The Financial Bailout Lacks Oversight
From the days of the Founding Fathers, the principal of government was checks and balances. Government officials are servants of the “we the people” and, as such, are accountable to the people whom they service. This is elementary civics which is taught across the nation.
Unfortunately, with the seven hundred billion dollar government bailout, that oversight is lacking:
“…no formal action has been taken to fill the independent oversight posts established by Congress when it approved the bailout to prevent corruption and government waste. Nor has the first monitoring report required by lawmakers been completed, though the initial deadline has passed.”
link: Bailout lacks oversight despite billions pledged
Mismanagement at so many levels pushed the economy to the brink of disaster. Every day there are announcements of cut-backs and layoffs. This economic bailout is financed by the people – and their children and possibly their children’s children. How are the funds being used? Where are the billions and billions of dollars going? It is the people’s money.
The irony is that the oversight is to protect the people from those entrusted to serve. And sadly, the correction for the financial fiasco has no proper oversight to monitor that the rescue is carried out properly. This manner of handling the public’s money should frighten and enrage every citizen. It is simply wrong.
Catherine Forsythe
8 Comments
Bob Lewis
November 13th, 2008
at 4:24am
The massive “bailout” is a huge scam calculated to rape the taxpayer and fill the vaults of those in the outgoing administration with the contents of the National Treasury. George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and their entire upper echelon of crooks should be arrested, tried, and imprisoned for the rest of their natural lives. Charges? How about malfeasance, misappropriation of funds, perjury, and the murder of our troops while waging this egomaniac’s war. Then too, there are the war crimes – blatant violations of the Geneva Convention.
At the very least, Bush and Cheney should be impeached for perjury, and convicted for that. That would save the taxpayer all that pension money they are about to collect.
Jerry Falk
November 13th, 2008
at 6:59am
If someone takes out a loan they cannot afford, and they know it, that’s fraud. But the mortgage originator is supposed to exercise caution before granting the loan. They didn’t, but they sold the loans pretending that they did. That’s also fraud. Then, the loans were packed into tranches which received ratings from the various agencies. The rating agencies are supposed to do some checking rather than just taking the word of the loan originators. More fraud. And the banks buying these mortgages and packing them into tranches misrepresented the quality of the investment to buyers. Yet more fraud.
Regulation is not going to work if people can get away with fraud. What will restore confidence in the banking and mortgage system is for a whole lot of liars to go to jail after being fined so much that they have to borrow clothes to wear to jail.
Pam Walter
November 13th, 2008
at 2:17pm
I just have a simple question: Where is all of this money going to come from and what are we giving up to get it?
Donald Nagy
November 14th, 2008
at 7:46am
Signs that something is wrong
– After the bailout the execs spent money on pedicures etc
in a lavish hotel! That practice is mismanagement to the
Max.
– There is no way that this bailout is good. None of the
outward signs indicate good management practices exist
inside this financial bubble except for the recipients of this
huge amount of money called a bailout.
I do not believe this bailout is right.
tyler rauman
November 14th, 2008
at 9:14am
Pam, the money is being made out of thin air, and borrowed from other nations.
When the federal reserve just prints money what it does is devalue everyone’s money and the whole economy. But then the banks and financial institutions are still more wealthy only because they’ve just stolen money-value from the rest of America.
E2001
November 14th, 2008
at 11:23am
Government prints up a bunch of cash to keep the Wall Street crooks from having to give up their yachts. Meanwhile, Joe Sixpack worries that “his” tax money might be going to fund a bunch of freeloading ex-factory workers in line at the Social Security office. It’s all too funny!
Bailing Out Detroit ~ DogReader
November 16th, 2008
at 3:22pm
[...] Warren Buffett has called the financial crisis an “economic Pearl Harbor”. It is serious and most citizens do not have a full grasp of what caused this financial meltdown or what is being done to pull the economy out of this downspin. The public may be more aware of the rescue effort if there were greater oversight and more transparency. [...]
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December 6th, 2008
at 10:53pm
[...] The financial bailout lacks oversight. [...]