top of page
Search

Bailout For Me Condemnation For Thee

Updated: Jul 14, 2022


“Well, heaven forgive him! and

forgive us all!

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall:

Some run from brakes of ice, and answer none:

And some condemned for a fault alone.”

― William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure


"President" Joe Biden is purportedly going to address a promise he made during his 2020 presidential campaign. The promise was that his administration would consider cancelling a portion of the student loan debt that saddles millions of Americans. Of course, as is the want of politicians they do not plan on fulfilling any of their promises. Joe Biden stated recently that not everyone with student loan debt will have their loans or a portion of their loans forgiven. People of higher income levels will not be eligible for forgiveness.


The government and the banks are tacitly abusing the American Dream. A dream that is tough to make reality but one whose power entices many from all over the planet to travel, by any means, to its shores and similarly coerces many of its students into hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. Most companies operate in debt, the United States operates in trillions of dollars worth of debt. The people also have to operate in massive amounts of debt as well, whether that be a car loan or mortgage, credit cards, or student loans or a combination of them all. Sadly, in our generation mortgages are a debt we will most often not incur (thank you Black Rock and Vanguard for destroying that dream and feminism for destroying the family).


I will painfully repay my own student loans for an English degree (which I do not regret as a writer I believe that I use my degree every time I write a poem, short story, essay, or novel) but for those who believe that they can condemn people who may be clamoring for the tax payers to help relieve student loans should have that same righteous indignation for the banks and big business. The big banks and big business have been bailed out constantly with tax payer money over the last 14 years.


The "free market" needed tax payer dollars to help relieve the ineptness and incompetence of the bankers and CEOs. In fact, a lot of them were rewarded for their utter failure, for collapsing the economy and keeping it as fragile as a Social Justice Warrior's ego. None of the problems that caused the 2008 financial collapse were solved. The abhorrent and corrupt policies of government, big business, and their financiers were only adjourned, postponed, and exacerbated. Purposely destructive policies that would undoubtedly subvert the people's trust, needs, and wants.


For perspective, in 2008 George W. Bush signed the bipartisan Economic Stimulus Act (ESA) to stave off the effects of the real estate market crash. This crash effected all industries and the federal government with tax payer dollars, provided loans, mostly to businesses deemed "too big to fail."


According to a 2010 article from CNN Money the total cost of the 2008 Economic Stimulus Act which included stimulus programs from President Barack Obama was 2.8 Trillion dollars. A report written by Deborah J. Lucas, MIT Sloan distinguished professor of finance and director of the MIT Golub Center for Finance and Policy writes that the cost of the ESA was only 500 billion dollars which included what was returned to the Federal government in the form of revenue from dividends, loan interest, warrants, and other proceeds. What her report does not include are the subsequent bailouts initiated by the Obama administration for the auto industry which accounted for nearly 900 billion dollars. Lucas also does not account for, because she most likely cannot account for, the unlimited money printing power of the Federal Reserve to fund large mortgage brokerage firms.


500 billion plus 900 billion = 1.4 trillion dollars in tax payer money for big business and their financiers.


Those were from bailouts over a decade ago. Recently, there was 4 trillion dollars created out of thin air then spent to help relieve the ails forced upon the country by government intervention. The COVID19 plandemic the excuse for what could only be described as authoritarianism. The 4 trillion dollars printed within the past two years is more than the United States spent in Afghanistan over two decades.


According to an article from the rag known as the Washington Post, "More than half, or $2.3 trillion went to businesses which in many cases were not required to show that they were impacted by the pandemic or keep workers employed." That provision was outlined in the 2 trillion dollar stimulus that President Donald Trump signed at the end of March 2020.


In April 2020, the unemployment rate plummeted despite the TRILLIONS given to businesses to keep workers employed. According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), "In April 2020, the unemployment rate reached 14.8%—the highest rate observed since data collection began in 1948." The CRS also denotes that, "the labor force participation rate declined to 60.2% in April 2020—a level not seen since the early 1970s."


According the Fortune magazine's David Meyer, "The world's richest 10 men have collectively seen their wealth more than double from $700 billion to $1.5 trillion during the pandemic, according to the latest inequality report from Oxfam, which notes that 'if the top 10 billionaires sat on top of their combined wealth piled up in U.S. dollar bills, they would reach almost halfway to the moon.'"


That same reality is also echoed in Time Magazine by Alana Abramson. She writes, "While few dispute that an ambitious federal bailout package was necessary to help the country confront dueling economic and public health crises, it’s clear now that Congress’s massive outlay of cash has been often inefficient, helping to exacerbate the already-yawning wealth gap in the United States while leaving the neediest in the lurch during the worst unemployment crisis since the Great Depression. This package, devised and promoted as a mechanism to alleviate inequitable suffering during the pandemic, may end up playing a role in exacerbating it in the immediate future." The current rates of inflation validate that point.


Here are a few other ways the $2 trillion stimulus package funds were spent:

  • $651 Billion dollars in tax breaks for many companies who often laid off workers

  • $454 Billion dollars to the Federal Reserve to stabilize markets

  • Only %16 of the 4 trillion dollars was used to fight the health crisis directly.

None of these figures outline the billions and billions of tax payer funds spent to fund vaccine research and development given to vaccine manufacturers create and disseminate the poison.


Trillions of our tax dollars were used to bolster big business and their financiers. Trillions of tax dollars that greatly benefitted a very small minority of people.


I admit that the cost of higher education, if you have to take out loans and do not choose a major that is viable in the current economy, is something that most people probably should refuse to undertake and those funds would be better served investing in a small business or trade school. But we signed those Master Promissory Notes and knew (hopefully knew) the debt we would incur.


The current amount student loan debt in the United States according to Forbes is $1.75 trillion in Federal and Private Loans combined. Of those loans 92% are Federal or about $1.6 trillion.


That is a fraction of the amount of tax payer dollars that went to bailout mainly big business and banks and of the $8 trillion used to fight the War on Terror. Relieving the tens of millions of tax payers of student loan debt would undoubtedly stimulate the economy. Those people relieved of that loan burden would have more purchasing power not only to purchase consumer goods and feed the hyper materialism that consumes most in this nation but also to invest in the stock market or save.


The American people have had our tax dollars wasted on whole sale corruption that has only benefitted the millionaires and billionaires. But relieving student loan debt is more controversial because of what? Because we knew what we were getting into? Big business and the banks are purposely manipulating markets for profits and the people have to bail them out every time they fuck up on purpose! All of these bailout bills are bipartisan because both Republicans and Democrats benefit. The people these scumbags represent do not benefit at all. We are just handed the debt.


I will pay back my loans but if they are forgiven (which they won't be) I will not apologize. Maybe the billionaires and the banks should have to pay them or the universities who constantly raised tuition and other costs while the country flailed and continues to flail into oblivion. It's time the people, whose virtue to help their fellow Americans supports these bailout bills, start to benefit us and not the sinful, devious, degenerate, and corrupt fucks who are allowed to use disaster and our hardships to bolster their coffers.


"Capital" from my first book of poetry Someone Sinister.


“Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain - and most fools do.”

― Benjamin Franklin


Articles Used



34 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

コメント

bottom of page