Keep your eye on the ball
We once again interrupt duckies and bunnies to remind you that it's official: you've been swindled in broad daylight!
Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would comply with congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system. Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that in separate rescue programs that didn't require approval by Congress, Americans have no idea where their money is going or what securities the banks are pledging in return.
It's bad, you know.
I know... I know... everyone is distracted by Obama's victory and Gay Marriage's defeat and, at least in my town, how to get everyone onto a bus to save the world from global warming while simultaneously trying to usher in a new Target store.
I will get optimistic when President Obama fires up the investigations and top-level swindlers start going to jail. How he handles this will determine the success of his presidency, because he won't see an economic turnaround during his term(s) without restoring transparency and trust to our financial system.
Meanwhile, while we were being lied to on Capitol Hill, the Treasury Department was sneaking around changing the tax laws to give even more of our taxpayer money to banks.
In the midst of this late-September drama, the Treasury Department issued a five-sentence notice that attracted almost no public attention.
But corporate tax lawyers quickly realized the enormous implications of the document: Administration officials had just given American banks a windfall of as much as $140 billion.
The sweeping change to two decades of tax policy escaped the notice of lawmakers for several days, as they remained consumed with the controversial bailout bill. When they found out, some legislators were furious.
Nice, eh? These people are working for us, right? And here's my favorite part from the WP article: