Vote the Bums Out!

I’m sharing my thoughts about the bums and why I want to vote them out. I’ve been fortunate, where I live; the officials aren’t bums, for the most part. Now for my opinion of how to identify a bum who should be voted out.

Some city, township, county and state elected officials sold bonds to the biggest banks, and those mega-banks insisted that the bond sellers purchase complex structured derivative products right along side the bond sales. (Those things are ‘heads I win tails you lose’ deals, by the way.) Then the local governments found themselves owing an immense debt to the con artists who sold them the derivative products. So far, so good. Everybody makes mistakes. Now here’s the distinction: If the local officials refuse to pay and then pursue fraud charges against the con artists who cheated them, that’s OK. If the local officials start laying off the police, firemen, road and parks maintenance crews, start firing teachers and closing schools, and raising taxes so they’ll have the money to pay the shysters, that is a big problem. That is when it’s time to vote the bums out.

On the state and national level, it’s a little harder to see if the representative or senator is a bum. If the elected official approved the TARP, might just be a bum. The TARP was a bailout for the Banksters. The Big Banks were under attack by regional banks, local banks, investment funds, mutual funds, hedge funds, mid-list millionaires and low-end billionaires (such as Donald Trump) because the Banksters were really raping the wealth out of this country with their financial shenanigans. Many rich people were going after the Banksters through the courts for blatant fraud. The wheels of justice went in the ditch, so the elites of the investor class were in the process of wiping the Banksters off the map, through various means, but most notably, by shorting their stock into the dirt. Then TARP was passed by Congress and Congress gave the Banksters the money they needed to survive just long enough to ward off the assault by America’s investors. An assault that included participation by mutual funds, acting on behalf of all us little people, we who have money in pension funds, things like that.

But Congress gave the Banksters what they needed to survive, and now the Banksters are ripping us off big time and hundreds of local and regional banks are going under. So if a Congressman or Senator voted for the TARP, vote the bum out.

Another distinction is, if an official confuses Medicare and Social Security spending with government spending, vote that bum out. Medicare and Social Security are funded separately from taxes collected separately, specifically for that purpose. Those funds don’t belong on the same pie chart with the rest of the government spending; it’s a separate entity, serving a separate purpose. Money taken out of my check says “Medicare Tax” and “FICA.” That money can not be taken to pay up on bad bets made with Banksters, or fund bribes in Pakistan, or build a space laser shield around Russia, or whatever. It’s for the health care and the retirement of ordinary citizens.

Until Congress decides to take out the Banksters, this country will not prosper. The Banksters will turn this country into just another pile-of-dirt impoverished craphole where people lay on the ground starving to death, right next to a warehouse full of grain. To prevent that, the best thing I can do is vote the bums out.