A group of about five people met on the corner of Chapala and Carrillo streets—near Ralphs supermarket—on Wednesday afternoon, October 3, to protest the planned $700 billion bailout of failing Wall Street financial institutions, two days after one such proposal was defeated in the House of Representatives. Holding signs decrying plans to bail out the corporations, and blaming President George W. Bush for the mess, protestors received honks and supportive waves, as well as derisive shouts, such as, "Go to work!" and "It wasn't Bush, it was Congress, you idiots!"
“This is feudalism,” said Marge Schwartz. “It's welfare for the corporate people who caused the problems.” She added, “They call this a free market, but they won't let you compete with fossil fuel by growing hemp."
Lauren McElroy, who organized the protest with Marcelino Sepulveda through an online list server, said that they objected to the bailout's lack of oversight and the many "golden parachute" corporate executive severance packages she said would still be protected at taxpayer expense. "I think the American public has gotten very little detail about the legislation, and we're being scared into haste, much like Iraq," she said. "This is a really important deal and we need to take some time to do it correctly."
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“It's welfare for the corporate people who caused the problems.”
Wrong.
The U.S. Voters elected Bush and the republican Congress.
The U.S. voters allowed Bush to appoint a de-regulatory S.E.C.
The U.S. voters allowed Bush to waste $$ on an unnecessary war and run up record fiscal deficeits.
Don't blame corporate businesses for the U.S. voters mistake, corporate businesses would have been much better off without Bush.
Georgy (anonymous profile)
October 2, 2008 at 6:44 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Dems. and Repubs. teamed up in an unholy alliance to spend $700 billion of our dollars, to borrow money and buy bad debt that the corporations that caused it now won't touch. More than 95% of the callers to the House and Senate opposed the bailout bills, overwhelming switchboards and crashing their websites, yet the politicians in both houses voted for the bailout. These include Capps, Boxer, Feinstein, McCain, Obama and Biden. Where is the "loyal opposition"? Bless these brave protestors! The mere fact that this is a Bush proposal should have sent this expensive yet likely ineffective scam down to defeat, but now we and our children are stuck with it.
green_helmet (anonymous profile)
October 3, 2008 at 7:22 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Thank god Capps, Boxer, Feinstein, McCain, Obama and Biden were smart enough to vote for this purchasing of foreclosed assets. Without it, it is likely we would have seen housing prices tumble and peoples retirements get cut in half. Fixed income people would be left either homeless or hurting pretty bad.
Deregulating the financial markets is the root cause of this crisis. Fed Chair Alan Greenspan and SEC chair Chris Cox made the rule changes that allowed corporations to give bad loans and leverage their investments.
Just because 95% of people think the world is flat doesn't make it so. It's ashame that American voters were dumb enough to elect Cheney who appointed Cox to the SEC, but people who don't care or don't vote are ultimately responsible as painful as it is.
Georgy (anonymous profile)
October 4, 2008 at 11:27 a.m. (Suggest removal)
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