Courtesy of a commenter at Digby’s comes this quote:
If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that grow up around them will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.
–Thomas Jefferson
Just in case US voters rebel against the biggest theft ever of their money… Wall St and Washington have got it covered.
The perfect illustration of just how corrupt this bank bailout plan is comes from an NYT report [via Josh Marshall at TPM]that overseas banks have successfully lobbied to be included in the bailout :
….The Times further reports that two of the biggest foreign banks in need of such relief are Barclays and UBS. In fact, my understanding is that UBS is more on the line here than any other foreign bank.
Let’s add this up.
John McCain’s top economics advisor, who is widely believed to be his choice for Treasury Secretary, should he win in November, is former Sen. Phil Gramm. (Indeed, just last night his spokesman refused to say Gramm wouldn’t be McCain’s choice for Treasury Secretary.)
Gramm is both vice chairman of UBS’s US division and a lobbyist for UBS.
Good grief, how much more blatant can this be?
What’s going to happen to the markets after the bailout?
Courtesy of wingnut punditerati crush object and ageing girl prodigy Megan McCardle over at The Atlantic comes the answer:
“Well, they will go up. Or they will go down. Though it’s possible they might stay the same.”
Such prescience in one so young.
And you can’t do anything to stop it.
If you get mugged on the street, you can call the cops. But quis custodiet ipsos custodes? What can you do, who can you call, when the protectors of the public purse blatantly rob you right under your nose?
The banking barons, the Republicans and their Democratic congressional accomplices together are making sure there’ll be no opposition to the biggest and most blatant theft in living history; tagged on to to the end of the bill that steals nearly a trillion dollars from the American people to give the already obscenely rich is this handy little para:
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.
[Via Atrios.]
Trans: “We’re taking your money and you can’t do anything about it because it’s the law, and the law says that the law doesn’t apply to us but only to you”.
What will the victims be left with after all 900 billion of their tax dollars have gone offshore to repay China and to stuff tax-free accounts in the Caymans or Paraguay?
In return for licensing the biggest fraud in US history (one in which a sitting President himself, and his family, are implicated via AIG and the reinsurance market) the federal government will have a lien on everyone’s house via their control of their mortgage or their revolving home equity loan or their insurance. That’s an enormous hold over individuals which exponentially increases governmental power to squash potential dissidents.
I’m sure they’ll use it wisely.
The irony of it all is there’s bugger all actual money to steal in the first place – the public accounts’re virtually empty, wars and natural disasters can be quite expensive. No, what they’re doing is draining the overdraft account and maxing out all the credit cards, even the little ones.
George Bush has said the bailout is a “pivotal moment for America’s economy”. Indeed it is – so not only have the banks become the government and vice versa, the American public will be penniless and in hock to the feds if this bill passes. They’ll also be wage slaves forever to pay back the billions that other countries’ sovereign wealth funds are lending the nation so it can be stolen in the first place.
Yet still the rump of the right wing, who will be equally affected, can see no wrong in it: and those who can see the wrong in it can do nothing but keep calling their elected representatives in the hope they’ll see sense. Who else can they call?