[Editor´s note: This commentary was submitted by an American expat who is clearly outraged by the apparent misuse of taxpayer money to bail out large inefficient companies. It represents the views of the author and not necessarily those of Expat Daily News.]
Up until about a year ago everything seemed to be chugging along just fine. Then, as if overnight, one bank and brokerage firm after the other announced they were in deep trouble. All of a sudden countries around the world started to say the same thing. The biggest banks, car and insurance companies released catastrophic balance sheets. The stock market plummeted to milestone lows and talk of world recession turns into inevitable depression. To add insult to injury a well respected New York hedge fund manager, Bernard Madoff, confesses he stole $70 Billion dollars from some of the most intelligent, wealthy and savvy people in the country. Now the taxpayer must pay for his stay at Club Fed.
Barack Obama rides in on a white horse, clad in shining armor to save the day. A $787 Billion stimulus package was whisked through congress. Apparently it was not widely read (about 1000 pages) and there was very little public debate. The President´s press secretary trumpeted this bill as having no hidden earmarks. It turns out there were over 8700 of them.
I think to myself, I hope these people know what they are doing. Apparently AIG received 180 of these billions and it vanished into their black hole of paper work. When asked what they did with it AIG executives pointed to the legislation and said it appears to me as the legislation reads that we aren’t required to report to you about this subject.
This happened after they rewarded their top brass with lavish multi million dollar bonuses. These are the same people that were in the cockpit when the company spiraled into the ground creating a large smoking hole in the financial landscape. In the mean time after most of the ‘stimulus money’ has been put into the black hole, uh, I mean, system, the market place continues to hemorrhage over 500,000 jobs a month and credit is even harder to obtain. To make the situation even more unpalatable the congress is murmuring about a second ´stimulus´ package. Hmmm, we`ve just wasted billions in an ill conceived boondoggle. What to do now? Let´s do it again!!
I may not have a Wharton Doctorate in macro economics but is seems to me that if they had taken this $787 billion and given it proportionally to the taxpayers that the taxpayers would have put it back into the market immediately by purchasing cars and avoiding foreclosure to name a few stimulating market forces. Is this concept too simple and unrealistic?
It is little wonder that US citizens now, more than ever want to flee the nation they were once proud of being a part of. Are you one of them? Are you tired of having the government confiscate your money and waste it on absurdities like rewarding failure and penalizing success? Have you had enough? Be sure to leave your comments on this post.
Barack Obama rides in on a white horse, clad in shining armor to save the day. A $787 Billion stimulus package was whisked through congress. Apparently it was not widely read (about 1000 pages) and there was very little public debate. The President´s press secretary trumpeted this bill as having no hidden earmarks. It turns out there were over 8700 of them.
I think to myself, I hope these people know what they are doing. Apparently AIG received 180 of these billions and it vanished into their black hole of paper work. When asked what they did with it AIG executives pointed to the legislation and said it appears to me as the legislation reads that we aren’t required to report to you about this subject.
This happened after they rewarded their top brass with lavish multi million dollar bonuses. These are the same people that were in the cockpit when the company spiraled into the ground creating a large smoking hole in the financial landscape. In the mean time after most of the ‘stimulus money’ has been put into the black hole, uh, I mean, system, the market place continues to hemorrhage over 500,000 jobs a month and credit is even harder to obtain. To make the situation even more unpalatable the congress is murmuring about a second ´stimulus´ package. Hmmm, we`ve just wasted billions in an ill conceived boondoggle. What to do now? Let´s do it again!!
I may not have a Wharton Doctorate in macro economics but is seems to me that if they had taken this $787 billion and given it proportionally to the taxpayers that the taxpayers would have put it back into the market immediately by purchasing cars and avoiding foreclosure to name a few stimulating market forces. Is this concept too simple and unrealistic?
It is little wonder that US citizens now, more than ever want to flee the nation they were once proud of being a part of. Are you one of them? Are you tired of having the government confiscate your money and waste it on absurdities like rewarding failure and penalizing success? Have you had enough? Be sure to leave your comments on this post.
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