Gunpowder Chronicle posted on November 13, 2008 2:40 PM | Rating:
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I opposed the government bailout program, called TARP for "Troubled Asset Recovery Program", because I thought a) it would not work, b) the government, in classic style, would completely frak the puppy and screw it up. Well, I was right. You can always bet on government screwing something up. It's the default status. But the latest news on TARP is really disturbing, because the supposedly smartest economic minds on the planet are perpetrating a fraud against the taxpayers of the United States.
It turns out that the "Troubled Asset" part of the Recovery Program is being dropped. The government -- led by the incompetent and idiotic Hank Paulson -- has decided that the $700 billion dollar BLANK CHECK will not be used to buy up troubled assets and resell them. Instead, the government is going to keep re-capitalizing banks under what is being euphemistically being called the "capital purchase plan".
Where I come from, we typically call that "throwing good money after bad". Why? Because these banks are suffering capitalization problems because of the sheer ignorance and stupidity of their bank executives. These banks over-extended themselves by offering "liar's mortgages" to people without the ability to ever pay them back. This was dumb, stupid, and one might even say, fraudulent. And now you and I-- the US taxpayer -- are expected to recapitalize these institutions. Why is it I long for the days when incompetent managers were punished by losing their companies, and those companies were chopped up by their debtors and their assets sold?
Now, the government engages in the biggest fraud in the history of the Republic. A massive bait and switch. It was bad enough that TARP passed at all. But this -- this is fraud, pure and simple. Where is the Congress on this issue? Congress should have to vote on whether the priorities on TARP should be shifted. Our elected representatives should have a voice. We are not a totalitarian state. We are not a fascist state. We are not a monarchy. Hank Paulson is not the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Head of the King's Treasury.
That is my money, damnit. And your money. It's not THEIR money.
This is a bait and switch. And if any retailer in the country tried it, the States Attorneys General would be all over them like stink on shit.
We should be all over the Federal Government for playing fast and loose with our money, too.