Bank bailout
The bank bailout was the biggest ripoff in American history. Those who voted for it should have known and some of them did know that it was not going to help the economy, it did not require a single bank to actually renegotiate the terms of one single mortgage, and it put billions of dollars of borrowed money into the hands of the banks, who had created the problem in the first place. It was the ultimate giveaway, big banks directly being given hundreds of billions of dollars as a gift from Congress, which means from the American taxpayer.
Two videos you really should watch to give you an understanding of what went on are:
The first one is called “Cash for Trash” and the second one is by Glenn Beck, an animated explanation of the Goldman Sachs influence in the Obama Administration.
Any person who knew about mortgages, especially any mortgage broker, could have told you that making thousands of mortgage loans with the following characteristics you are setting yourself and the borrowers up for a fiasco:
#1) adjustable rate or balloon mortgages
#2) borrowers with bad credit or no credit
#3) overpriced houses
#4) in a housing bubble
#5) no down payment
Yet the banks begged for and demanded “de-regulation” and as soon as they were allowed to do all of this, they did. The subprime mortgage crisis was predictable and avoidable, but once they made all these loans it was also inevitable. By late 2008 the powers that be presented to a compliant Congress first a 3 page bank bailout costing $700 billion and then a week later a 451 page bank bailout costing about $840 billion; which was just the original figure plus $140 billion in pork. The first bill was rejected and the second one passed.
In particular see the short videos of Rep. Dennis Kucinish, Rep. Marcy Kaptur, Rep. Ron Paul, and Rep. Peter DeFazio on this subject.
The bank bailout did not require even one bank to remake (renegotiate) the terms of even one mortgage, yet it was promoted as a way to help ease the subprime mortgage crisis.
There is also a very interesting video by Rep. Paul Kanjorski that you really should watch.
He describes something in response to a caller’s question / statement that suggests the entire U.S. Congress was blackmailed, that a gun was held to their heads, that they were unable to function as Congress is supposed to. The bank bailout bill should have been done with massive public input, slowly, and they should have tried the smallest measure that might have solved the problem first.
According to Rep Paul Kanjorski (2:21 Minutes)
On Thursday Sept 15, 2008 at roughly 11 AM The Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous draw down of money market accounts in the USA to the tune of $550 Billion dollars in a matter of an hour or two.
Money was being removed electronically.
The treasury tried to help with $150 Billion.
But could not stem the tide.
It was an electronic run on the banks
The treasury intervened but had they not closed down the accounts they estimated that by 2 PM that afternoon. Within 3 hours. $5.5 Trillion would have been withdrawn and collapsed and within 24 hours the world economy.
The original video is here:
The excerpt begins right about 20 minutes in and last just over 6 minutes.
See also videos (find on youTube or google video) of
Ron Paul
Marcy Kaptur
Dennis Kucinich
See also this excellent, informative article on devaluation and demontization
