TERRY MOSHER

 

TOP OF THE TOWN ‑ I can’t believe the Democrats just agreed with the fascist Republicans on a bailout bill that will enlarge the already huge gap between the American worker and the wealthy. It’s not just irresponsible but criminal. Zach Carter of Huffpost writes, Final text of the bill has not been released, but according to a legislative draft, the new law would establish a $4.5 trillion corporate bailout fund overseen by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin with few substantive constraints. The bill permits bailed out companies to lay off up to 10% of their workforce over the next six months, with no restrictions thereafter. Mnuchin would have authority to waive any upside for the public in its new investments and the bill’s restrictions on stock buybacks at bailed-out firms are too temporary to be significant.

“Bailed out companies could even pay dividends to their shareholders. Bailout money will flow to the shareholders of large corporations, otherwise known as rich people. The oversight terms that Democrats secured are purely cosmetic, replicating the toothless provisions of the 2008 bank bailout that enabled watchdogs to report abuse but not actually prevent or rectify it.”

The selling of America has been going on for some time now. We can’t pretend anymore that we average Americans have some control over our lives through the representatives we vote to Congress and the President we elect. Maybe at one time it was true we constituents had such authority. But no more. Corporate lobbyists are paid a hefty sum to make sure their corporations are comforted by laws that are passed in Congress. These laws are passed not to help us, but to help them. Corporations and large financial institutions get “fatter” and we citizens get “leaner.” Our pocketbooks get stripped bare and big companies and financial institutions get wallets stuffed with cash. And the lawmakers we put in Congress pat themselves on their backs, pass the bottle of Chivas Regal around and chew on a big cigar. This bailout makes me angry when I think traitor Trump now gets his small and dirty hands on billions of dollars through his man Mnuchin. Don’t think for a minute Mnuchin is able to do anything with this great gift the Democrats and Republicans crafted from their well-cushioned offices. He is just one of traitor Trumps toddies. He will do as told. There is no oversight what traitor Trump will do with a big portion of the billions. His companies and his family’s companies will suddenly be lifted financial high as if on a great surfing wave off Malibu. We Americans are getting the crumbs. The wealthy, the oligarchs that own this country and us, are smiling like the evil Joker and laughing as they toss these crumbs ($1200) to their servants (us). “Look at them scrambling to get their crumbs,” they laugh as their fat bellies shake with great force.

I’ll let Carter pick up on this: “This emergency coronavirus legislation that the Senate agreed to on Tuesday can only be described as an outrage. It is not an economic rescue package, but a sentence of unprecedented economic inequality and corporate control over our politics that will resonate for a generation.

 “It represents a transfer of wealth and power to the super rich from the rest of us, with the support of both political parties ― a damning statement about the condition of American democracy.

 “If you give vast amounts of public money to a single person with no real accountability, you won’t like what happens next,” Damon Silvers, the deputy chair of the oversight panel for the bank bailout, wrote on Tuesday

 “In exchange for this takeover, Democrats got four months of more generous unemployment benefits for the millions who will be laid off and a one-time check of $1,200 per adult, eliminating a Republican restriction that would have limited poor people to just $600 and phasing out payments for six-figure incomes. These are not bad provisions, but they pale in comparison to the handout offered to the rich.

“$1,200 isn’t enough,” the Economic Security Project, a liberal think tank, tweeted on Wednesday. By agreeing to the deal, Senate Democrats in effect accept a horrendous future in exchange for a somewhat less burdensome present.

“It is a panicked and reckless legislative response,” Sarah Miller, executive director of the American Economic Liberties Project, an anti-monopoly advocacy group, said in a statement on Wednesday. It’s one that “will repeat most of the mistakes made in the 2008-2010 bailouts” and “fundamentally transform the American economy,” she added.

 “There is, in fact, an economic emergency right now — just not for the super rich or massive conglomerates. On Monday, the Federal Reserve announced essentially unlimited support for the banking sector and, for the first time, used its authority to directly finance corporate debt. Large corporations can get money, as Boeing CEO David Calhoun made clear on Tuesday when he said his company would “just look at all the other options, and we’ve got plenty of them,” if Congress were to demand an equity stake in the companies it assists. Bailouts will eventually be necessary, but Congress has plenty of time to craft serious programs designed to save industry, not merely people who own stock in industry. 

 “Working people, by contrast, do not have time to wait. The coronavirus layoffs have already begun, and when official numbers begin rolling in on Thursday, they will be shocking. Democrats and Republicans have essentially decided to hold a pittance of relief for the people hit hardest hostage to the most reckless and, at the moment, unnecessary corporate welfare program ever conceived.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) boasted that the package is “a wartime level of investment into our nation.” But nothing about the legislation resembles the way a nation prepares for an ambitious military operation. The legislation provides nothing of substance to address the coronavirus pandemic itself. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) has already said the package will do next to nothing to assuage the disaster unfolding in his state. It mobilizes no new resources, organizes no production, improves no medical supply delivery and trains no new nurses. Instead, it moves an enormous amount of money around and puts the Trump administration in charge of its movement.”

Wow. We need change in our government structure. This can’t go on like this. We American citizens are the dummies. With our silence we are allowing this. I’m sure you are going to be happy with the $1200 check you will receive. But consider what the big companies are going to get, what traitor Trump and his family will get and if you are happy with that, well there is nothing that anybody can do for you. You will have done enough harm to yourself; you don’t need others to inflict more harm. Sorry, but that is the way it is.

Big corporations and big financial institutions don’t need another bailout. Screw them. Let them fail like we would fail if we mismanage our lives. The bailout money should go to the American citizens (us). We are the ones who are supposed to own the government. We pay for everything with our taxes. So now the wealthier, the biggest corporations and financial institutions, are going to get most of our money? Why? No, that money should go to us. And we taxpayers will get the economy rolling again by spending it. We won’t roll it over to buy back the shares we don’t already have. We will buy bread, butter and milk so our families will survive this virus, this heartbreaking disaster. We will invest in our economy, our lives. And we won’t buy a $3,000 bottle of Chivas Regal and pat ourselves on the back and chew on a big cigar. No, we will put on our Levi’s and go back to work.

Be well pal.

Be careful out there.

Have a great day.

You are loved.