Saundra McDavid

What started as the largest bailout in history, $700 billion to banks, in a pork laden emergency bailout bill which was rushed through Congress in October is today an example of yet another waste of taxpayer money. The banks which would never lend their own money to entities which do not have a solid plan, have gleefully taken our taxpayer bailout money and secreted it away in their vast privately held arsenals of corporate owned assets, to dispose of, or hoard, at their desire.

Equally outrageous is the arrogance of these banking establishments which refuse to disclose how the funds are being used. “We’ve lent some of it. We’ve not lent some of it. We’ve not given any accounting of, ‘Here’s how we’re doing it,”‘ said Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, which received $25 billion in emergency bailout money. “We have not disclosed that to the public. We’re declining to.” However at least six of the financial firms that received billions in bailout dollars still own and operate fleets of jets to carry executives to company events and sometimes personal trips. Others have continued with lavish retreats for company executives. All of this while the people from whom those bailout funds were taken struggle to keep their home and their job.

Imagine a banking customer walking in to JPMorgan Chase, asking for a substantial loan and stating that some of it will be used, some of it will not, and otherwise declining to disclose the use of the funds. The loan officer would walk the customer out the door. However it appears as if it is standard operating procedures in the banking industry is to subvert all attempts at accountability. The Associated Press contacted 21 banks which received over $1 billion of federal bailout money, and none of them were able or willing to disclose the use of the funds.

Many people opposed the “Troubled Assets Relief Program” or bailout bill, instead demanding the funds be used for legitimate taxpayer benefits, like low interest mortgages. Congress ignored us. In fact, Congress handed over hard earned taxpayer dollars without any strings attached; relying on the banking industry’s judgment as to how best to use the funds. The average person was alarmed at the fact that it was the banking industry’s judgment that was the catalyst for the economy’s plummet. It did not make any sense that the use of funds of the largest bailout in history was left to these same executives; people more interested in advancing their own corporate wealth and lobbying Congress for less regulation while they merge their businesses into colossal financial behemoths “too big to fail.”

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