Dec. 22, 2008 at 08:08
by BrendaBee
Banks were asked where the bail out money they got from us tax payers has gone. Their answers? Hell no! We won't tell!
Are there any surprises here? I don't think so. Rep. Barnie Frank (House Banking Committee chairman) and Senator Dodd (Senate Finance Committee chairman), House Majority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid and Democrats in House and Senate, President Bush and Treasury Secretary Paulson all jumped on the soap box to tell the nation the sky was falling in September. The House Republicans stopped the bills passage. Then in early October after much back room bargaining and adding $2 billion in pork spending to the already massive $700 Billion bail out bill the Senate Republicans caved in and joined the "Crisis Crazies" in the biggest scam yet to be perpetuated against American tax payers.
And that was just the beginning as more and more of our great grandchildren's tax dollars were, and are, being poured into the hands of banks, mortgage companies, insurance companies and the lastest, the Big 3 Auto Makers.
Reference my post:
The Debt Goes Up and the Beat Goes On, La De Da De De, La De Da De Da
Posted in
National stories
Dec. 16, 2008 at 11:47
by BrendaBee
"The receipts are coming in and being added up by numbers crunchers and the picture ain't pretty. Our Congress and President Bush have flashed the tax payers credit card to the tune of $8.7 TRILLION to date. And this is only the beginning because when Obama gets into the action he promises even more gigantic "stimulus packages". We are witnessing a government gone mad with apparently no way to stop them."
So finally some in the national media and our Congress are starting to catch on and ask some questions. Questions that should have been asked by someone, any one!, in the beginning. Questions like: Where is the money going? What are you doing with the money? Show us how the bail out money you were given is helping the economy?
And the answers are all quite the same as given by all those who have been asked to date and typified by this one by Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, which received $25 billion in emergency bailout money (when he said), "We have not disclosed that to the public. We're declining to."
Read more of the story in detail here if you have the stomach for it. Oh, if you are prone to hypertension or deep depression upon hearing arrogance reported I suggest you take your meds before reading the story below:
Headlines: Where'd the bailout money go? Shhhh, it's a secret
By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081222/ap_on_bi_ge/meltdown_secrets
One more thing to remember: President elect Obama has promised another bail out package of some $850 billion as soon as he takes office. And, the same group of Crisis Crazies mentioned above (minus President Bush) are all gearing up to give it to him. BB
4 Comments |
Post Comment |
Email This
Dec. 18, 2008 at 10:19
by BrendaBee
The Big 3 Auto Makers and greedy bankers have nothing on these fat cats for chutzpah. Check out this article. BB
Headlines: 'Shovel-Ready' on Campus
Guess who wants a bailout now. DECEMBER 17, 2008,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122956325068716801.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
"With the Big Three seeking a bailout from Washington, the Big Ten are following suit. Earlier this week the Carnegie Corporation of New York took out a two-page ad in the New York Times, signed by executives of 36 public universities, state university systems and higher-education associations, urging Congress and President-elect Obama to rescue them."
2 Comments |
Post Comment |
Email This
Dec. 16, 2008 at 11:47
by BrendaBee
The receipts are coming in and being added up by numbers crunchers and the picture ain't pretty. Our Congress and President Bush have flashed the tax payers credit card to the tune of $8.7 TRILLION to date. And this is only the beginning because when Obama gets into the action he promises even more gigantic "stimulus packages". We are witnessing a government gone mad with apparently no way to stop them. Certainly tax payers can't do it with emails, letters and phone calls as we learned when this snow ball started down hill with the $700 billion bail out of banks was in the works and tax payers actually overwhelmed and shut down the Capitol's and White House switchboards with calls of protest to no avail.
I don't know how you feel but I am just watching in heartsick dread as our leaders lead of from bad to worse and then beyond. The following article gives an outline and some facts about the spending frenzy to date that you may find of interest if you are trying to keep score.
Headlines: Bailout payout tops $8 trillion
By JEANNE CUMMINGS | 12/16/08 4:41 AM EST
"The New Deal, for instance, cost an estimated $32 billion in its day, which would be about $500 billion in today’s dollars. The Marshall Plan cost about $12.7 billion, which is the equivalent of a paltry $115.3 billion. The Louisiana Purchase? The French got $15 million, which would be worth about $217 billion today.
If you take those three items, add in the adjusted costs of the Race to the Moon, the savings and loan crisis, the Korean War, the Iraq war, the Vietnam War and assistance for NASA, you still get to just $3.92 trillion — not even half of the taxpayers’ exposure today...."
"There is a bright side, sort of. Only about $2.9 trillion of the government money, loans and guarantees have actually been spent or committed."
After this great start the article goes back to the MSM hipe that this all was necessary to keep the country from "going into a depression that would make the Great Depression look like a hiccup". I agree about the hiccup part since I have been saying this for years as I and many others saw this day coming. We were flying too high not to crash land. And no matter how bad it gets the yea sayers can always claim it could have been worse as this is a safe statement because there will be no way to prove otherwise. In the meantime we who are making this huge debt have the very good fortune of not having to pay it and most of us will be dead when the tab really comes due so we won't have to suffer any hardship nor will we have to hear our progenity railing at us fopr our stupidity and greed. BB
7 Comments |
Post Comment |
Email This
Dec. 12, 2008 at 14:43
by BrendaBee
The measure failed in dramatic fashion late Thursday after Senate Republicans balked at passing the bill without more wage and benefit concessions from autoworkers.
Senate Republicans were able to block the passage of the $14 Billion bail out for the auto industry. Why did the measure get turned down by Congress? Because the United Auto Workers Union refused to make sufficient and meaningful concessions on their wages and benefits packages.
I have seen this happen before when Big Steel died in this country. And the reasons for its demise was very similar to what is happening with the auto industry. I watched it from a ring-side seat as my home town became a ghost town in a ghost river valley.
Weirton Steel Company, Weirton, West Virginia was one example where the workers greed closed the plant for good. The Weirton Steel Company was the "home" company for the Weir family and was really kept open and operating long past the point where a reasonable profit was being made. It was a matter of sentimental value to the family and that was all.
The workers in the Weirton Steel Mill were always as well paid as any other workers in the steel industry of the northern Ohio Valley until steel companies in the United States began loosing out to those overseas. Eventually all of the steel mills closed their doors and the northern Ohio Valley actually became a series of ghost towns. The Weirton plant was one of the first to go.
It was a bitter battle and difficult time as the company owners actually turned over their books to be examined to show the workers that they simply could not pay any higher wages or benefits. In fact, they were possibly going to have to cut back some to continue to break even. The workers refused to believe the company and so the doors were closed. No company, no jobs, no pay, period.
The workers bought out the Weir family in the early 1980's and tried to run the mill themselves but found they had to keep cutting wages and benefits until the plant eventual closed all together.
The other company I was close to was a tool factory in Athol, Mass. The workers demanded more money and more benefits and the company kept giving and giving until the workers were some of the highest paid in the area. The last time the workers went out on strike they were told there was no leeway for increased wages in the budget. Profits were not doing as well as they had in the past. The company owners said they would close the plant if the strike continued. The workers continued to walk outside the plant carrying signs and were still walking a month after the gates were locked for the last time. The company never did reopen. The greed of the workers closed the plant.
The reason the steel companies in the United States were closing was the demand for more wages and/or better benefits. This is the reason for the closure of most of industries that have died in the United States. Americans are the most productive and the most hard working population in the world, but they are also among the highest paid.
So it just may come down to the workers in the three big auto makers plants to agree to take a little less money and keep their jobs. t It is possible they are going to lose all if they do not bend. GM announced today that they are "temporarily" closing 20 of their plants. Is there anyone out there who would care to make a little wager with me that those plants will never open again? I'll even give you good odds. Those jobs are lost! Gone and never coming back.
Now I hope the remaining workers in the plants that are not closing get the message and perhaps keep the auto industry afloat and keep their jobs. We tax payers may be forced by our weak kneed Congress to bail them out this time but the measly $14 billion will be lapped up like so much water and they will be back for more. And if this recession doesn't get them then the elections coming up in two years certainly will, because someone making $28 an hour sure has no sympathy for nor desire to prop up the man making $84.
It is time perhaps for a tax payer strike in this country. BB
1 Comments |
Post Comment |
Email This
Dec. 9, 2008 at 15:13
by BrendaBee
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
"Economic fluctuations cause recessions. Political ones cause depressions. The Bush bailouts in September created a $700 billion bad precedent, and now the feds have about $8 trillion in direct and indirect financial bailout obligations, which is half the size of the entire U.S. economy. Coverage by The New York Times showed that even big-government advocates were amazed: Federal officials hoping for economic revival were "sending a message that they would print as much money as needed." ( http://townhall.com/columnists/MarvinOlasky/2008/12/09/what_if )
Has our government gone mad? These are supposed to be intelligent people but they are on a spending frenzy at a time when all logic would demand prudence. The people understand what is happening and have cut back considerably in their spending, but the people who are responsible for holding the purse strings of our country having found our purse empty are merely stealing from the yet unborn with ever increasing abandon. And if that suicidal stupidity is not enough they are throwing money away in such a way that failure is sure to result.
Giving the Big 3 Automakers a bail out was beyond insanity. There is no way this industry can reverse its self-inflicted demise. Self-inflicted due to an unfounded attitude of superiority and an belief that they were insulated from failure because they are "just too big to fail". Detroit auto makers have decided for 30 years that they were right and the world was wrong in producing economically operating automobiles. Detroit insisted that oil supplies would feed the gas hogs they produced forever and people would buy them even with all evidence to the contrary. All it would have taken was management getting out of their private jets and taking a short drive down the interstate (any interstate) to see just how many foreign cars were on America's highways.
Now our Congress is giving them a measly $15 billion dollars with instructions to turn around and remake themselves almost instantly. This with the threat that there will be no more money coming. But of course the auto makers and everyone else knows there will be more money coming. In fact a great deal more money from the pockets of the unborn because not to spend more money on them would be "throwing" this first (and last we are being told) installment away.
I have been adamantly opposed to any bail outs of any failing company period because a failed company up to the present has gotten there by their own poor business practices. But darn it people, if you are going to give a bailout then give one that is large enough to do the job! $15 billion for the Big 3 will be swallowed up in one gulp with no sign of any improvements in the situation. It is akin to giving a homeless person enough money for today's meal instead of enough funds to get himself some sort of shelter and the ability to get himself cleaned up and able to go out and get himself a job to earn the money for his own daily food allowance. (Of course this is how our government funding for the poor has always operated with the result being more homeless!) However the example is valid because this is exactly what $15 billion will be for the auto makers.
So I repeat, " And if that suicidal stupidity is not enough they are throwing money away in such a way that failure is sure to result." While our bail out debt has iincreased to $8 trillion. Me thinks the country is not going to Hell in a Hand Basket as my Dad wopuld have said, but in a out of control locamotive pulling the entire nation behind it towards a dive into a deep, deep gorge. BB
2 Comments |
Post Comment |
Email This
Nov. 28, 2008 at 08:13
by BrendaBee
Why does this not surprise me? The American tax payer is being asked to bail out the American Auto makers just so they can beef up their plants in other countries. And you know what? Our Congressmen are going to give them the money! The of course since the money will be spent outside of Detroit the Big 3 will have to come back to Washington with their hand out saying they need more money to keep the plants in Detroit open and save American jobs. BB
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?CategoryId=14090&ArticleId=320903
By Russ Dallen
Latin American Herald Tribune staff
"General Motors (GM) plans to invest $1 billion in Brazil to avoid the kind of problems the U.S. automaker is facing in its home market, said the beleaguered car maker.
According to the president of GM Brazil-Mercosur, Jaime Ardila, the funding will come from the package of financial aid that the manufacturer will receive from the U.S. government and will be used to "complete the renovation of the line of products up to 2012."
1 Comments |
Post Comment |
Email This
Nov. 26, 2008 at 15:55
by BrendaBee
Oh Dear. I guess I have been right all along in saying Americans aren't equipped to understand the issues of today because they lack knowledge of the past. Only thing is, I wasn't "right" enough. I really had no idea just how bad it really is/was and most certainly is gonna be.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
"A new report from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) on the nation's civic literacy finds that most Americans are too ignorant to vote.
Out of 2,500 American quiz-takers, including college students, elected officials and other randomly selected citizens, nearly 1,800 flunked a 33-question test on basic civics. In fact, elected officials scored slightly lower than the general public with an average score of 44 percent compared to 49 percent.
Only 0.8 percent of all test-takers scored an "A."
There was an interesting article in The Princetonian http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2007/09/20/news/18641.shtml ).
It up held the finding that incoming freshman knew more than graduating seniors. Both groups however failed the test as far as the grading scale is concerned. I suppose this is one where we have to fall back on the old Bell Curve for the Stupid grading system. But only of course after throwing out the very few high scores.
I got a sad laugh out of one more of my bitches about the so-called "Intellectuals" or "Intelligensia". You know, those people dictators usually knock off when they come into power along with the people in the asylums. It is called ridding the population of the undesirables and misfits. I'm not in agreement with the dictators that those with mental disabilities should be placed in the same class as the "intellectuals". No I think I would allow the mentally disabled to live.
Anyhow, the article said, "Some Princeton professors questioned the report's claims." You bet they did with brick bats from "it means nothing" to "it is political" to the dumbest of all: "History department chair Jeremy Adelman said, "Not knowing is not the same as being ignorant," he said. "And if we can teach our students that there's a distinction between the two, then I think we have done a good job. I have a feeling that some people who ran that survey don't understand."
Well if a graduate of Princeton University doesn't know in his/her senior year then I simply do not understand the meaning of ignorant, and Dr. Jeremy Adelman with a slew of degrees and awards for outstanding scholarship hanging on his wall, was quite correct that some of us, who by the way passed the test with a score of 100%, simply "don't understand". BB
Take the quiz yourself at:
http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/resources/quiz.aspx
0 Comments |
Post Comment |
Email This
Last Page | Home | Next Page
AND SO I GO YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW is proudly produced by Policlicks 2008
