'BAILOUT EXTENDED'

I’ve just had another, ‘you’ve got to be kidding me’ moment. I read in my morning paper where the White House was pleading with the Banks that have received the ‘Bail-Out Bucks’ in the Bail-Out giveaway show to start making loans with the money they received. I thought that’s what they were getting the giveaway ‘Bucks’ for in the first place. The same paper carried an article about how some of the recipient banks were now paying dividends to their stockholders out of these proceeds. This whole deal stinks and was nothing more than welfare for the rich. When this money is finally loaned, I guarantee it will go to some fat cats that have a statement just this side of Warren Buffet and most of the poor folks who are on the line to the government for their part of the Bail-Out plan will not ‘qualify’ for enough cash to buy an extra tank of gas.

If congress really wants to help the people most affected by this recession then I have a couple of suggestions. First, how about limiting the amount of interest the banks can charge the average ‘Joe’ on a credit card to 15%. Just a few years ago 15% would have been unheard of, but now it seems like it is the equivalent of finding gas at $2.25 per gallon. Poor folks out there today are getting slapped with 24% to 28% and the banks can’t get enough of this easy money. Next Congress could outlaw the $35 fee charged whenever an average customer goes over the credit limit established when he answered that unsolicited mailer offering him the great card with the low ‘introductory interest’. Every transaction is approved on the spot now so why not just deny the charge at the point of purchase if the credit limit is exceeded. The $35 fee is as close to being criminal as one can get. If I walked into one of a bank’s branches and pointed a carrot at a teller while passing a note demanding cash to avoid being shot by the carrot then took $35 from her at carrot point I’d be arrested and sent to jail. Again only the working stiffs are the ones with this problem. The people who qualify for the loans from the banks participating in the Bailout have credit limits they never exceed or have agreements with the banks to cover any such emergency situation. At least reduce to amount to a reasonable $5.00 per month should such overage occur. The next stimulus step would be to prohibit the banks from charging the $35 on every insufficient fund check that comes through the bank. Only the average Joe’s pay these robbery class fees. Bounce the check or pay it but don’t charge the poor writer any more than the amount of the check with a limit of $10 per check. Give the poor customer a break; they are the ones funding your Bailout.

Another point I think needs to be made. If I’m going to be a part of this new consortium that pulls the nations banks financial statements out of the fire I want to sit in some of those skyboxes they all have at the various sports stadiums around the country. Why should the big shots who got them into trouble in the first place be the ones sitting up there drinking all the good whiskey and eating the ribs? I want to be chauffeured to the stadium in a stretch limo and whisked by the common folks standing in line to get to their end zone seats on the third row. After all, who is paying for those boxes? The bank was broke before Congress gave them my money to stay open, I should get some of the benefits.

Alas, I know I am dreaming. It is the poor folks like me that is suppose to take care of those at the top. I think that is one reason we have had so much trouble with integration in this country. It was hard for all us white people to realize that the majority of us had become the slaves and we had always believed the color of our skin protected us from that fate. Really the gap just keeps getting wider and wider. It takes more and more people to support the lifestyles of the few selected ones at the top. That is why the rich elect a Congress to protect them in tough times. Every few years the working folks just have to come up with a little more to pay those salaries and dividends and it is easier for a Congress to take it than it would be for the elite to just force the issue. Every now and then someone will break out and move into the skyboxes but it becoming more and more a rarity. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, I still have color HD DIRECTV and a Big Green Egg.