Billion Dollar Handouts and How to Streamline the Process
If you’ve ever applied for a loan (or mortgage, or even a new credit card) of any kind, you can probably bring on a headache just remembering how you had to pore through page after page after page of legalese gibberish in tiny print. And your hand probably starts to hurt when you remember the jillions of places you had to put your signature or initials.
Now — wanna apply for one of those multi-billion dollar Wall Street giveaways that Congress has been handing out? Just fill out this Fast and E-Z two-page form, sign your name, and Presto! Those taxpayer chumps are just champing at the bit to give you a few more billion dollars of their money.
This application form is, of course, only available if you’re already a multi-millionaire whose only job skill is playing with Other People’s Money. If you work for a living and/or if you actually need this money to pay your medical bills or keep your house — buzz off, peon. Bootstraps!
But let’s say you’ve already made a fortune on Wall Street by shitting all over Main Street, and now you’re sitting there thinking “Two vacation homes, one yacht — this just doesn’t cut it. Heelllp meee!!!”
The taxpayers are at your service.
Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Alabama), of the House Financial Services Committee, said: “When student lenders and mortgage companies ask more questions in lending thousands of dollars than the federal government does when it injects billions of dollars worth of capital, we should all be concerned.”
Ya think?
A congressman asked Neel Kashkari — the director of the Treasury office that oversees the bailout program — whether banks had to present a business plan that explained why they needed this bailout money, what they were going to do with it and how they were going to pull themselves up out of the hole they’d dug themselves into.
Kashkari’s answer was: “Not specifically. It's very hard for us to try to micromanage and say this is how you should run your business, because each bank and each community is a little bit different.”
Aww, a Compassionate Conservative.
cross-posted at Bring It On!
Labels: Neel Kashkari, Spencer Bachus Alabama, Wall Street bailout two page form
posted by Tom Harper @ 5:13 PM
14 Comments:
Yes. Let's make it easier for the Ponzi schemers to reach into our pockets and make off with our children's future.
Lew: Damn right. Those poor pampered CEOs shouldn't have to fill out a long form and then go through a waiting period like everybody else. It's their handout and they want it now.
When they first appointed this Kashkari dude, I couldn't believe it. What is the guy, 36 years old? Do you really think a 36 year old should be in that kind of position? Call me crazy, but I'd like to have someone with a shitload of experience taking care of something like he does.
Plus, his smugness makes me want to kick his fuckin' ass.
My comments are stupid today, because I'm tired and have tons of work. So right now, what do you say that we the taxpayers hold onto the billions and doll it out as we see fit. No paperwork--every applicant has to use some form of interpretative art among a commitee of working folk to apply for $. 5 minutes per applicant.
Hey, it's hard to keep track of all the scams one has going, so I applaud this attempt at streamlining. Plus it'll save paper, you dirty hippies.
Carlos: Experience? Competence? What's that got to do with it? He's probably a nephew of a friend of a friend of one of Bush's college drinking buddies.
Enemy: I like that idea. A series of interviews, with each one being more probing and more severe than the last. Just like regular working folks when they're out looking for a job.
Randal: That's true, I should be more sympathetic with these millionaires who have fallen on hard times.
Un - f'ing - believable!
Paul: It sure is. Every time I think I've gotten totally jaded, a story like this comes along and all I can do is go "WTF???"
On a practical level, if problems were to arise, the feds wouldn't have any trouble locating Chase Bank, Bank of America, etc. Whereas, John Jones could be difficult to track down.
Of course, that presumes the feds would actually track down the big banks and do anything about anything that went wrong, like being stiffed for a few billion. If Jonesy's post-college job consists of pushing burgers across a counter, for too little money to allow eating, having a place to live and repay his college loan, he'd better make himself scarce.
Re: the congressman asking if Bush's stooge had required the banks to provide a business plan: what a nerve! Obviously, their business plan is to rob, rape and pillage the suckas . . ..er, taxpayers at the first sign of imminent economic collapse. With all the aiding and abetting Bush & Co. can arrange, of course. How clueless could that congressman be?
SW: Yes, both of those statements are true. The feds could easily track down the big banks, but they probably won't.
Surprisingly, that congressman was a Republican. He'll undoubtedly be voted off the island for asking such a blasphemous question.
I got a letter today saying that I was turned down for a rebate on a printer/scanner I bought ten weeks ago. Apparently I didn't send in the original UPC, though I'm sure that I did.
Riddle me this, why is it more difficult for me to get $100 that is technically mine in the first place than for banks to get $3000 from every tax payer in the US?
Thomas: That's a tough riddle. I don't have the answer. But somehow it figures.
I think Thomas got hosed because they never intended on honoring the rebate whereas the banks knew they could get our money as they played around like the f(*& they are.
Enemy: Yup, I think that's the answer to the riddle.
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