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Excuse me???!!!! Is Obama serious? Now I’m having very serious doubts about his ability to get us out of this economic mess - he doesn’t seem to understand what caused it and what has to change.
I don’t mean that any of those things he wants the car companies to do are wrong - what I’m mad about is why didn’t he and Geithner make these same demands of the bankers and Wall Street guys and AIG??!!
When it came to the AIG bonuses they said “Oh, we can’t do anything about it, they have contracts.” Yeah? Tell that to the auto workers union members who also have contracts. They will tell you contracts aren’t sacred, in fact, they might even tell you that contracts are worthless. Except - they only seem to be worthless for a working man, if you are rich then your contracts will not even be questioned.
And why is the head of AIG still there? Actually the guy in there now is new and can’t be blamed for all the stuff that went on before he got there. But what about all those guys who got those bonuses? You know, the guys so indispensable they not only can’t be fired but we have to give them millions of dollars just to keep them around - who are the same guys who engineered a huge part of the problems. Or the people at all those over corporations?
Where the HELL is the “shared sacrifice” over at Wall Street? Can we even have any kind of “shared sacrifice” as long as the rich guys aren’t part of it?
On top of that he gave the 2 auto companies 60 days to turn things around or the hammer will fall. But Wall Street is given 5 times as much money with no demands on them at all. They don’t even have to account for where the money went.
All the people who have caused this financial meltdown are still there making far more than any auto worker ever did and are being handed billions of dollars with absolutely no strings attached.
UPDATE: Turns out that although the head of GM was fired by Obama he will be walking away with a $25 million golden parachute. Think the union people renegotiating their contracts will see the “shared sacrifice”? Think about it, working people making the HUGE fortune of $50,000 per year are asked to take a pay cut while the head of GM walks away with more money that any of them will ever see in their lifetime? GM stock went from around $30 per share to around $2 per share during his tenure. That's worth $25 million?
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2 comments:
Hard to understand any logic these days with the financial crisis. How can Obama & co oust GM exec Wagoner then bitch slap the usual suspects on Wall St responsible for the meltdown: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nay4VbUJl3E
We can only hope the double standard stops, turns left and picks on the corrupt behavior of all corporate banks.
I'm afraid we aren't going to see the Wall Street guys get the same treatment. All the money people around Obama ARE Wall Street guys, and the ones they need to regulate or fire are their friends and colleagues. Plus, they all still believe money people shouldn't be regulated.
The bills in the past - which most of these guys worked on - all claimed to be adding necessary regulations to disguise the fact that they were doing just the opposite.
There is a culture here that needs to be changed and I don't know if any of these guys have really had a change of heart. Can Obama create that change from the top down? I don't know, and I don't know if he even wants to. Remember, all his money people are some of the guys who caused this problem. He either picked them because he agrees with our current system or they are all advising him about how good it really is.
The impression I've gotten from Obama is that he likes the system as it's been, it just needs a few regulations that patch things up. I don't think he wants major changes in the basic capitalist system which I think are required.
Someone said that with Bill Clinton we thought we were getting an FDR new deal guy for the economy and what se got was Reagan-lite. I see the same with Obama.
But, if he can change health care and get everyone covered and kick start a green economy he will still have had a great presidency even if not a perfect one.
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