As unemployment rates soar to their highest level in five years and home construction sinks to its lowest level in 17 years, all our federal government seems able to do is buy up to $700 billion in "distressed" mortgage-related assets, bail-out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (at a cost of roughly $200 billion) or "loan" $85 billion to liquidate insurance giant AIG. If you're Merrill Lynch, you get a hearing; if you're just plain Working American what you get is a recession, a looming depression, and a federal tax bill for the fat-cat bail-outs.

Let me give you a reference to what these numbers mean. If you counted up to these numbers, counting one number per second, this is how long it would take:

1 million=11 days
100 million=3.1 years
1 billion=31.6 years
100 billion=3,158 years
700 billion=22,182 years

But, amazingly enough, ordinary Americans generally don't want bail-outs, nor do they want handouts. What they normally want is honorable work, decent wages, and a government willing to wake up and help them contribute to a national restoration.

Do you really believe Congress can craft a bill responsibly spending $700 billion in five days? These people can't spend that much money responsibly in a 12-month budget process. And now we are expected to believe that the smartest and shrewdest way to avert a crisis - rather than exacerbate one - is to spend $700 billion in one week? It doesn’t matter what kind of weak "oversight" or executive pay language is in there - taking less than a week to authorize the spending of 5 percent of our entire GDP is criminally irresponsible.

These investment banks gambled and lost; now they should pay the consequences. Have you ever been paid back after gambling at cards or a slot machine? When was the last time you were in a New York Investment Bank? These banks lend money for mergers and to other banks, they speculate and create risk funds so fat cat investors can speculate and gamble. Now they want to be bailed out in 5 days with $700 billion using our hard earned tax money. You can bet these bankers don’t pay any taxes.

These are the same folks who opposed for 10 years an increase of $1.45 for the minimum wage. They opposed any funds for national healthcare, traditional pensions and social security. They do not oppose dragging American workers and their children to share their mismanagement to the tune of over a trillion dollars. This bail out does nothing for American citizens caught up in this mortgage fiasco with an opportunity to even renegotiate their debt, its foreclosure for them.

In the end, we are going to hand out to private investment banks over a trillion dollars and we are guaranteed nothing in return. In fact we are not even being explained as to what we will receive for this $700 billion bail out. These are the same firms that have advocated an unregulated capitalist system, but I guess that is only in effect when they are making money, not when their reckless mismanagement and greed crashes in on them. 

In unity,

Roy Hegenbart
President
Local 3250