The $700 Billion Bailout: One More Weapon of Mass Deception

The Bush administration's proposal to buy, with taxpayers' money, $700 billion of toxic liabilities from the corporate financial titans of Wall Street is a fraud. It is by no means necessary, as Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson claims in the agency's Fact Sheet, "to promote market stability, and help protect American families and the U.S. economy." It is necessary only to assure the financial survival of Wall Street banks and brokerages, the administration's most loyal supporters and its greatest political contributors -- and in large measure the cause of the financial meltdown the country is facing.

Paulson wants to rescue Wall Street so Wall Street, he assures us, can get back to lending. That is certain to save Paulson's former firm and the others, but it is by no means certain that credit will then flow to "home loans, school loans and investments that create jobs." The Wall Street firms are far more likely to revive their lucrative trade in complex and esoteric financial "products." Seven hundred billion dollars is a lot of money. It is more than we've spent so far on the administration's fraudulent "war on terror" (See "The Mega-Lie Called the 'War on Terror': A Masterpiece of Propaganda".) Is it not better public policy to channel the money to "households and businesses" in some other, more direct, more effective and far more reliable way?

Richard W. Behan lives and writes on Lopez Island, Wash. He has published dozens of articles exposing the criminal wars of the Bush administration; they are summarized in an electronic book, The Fraudulent War, available in PDF format at http://coldtype.net/Assets.08/pdfs/0308The%20Fraudulent%20War.pdf