The Bushites’ trillion-dollar giveaway started out as a bailout for banks with big holdings of investment schemes based on home mortgages. Then lobbyists got “any other financial instrument” included. Then foreign-based banks, including Swiss-based UBS (whose chief lobbyist, former Senator Phil Gramm, is longtime economic advisor to John McCain), muscled into the party, looking for a handout to cover $20-billion worth of bad paper it bought.
Now Wall Streeters are lining up for more than a billion dollars in fees for “managing” the bailout. Yes, some of the very outfits that caused this mess plan to cash in on the cleanup!
So far the tab is well over $2,333 for every man, woman, and child in our land.
In the next Lowdown, we’ll unravel this along with other Greatest Hits of the Bush Empire.
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