Government Uses Our Money for One Bailout After Another, What Do We Do?
By Seth Grossman, Political Columnist
?Three Iraqi contractors bid for a contract to build a wall around a local municipal council. The first contractor bid $1000 ($400 for materials, $400 for workers, and a profit of $200). The second contractor proposed $700 ($300 for materials, $300 for workers, and a profit of $100). The third contractor bid $2,700. The council president angrily asked the third contractor why his bid was so high. ‘It’s very simple,’ he said smiling. ‘A thousand for me, a thousand for you, and we’ll pay the second contractor $700 to do the work!’ The third contractor got the job.??
That joke was recently posted in Arabic on www.kitabat.com, an Iraqi website. But I first heard it from a fed-up New Jersey contractor six years ago, when friends of ex-Democrat Governor Jim McGreevey applied that technique.
That simple joke explains what happened to the billions we spent on roads, bridges, and schools during the last ten years . . . and why Wall Street?s rating agencies, insurance companies, and government regulators gave ?Triple A? ratings to bundles of worthless mortgages.
Last October, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told Congress he was ?in a state of shocked disbelief? that this happened for 25 years. This month, hundreds of the ?smartest? folks in American business lost $50 billion to Bernie Madoff?s Ponzi swindle.
But Bernie Madoff just did to the rich and famous what Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the New Jersey Pension Fund managers and the Social Security Administration did ? and are still doing – to the rest of us!
Where is the anger? Why do we still let these crooks and idiots run our economy with no rules, laws, or Constitution to restrain them?
President George Bush borrowed $13.4 billion more to keep two failing auto companies out of bankruptcy for two more months. Congress never approved this money. Bush said the money was part of $700 billion borrowed last October. But didn?t Bush promise back then that this would not cost us any money? Didn?t he say these ?troubled assets? would later be sold at a profit when the markets ?calmed down?? Didn?t he say we had to stop an ?imminent? worldwide collapse of the banking system?
Bush never bought any ?troubled assets.? There was no worldwide collapsed of the banking system. Bush should have given the money back to Congress. But he spent half the money on other stuff – $270 billion for stock in a dozen banks, $40 billion more for AIG Insurance on top of the first $85 billion flushed down the toilet during the summer, $25 billion for Citibank run by former Goldman Sachs head Robert Rubin. (Citibank was stuck with tons of the worthless Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac preferred stock that I still have.) Using money given in trust for one purpose, and diverting it to another use without consent is ?embezzlement? ? a ?high crime and misdemeanor.?
Add this to the $200 billion bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, $29 billion for Bear Stearns, $2.9 billion for the $600 ?stimulus? checks (in hindsight – a real bargain), and the $850 billion more that President-elect promised to borrow and spend as soon as he gets in. Last month, the Federal Reserve announced it was borrowing money on its own ? with no approval from Congress. Here in New Jersey, Governor Jon Corzine is loaning millions of state tax dollars to failing businesses with political influence.
What can we do? I am volunteering a lot of my time, and contributing a lot my of money to help Republican Steve Lonegan be a credible candidate for Governor. You should do the same. If Lonegan wins the Republican primary in June, the whole country will be watching him take on Corzine in November.
Until then, I am trying to survive on my own. I am avoiding all investments in paper dollars, New Jersey real estate, and stocks and bonds in companies that are easily taxed or manipulated by politicians.
Instead, I am buying gold, silver, real estate in low tax states, and stocks and bonds in countries that don?t print extra paper money to stimulate the economy.
This all takes a lot of time, and so I am working and earning less. I am also spending less, and paying a lot less in taxes. This is all bad for the economy.
But millions of people are doing what I am doing. An ounce of gold went from $710 to $840 since October. That is why these government plans to ?stimulate? the economy always fail.