Bailouts & Corporate Accountability

So, the US taxpayer (that's you & me, folks) has sent billions into Wall Street with very few strings attached (you did know that you were sending this money, right?) The result? Up until this week, banks sat on the money. Now, automakers are asking for the same fringe benefit & Congress is trying to slice a piece out of that $700 billion pie to give to them. Despite the fact that, in Sept, Congress passed a bill giving them $25 billion in loans. In the meantime, check out these staggering statistics:

• A quarter-trillion-dollar budget deficit for a single month
• Projections of up to $1 trillion for a year in the deficit
• A half-million new applications for unemployment benefits
• Unemployment jumped to a 14-year high of 6.5 percent in October
• Tax revenues were down 7.5 percent in October from a year ago
• Foreclosure rates for October increases 25%
  

The deficit with China bucked the trend and rose to an all-time high as U.S. retailers kept stocking their shelves with Chinese-made televisions, toys and games. Just what we need; more cheap products created in sweatshops with no environmental standards and shipped here to poison our people. But I digress.

So, what does the taxpayer get for her money? Stock in the largest banks, to take ownership shares in hundreds or thousands of banks by New Years. We've also got mortgage-backed securities from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. 1

Now, I'm not a financial wiz or anything, but if I was financially rescuing someone, I'd like a little more for my money.

• Fire all the CEO's at the financial companies getting bailout money & replace them with salaried govt workers with industry expertise.
• Eliminate golden parachutes or set a cap
• Return to the regulations in place in the 30's
• Make the Federal Reserve a govt entity
• Replace members of the SEC & give 'em more muscle
  
• Close securities & derivatives loopholes
• Install a govt trade fee (the rest of the world has this) with the revenue going to the deficit
• Require "credit card" interest rates (28%) on the payback

Now, about those automakers, who fought Clinton tooth & nail in the 90's to avoid doing anything. 2 If you wanna play ball, here's what we get in return:

• Make sure it's a loan, not a bailout (we did it for Chrysler back in the '80s) 3
  
• Mandates for hybrid/duel-fuel plugin cars by a certain time (say 2-3 years)
• Money for research on retrofit technology for existing cars and trucks
• Increase CAFE standards to 45mpg by 2010, 60mpg by 2014; 80mpg by 2020
  
• Ban oil/gas/auto lobbyists from Congress (oh, heck, go ahead & ban all lobbyists!)
• Find out why they haven't filed Chapter 11? 4
  
• Oversee executive compensation & ban any retroactive payments
  
• Award innovation at the consumer level by offering govt rebates for hybrid cars
  

Ok, I'm a little over the top on some of the above suggestions, but it doesn't seem right to me that we give 'em money for nothing. That tax bill is gonna hit soon and none of us will be laughing on the way to the bank.

Sources
1. http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081113/budget_deficit.html
2. Who Killed the Electric Car, PBS, http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/223/#here
3. http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/PA00Aes.html
4. http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm2134.cfm