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The most sane set of requirements that I’ve seen thus far for the pending corporate bailout came to me from Congressman Dennis Kucinich. I realize that the political will for most of these doesn’t exist, but even half of them would be nice.

Let your Senators and Representatives know that this is what you want. (Or edit it to MAKE it what you want.) It’s our money and (more importantly) our debt burden. WE should have a say!

1. Reinstatement of the provisions of Glass-Steagall, which forbade speculation

2. Re-regulation of the finance, insurance, and real estate industries

3. Accountability on the part of those who took the companies down:

  a) resignations of management

  b) givebacks of executive compensation packages

  c) limitations on executive compensation

 d) admission by CEO’s of what went wrong and how, prior to any government  bailout

4. Demands for transparency

  a) with respect to analyzing the transactions which took the companies down

  b) with respect to Treasury’s dealings with the companies pre and post-bailout

5. An equity position for the taxpayers

   a) some form of ownership of assets

6. Some credible formula for evaluating the price of the assets that the government is buying.

7. A sunset clause on the legislation

8. Full public disclosure by members of Congress of assets held, with possible conflicts put in blind trust.

9. A ban on political campaign contributions from officers of corporations receiving bailouts

10. A requirement that 2008 cycle candidates return political contributions to officers and representatives of corporations receiving bailouts

Thanks, Dennis!

Just a quick post regarding the nearly 1 TRILLION dollar bailout package of taxpayer money/debt that’s about to be handed out to companies that have already grossly mismanaged funds…

The affected companies have some of the world’s best financial analysts at their disposal. You can be sure that they saw this coming several years in advance. Everything that’s happening now has been well choreographed. Every word of legislation was written a long time ago.

The bottom line is this: Anytime that there’s a closed meeting intended to scare the pants off of our US senators, someone somewhere is about to score big.

We’re being told by Fox News that the Congress has just ONE DAY to act before our economy goes into total meltdown. Rushed, scared people make mistakes… BIG mistakes. Let’s not forget the Patriot Act.

I don’t doubt that we’re in a financial crisis. However, this crisis was engineered. Corporations manipulated Congress into performing less and less oversight. They then used the opportunity to engage in predatory lending practices, the bundling of junk securities and completely over-the-top speculating. And NOW they want regulation? Don’t believe it for a minute.

Meanwhile, the Bush Administration, whose members are deeply involved in corporate machinations, massively overspent on a war of choice, making us indebted to the Chinese, who bought our bonds. They got their own companies hired to (mis)manage the needs of our military and contractors, while “losing” billions of dollars in the process. They kept open a loophole that allows foreign subsidiaries of US-owned companies like Halliburton to put off paying taxes for years at a time. And in the midst of all this, they created and fought to maintain tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

You don’t need to know anything about economics to have seen that we were heading for a meltdown. We’re being played.

Now it’s coming out that the legislation under consideration (LEGISLATIVE PROPOSAL FOR TREASURY AUTHORITY TO PURCHASE MORTGAGE-RELATED ASSETS) will give Treasury Secretary Paulson nearly limitless power to use the money, without any oversight whatsoever. (In particular, see Section 5.) There’s even a clause which seems to allow for the funds to be used to bail out FOREIGN companies.

Good God, people! Just because Chicken Little says the sky is falling doesn’t mean that our Congress should rubber stamp sweeping legislation without first having a robust debate. Please contact your Senators and Representatives and demand that they look at this thing long and hard before spending YOUR money!!!

Get the phone number and tips for your call here… or just dial (202)224-3121 and ask for your Senator’s office. And thank you very much in advance!