Bush presides over giving taxpayer money to shareholders

[Ravi]

U.S. banks getting more than $163 billion from the Treasury Department for new lending are on pace to pay more than half of that sum to their shareholders, with government permission, over the next three years.

The government said it was giving banks more money so they could make more loans. Dollars paid to shareholders don’t serve that purpose, but Treasury officials say that suspending quarterly dividend payments would have deterred banks from participating in the voluntary program.
Critics, including economists and members of Congress, question why banks should get government money if they already have enough money to pay dividends—or conversely, why banks that need government money are still spending so much on dividends.

washingtonpost.com

 

[DiamondDave]

I still shout that this whole bailout was a really fucking bad idea...

 

[del]

washingtonpost.com

heckuva job, Congress!

 

[Ravi]

heckuva job, Congress!

"The whole purpose of the program is to increase lending and inject capital into Main Street. If the money is used for dividends, it defeats the purpose of the program," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), who has called for the government to require a suspension of dividend payments.

Why don't you call your boys up and ask them to join with Schumer, if they haven't already?

 

[GigiBowman]

If I'm not mistaken...both Obama and McCain voted for the bail out, right??????????

 

[del]

Why don't you call your boys up and ask them to join with Schumer, if they haven't already?

i'm pretty sure Teddy and John are on board already, and my rep voted against the bailout. kudos to him.
why didn't they write safeguards into the legislation to prevent this? did they think the fucking banks would just do the right thing?

i'll bet nobody on either side has even read the whole bill yet, for that matter.

but it's cool, because it's bush's fault.

 

[Ravi]

No, it's actually Clinton's fault.

My Dem Senator voted against it. My Rep one voted for it.

 

[DiamondDave]

If I'm not mistaken...both Obama and McCain voted for the bail out, right??????????

Not like I agree with every decision McCain has made, or will make.. just that I will agree with MANY more of them than I will with Obamas decisions

 

[Navy1960]

"Giving the federal government the ability to nationalize almost every bad mortgage in America interrupts the foundational truth of our economy— that the American free enterprise system fundamentally depends on the ability to fail, as well as to succeed. If we allow taxpayers to subsidize these current market failures caused by poor investment decisions, I believe we will only be sentencing ourselves and the American people to subsidize future failure at even greater cost, while perhaps irreversibly changing the relationship between the public and private sectors." Trent Franks (R) Arizona

I could not have said it better myself, this bailout bill was a complete disaster and remains so. Now we see the infighting going on over this big pot of money that the same congress that through it's own lack of attention moved the US economy in that direction is now eager to spend the money. Further, we can also see the results of this ignorant legislation, in the sheer volume of new proposals for bailouts and the number of companies and undustries in line at the tax payer trough. We see our government complain they have no funding to fund programs like NASA that actully have a return on the investment and spend billions on cancelled programs at DoD, and run up massive deficits and ask you and I to sacrifice or we may be considered unpatriotic as they get in there black 9 mile per gallon chauffer driven suburbans. Our government needs change alright, but change is not represented by spending more money, it is in actually holding the people we represent to ethical standards and professional business standards when managing our tax dollars.

 

[Epsilon Delta]

What's happening is that the Government 'bailout' is in reality the privatization of the Treasury, given to Wall Street to bail itself out without any preconditions. Really goes to show what the priorities are.

 

[9 Volt]

What's happening is that the Government 'bailout' is in reality the privatization of the Treasury, given to Wall Street to bail itself out without any preconditions. Really goes to show what the priorities are.

You are ABSOLUTELY right. I keep hearing people call this "Nationalization" of the banking system. That couldn't be further from the truth. The worker class has zero control here. This is safety net for Capitalism through privitization of the Treasury. Right on Epsilon.