Exporting not democracy but financial chaos

Ironically, as this administration and the GOP candidates espouse the imperialist policy of exporting democracy around the world, they have been killing it here and at the same time destabilizing economies of our allies.

In today's Seattle Times, syndicated columnist David Sirota(Capitalism trumps democracy, The Seattle Times, Monday, October 6, 2008) says,

As a financial crisis became a political panic, capitalism murdered democracy (ironically, while pursuing a vaguely socialist bailout.)
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The fiasco started, like most, with unreasonable demands. Under threat of financial meltdown, capitalism's corporate lobbyists asked our democracy to forsake its usual deliberations and hand over $700 billion of taxpayer money in less than a week.
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CNN's Ali Velshi frothed that "the banks and the companies don't care about the intricacies" of democratic deliberations. A CEO angrily told CNN that "the money is being held hostage to the political process" as if government resources are rightfully Wall Street's>
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Instead of responding to this meltdown by updating regulatory institutions or investing in job-creating infrastructure, the bailout gives one unelected appointee -- The Treasury secretary -- complete authority to dole out $700 billion to bank executives, with little oversight. And here's the scary part: That lurch towards dictatorship was motivated not just by crony corruption, but also by a deeper ideological shift.

On another note, this today on Lehman Brothers -

The rescue plan, now law, was so rushed that the usual congressional scrutiny is only coming now, after the fact.

"Although it comes too late to help Lehman Brothers, the so-called bailout program will have to make wrenching choices, picking winners and losers from a shattered and fragile economic landscape," said Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, the committee's senior Republican.

Waxman said that in January, Fuld and his board were warned the company's "liquidity can disappear quite fast."

Despite that warning, he said, "Mr. Fuld depleted Lehman's capital reserves by over $10 billion through year-end bonuses, stock buybacks, and dividend payments."

Waxman quoted Fuld as saying in one document, "Don't worry" to the suggestion that executives go without bonuses.

That suggestion came from Lehman's money management subsidiary, Neuberger Berman. Waxman quoted George H. Walker, President Bush's cousin and a Lehman executive who oversaw some Neuberger Berman employees, as responding with a dismissive tone to the idea of going without bonuses.

Figures that a Bush cousin, an executive at Lehman's, brushed aside the idea of executives going without their bonuses. As one legislator said to Fuld (CEO, Lehman) "How do you sleep at night?" My thought, very well in one of his mansions, drinking his rare wine from his wine cellar, tucked in by one of his servants, basking in the glow of the almost $400 million in bonuses he collected from the company since 2000 for the mere pleasure of his presence in the corner office. Copy and paste link below for the full AP story.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081006/ap_on_go_co/meltdown_lehman

'Nuff