Michael Moore: Congratulations, Corporate Crime Fighters! Coup Averted For Three Days!

[Hissyspit]

Friends,

Everyone said the bill would pass. The masters of the universe were already making celebratory dinner reservations at Manhattan's finest restaurants. Personal shoppers in Dallas and Atlanta were dispatched to do the early Christmas gifting. Mad Men of Chicago and Miami were popping corks and toasting each other long before the morning latte run.

But what they didn't know was that hundreds of thousands of Americans woke up yesterday morning and decided it was time for revolt. The politicians never saw it coming. Millions of phone calls and emails hit Congress so hard it was as if Marshall Dillon, Elliot Ness and Dog the Bounty Hunter had descended on D.C. to stop the looting and arrest the thieves.

The Corporate Crime of the Century was halted by a vote of 228 to 205. It was rare and historic; no one could remember a time when a bill supported by the president and the leadership of both parties went down in defeat. That just never happens.

A lot of people are wondering why the right wing of the Republican Party joined with the left wing of the Democratic Party in voting down the thievery. Forty percent of Democrats and two-thirds of Republicans voted against the bill.

Here's what happened:

The presidential race may still be close in the polls, but the Congressional races are pointing toward a landslide for the Democrats. Few dispute the prediction that the Republicans are in for a whoopin' on November 4th. Up to 30 Republican House seats could be lost in what would be a stunning repudiation of their agenda.

The Republican reps are so scared of losing their seats, when this "financial crisis" reared its head two weeks ago, they realized they had just been handed their one and only chance to separate themselves from Bush before the election, while doing something that would make them look like they were on the side of "the people."

Watching C-Span yesterday morning was one of the best comedy shows I'd seen in ages. There they were, one Republican after another who had backed the war and sunk the country into record debt, who had voted to kill every regulation that would have kept Wall Street in check -- there they were, now crying foul and standing up for the little guy! One after another, they stood at the microphone on the House floor and threw Bush under the bus, under the train (even though they had voted to kill off our nation's trains, too), heck, they would've thrown him under the rising waters of the Lower Ninth Ward if they could've conjured up another hurricane. You know how your dog acts when sprayed by a skunk? He howls and runs around trying to shake it off, rubbing and rolling himself on every piece of your carpet, trying to get rid of the stench. That's what it looked like on the Republican side of the aisle yesterday, and it was a sight to behold.

The 95 brave Dems who broke with Barney Frank and Chris Dodd were the real heroes, just like those few who stood up and voted against the war in October of 2002. Watch the remarks from yesterday of Reps. Marcy Kaptur, Sheila Jackson Lee, and Dennis Kucinich. They spoke the truth.

The Dems who voted for the giveaway did so mostly because they were scared by the threats of Wall Street, that if the rich didn't get their handout, the market would go nuts and then it's bye-bye stock-based pension and retirement funds.

And guess what? That's exactly what Wall Street did! The largest, single-day drop in the Dow in the history of the New York Stock exchange. The news anchors last night screamed it out: Americans just lost 1.2 trillion dollars in the stock market!! It's a financial Pearl Harbor! The sky is falling! Bird flu! Killer Bees!

Of course, sane people know that nobody "lost" anything yesterday, that stocks go up and down and this too shall pass because the rich will now buy low, hold, then sell off, then buy low again.

But for now, Wall Street and its propaganda arm (the networks and media it owns) will continue to try and scare the bejesus out of you. It will be harder to get a loan. Some people will lose their jobs. A weak nation of wimps won't last long under this torture. Or will we? Is this our line in the sand?

Here's my guess: The Democratic leadership in the House secretly hoped all along that this lousy bill would go down. With Bush's proposals shredded, the Dems knew they could then write their own bill that favors the average American, not the upper 10% who were hoping for another kegger of gold.

So the ball is in the Democrats' hands. The gun from Wall Street remains at their head. Before they make their next move, let me tell you what the media kept silent about while this bill was being debated:

1. The bailout bill had NO enforcement provisions for the so-called oversight group that was going to monitor Wall Street's spending of the $700 billion;

2. It had NO penalties, fines or imprisonment for any executive who might steal any of the people's money;

3. It did NOTHING to force banks and lenders to rewrite people's mortgages to avoid foreclosures -- this bill would not have stopped ONE foreclosure!;

4. It had NO teeth anywhere in the entire piece of legislation, using words like "suggested" when referring to the government being paid back for the bailout;

5. Over 200 economists wrote to Congress and said this bill might actually WORSEN the "financial crisis" and cause even MORE of a meltdown.

Put a fork in this slab of pork. It's over. Now it is time for our side to state very clearly the laws WE want passed. I will send you my proposals later today. We've bought ourselves less than 72 hours.

Yours,
Michael Moore
[email protected]
MichaelMoore.com

[PaddyBlueEyes]

1. Hey Mike

Do me a solid will ya? Promise to hire anyone laid off by the defeat of this bill and then reimburse all those folks who just lost thousands of bucks in their 401k's today. Resume celebration.

[Two Americas]

6. this is a false and misleading construct

The whole problem with Wall Street getting too much power was always that people were going to get hurt.

For years, every time a corporation downsized, outsourced, raised prices, cut back on quality, escaped government regulations or otherwise harmed the general public for the sake of improving their profitability, their stock was up, up, up.

What about all of those people who were harmed in the cause of creating that paper wealth on Wall Street? In the cause of driving up real estate prices?

Why does one group deserve sympathy now, while for decades the other group of people harmed by Wall Street did not? Why is the person who depended upon a job, lost it and then lost their home told to take "personal responsibility" and expect no sympathy, while the person who invested in stocks - always a gamble - is to be protected and their success guaranteed by the rest of us?

Why are some of the same people who a couple of weeks ago were saying "tough! They made their choices, let them live with them. I have no sympathy!" about poor working stiffs losing their homes, now suddenly so sympathetic to those who are hurt by this? Why are some of the same people who were lecturing us that we could not afford universal health care, that we could not rein in the market and regulate it, that the public would not support those things, now saying that we can afford to bail out Wall Street and that public opinion against it should be ignored?

I think both groups deserve sympathy, and that we need to help both. I object to you trying to pit one group against the other.

Here is what I think. The pro-market people and those invested in the market thought they were oh so clever, oh so superior to the rest of the peons, and would not hear for one minute the toll in human misery that the unfettered market was causing, so long as their stocks were up, up, up. Now when the shoe is on the foot, they want us to believe that they are concerned about all of the people, not just the investors. They were not concerned when they were making money, and were not concerned when someone else was suffering.

[girl gone mad]

9. The government is not an insurance policy against a down stock market.

We have a class of securities backed by the treasury. They're called bonds, and they produce markedly lower returns over time.

If you can't afford to lose capital, the solution is to avoid stocks, not to attempt to turn the stock market into a bond market. The result of such an action would have serious long term consequences.

[kickysnana]

13. It was over last Nov. They are still just rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic.

Your job and pension are already gone and this bill would not change that.

The only thing they should be talking about is how to protect enough to start over and spread what is left so fewer people die.

This bill is a dog and pony show but an expensive one for you. When your future is on the line you don't pay $700B for Cirque de Wall Street.

[FlyingSquirrel]

2. You don't ever sleep, do you?

:)

[Selatius]

3. It is simple. Simply reintroduce the damn bill except with the 4 points Moore indicated were missin

And I would add on top of that a provision that allows the government to veto excessive compensation packages and severance packages for senior executives of these companies. They would have to submit such changes to the government for approval, given that the government has seized companies like Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac and bought an 80 percent stake in AIG.

[Two Americas]

7. yes

Simple, practical, politically powerful, and well within reach.

[OneBlueSky]

8. I think I'd rather try some of these ideas first . . .

I'm no economist, but most of these seem to make some sense . . .

10 Ways to Bail Out Wall Street (and Main Street) Without Soaking Taxpayers in Debt:
Who says we need to borrow a trillion dollars to save Wall Street from its own excesses?
By Chuck Collins and Dedrick Muhammad, AlterNet
Posted September 25, 2008

http://www.alternet.org/story/100223

A Responsible Plan to Pay for Recovery: $900 Billion in New Revenue

1. A Securities Transaction Tax: $100 Billion

2. A Wealth Tax Surcharge on Households with $10 Million: $300 billion

3. A Corporate Minimum Income Tax: $60 Billion

4. A "Disgorgement" Recovery From Profligate CEOs: $40 Billion

5. An Income Tax Surcharge on Incomes Over $5 Million: $105 Billion

6. An End to Overseas Corporate Tax Havens: $100 Billion

7. The Elimination of Subsidies for Excessive CEO Pay: $20 Billion

8. The Elimination of the Tax Preference for Capital Gains: $95 Billion

9. A Progressive Inheritance Tax: $60 Billion

10. The Elimination of the Mansion Subsidy: $20 Billion

- more . . .

http://www.alternet.org/story/100223

[Waiting For Everyman]

4. Good job! That bill was absurd. It can be done better than that.

And it had better be, if we'd like to recover.

[gemlake]

5. Reading Krugman's blog and the article

here by a leading economist, has convinced me that the Dems can do much better.

[arKansasJHawk]

10. NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you don't support this bill exactly as written, granny will lose her house and my small bizness will have to fire everyone tommorrow!!!!

[barbtries]

11. the people

need to keep calling and writing. and end the wars. we are a rich nation, even today. the government has wasted our wealth.

[Hissyspit]

12. .

[WA98296]

14. Kicking for sanity

[Hissyspit]

15. .