Penalize Bank Oligarchs to Help Cover the $3 Trillion or More Obama Will Be Spending On His EconWar
1) yes, I think we are at war. This is a war not unlike we've fought in Iraq, where the enemy is within our country. These agents of the enemy, many of them terrorists, have done massive damage to the US and the world economies. They may not be directly connected to Al Qaeda or Bin Laden, but there is no doubt that their self-interest-driven actions have aided and abetted the goals of Bin Laden. For years, the war was lower key, more of a class war. But it's gone out of control.
It is time to define who the enemies in this "war," who the agents of economic terrorism actually are.2) It is highly likely Obama will spend at least and probably far more than $3 trillion to fight this war-- possibly $10 trillion. Some of it will be congressionally approved, some of it will come from other means. It will probably be necessary to extricate the US and the rest of the world from the World EconWar produced crisis we face.
3) As we fight this Econwar and identify the enemy-- the econterrorists and pirates-- we must retroactively punish them, starting with taking back the plunder they took from companies we are now rescuing.
Call me crazy, or some wild liberal, but I'm not satisfied, watching Henry Paulson enable the rogue corporations that have put our economy into a crisis. Call me crazy if I don't understand why these failed corporate heads are STILL getting tens of millions in pay. Call me crazy if I don't understand why aren't they all being fired and replaced? And call me crazy if I see our financial system as one that allowed the US to be looted-- yes-- when companies are so big they can't be allowed to fail, and when they demand hundreds of billions from we-the-people, then our nation is being looted-- by... what do you call them? Pirates? Financial terrorists who are destroying our economy? Maybe I am crazy. But going along, doing business as Henry Paulson has proposed, first this way, then another totally different way-- to me, THAT is crazy.
The men who ran the US economy into the ground, who failed miserably at responsibly running their companies, have pirated billions. They framed the theft as salary and bonuses. It doesn't matter if the contracts looked legal. It doesn't matter if these thugs didn't break any laws. These pirates declared war on the American people, on the USA's and world's economies. They have done MORE damage than any other terrorist or terrorist organization.
It is time for the congress to pass a law, or for Obama to sign an order that fines these pirates, thieves, hijackers, terrorist corporate leadership failures. The fine should be very big-- something like 90 or 95% of the amount, above, say two million dollars, of all they took in all forms, from the companies they brought down. If they have to sell their mansions and yachts, well, good! If jail terms are thrown in, even better.
Currently, these thugs are living high on the hog, enjoying the power and influence that great wealth brings. They are treated as successes and corporate heroes. They don't deserve it. Instead, they deserve to be identified, villified and brought down as parasites and crooks who not only brought their companies down, but also gutted them. Many of them also contibuted directly and even more, through lobbyists, to get the deregulation and the politicians who engaged in deregulation.
If these economic enemies of America don't go to jail, which seems just and fair to me, they should at least go broke. Let them live on social security or unemployment insurance. Or let them find jobs at new companies stupid enough to hire them. And absolutely forbid any company which hires them to receive bailout funds from the US government or the Federal Reserve. Or, put it this way. Make them pariahs, not allowed to be hired by any company receiving bailout or emergency government or federal reserve help.
And let's make that law which fines these pirates also regulate salaries, so it is no longer possible for ANY corporate executive to make 1000 or 5000 or even 500 times what the lowest paid worker earns. Let's set a limit. And let's make sure that these CEO, CFO, C-Pirate-O's don't get big bucks unless they deliver for the long term-- say seven years. Allow them to get big bonuses if the profits they bring in are still there seven years later, or ten years later. And even then, tax them at the levels President Eisenhower tolerated-- over 90%.
Every day, lately, we're seeing the mainstream media report on Obama's latest appointees-- of "generals" in the War on the financial/economic crisis. It's time they also start reporting on the enemy leaders-- the corporate pirate princes who put the US and the world in the disastrous situation we face-- one which we know will get far worse before it gets better.
I am not anti-business. I AM anti-rapacious, anti-human, anti-social, anti-irresponsible business led by pirates who make decisions that lead to economic conditions which cause the suffering of hundreds of millions. You know how AIG is throwing luxurious parties at exotic places? Fire the people who let them go on. That CITIGROUP sports arena for $400 million- fire the people demanding that be kept. And with all those trillions being spent to bail out banks-- spent a few billion on auditors who have full access to these banks records and plans-- so we can ferret out all the profligate pirates who don't get it that we are at war, that we are in an emergency and the old business of spending all you can get away with is over-- that now, doing that will get you fired, fined and maybe even prosecuted and jailed.
I am not (yet) a business or economy reporter or writer. But it is clear to me that the damage these filthy rich oligarch have done, including Hank Paulson and Larry Summers, with their deregulations that allowed the toxic financial elements, like credit share swaps, derivatives, etc., is huge. These corporate pirates deserve to at the least, have the money and wealth they pried from these failing companies taken back. They deserve to have all their bank accounts attached, their properties sold out from under them.
Let's get something straight. By the time Obama is done, we will not be talking about $500 or $700 billion more in bailout money that our president-elect will have spent. By the time he is done, I guarantee he will, including money spent under his command, through the Federal Reserve (indirectly, but under him, nonetheless) will exceed three trillion dollars and could reach as high as ten trillion. This may seem high. But Bush has lready spent seven trillion and we are still going down further, into a worse, more difficult situation. Weeks before the beginning of the Iraq War, I predicted, feeling brave and visionary, that the war would cost $900 billion. At the time, my estimate was vastly larger than anyone in the media or government was estimating. Of course, now we see nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz estimating three trillion dollars. So I estimate, today, that Obama will, in his war against the economic collapse, spend at least that amount, and I expect it could be at least triple that. Congress will not authorize all of it. His appointees will.
And while we're penalizing corporate execs who took advantage of the system, let's take a really close look at our military. Bush spent eight years promoting yes-men who would say what he wanted them to say. The congress, was full of elected officials, like Duke Cunningham and Tom Delay, who sold the American people a bill of goods-- one that has hundreds of US bases spread all over the nation. It's time we listen to Ron Paul and pull back. It's time we spend money within the US-- not within Japan or Germany or Korea or Iraq. My state, Pennsylvania, alone, has thousands of bridges that need to be repaired or replaced. Throughout the US there are hundreds of thousands of infrastructure projects that are desperately in need on initiation and completion.
AND... while we're at it, let's end the the right of corporate personhood. This abomination was corruptly appropriated by fraud over 120 years ago, by the big railroad corporations-- the megacorporations of the day. Removing these rights will go a long way towards enabling the real war against financial terrorism and terrorists to proceed.
4
3
1
