White House Spokesman Tony Fratto insisted that “it is not a bailout for wall street” and urged reporters to drop the b-word from their vocabulary. His argument was that taxpayers were getting an ownership stake in the ailing investment banks and assets in return for their money. Sadly those assets the taxpayers are buying represent investments that no-one else wants and the ones that our investment-banker buddies would not touch with a “700 billion” foot pole. One MacLeans reporter summed this up best when he compared the bankers (and now the Auto Industry and every other business who wants to muscle in on a piece of the action) to someone putting a gun to your head and saying, “Don’t think of this as a mugging think of it as an investment in safety. By giving me your wallet you are reducing the murder rate.”
Jan 01