GMAC, the former GM owned lending arm, whose subprime loans sank the auto company, is receiving nearly another $4 billion from Uncle Sam to subsidize their exposure to all the fraudulent loans on their books.
Writes Nobel Laureate Joe Stiglitz:
"The bailout exposed deep hypocrisy all around. Those who had preached fiscal restraint when it came to small welfare programs for the poor now clamored for the world's largest welfare program. Those who had argued for free market's virtue of "transparency" ended up creating financial systems so opaque that banks could not make sense of their own balance sheets. And then the government, too, was induced to engage in decreasingly transparent forms of bailout to cover up its largesse to the banks. Those who had argued for "accountability" and "responsibility" now sought debt forgiveness for the financial sector."
Meanwhile, some economists see the health care reform as really as another way to bail out the financial system. Economist Randall Wray denounces:"Health insurance "reform" that requires everyone to turn over their pay to Wall Street. Can't afford the premiums? That is OK--Uncle Sam will kick in a few hundred billion to help out the insurers. Of course, do not expect more health care or better health outcomes because that has nothing to do with "reform" " Wall Street's insurers" see a missed opportunity. They'll collect the extra premiums and deny the claims. This is just another bailout of the financial system, because the tens of trillions of dollars already committed are not nearly enough."
This is clearly, as has been suggested, "wealth reform" not health reform.
Overall, economic truths are obscured and statistics fudged to promote apperceptions of recovery. Noted The market ticker on Denninger.net as they reviewed their projections from last year.
He writes: "I dramatically underestimated the willingness and ability of "the criminal class" (that would be those in DC and on Wall Street) to lie, cheat, steal, paper over insolvency and get away with it - at least for a while.
Will this ultimately lead to an actual recovery? No. It mathematically can't. A short-term bounce in various metrics, yes, just like an insolvent person can spend on his credit cards until they get cut off and look like they're improving."
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