From Thomas Paine’s Corner
By John Kelley

“A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you’re talking about real money.” A quote that was for many years wrongly attributed to the late Senator Everett Dirksen seems applicable here. So far the cost of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Bros. AIG and what Wall Street is asking for equals a trillion dollars. While its not peanuts in anyone’s book the real cost is probably more like 2-3 trillion dollars. That is in addition to the 100s of billions of dollars pumped into the economy by the fed to prevent a credit freeze up before last week.

August 9, 2007 $24 billion, August 10, 2007 $38 billion, November 12, 2007 $42 billion, November 27, 2007 $8 billion, March 12, 2008 $200 billion, August 13, 2008 $70 billion, September 18, 2008 $180 billion, September 24, 2008 $30 billion, pumped into the economy by the fed, all money printed producing more debt for America.

That is in addition to the $700 billion proposal. And that doesn’t count the money that was pumped into the economy through massive tax cuts for the rich and the deficit war spending that took us from a $5 trillion surplus to a $9 trillion dollar national debt.

This all happened for a simple reason. Trickle down economics doesn’t work. That extra money was used for speculation while squeezing equity out of the American worker for even more gambling cash. Bush was willing to do anything to avoid a recession on his watch, even if it meant creating a depression for the next guy. He just ran out of time.

Putting Marble in the Outhouse

For the American economy to work, consumer spending, which makes up 70% of the economic activity, had to continue even though consumer income when adjusted for inflation was falling. Wages and benefits fell almost 30% since 1970 when adjusted for inflation while corporate profits rose to record levels. The only way Americans have kept up is to work longer hours, put more people in the household work and live off credit.

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