Monday, October 06, 2008

$700 Billion Wall Street Bail Out and Its Secret of Passage

Hank Paulson, the Secretary of the Treasury, may know alot about Wall Street but he knows very little about the US Congress or legislators in general. He wrote a simple 3-page document which any legislator could read and understand - of course with the exception of John McCain. When it is so easily comprehensible watch it, it will fail and it was defeated in the House of Representative.

Long live the legal drafters. The Senate handed the document over to them and they easily expanded it to over 450 pages and increased the amount from $700 billion to $800 billion. All set. Very few can now read it all and understand it. Now they will understand a few scary words from their colleagues on the danger of not passing it. Bingo, both the Senate and the House of Representatives passed it with sizeable majorities. Seen the process before, works almost every time.

Now did you notice that over one trillion dollars (yes trillion with "T") have been spent on the Iraq war if you put all the costs together? Those trillion dollars were taken out of American economy. That money could have been in the hands of Main Street folks who would have been able to take care of their obligations including paying mortgages and other loans, there would have been no crisis. Now there has to be a way to make up this bail out. Also to hide the biggest blunder of century, if not in history, to engage in a very expensive and unwinnable war.

Because of this big screw up of the US government, Europeans and others are paying the price too because they heavily invested in US financial markets considering them to be solid investments. Not so. The Germans have bailed out some financial institutions, so did Britain and France and other European countries are looking to rescue themselves from the financial crisis as well.

Then we have Stephen Harper who like McCain still thinks that the fundamentals of our economy are sound. The Toronto Stock Exchange’s reaction and job losses reveal that the bottom may be falling out and remedial action is badly needed. Harper has no plan or platform but still wants you to elect him and give him a majority. Can Canadians take that risk? Think about it.

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