Friday, October 03, 2008
$700B$812B
This post is being written off and on all day as the thoughts come to me.
Remember Miss Addie Polk
I am quite pissed at the moment with our politicians. Think about just what happened this week. Obviously, I don't know all the facts, but here is what I see. The people told their representatives they didn't want this bill passed. Web sites and phone lines all were down as a majority of folks told their representatives they didn't think the $700B plan was a good idea. And at first, the representatives agreed. But then they decided to put an extra $112B in their special interest's pockets and pass it anyway. Basically these bastards decided to screw the taxpayer with an extra $112B on top of the $700B we're already going to pay. This is just plain wrong.
I'm going to leave the stuff I wrote earlier today about not understanding what is going on. The bill has passed - all now $800 plus billion of it. Basically Congress bribed itself with $112 billion in extra pork.
$812 billion to pay off banks that don't know how to handle money. At least I can put my extra $150,000 cash into my bank account and not worry about FDIC covering it. I'll have that much extra now, since I'm making a film about rum-drinking Samoan racing drivers.
First, I do get the idea that the bailout is supposed to give financial institutions more chances to lend money and that lent money is the money we use for day-to-day business. However, I don't see where this bill will help any of us peons.
If I'm losing my house now, this won't help me pay for it. Sure, the company I work for will get some credit to pay me, but if I couldn't pay my bills last month, I'm still not going to be able to pay them this month.
From what I understand the whole underlying reason for the financial mess we are now in is because it was too easy to get credit. People were taking out loans to buy stuff they couldn't really afford. I also don't understand how an expectation of rising house values affects the mortgage you can't afford.
Talk about pandering and pigs with lipstick, I ran across the following somewhere online from ABCNews: "Some of the goodies intended to attract the votes of individual members of Congress include $192 million for the rum producers of Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands, $128 million for car racing tracks, $33 million for corporations operating in American Samoa, and $10 million for small film and television productions. " There's also a provision in there about repealing a $0.39 tax on arrows for kids - which just goes to prove that no payoff is too small for Congress to be involved with.
Labels: government, scams
