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THE LATEST REALITY GAME--WALL STREET BAILOUT -- (House of Representatives - September 22, 2008) |
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The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, here is the latest reality game. Let's play Wall Street Bailout.
Rule one: Rush the decision. Time the game to fall in the
week before Congress is set to adjourn and just 6 weeks before an
historic election so your opponents will be preoccupied, pressured,
distracted, and in a hurry.
Rule two: Disarm the public through fear. Warn that the
entire global financial system will collapse and the world will fall
into another Great Depression. Control the media enough to ensure that
the public will not notice this.
Bailout will indebt them for generations, taking from them trillions of dollars they earned and deserve to keep.
Rule three: Control the playing field and set the rules. Hide
from the public and most of the Congress just who is arranging this
deal. Communicate with the public through leaks to media insiders.
Limit any open congressional hearings. Communicate with Congress via
private teleconferencing calls. Heighten political anxiety by
contacting each political party separately. Treat Members of Congress
condescendingly, telling them that the matter is so complex that they
must rely on those few insiders who really do know what's going on.
Rule four: Divert attention and keep people confused.
Manage the news cycle so Congress and the public have no time to
examine who destroyed the prudent banking system that served America so
well for 60 years after the financial meltdown of the 1920s.
Rule five: Always keep in mind the goal is to privatize
gains to a few and socialize loss to the many. For 30 years in one
financial scandal after another, Wall Street game masters have kept
billions of dollars of their gain and shifted their losses to American
taxpayers. Once this bailout is in place, the greed game will begin
again.
But I have a counter-game. It's called Wall Street
Reckoning. Congress shouldn't go home to campaign. It should put
America's accounts in order.
To Wall Street insiders, it says ``no'' on behalf of the American
people. You have perpetrated the greatest financial crimes ever on this
American republic. You think you can get by with it because you are
extraordinarily wealthy and the largest contributors to both
Presidential and congressional campaigns in both major parties, but you
are about to be brought under firm control.
First, America doesn't need to bail you out, it needs to
secure the real assets and property, not your paper, that means the
homes and properties of hardworking Americans who are about to lose
their homes because of your mortgage greed. There should be a new job
for regional Federal Reserve Banks. We want no home foreclosed if a
serious work-out agreement can be put into place. And if you don't do
it, we want a notarized statement by a Federal Reserve official that
they tried and failed.
Second, taxpayers should directly gain any equity benefits
that may flow from this historic bailout. We want the American people
to get first priority in taking ownership of the institutions that want
to pass their toxic paper onto the taxpayers.
Third, before any bailouts for Wall Street, America needs
major job creation to rebuild our major infrastructure. America needs
assets, not paper. We need working assets.
Fourth, the time for real financial regulatory change is
now, not next year. A modernized Glass-Steagall Act must be put in place.
We need to reestablish locally-owned community savings banks across
this country and create within the Justice Department a fully funded
unit to prosecute every single high-flying thief whose fraud and
criminal acts created this debacle and then forced their disgorgement
of assets going back 15 years.
Fifth, any refinancing must return a major share of profits
to a new Social Security and Medicare lockbox, where the monies can go
to pay for a dignified and assured retirement for every American. This
Member isn't voting for a penny of it. Those who created and profited
from this game of games must be brought to justice. The assets they
stole must be returned to the American taxpayers, right down to the
tires on their Mercedes.
Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in cosponsoring
my bill to create an independent commission to investigate these
well-heeled wrongdoers. Real reform now, or nothing.
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