by Catherine Austin Fitts and Carolyn Betts, Esq.
(1) Crime that pays is crime that stays.
There is reason to believe that Wall Street and those they represent are holding loans without collateral, multiple loans secured by the same properties, and other fraudulent instruments among the “troubled assets.” Based on the secret “Treasury Conference Call” with 800 Wall Street insiders, we know the deal proposed to be passed by Congress isn’t the real deal promised to Wall Street.
(2) This smells like obstruction of justice.
Bail-out without due diligence of so called “troubled assets” is a perfect way to hide documentation of financial crimes. It is also a perfect means to launder both the past ill-gotten gains and new federal money spent recklessly and without necessary safeguards and oversight mechanisms. Be very suspicious when they tell you “we just can’t tell what’s in these troubled assets.” We can assure you that the federal government has field offices all across the country that deal with significant amounts of real estate and mortgage assets on a daily basis. If Treasury refuses for more than a decade to comply with the laws, with approximately $4 trillion missing (and counting), it is not competent to manage $700 billion of taxpayer money while its arm is twisted by Wall Street.
(3) Wall Street owes the federal government money.
We need to get stolen money back from the banks that served as depositories for the US government (including trillions for which the Pentagon and HUD could not account) and punish them, not create another opportunity for them to game the system and engage in criminal enterprises to rob consumers. To the extent there has been regulatory wrong-doing, let’s not let the miscreants leave town with the evidence.
(4) Good guys are shut out.
A bail-out provides no way for honest leaders to come to the fore and use their creativity and expertise to restore balance and integrity to the system or for unproductive and poorly-managed banks that contribute to current over-capacity in the banking system to die a dignified death.
(5) This results in more investment in the “bubble economy.”
Spending massive amounts on non-productive uses (“buying” worthless credit default swaps, mortgages with no collateral and derivatives, which could even include the derivatives used to manipulate the precious metals markets) as opposed to productive uses (repairing infrastructure, creating alternative energy systems, supporting inventing and production of “green” products) is inflationary.
This bail-out will drive prices of food, water and energy up for the people who can least afford it.
(6) Bail-out does not result in capital circulating in healthy ways.
The bail-out of Wall Street and too-big-to-fail banks and insurance companies that are getting bigger by the minute by swallowing up other failing financial institutions (and creating more institutions that are “too big to fail”) does not result in trickle-down to those whose money was stolen in recent swindles (S&L, dot.com, current housing crisis), i.e., the taxpayers/middle class and working poor.
(7) These arrangements will result in more corruption.
Centralized “fixes” are sure to result in black holes, no-bid contracts and other scandals.
(8) The bail-out drains the real economy, rather than invests in the real economy.
The US economy can’t be productive or grow if consumers don’t have jobs and can’t afford to purchase goods and services. Real stimulation of Main Street is accomplished through productive investment, not bail-outs that shift money to unproductive sectors. We should use all of our precious resources to reinvest in our people in the real economy.
(9) It props up sectors that need to downsize and consolidate.
There is significant overcapacity in the financial and banking sectors. Brainpower and talent needs to stop blowing financial bubbles and shift to economic activities that create real value.
(10) It is a temporary “fix” to keep Wall Street afloat until after the election.
Our resources are better invested in permanent, long-term solutions. This bail-out will not fix anything. Rather, it will help the perpetrators get away and ensure that the ultimate day of reckoning is worse.
The Administration wants to drain the real economy to bail out Wall Street. It seems to us that the more appropriate plan would be to require Wall Street to return the $4 trillion plus that is missing and use that to rebuild the real economy.
We think the time has come to reverse the flow. Go to any business school in the country. That is what they teach. Money should move out of unproductive sectors into productive sectors. The bail-out does just the opposite.
“Just say NO!”
Related Reading:
Bailout Mo’ Money Catherine’s Blog, March 11, 2009
“In response, and in protest to the willful disregard of the United States Senate and Congress to serve and execute the Will of the People, and with regards to the tax-payer funded bailout of Wall Street, I hereby proclaim October 31, 2008 as NATIONAL WITHDRAWAL DAY. As such, I am urging all Americans to withdrawal as much of their reserve cash as possible for an indefinite period of time.”
A better way to invest $700 billion would be to invest it into infrastructure. That way we provide jobs and with the jobs, people will spend and of course there will be support structures that will support this new employment. Our infrastructures definitely need attention with that bridge collaspe in Michigan just recently. Another way to spend that money would be to give them to states that are currently cash strapped and cutting services including laying off teachers, etc. This would cause a whole new hiring sequence, putting people back to work improving our economy so people can afford to either stay in their homes or buy homes at a more affordable rate. Another thing that should be done should be to investigate why and how the oil companies have manipulated the price of oil as this definitely strains everything. If there is one thing that should be nationalized, it should be big oil rather then the banking system.
I am shocked, shocked! You may be the only other person on the planet to realize that we should be creating jobs to end the crises. You see, the real reason government was not spending on infrastructure was because it wanted to sell it all to the investment banks. Total privatisation of all public works was the plan. Everything from roads to water – it was a cash cow for the investment bankers and hedge funds. After all, who could get anywhere withot paying a toll to Goldman Sachs? And all they had to is jump up rates and cut services, just like they did in England.
For a moment, it looked like the people responsible where going bankrupt. Thank God they have been bailed out.
Here’s my simple plan. Everyone is waiting to see what the crooks will do to solve THEIR problem and not taking things into perspective. If the Feds really wanted to help, us all they would have to do is make all the credit card companies put everyone back to 9.9% interest instead of letting them regulate themselves and use trickery and illusions to jack most people up to 23.9% and even higher. Just imagine how much money would be instantly available?
Well, I will be the first true American and I am planning on making no more payments to my cards untill they come to their senses and help the TAX PAYERS of this once great nation.
This is my BAIL OUT YOURSELF plan. Anyone who wants to write me in as President can just put down Wishbone for president. LOL
Thanks
Thanks so much for keeping me up to date and informed!!!!!!!
J. Kissinger
a.k.a. Wishbone
You’re exactly right about the plan. It’s a bad plan for Main Str., good for a few, sold with fear, with bad consequences. The fear part is really remarkable—how is it everyone is so susceptible everyone is to the ‘sky is falling’ argument. This country has gone through major crises in the past that make this one look like a thumb prick in comparison. Even the dot-com crash was worse in some ways. Anyway, here were my thoughts:
All this leaves me amazed at how the psychology of our politics has changed. Remember the Dot-Com crash of 2000? The Nasdaq went from 5300 to less than 2000 in a matter of months and didn’t bottom out until it was in the 1200 range. 4 or 5 trillion dollars were lost on the stock exchanges. No one called for bailouts and we all weathered the storm. It wasn’t fun, but few people even remember much about that time period. I guess after y2k, the global war on terror, climate change, bird flu, and peak oil, most everyone is ready for the world to really end. And of course, this financial crisis must just be the end of the world.
Though I don’t think we’re at the end of the world, the present financial times are not good. Beginning about this time last year, it struck me that we were in a situation very similar to the Panic of 1837. The panic began with the incredibly inept but very popular policies of President Andrew Jackson. People in the 1820s and 1830s were very fearful of big business and big banks, especially the Second Bank of the United States. Ever the populist, Jackson ran his 1832 campaign for President on a platform that promised to eliminate the Bank. Easily reelected, he fulfilled his promise to eliminate the Bank. With the only national bank gone, credit dried up across the country since the Bank was the central clearing house for all the regional and local banks. Unknowingly, he compounded the credit crisis by requiring land payments to the Federal government to be made gold or silver, causing a currency crisis and a run on banks. Banks went bust all around the nation, and the US went into a depression for almost a decade. Lacking operating capital, businesses then went bust along with the banks.
Like the current crisis, Jackson’s depression was caused by failed policies with unintended consequences. Our present credit crisis was the result of Community Reinvestment Act laws and regulation. This credit crisis, like others before it, won’t be solved by more bad legislation and inept regulation. It will be solved by solvent banks backed up by a solvent Federal Reserve system and Federal government.
The real question is how do we make freedom work through free enterprise. The alternative is what we’ve got—political favors for the few and trash for the rest.
The best way for people to answer this foolishness is to withdraw large amounts of cash and insist on cash (not checks), even if it is only for a few days. The average person, by simply seriously cutting a few luxuries can switch to basic passbook savings and cash, outgun inflation ten fold, and then get righteous on Wall Street’s a@#$ because they aren’t holding any of your cards.
Thank you very much for posting those important points made by esquires themselves. It makes it that much more relevant, pertinent & applicable to the facts presented by both sides of Congress. Thank you so much for being to the point.
Sincerely
Mario