Protesters Lash Out At Bailout Plan

(CBS/AP)  As Democratic and Republican leaders hashed out a compromise to the Bush administration's proposed $700 billion bailout of struggling banks, Americans took to the streets.

In Denver, several dozen protesters gathered Friday on the steps of the state Capitol to oppose the proposed federal bailout of the financial industry.

The protesters shouted "Jail them, not bail them," and "Main Street, not Wall Street."

Protesters included members of the Colorado Green Party, union workers and the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center.

Center spokeswoman Carolyn Bninski told the small but vocal crowd that greedy bankers and investors were responsible for the current crisis. She said taxpayers shouldn't bail them out.

Also yesterday in Washington, demonstrators with signs picketed outside the U.S. Treasury Department.

Rainbow PUSH coalition founder Jesse Jackson, who headlined the Washington demonstration against the financial bailout, urged a hold on further foreclosures and allowances for people to restructure their mortgage deals.

And in New York, a demonstration sponsored by the group Bail Out People Before Bankers was held in Times Square on Saturday.

This followed Thursday's massive demonstration where thousands descended on Wall Street to oppose the administration's proposal to spend up to $700 billion of taxpayers' money to relieve banks of their bad debt.

Other demonstrations of opposition to the plan - some spontaneous, others quickly organized over the Internet - have been sighted in Akron, Ohio; San Francisco; Austin, Tex.; Chicago; Green Bay, Wis.; Portland, Ore.; Newark, N.J.; Ventura, Calif.; and Greenville, S.C.

[OligarchyNot]

How did so many of our elected officials become so wealthy? By gaming the system the way they have since Reagan introduced %u201CReaganomics%u201D and its push to deregulate and privatize the functions of our government. This accelerated when the republicans took over Congress in 1996, but then took off like a rocket when Bush took office. So, now we have a bunch of wealthy politicians who can%u2019t connect with the realities of Main Street. They have demonstrated that they can%u2019t be trusted to use our tax dollars wisely, and have mainly funneled those tax dollars to areas of government that they will indirectly benefit from personally. While the heads of companies grant themselves outrageous salaries, it is at the expense of the rest of us not being paid enough to keep up with the cost of inflation. And now, after leaving the People in such a vulnerable position, they are asking us to foot the bill for their avarice, and they have the gall to ask to be handed this huge amount of money with no oversight or transparency. They were so efficient with dismantling our government and wasting our tax dollars that we really can%u2019t afford to bail them out. It%u2019s mainly the wealthy who are going to suffer for this, since the rest of us can%u2019t lose what we don%u2019t have. It%u2019s time for the greedy to feel the pain of what they%u2019ve done and they should feel lucky if we don%u2019t prosecute them as the criminals they really are!

[tibu987]

A ploy to put off the public, that is all that it is.

This bailout will go through because the Congress and the Senate must protect their investments and those of their equally greedy Wall Street friends.

The little guy always pays.
And so it goes.

[tibu987]

Watching a TV newscaster, Charles Gibson, today ask a Wall Street Financial consultant this; "what caused this situation to happen."

It was never answered. The reply given by this person was that money is going to be much tighter and people will have a harder time getting credit to buy goods, houses, cars, etc. but never mentioned what caused this to happen and Gibson did not question that answer.

I counter that this was all caused by avarice, usury, mismanagement, and incompetence, on Wall Street and includes Congress.

Now, it will, of course, affect the average American who had done nothing to cause this deficit. That they bought houses and then got stung by higher interest, was not the buyers fault but the fault of those who tried to milk even more money from the little guy.

Don''t believe the b-llsh-t coming from Wall Street or Washington, this was ALL their fault, no one elses.

I oppose bailing out any of the institutions involved, including AIG the banks.
After years of taking advantage of the little guy, I do NOT want to see them rewarded for their avarice, usury, mismanagemnt, and incompetence, and that includes Congress.

[indianaman13]

Of course economists are going to tell americans that the bailout is needed. How much do you think they have invested in stock? The average american isn''t going to be hurt too bad, except those who own stock, but most of them don''t have millions invested. This will help out America because it will cause house prices to come down to a more realistic value. It should also help to restructure and regulate the credit process. The depression in 1929 was caused by buying stock on credit in a UNREGULATED systematic failure of the system. Why are we in this place today? The systematic failure of an UNREGULATED credit system involving houses. Prices are so inflated, yet the working person salary hasn''t really increased since the middle 80''s. Something had to give. My how history repeats itself. Rome(America) is falling from power (again) because of greedy businessmen in bed with greedy senators. If you put someone greedy in a gold vault and tell him no one is watching, and no one will check his pockets when he leaves, what do you think is going to happen. So we have Wall Street people (who don''t do anything with out money involved) in our vault (Stock market, banks, investment banks, brokerages) and we take away all regulations, my my, what did we expect would happen.

[indianaman13]

Of course economists are going to tell americans that the bailout is needed. How much do you think they have invested in stock? The average american isn''t really going to be hurt too bad, except those who own stock, but most of them don''t have millions invested. This will help out America because it will cause house prices to come down to a more realistic value. It should also help to restructure and regulate the credit process. The depression in 1929 was caused by buying stock on credit in a UNREGULATED systematic failure of the system. Why are we in this place today? The systematic failure of an UNREGULATED credit system involving houses. Prices are so inflated, yet the working person salary hasn''t really increased since the middle 80''s. Something had to give. My how history repeats itself. Rome(America) is falling from power (again) because of greedy businessmen in bed with greedy senators. If you put someone greedy in a gold vault and tell him no one is watching, and no one will check his pockets when he leaves, what do you think is going to happen. So we have Wall Street people (who don''t do anything with out money involved) in our vault (Stock market, banks, investment banks, brokerages) and we take away all regulations, my my, what did we expect would happen.

[rickwar]

Washington is Broken.


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Posted by tpraskac at 03:31 PM : Sep 29, 2008

Far from being broken, Washington for once did what it should do. Listen to the people. Nearly 70% of citizens in virtually every poll did not want this bailout.

Why? Simply because everyone could see what it was, a golden goose laying a golden egg in front of the folks who caused it.

And all you hear from some folks is fear and panic. Hang on take a breath, we''ve been through worse and perhaps some reality will come back to the country.

The other thing? Stop buying into the panic the press causes. Wall Street worst day in history. Sorry, not so. Worse day in point drop, not horrible in %. I''ve been buying on the down side all day.

[rsmphd]

Nancy''s Husband lost millions!!! Paulson has lost hundreds of millions!!!!! Both are politicians they
need to be rewarded!!! I wonder how many others in
Congress that voted for the bailout lost money and
have conflict of Interest faults?

They should be rewarded by handcuffs and prison bars!!!

Cheers, rfm

[jerdoina]

I think that if Mr. Paulson had done a better job the House would have passed the bill. How can he justify bailing out those "bums" on Wall St. for the mess they created and not help out the poor "slob" who is his home because the CEO''s of these firms were worried about lining their pockets rather than doing the job they were hired to do. The House should initiate it''s own bail out protecting us, the taxpayers...

[tpraskac]

Washington is Broken.

[tpraskac]

Harvard experts are happy it failed. They said it makes no sense for this to pass. We would be worse off as a country if it passed.