Spend the Bailout Money on the Middle Class by Howard Zinn

[Democrats_win]

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081027/zinn?rel=rightsideaccordian
(here are two quotes from the article:


"Let's face a historical truth: we have never had a free market. We have always had government intervention in the economy, and indeed that intervention has been welcomed by the captains of finance and industry. These titans of wealth hypocritically warned against "big government" but only when government threatened to regulate their activities or when it contemplated passing some of the nation's wealth on to the neediest people. They had no quarrel with big government when it served their needs."

"After World War II the aircraft industry had to be saved by infusions of government money. Then came the oil depletion allowances for the oil companies and the huge bailout for the Chrysler Corporation. In the 1980s the government bailed out the savings and loan industry with hundreds of billions of dollars, and the Cato Institute reports that in 2006 needy corporations like Boeing, Xerox, Motorola, Dow Chemical and General Electric received $92 billion in corporate welfare.

"A simple and powerful alternative would be to take that huge sum of money, $700 billion, and give it directly to the people who need it. Let the government declare a moratorium on foreclosures and help homeowners pay off their mortgages. Create a federal jobs program to guarantee work to people who want and need jobs."

[rainy]

1. Replying so I can come back to this. nt

[IndyOp]

2. I heart Howard! (n/t)