Where Did All The Bailout Money Go?
Let’s call it what it is – highway robbery.
The American taxpayers recently shelled out $700 billion that was supposed to prevent an “economic Pearl Harbor,” that we were told would “unfreeze the credit markets” and do so with “maximum transparency and accountability.”
Sure, it was an unprecedented government intervention that effectively stuck a fork in capitalism, but as we’ve heard so many times before, government had to “do something.”
Well, ten weeks later – with the economic outlook exponentially worse than it was before the bailout – we get the bitter pill of the $700 billion boondoggle.
From the AP:
It’s something any bank would demand to know before handing out a loan: Where’s the money going?
But after receiving billions in aid from U.S. taxpayers, the nation’s largest banks say they can’t track exactly how they’re spending the money or they simply refuse to discuss it …
The Associated Press contacted 21 banks that received at least $1 billion in government money and asked four questions: How much has been spent? What was it spent on? How much is being held in savings, and what’s the plan for the rest?
None of the banks provided specific answers.
Hold up … none of them? As in not one?
And here’s the really scary part … at least for those of you who thought we could do something to correct this wanton abuse of involuntary taxpayer benevolence.
Lawmakers summoned bank executives to Capitol Hill last month and implored them to lend the money – not to hoard it or spend it on corporate bonuses, junkets or to buy other banks. But there is no process in place to make sure that’s happening and there are no consequences for banks who don’t comply.
Hmmm … no process and no consequences.
Yup, that’s a government solution if we’ve ever heard one. Sort of like the government solution for affordable housing that got us into this mess.
Merry Christmas, America. You just got played.
Again.
Comments
By liz on December 24th, 2008 at 10:51 am
Fits, everyone is assuming that the banks actually got the money. Is there proof that they actually received this bailout or not? If they can’t or won’t disclose the receipt, we are actually on a different page that we think in this book.
People need to know that the Social Security Trust Fund has been unsupervised by outside Trustees this year. The Trustees positions were created in 1984 to add additional oversight. People were tapped this year and never sent for confirmation.
Then people need to know that I have hard copy evidence of my surrendered Social Security account paying a ” black hole” for fifteen years, or until I was forced to reapply due to my lifetime illness returning.
Addtionally, I have hard copy evidence of another terminated account left in pay for twenty years and yet still another witness.
Please understand our Good Ole Boys have shut down every single investigation of these matters at the FBI, the Secret Service, the HHS OIG and that I hold a fraudulent Inspector General report from Social Security OIG, accepted by our current GOP leadership…..
Please understand that when I started yelling the Trust Fund is gone… voila` financial crisis appeared.
If you steal all surrendered and terminated SSA accounts for twenty years…. that could actually add up to 700 billion.
I have well over 2000 pages to back up every word in this story.
Understand that now the GOP requires US citizens to privately enforce the law.
By Reader on December 24th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
“[America] requires US citizens to privately enforce the law.” I think it’s called Vigilante Justice.
By Pat Hendrix on December 24th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
What a surprise, it’s the fault of the poor people that the banks were “forced” to give loans out. Not that the banks actively and effectively lobbied Congress so that could give loans with less oversight – loans they could charge a higher interest for. Nope, poor people and the Democrats.
Fiction can be fun. And at fitsnews, a living.
By Pat Hendrix on December 24th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Freddie and Fannie were not even involved in the subprime business, and played a very small part in the selling of questionable mortgage packages. You know, because they were, you know, regulated – by government.
But since “fits” keeps linking to a poorly research, cherry picked story that lays the blame at the feet of the democratic party and poor people, I’ll provide a couple of links that are grounded in something rarely found in in these types of discussions: Reality.
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2008/07/did-fannie-and.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/opinion/14krugman.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
By Curt Loftis on December 24th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Great post, Will.
The failure of the GOP to resit these bailouts shows why it is a party in desperate trouble with little or no hope of reform.
These bailouts are poorly thought out, and administered as if America were a third world country without any transparency or accountability. In the next administration this situation will only become worse.
As a party we should be marching on Washington, not standing at its gates with our hands out waiting on “our share”. We should be demanding less government not more debt…especially debt laid on the backs of our children.
Curt
PS…Merry Christmas…