As of last Tuesday Barack Hussein Obama is no longer the President Elect.  He sits now the acting President of The United States and as his first call to action our President has decided to close GITMO.   Close GITMO?  As we the citizens of the great United States stare down the barrel of our economic future with our wallets open and the hopes and prayers that the loans our Government is demanding we tax payers make don’t leave our Country laying dead in a dark alley hemorrhaging from a massive head wound, our great President is freeing suspected terrorists.  While the Chinese Government stands over our bleeding corpse and its wealthy elite rifle through our pockets looking for any land, financial institutions and big business they may have missed when picking through what remains of our once great country we can all rest easy knowing everyone but the common man is getting bailed out and helping themselves to our wallets. 

From the Financial Institutions to Mortgage Companies to The Big Three Automakers to the largest Retail Chains, the companies and institutions we the people have relied on to provide jobs, dreams, stability and economic growth have failed us in their most basic of functions while getting rich on the average citizens inability to understand the interest rates we were agreeing to.  Greed was good in the 1980’s, but so was the United States’ ability to compete in a global market space.  The greed of the Unions, the greed of CEO’s and the greed of our health care system has driven up the cost of production which in turn lead to cutting corners in production, cutting corners in technology and turning a blind eye to it all.  This vicious cycle eventually lead to ‘Enrons’ and the like cooking their books to support lifetime benefits, inflated stock evaluations and the rising cost of their homes in the Hampton’s and the always expensive private jet fuel. 

And, as we, the great United States of America continued to create laws and legislation which provided the backdrop required to allow CEO’s to further line their own pockets and drive up the cost of living at a rate which was drastically faster than the increases in workers salaries the average worker is driven into a state of economic induced coma.  The rich have been raping the poor in our country and forcing their rules and their products down our throats at their determined price compounded by outrageous interest rates with no real concern for the long term impact this would have on the strength of our dollar and the psyche of the American public.

Red tape covers the United States and binds our hands behind our backs, strangling our ability to effect any true change.  By the time a US dollar reaches its intended recipient that dollar has been touched by so many hands, institutions and interest rates that it has declined to equal the value of a dime. And yet, here we are the general public sitting in a position where those who have used us and taken advantage of our trust are now telling us we are going to use our tax dollars to bail them out of their own graves.  The graves they themselves dug.  We are being asked to fund their corporate retreats, ensure they miss no payments on their G5 jets and ensure their children get Ivy League educations.  We are being asked in a way that we know the answer was already given and the question was merely a formality.

President Barack Obama has proposed a stimulus package which outlines a tax payer loan in excess of $825 billion dollars.  This comes just on the heels of a corporate bailout for mortgage, financial and auto institutions.  How thin can we spread our own money and what financial institution is foolish enough to back it?  The U.S. economy has become the dork at the school dance who stands in the back wishing it was as cool as the Peso.  While the Russian Ruble is getting a “swirly” in the bathroom stall of the mens’ room, the American dollar is doing its best to act cool in an outfit that is ten years old and two sizes too small.  The American dollar is that guy at the dance with black slacks, white socks and a bow tie.

The wealthy have their hands out and we, the ‘every day joes’ are reaching into our empty pockets once again to bail them out.  Mortgage companies made predatory, inflated, fluctuating loans to people who could never repay the debt and to people who in many cases could not understand the terms of the contracts they were signing.  Foreclosures have spiralled out of control as people removed equity from their homes to live lives they could never truly afford and mortgage companies raked in profits from loans that should never have been made.  Money was flowing like beer at a fraternity kegger and the only ones getting hurt were those of us too stupid to realize we were to proverbial drunk girl just waiting to be taken advantage of.  But, that all changed when the mortgage companies realized their loans had created an overflow of abandoned homes and defaulted loans with no buyers in site.

The Big Three auto makers have been creating inferior automobiles for the last two decades at a cost of per unit production three times higher than Toyota (Lexus), Honda (Acura) and Nissan (Infiniti).  Couple that with inferior products which are integrated technology that is on average five years behind that of their foreign competitors and you have a recipe for disaster.  But if you are a GM, Ford or Chevy Executive why worry?  The heartland of the American public would never turn on you, right?  The American public has, up to this point, been too stupid to realize they could buy a far superior machine at a moderate price point with unparalleled service, outstanding longevity, European elegance and up to date technology.  Why worry?  Well, the state of their own ineptitude and ’never change’ attitude has finally caught up with the Big Three Auto Makers and they now stand in front of Congress with their hands out.  What makes them worthy?

Financial institutions are no exception to the fate of the Auto Makers and Mortgage companies.  They too stand with their backs to their failures, their backs to their greed and their feet covering up the graves of those Average Citizens they so eagerly took advantage of, their hands out trying not to stare Congress in the eye and asking for a bailout.  I have yet to read an article outlining how the CEO’s of these desitute companies are diverting their own salaries into the health of their own companies.  I have yet to read an article about the Unions which demanded higher wages and lifetime benefits are now slashing their own dues and salary caps to ensure the health of the companies they rely on to stay employed. 

Greed is still alive and it is breathing better than ever.  There are trillions of dollars on the line for those who know how to act destitute enough to get it and have the power to demand a Congressional stage.  This is money we the taxpayers are being forced to shell out.  But, where do we go?  Who does the American taxpayer turn to?  Where is my bailout?  Where is the bailout for the people who have lost their jobs due to a recession brought on by the greed of the companies we trusted? 

Where is the helping had for the family who just lost their home and everything they own because their high school education didn’t provide them the backdrop needed to understand the Variable Interest Rates embedded in their mortgage.  There is no bailout for them.  That family who blindly placed its trust and its future in the hands of a greedy mortgage banker, a greedy title company and a greedy real estate broker is now living in a poorly made car the Big Three Auto makers want to repossess. 

What about unemployment, right?  Don’t be fooled.  Unemployement in most states is a sham.  In California Unemployment benefits max out at just under $500 per week.  After taxes that check is now $325.  How far does that go?  Would $325 per week pay your mortage/rent and your car payment, your utility payment and your car insurance and still put food on the table? I highly doubt it, so you are out on the street suffering from the ills of a recession you had nothing to do with.  And, while major corporations like AIG are getting bailed out of their financial troubles and enjoying massages on corporate retreats all on the taxpayers dime, the taxpayers themselves are left to wonder how long they can survive before the company they rely on to live goes out of business and they themselves are jobless and homeless.  There is no stimulus package for the average citizen. 

The true stimulus package is designed to bail out the very companies who put our country in the crapper and is being handed out by the very same government who pulled the handle and flushed us down the drain.  With $600 checks being proposed as a way to stimulate spending the chatter in the room isn’t from optimism it is from laughter at the thought that $600 would some how quell the uncertainty we all face.  The buzz in the room is from the fact that just behind that $600 check is the school bully wearing an Tax Refund I.O.U. shirt and staring at the fleshy part of our $600 check’s exposed earlobe and licking his lips as he is about to flick that earlobe and laugh as we cry out in pain.  The stimulus package promises the creation of jobs, but those jobs will come much too late for most of us.  Those jobs are the life preservers thrown in long after our heads have gone under water.  The American public is drowning while the lifeguards are chatting up hot chicks and laughing in our frightened faces. 

President Obama has positioned himself as the voice of hope and change.  Our President has begun to draw a line in the sands of accountability and fiscal responsibility however he is only handing out money to those who already have it and to those who have the ability to stand in front of Congress and demand a financial rescue.  You, your family, me and my family and every other citizen who winds up a casualty of this financial war has no one to turn to.  We have no bailout.  We have no financial lifeline to call on.  We only have the feeling of hope President Obama was elected on.  But, hope doesn’t put food on the table or heat your home during the winter. 

Analysts are now looking at America’s past and how this great country we call home clawed its way out of the Great Depression as a benchmark for the growth of the future.  However the Houdini act we pulled off in the past was driven by war and supported by manufacturing processes now handled by automated lines and unmanned machines.  Men no longer pop rivet sheet metal by hand.  The days of American Muscle and American Ingenuity now sit on the same museum shelf as VHS tapes.  The American Drive, Spirit and Backbone has been weighed down by Whopper lined, bloated bellies and sprinkled with a sense of entitlement, a litigious attitude, a lack of education and an ‘it’s all about me’ sense of being. 

American company’s move their operations outside of our country because foreign governments provide incentives to open up shop in the forms of tax breaks per employee hired, subsidized building and a more educated work force due to the fact that college educations are free in most European countries.  I see the drive and determination in Obama’s eyes and in the way he carries himself.  I see his confidence piercing the night sky, but I do not see how the average schmoe is going to keep his home or keep his job.  I do not see online applications for citizens to get their piece of the stimulus pie.  America is the Titanic.  We have hit the iceberg and the wealthy elite are filling the lifeboats while the laborers and wait staff are left to tread water in the icy Atlantic Ocean as the Captain of our ship assures us help is on the way.  The real tragedy lies in the fact that they help will come far to late and only end up helping those who already have the ability to help themselves. 

At some point in the near future we may all realize it wasn’t our own banks backing our dollar as we made these loans to ourselves, but a foreign governemnt we should have been keeping our eye on.  And, my advice to us all is learn Chinese because our debtors will soon come to call and when they do they won’t be speaking English and sporting a waistline larger than 33.5 inches is grounds for ‘re-education’.

YOU HEARD ME!!

www.rdadslife.com