I keep trying to think about what I would do to change the world with $700,000,000,000. And, are they saying that capitalism has failed? It still boggles my mind.
Stop the Bailout! Honk for Economic Justice
Where: Madison Villager Mall, 2300 South Park St.
When: 5pm – 6pm, Thursday, September 25
Contact: Steve Burns, Program Coordinator, Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice outreach@wnpj.org, (608) 250-9240, cell: (608) 332-3717
Madison residents will be joining with people in dozens of other cities across the U.S. in a nationwide protest against the Bush bailout of reckless Wall Street investment bankers. Outraged citizens will be gathering in front of Madison’s Villager Mall at 5:00 pm to bring the message: “Stop the bailout!” to Madison commuters. Motorists will be asked to “Honk for Economic Justice” as a show of opposition to the Bush administration’s attempt to bail out investment banks that made reckless investments in mortgage-backed securities.
“Six years ago, President Bush railroaded the country into a disastrous war with phony warnings of catastrophe. Congress was told that if they didn’t give Bush the power to go to war, they might see New York disappear under a mushroom cloud. Now, Bush is back with more scare tactics. He says that if his Treasury Secretary isn’t given a blank check drawn on the public’s bank account – right now – economic catastrophe will result. We’re not buying it,” said Steve Burns, Program Coordinator of the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice.
Nobel-Prize-winning economist Joseph Stieglitz blames decades of deregulation, including the 1999 repeal of the depression-era Glass Steagall act, for the crisis and says that any plan must include strict re-regulation of the financial industry.Dean Baker, Economist and co-director of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, says that any plan “has to be punitive, if it’s serious. It shouldn’t be a field day. We shouldn’t have people lining up to get in. That’s telling us that this is not a serious bailout. So the idea that the administration is proposing is that the people who were engaged in incredibly reckless behavior, who made out like bandits, getting tens of millions of dollars in salary and compensation over the last few years are now going to get this $700 billion blank check from the American taxpayer. It’s just unbelievable. “
Journalist William Greider of the Nation Magazine calls the Bush bailout “an historic swindle of the American public” and says “Washington should literally take control of the banking and finance sector and employ its emergency powers to oversee and direct these private, profit-making enterprises. If any bankers do not wish to play, cut them off from any public assistance (and wish them good luck). Then government can exercise temporary supervisory powers that force banking to cooperate with economic recovery by sustaining lending and investment to the real economy.”
“There are many good plans for protecting the economy without rewarding corporate criminals, but those plans won’t mean a thing if we don’t first stop the Bush plan, or any plan like it,” said Steve Burns of Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice. “We’re calling on Congress to cancel its planned recess and stay in session and hold public hearings to drag every one of these Wall Street criminals before the cameras. Congress should explain to them that any public funds will be accompanied by full public control. If the public is paying to bail you out, then the public should get to call the shots on who and what you invest in. And that means real investments in green energy and living-wage jobs. Let’s see how many of these CEOs are still interested in a bailout after they hear that.”
