Michael Moore Has It All Figured Out

Michael Moore has it all figured out. He sent this out to people on his mailing list. Click the link below to see the full plan.

Friends,

The richest 400 Americans — that’s right, just four hundred people — own MORE than the bottom 150 million Americans combined. 400 rich Americans have got more stashed away than half the entire country! Their combined net worth is $1.6 trillion. During the eight years of the Bush Administration, their wealth has increased by nearly $700 billion — the same amount that they are now demanding we give to them for the “bailout.” Why don’t they just spend the money they made under Bush to bail themselves out? They’d still have nearly a trillion dollars left over to spread amongst themselves!

Of course, they are not going to do that — at least not voluntarily. George W. Bush was handed a $127 billion surplus when Bill Clinton left office. Because that money was OUR money and not his, he did what the rich prefer to do — spend it and never look back. Now we have a $9.5 trillion debt. Why on earth would we even think of giving these robber barons any more of our money?

You’ve Got Some Splainin’ To Do

Douglas Rushkoff has an interesting write-up trying to outline some of the issues with the bailout.

The mortgage and credit crisis wasn’t merely predictable; it was predicted. And not by a market bear or conspiracy theorist, but by the people and institutions responsible. The record number of foreclosures, credit defaults, and, now, institutional collapses is not the result of the churn of random market forces, but rather a series of highly lobbied changes to law, highly promoted ideologies of wealth and home ownership, and monetary policies highly biased toward corporate greed.

He has some other interesting pieces on his site that attempt to explain the current crisis, here.

Banks didn’t really care (because they weren’t holding the bad paper) but the people investing in those “mortgage-backed securities” were slowly getting wise to the fact that many of the borrowers were in over their heads. What to do? The credit industry went ahead and lobbied Washington to change the bankruptcy laws. While corporations could claim bankruptcy and stop paying for their retirees’ health coverage, individuals would no longer be able to claim bankruptcy, and even if they did, they would still owe their creditors the money they borrowed, forever. The credit industry spent over $100 million lobbying lawmakers for the new provisions.

 

Andrew Sullivan On The (Lack Of A) Bailout

“The final coda to the Bush years: the socialist bailout of capitalism … fails.”

The Paradox of Deleveraging

While the current financial crisis has many complicated details, the basics of it aren’t. Paul Krugman over at the International Herald Tribune has a quick and concise explanation of the current situation and details why it is so important to properly negotiate this bill.

Some are saying that we Americans should simply trust Paulson, because he’s a smart guy who knows what he’s doing. But that’s only half true: He is a smart guy, but what, exactly, in the experience of the past year and a half – a period during which Paulson repeatedly declared the financial crisis “contained,” and then offered a series of unsuccessful fixes – justifies the belief that he knows what he’s doing? He’s making it up as he goes along, just like the rest of us.

We Need A Plan That Helps Wall Street And Main Street

Read about how to fix our financial crisis: Fair and Effective

From the Cartoonist Group