With every passing day of economic woe, the scale of the heist just perpetrated against America's taxpayers by the country's largest banks becomes more apparent.
In the shadow of the presidential election, the nine biggest banks were given $125bn of taxpayer money with the understanding they would send this fresh capital coursing into the economy in the form of loans.
Unfortunately, the US government forgot to get the lending requirement in writing.
Instead, the banks are sitting on the money, earning interest and mulling mergers and acquisitions and replenishing bonus pools for their employees.
writes Philip Delves Broughton in today's First Post.
If you are an American taxpayer, (and I know that around 25% of this blog's readership is US-based), I'm afraid you've been the victims of what Delves Broughton rightly calls the biggest bank heist ever.
The biggest bank robbers don't wear stripey jerseys, black masks and carry bags marked 'Swag'; they wear suits and hobnob with the political elite.
Or, as Berthold Brecht so memorably put it: "What is robbing a bank compared to founding a bank?"
1 comment:
This is the point. Once we've got over the feel-good moment, we have to ask ourselves is Obama going to do anything about this? His choice of staff should give us an indication of whether he would even try, and the omens so far aren't encouraging. Could he try if he wanted to? Would he survive physically if he did try? Is being the first black president going to be the only good thing we have to say for him in 4 years? We'll see, but the only options for significant change were Ron Paul and Nader. The best we can hope for is that the grass-roots movements keep up the pressure on Obama to make some small changes that might enable some real change in the next term. And, of course, the bailout will be an albatross round his neck, and round the neck of future generations, if something isn't done now. If he does try now, I imagine the MSM's newfound enthusiasm for equal opportunities will quickly turn into a barrage of none-too-subtle race hate.
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