By Tom Wald
Anyone who knows me knows I hate the Wall Street bailouts. I think the concept of "Too Big To Fail", or TBTF as its now commonly abbreviated, is perhaps the greatest oxymoron of our times. If Too Big To Fail made any sense Aaron Gibson and Slavko Vranes would be considered the two greatest professional athletes ever. Never heard of those two guys? Well I guess that's sort of my point.
However, unlike a couple of athletes too large to keep pace with faster and more agile competitors, the TBTF bailouts on Wall Street have been what I call the non-violent crime of the century. You see when you take the taxes paid by millions of hard working Americans and hand that money over to billionaires so they can use it to pay themselves more billions after they've sabotaged the economy for everyone else, well I'm afraid at that point you might as well argue to free Bernie Madoff, at least his theft wasn't government funded.
Yet even after all of this our nation's new class system took a bizarre and deeply concerning turn last week when reports filtered through the news that Wall Street bailout recipients Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup had received doses of the H1N1 vaccine in quantities greater than and on delivery schedules well before those of public hospitals and doctor's offices. So in addition to getting their seven and eight figure bonuses financed by our taxes, these bankers and traders who created the economic mess that manifested itself in ten-plus percent unemployment last week are also getting the Swine Flu vaccine before our kids.
So now TBTF has become TBTWILFTV - Too Big To Wait In Line For The Vaccine. What might we see next? Commuter lanes on our highways for Wall Street employees designated TBTHTSIT - Too Big To Have To Sit In Traffic. Or perhaps government classified hot lines into Disney for Wall Street parents deemed TBTWOLFHMT - Too Big To Wait On Line For Hannah Montana Tickets.
Sound crazy? No crazier than a few hundred billion out of our pockets and first dibs on vaccines might have sounded a year ago. I wonder what kind of a response you would have gotten had you floated those ideas at an Obama victory rally. - 31384
Anyone who knows me knows I hate the Wall Street bailouts. I think the concept of "Too Big To Fail", or TBTF as its now commonly abbreviated, is perhaps the greatest oxymoron of our times. If Too Big To Fail made any sense Aaron Gibson and Slavko Vranes would be considered the two greatest professional athletes ever. Never heard of those two guys? Well I guess that's sort of my point.
However, unlike a couple of athletes too large to keep pace with faster and more agile competitors, the TBTF bailouts on Wall Street have been what I call the non-violent crime of the century. You see when you take the taxes paid by millions of hard working Americans and hand that money over to billionaires so they can use it to pay themselves more billions after they've sabotaged the economy for everyone else, well I'm afraid at that point you might as well argue to free Bernie Madoff, at least his theft wasn't government funded.
Yet even after all of this our nation's new class system took a bizarre and deeply concerning turn last week when reports filtered through the news that Wall Street bailout recipients Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup had received doses of the H1N1 vaccine in quantities greater than and on delivery schedules well before those of public hospitals and doctor's offices. So in addition to getting their seven and eight figure bonuses financed by our taxes, these bankers and traders who created the economic mess that manifested itself in ten-plus percent unemployment last week are also getting the Swine Flu vaccine before our kids.
So now TBTF has become TBTWILFTV - Too Big To Wait In Line For The Vaccine. What might we see next? Commuter lanes on our highways for Wall Street employees designated TBTHTSIT - Too Big To Have To Sit In Traffic. Or perhaps government classified hot lines into Disney for Wall Street parents deemed TBTWOLFHMT - Too Big To Wait On Line For Hannah Montana Tickets.
Sound crazy? No crazier than a few hundred billion out of our pockets and first dibs on vaccines might have sounded a year ago. I wonder what kind of a response you would have gotten had you floated those ideas at an Obama victory rally. - 31384
