By now most of you have likely already either perused the mega-bailout bill or some summarizations of its features so I won’t dwell endlessly on each individual feature but rather draw your attention to a few points of interest in the bigger, more ironic picture.First, the “Purpose” of the proposed bill (soon to be law) sets out goals that, aside from being couched in foolish election-season populist language, declares an intention that is both pious and purposefully deceitful.
The purposes of this Act are—
(A) protects home values, college funds, retirement accounts, and life savings;
(B) preserves homeownership and promotes jobs and economic growth;
(C) maximizes overall returns to the taxpayers of the United States; and
(D) provides public accountability for the exercise of such authority.
The elites clearly take us for fools … perhaps rightly so, though I have to imagine that there is at least a small contingent among us who can see the irony, albeit subtle, in the notion of the largest taxpayer funded financial crisis bailout in human history “maximizing returns to the taxpayer”, “promoting job growth” and “preserving homeownership”.
Further irony, how about that 11th hour phone call to Warren Buffett by Congressional negotiators in desperate need of a confidence boost and reassurance that bailing out Wall Street is the right thing to do… a truly epic embarrassment.
Even further still, Senator John Kerry inadvertently hit on a great point of irony too when he suggested that ”[Voters] don’t want a bailout of Wall Street and neither do we. What we are talking about is not losing 3 million jobs in a matter of weeks.”
Yet, we have been watching unemployment simply skyrocket for eight straight months now and it will continue to skyrocket precisely for the reason that those being bailed out don’t feel even the slightest twinge of remorse about throwing workers overboard in order to maximize shareholder value.
All the more reason a taxpayer-funded bailout of private institutions is a clear perversion of our economic system.
Yet the most significant irony of all might be what happens in November.
I generally steer clear of direct political statements preferring instead to simply spur along some form of action whatever it may be and so today I ask just one thing.
Keep all of these foolish dealings fresh in your mind when you enter the voting booth … don’t vote for the incumbent and if you can’t get yourself to pull the lever for a party you oppose, simply leave the space blank.
The only way to get some balance back in the system is for tainted elitist and lazy career politicians to be sent packing.
