Stunning

I was well off the mark. CNBC tracks the bail out toll to date: $3,800,000,000,000+.

"Oversight" looms. The American people are impatient and growing more pissed. The piggies go to full feeding frenzy mode hoping to score pieces of that sweet bail out pie before it and their bonuses are reduced to crumbs.

-AF
(HT: ThinkProgress)

Two Months Ago

I said the bailout cost was going to top out at around $5 trillion. That doesn't sound so crazy right about now.

-AF

Canada's Banks Good. Our Banks Baaad.

Time tries to explain why the Great White North's financial system is on solid footing as opposed to our all rabid howler monkeys clawing to the front of the bail out line to secure their massive bonuses, Dionysian spa retreats and thus relaxed resume fucking the rest of us.

-AF

Fun Facts To Know And Tell

The Sunlight Foundation sheds light on how Wall Street has been spending what is now essentially our money to buy their best possible bail out deal:

If you haven’t been under a rock lately, you know that the Bush Administration is proposing a $700 billion bailout for Wall Street. What you might not know is that there have been 258 parties this year alone for members of the House Financial Services Committee-the very folks who are making crucial decisions about this legislation-a number of them hosted by lobbyists for the finance, insurance, and real estate industries.

For example, last week, on September 16, lobbyists were invited to a “financial services” luncheon for Rep. Dean Heller at the Capitol Hill Club. The cost for entry was $500 for individuals, $1,000 for PACs. Heller has collected $190,252 from the financial sector for his congressional elections out of a total of $1,242,583, or 15.3 percent.

Then there was the invitation from the Real Estate Roundtable PAC on September 14 for folks to join Rep. Gregory Meeks to watch the New Orleans Saints play the Washington Redskins play at FedEx Field. The cost: $1,000. Meeks has taken $1,015,432 from the financial sector over his congressional career, 27.8 percent of his fundraising total-$3,657,984.
(All emphasis mine).

Heller is a Republican and Meeks is a Dem.

This is craziness.

-AF
(HT: Harper's Ken Silverstein)

Musings On Bush's Economic Folly, Pt. 1

Yesterday a "smart" money fella claimed the total Wall Street-bailout cost to the American taxpayer would max out at $2,000,000,000,000. (In a perverse show of brainiac couching, he scribed this number as $2,000 billion – as if that would cushion the blow!) This absurdly large number wasn't what threatened to expel liquid out my nose at supersonic speed. My autonomic response was triggered by the sheer fucking audacity of anyone to be so quick to put an ultimate price tag on this unmitigated disaster.

It’s early days yet, folks. We’ve just stepped onto Mr. Bush’s Wild Ride through our shambolic economy. Mark my words: Wall Street’s tagger will easily top $5 trillion. I’m nuts, you say? True. But what do you think would have happened yesterday if we were told anything near the real final cost? Exactly. Presto! Changeo! Out trots a Harvard economist to low-ball the final freight and jumpstart the market. It worked spectacularly. The stock market gained 780 points in 48 hours closing the week right back where it began.

Reactions run the gamut. I'm particularly fascinated that people have found comfort in the knowledge that George Bush was foiled in his quest to allow Wall Street’s GOP pals to plunge their grubby sausage-like fingers into that sweet Social Security pie. Social Security is safe from harm! Can I get a huzzah? Huzzah!

Let’s get real. Regardless of whether or not our Social Security fund is currently intact or not is immaterial. Either way it’s as good as gone.

Inna Wall Street stylee, the Bush administration mortgaged our future – the future we citizens are entitled to and have paid for up front no less – many times over. The Georgie and Dick Show has spent a preposterous pile of cash fast on their Greater War For Oil, endless campaign contributor spiffs and the exorbitant expense of the Republican-led “privatization will save Americans money” scam. Hell, we won’t begin to know the score until these crooks are out the door.

No surprise that. Cleaning out the cupboards is what Republicans do best. However, this smash-and-grab was decidedly different. Skillfully wielding twin bludgeons of “patriotism” and fear, George & Dick looted our treasury on an epic scale. Failing that they did what any average American would do -- they charged it.

Color me oddly impressed with the mad skilz of Bush and his henchmen. They not only managed to prop up their financially bankrupt regime long enough get reelected, but they also almost gave themselves time to scoot out the door unscathed. Ironically, it’s through the Bush administration's financial fairy tales that George finally lived up to his advance billing as “ the CEO President.” His dazzling display of bullshit business acumen was a treat to watch. Seriously. Because if there was even the tiniest hint we could default, Japan, China, the UK and the “oil exporters” will quit snapping up our debt tout de suite.

That would have left us profoundly fucked.

-AF

Tomorrow: My Fantastically Dire Vision Of Future America

They Said It. I Repeat It.

We have a new religion. It’s called free marketry, you know. We’re going to privatize everything. We’re privatizing almost everything that’s privatized, when the Depression came along in the ‘30s, you know, the government played a little role. The government, until Roosevelt, played no role in our cities life except the postmaster. Then it stepped in, benignly, interven-, you had to because free marketry fell on it’s fanny.

Studs Terkel 2003
Television In America: An Autobiography

-AF

**A Happy 96th Birthday, albeit two weeks late, to an American Icon.