis, while calling for a delay in Friday’s debate with Sen. Barack Obama.
McCain, who has been out of the nation’s capital most of the year campaigning, missing dozens of important votes, has admitted economics is not his “strong suit” and consistently claimed the “fundamentals of the economy are strong.”
He told a television interviewer in Cleveland on Tuesday that he hadn’t read the Bush-Paulson bailout proposal (see video). The bare-bones, three-pager has been in every major newspaper and on the Internet since the weekend. Surely, if he was truly concerned about the economy and the bailout, he could have found a few minutes to read all three pages.
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This current financial adventure is a result of the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977. In 1995 the Clinton administration revised regulations causing an increase in the sub prime market.
In 2003 the Bush administration wanted tighter regulation in the housing finance industry but it was blocked by the democrats.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E06E3D6123BF932A2575AC0A9659C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
So to blame this issue on Bush is a lie. The act from 1977 was the start and the democrats twisted it around to allow the poor to own a home weather they could afford it or not. Ultimately it is the democrats need to provide affordable housing to low income people that got us here.
Hey door,
Did Clinton’s changes also legalize the racism involved in the subprime mortgage market? you know, the fact that blacks and hispanics were far more likely to be steered into subprime mortgages even though they qualified for regular mortgages? but that would be beside the point because you already have your mind made up. All those poor people out there are not bringing down the system. They didn’t go out and steal that money for their house. It was SOLD to them by mortgage brokers flush with capital that they wanted to invest anywhere they could find because they thought they had figured out a way to ignore common sense risk in who you lend money to. How is that the poor’s fault? And why wasn’t it regulated? Because the REPUBLICAN congress in 1999 repealed Glass-Steagall and opened the door for a consolidation of financial services, and therefore capital, that we haven’t seen since the 1920s. Excess capital creates inflation and that is what happened in housing. Throw in the underfunding of enforcement, plus the failure to install new regs for the new derivative markets that opened up, and you have the perfect recipe for collapse. This all happened under conservative republican control of all three branches of government and is merely a culmination of 30 years of belief that markets are the answer to everything.
The subprime mortgage market collapse is not the cause of the current crisis. It merely was the first domino to fall because it was the riskiest debt. If you were told you could afford this house because the value of it would continue to rise giving you equity, why not? and if you lived anywhere where housing was already next to impossible to afford, you might have taken the bait too.
but a bubble is a bubble and regardless of how it pops everyone gets hit. If you haven’t been paying attention housing values have been DECLINING so even people who pay their bills and have jobs and are responsible and grab their bootstraps and all that crap are getting screwed because they are now upside down on their house.
The bubble economies that are created by neo-liberal deregulatory policies are to blame. I don’t have the time to go into the entire history but you should be smart enough to read it for yourself, if you can put your biases and ideology on the shelf for just a second and look at the facts.
NO Bailout!! Let the credit lines dry up, if they may. I am tired of giving these ungrateful, unempathetic, unconnected republicans on wall street the money I work hard for. I just can’t beleive that the Americna public is falling for more republican tricks, enough is enough.
Fuzzy math has never stood in the way of the Bush Administration. Comparatively speaking though, Sweeney’s bailout plan sounds much better.
Although yesterday, it dawned on me that what we’ve really got is a 2-11 in progress. The two Bush appointees, Paulson and Bernanke, basically waltzed into the U.S. Senate Banking Committee and testified over and over, “Hands up, this is a CRISIS. Give me the money, or else…Give me the money or else.” Finally a Senator mustered enough courage to ask, “Or else, What?” The Bush Banditos answered, “We are holding your Economy hostage. If you don’t give us the money; we’re gonna kill it. Now, hand over the money and hand it over RIGHT NOW!”
These Corporate tycoons are committing what is tantamount to Economic terrorism, pure and simple. Paulson and Bernanke are simply a couple of errand boys that the real money powers are using to rip us off with. After they extort this $700 Billion from the future savings of OUR bank accounts, they will eventually come back for more. Because they still largely control the fate of our Economy; they can blackmail us whenever they get ready. After making off with this take; next time, they will be in a much stronger position, than they are now. Don’t take my word for it…Take their’s:
“The colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been that England took away from the colonies their money, which created unemployment and dissatisfaction. The inability of the colonists to get power to issue their own money permanently out of the hands of George III and the INTERNATIONAL BANKERS was the PRIME reason for the revolutionary war.”
-Ben Franklin
“If the American people ever allow PRIVATE BANKS to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the BANKS and the CORPORATIONS which grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their father conquered.”
-Thomas Jefferson
“The death of Lincoln was a disaster for Christendom. There was no man in the United States great enough to wear his boots. I fear the foreign bankers with their craftiness and tortuous tricks will entirely control the exuberant riches of America, and use it systematically to corrupt modern civilization. They will not hesitate to plunge the whole of Christendom into wars and chaos in order that the earth should become their inheritance.”
-Otto Von Bismark – Chancellor of Germany
“The Federal Reserve Act brought about a super-state controlled by international BANKERS and international industrialists acting together to enslave the world for their own pleasure.”
-Louis McFadden (D-Pa)
“This act establishes the most gigantic trust on earth. When the President signs this bill, the invisible government by the monetary power will be legalized. The people may not know it immediately; but the day of reckoning is only a few years removed. The worst legislative crime of the ages is perpetrated by this banking bill.”
-Sen. Charles Lindbergh (R-Mn), speaking of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913
“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority; but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.”
-Woodrow Wilson, speaking of his signature upon the Federal Reserve act of 1913
“BANKERS own the earth; take it away from them but leave them with the power to create credit; and, with a flick of a pen, they will create enough money to buy it back again… If you want to be slaves of bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let the bankers control money and control credit.”
- Sir Josiah Stamp, Director, Bank of England, 1940
“The few who understand the system, will either be so interested from its profits or so dependent on its favors, that there will be no opposition from that class.”
-Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild
“Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes its laws.”
-Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild
“The answer to the Kennedy assassination is with the Federal Reserve Bank. Don’t underestimate that. It’s wrong to blame it on [CIA official James] Angleton and the CIA per se only. This is only one finger of the same hand. The people who supply the money are above the CIA.”
- Marina Oswald wife of accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, as told to A.J. Weberman
The AFL-CIO should carefully and rigorously examine every candidate that it is pledging to support with time and money this November. Give each candidate a specific list of items that they will be expected to support or oppose, and then
compare with their actual voting record!
Anyone voting NOT PRESENT or ABSTAIN must be examined as probably having corporate ties and corporate campaign money conflicting with supposed support of pro-labor issues.
IF THERE ARE NO ALTERNATIVES AMONG GREENS, INDEPENDENTS,
AND IF THE CANDIDATES ARE REALLY ANTI-LABOR, CONSIDER RUNNING A WRITE-IN CAMPAIGN! SOME APPROPRIATE WRITE-IN CAMPAIGN LITERATURE, MAILINGS, ETC.
THERE IS A GREAT REVULSION AGAINST BOTH DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS FOR THEIR LONG ANTI-LABOR, AND PRO-CORPORATE AND PRO-WAR VOTING RECORDS!
THIS LATEST $700 BILLION MONEY AND POWER GRAB IS THE LAST STRAW! THE MASSIVE WAR EXPENDITURES AND NOW THIS WILL ABSOLUTELY DESTROY THE HOPES TO RETAIN SOCIAL SECURITY, MAINTAIN THE QUALITY PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM, NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE. ETC.ETC.
THE TIME FOR THE LABOR MOVEMENT TO ESTABLISH ITSELF POLITICALLY INDEPENDENT OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY IS NOW!
ORGANIZED LABOR MUST AND WORKING PEOPLE MUST MAKE IT’S NEEDS KNOWN! NO MORE BEGGING DEMOCRATS TO PLESE CONSIDER ONE OR TWO NICE IDEAS.
LABOR MUST START RUNNING THEIR OWN CANDIDATES, TODAY AS INDEPENDENTS, AND AFTER THIS ELECTION, START FORMING A NEW POLITICAL PARTY THAT IS ACTIVE ALL YEAR ROUND AT EVERY LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT, RUNNING TEACHER’S UNION MEMBERS FOR SCHOOL BOARDS (FOR EXAMPLE), AND ON UP TO CITY, COUNTY, STATE AND FEDERAL LEVEL.
THE TIME IS ABSOLUTELY RIPE TO START THIS EFFORT BECAUSE BOTH DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS ARE PRIMARILY CORPORATE CONTROLLED AND CORPORATE FINANCED.
THE NEXT SEVERAL YEARS ARE ESPECIALLY GOING TO BE BAD FOR ALL OF US. THE TIME TO ORGANIZE IS NOW!
Here are links to a couple of in-depth articles on current financial crisis:
Obama’s embrace of bailout wins favor on Wall Street
By Patrick Martin
25 September 2008
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/obam-s25.shtml
“Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has seized upon the financial crisis to increase his support within the US financial elite by giving all-out backing to a federal bailout of Wall Street and providing assurances that an Obama administration will be a reliable and ruthless defender of corporate interests.”
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Democrats push for quick adoption of Bush plan to bail out Wall Street
By Barry Grey
26 September 2008
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/bail-s26.shtml
“The turn of events at the White House summit announced Wednesday night by President Bush and held Thursday to press for bipartisan agreement on his plan for a bailout of Wall Street has underscored the cynical and reactionary role being played by the Democratic Party and its presidential candidate, Barack Obama.”
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ONE FINAL NOTE, NO MENTIONED ANYWHERE ELSE PERHAPS!
The financial collapse of the economy is going to be felt by everone of
us who needs to work at a job in order to buy food, pay rent etc. to survive.
When the means of survival start disappearing, when we have no money
and when social services “are out of funds” to help anyone, massive civil
unrest will be inevitable. THIS IS ESPECIALLY THE CASE WHEN THE LABOR MOVEMENT RELIES ON THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY TO HELP OUT WORKING PEOPLE! ONCE RE-ELECTED IN OFFICE FOR ANOTHER 2 OR 4 YEARS THEY WON’T GIVE A DAMN!
Army deploys combat unit in US for possible civil unrest
By Bill Van Auken
25 September 2008
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/mili-s25.shtml
“For the first time ever, the US military is deploying an active duty regular Army combat unit for full-time use inside the United States to deal with emergencies, including potential civil unrest.”
“Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”
Does this language of Bush’s bail out plan scare anyone else?
Our program needs to be more specific if we are going to have an impact. For example, two things we should require that I have seen elsewhere but not in specifically in labor movement demands:
1) A tax on financial transactions to slow some of the speculative hustling–so it actually costs something to trade. You pay 5% tax if you buy a toothpick, why not when you are buying and selling millions of dollars of “financial vehicles”? Among other benefits, ti might actually cause traders and regulators to figure out the actual value of trash they are trading.
2) Mortgages should be re-negotiated at the actual market value of the house through a bankruptcy type court. This would allow a lot of people to say in their houses and the holders of the mortgages would get something instead of nothing–of course if we bail them out in any case, why would they want to compromise with someone who owes them an arm and a leg from an inflated mortgage?
Dems and Obama are in way too much of a rush……
Jeff Crosby
I believe that GW & Company are doing a last ditch effort to clean house and acquire as much money as they can before leaving office…
Paulson is a super cronies of GW. PS While this was going on GW & Company pushed Columbia Trade Agreement through. I bet no one who reads this knows that El Presidenta can create Laws with Foreign Governments without approval of Congress.
Way to go GW A true Capitalist!
Big business has kept the price of gas out of sight, has kept the price of real estate to where the average person cannot afford a home, has sent our jobs overseas, has hired foreign labor at cheaper salaries and now they want us the average taxpayer to give them money to cover for poor management. No Thankyou! Say NO to power greed and abuse!
NO BAILOUT! If the banks must fail, they must fail. Congress has to find a way to institute tighter controls over the activities of the banks and lending institutions in order to protect average citizens from corporate greed and unethical lending practices. These banks, lending institutions, together with their CEO’s (who I might add make billions of dollars leading their banks into ruin) should pay for their own mistakes. Congress is being tricked, exploited, fooled into thinking a bailout is necessary. Besides, this bailout is going to be funded by yet more borrowed money from probably China. The American government doesn’t want to divulge that little tidbit. Banks have gotten too big, with no interest in the communities that they were once set up to serve. Let’s bring back the small local bank with community ties, and people will be more secure.
NO BAILOUT…NO BAILOUT…NO BAILOUT…NO BAILOUT…