Bailing out the Crooks

The Democrats aren’t much better. In the house Dems caved in during negotiations and allowed the house version that passed to exclude discontinuance of auto manufacturer’s suits against the stiffer mileage and emission controls of some states.  In other words, they would have been able to use the bail out money from the federal taxpayers (you) to fight state taxpayers (you) trying to regulate the industry.

Bernard L. Madoff, a board member on Nasdaq OMX Group that owns the Nasdaq exchange, pulls off a many year ponzi scheme under the very nose of regulators robbing investors of over $50 billion dollars. Madoff helped develop electronic trading networks for equities and those nasty credit derivatives. He may actually see jail time, few if any of the rest won’t

The moral environment is so bad that Michael Milken the convicted junk bond king chose this time to ask for a pardon by President Bush. Milken you recall stole $600 million from investors, paid back $300 million and spent a year and a half in a federal prison. He now has become a “philanthropist” with the $2 billion he has managed to scrape together from what he had left.

Illinois Governor Blagojevich will almost certainly go to prison for a crude blackmail attempt meant to gain a measly $500,000 or so.  All for maybe picking someone to be a U.S. Senator who might who might not represent their constituents’ interests. Given Senate performance lately, that seems an indistinct offense. His is a mugger in an age of massacre. Believe me people will die because of the decisions of the neo-liberal economists, the Bush administration and their business allies. They probably won’t pay in any significant way.

Instead, millions of American’s who played by all the rules will now lose their 401(k)s, their company retirement, their jobs, their healthcare, their homes and as always when the dragon of poverty raises its ugly head, family itself. Families will break up, children will go hungry, crime will rise, charities and public health services will be overwhelmed, and the young denied educational opportunities.  The rich will have to reduce the number of homes they own and maybe sell off the yacht or private jet.

Are we discussing the equivalent of the Corporate Death Penalty, pulling their corporate charter and distributing the remaining assets to the victims? No, corporations will now be able to deduct the costs of their fraud and others they acquire as a tax break. Are we talking about stripping the executives who made these decisions of their assets with fines and how long they will be in jail? No, we are arguing about whether they should get their bonuses and perks. No discussion is even being contemplated of whether they should be fired, let alone get their $10s or $100s of millions in regular salaries.  Their excuse, they have to retain top talent to get through the crisis. I think we have had all the help we can afford from them already.

No one will ask the question of whether our dependence on multi-national corporations to survive is a good idea or if globalization enriches only the few at the exploitation of the many (it does). No one will ask if becoming a nation of consumers rather than producers is a model to create wealth or cause national bankruptcy.  No one will ask the question “is not one of the primary purposes of government by consent of the governed, to protect them from that which individually they cannot be safe?”  No one should be surprised, the class war continues, the only difference is the bailout is now the preferred tool to continue it instead of deregulation.

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