Wall Street Good At..What Else?...Building Walls

ABC News is good for something after all.

The good fellow news gatherers of the much maligned MSM, have done themselves proud. They almost sound like responsible, and quite reputable members of the Fourth Estate. Should we applaud them, or boo them? Personally, I believe they are just rubbing our noses in the scummy mess created by Liberals and their MSM handlers.

In the western looking canyon atmosphere of New York City's financial district, aka Wall Street, the monied men in business suits are showing us how to do it, to US that is. ABC News asked 16 of the banking institutions receiving federal TARP money (bail-out money) how they planned to use that money, and whether they were gong to pay executive bonuses this year from those same funds.

Not surprisingly, only one of the 16 banks gave a straight answer to what must have seemed like a loaded question. American Express Group told that it would be paying 100 milion in bonus money to 168 employees. However, they cautioned that the bonus money would come from company revenues, and not from capitally invested federal TARP funds. Here I pause to offer a sigh of relief. They actually answered a question truthfully!

The other 15 recipients of TARP funds ranging from the 150 billion extended to American Express Group ( Exactly what is a GROUP anyway?) to Marshall and Isley on the lower end of federal largesse at 1.715 billion, all said the same thing. They were going to use federal money to extend loans to "credit worthy customers", assist mortgage holders who were having poblems repaying loans, BUT they would not use federal money to pay executive bonuses, rather, they would be paying the bonuses with company revenue money.

Let's see, two revenue streams, one federal, one company, each with a seperate purpose in mind. Nothing like clean books I always say. Still, something stinks in Denmark.

Anytime you read or hear the word "federal" used to describe a sum of money, large or small, think of it as YOUR money being spoken of. Money that you didn't specifically agree to be used in the manner the feds want to use it. Here's another way to look at this:

We, you, all of us here at TS, and others across America, are the benefactors, and not the beneficiaries, of this kind of federal thinking. For example, should these banking institutions NOT have received YOUR money where then, would the money have come from to pay these executive bonuses? From company revenues? But I thought we were told these companies were too big to fail, and that WE had to bail them out. Without money, how could they have justified paying exhorbitant bonuses to these top execs? Face it, this was all going to be done in spite of your objections, or mine. not that it was a fait accompli, simply that these institutions were TOO BIG to fail.

Weren't we the magnanimous ones? We came through right when our country needed us most, didn't we?

Congress, taking it's cue from Wall Street, afforded themselves a pay raise this week. I suppose this was because they too, were too big to fail, and here we came with buckets of additional money to their rescue. Now,don't you go looking for proclamations of acclaim for your actions taken in behalf of all those too big to fail, there won't be any, any time soon.

We the "suckers" got suckered by people just like us. People whom we pass on the street each day, people we keep re-electing to public ofice, and we keep coming back for more of the same.So, during this Christmas season, this holiday period, I will be going to Walter Reed Army Hospital with my grand children to commiserate, and honor the true brave souls who too, were suckered by those many who sent them to their places of personal enlightenment in a faraway land, and then were critical of them, and of their mission. As a matter of fact, we'll be doing this on January 20th, 2009, when not too far away others will be assembed to hear from the ONE, and the ONLY.

Wall Street builds additional walls, behind which decisions are made as to how best to use the funds we so graciously provided them with. These are walls that must be breached. We are Joshua, and those walls are no impediment to our energies, and to our will. Those walls will tumble down!

Merry Christmas everyone! May your days be bright and fulfilled of promise. Please say prayers for our fighting soldiers, especially those with bleak futures ahead of them. We will carry your thoughts with us.