WHERE Were the tough questions?

Photo Credit: Chip Smodevilla/Getty

By l.t. Dravis

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Monday, January 12, 2009 – George W. Bush held his final news conference today, played fast and loose with the truth as he defended his eight year record, and no one in the room had guts enough to challenge him.

George W. Bush opened the door wide several times for tough questions, but reporters didn’t dare rush in.

Why, I’ll never know . . . it’s not like any of these reporters had to worry about being barred from the next Bush Press Conference for having committed the mortal sin of asking a tough question.

Bush was aggressive, arrogant, and even joked about the incredible mess he’s left this country in.

And the White House Press Corps laughed with him.

Not one professional journalist had the courage to challenge Bush when he commented on his presidency’s record by saying, “I think it’s a good, strong record. You know, presidents can try to avoid hard decisions and therefore controversy. That’s just not my nature.”

With America mired in two wars, with our military nearing the breaking point, with our infrastructure falling down, with unprecedented deficit spending adding up to a $10+ trillion national debt, with unprecedented mismanagement of American resources in Iraq, with our economy in shambles, with millions of Americans facing foreclosure, with millions more out of work, with our banking system on the edge of failure, and with our manufacturing base nearly destroyed, why wouldn’t at least one journalist challenge that statement?

Who in the room, who in the nation, who in the world sincerely believes George W. Bush’s record, is ‘good and strong’?

When asked about America’s image around the world, Bush said, “I disagree with this assessment that, you know, that people view America in a dim light. It may be damaged amongst some of the elite. But people still understand America stands for freedom.”

Of course, eight years of George W. Bush’s arrogant, detached, incompetence has damaged America’s image around the world.

Did the reporters at Bush’s final press conference truly believe that our image around the world has been strengthened by his mismanagement of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? Did those reporters believe our image has been helped by Bush’s lack of leadership in coping with the ongoing nuclear threat in Iran? Did any of those reporters seriously believe that the Bush administration strengthened America’s image by ‘rendering’ and ‘torturing’ suspected terrorists in secret prisons in foreign countries and at ‘Gitmo’?

Yet not one reporter challenged him.

George W. Bush then defended his record in the Middle East by justifying his failure. “It’s been a long time since they’ve had peace in the Middle East,” Bush said. “The challenge, of course, has been to lay out the conditions so that a peaceful state can emerge. Will this ever happen? I think it will. And I know we’ve advanced the process.”

No reporter pointed out the fallacy of his argument or asked Bush to explain how his administration had ‘advanced the process’.

Bush then said he’d “thought long and hard about Katrina. You know could I have done something differently, like land Air Force One either in New Orleans or Baton Rouge.”

Bush was revealing that the most important thing on his mind when Katrina hit was where to have a photo op . . . in New Orleans or Baton Rouge . . . yet no one in the room pointed out that he was talking about something completely unrelated to the question of his administration’s abysmal response to a national tragedy.

Bush then said something absurd . . . even for him. He said, “Don’t tell me the federal response was slow when there were 30,000 people pulled off roofs right after the storm passed. Could things have been done better? Absolutely. But when I hear people say the federal response was slow, what are they going to say to those chopper drivers or the 30,000 who got pulled off the roof?”

That Bush could get away with making a statement like that . . . in front of experienced journalists was unbelievable.

It is well documented that George W. Bush failed to take charge; that he failed to make certain that every federal resource was utilized to quickly and effectively save lives and property throughout the Gulf Coast after Katrina. His failure cost lives and seriously delayed the rebuilding effort. George W. Bush and his minions failed to anticipate the scope of the disaster (despite very clear warnings from the national weather service) and they failed to react and they failed to follow-through.

Three and a half years after the fact, damage done by Katrina is still impacting the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans on the Gulf Coast.

Yet not one reporter pointed out that the Coast Guard’s valiant efforts to save 30,000 Katrina victims had absolutely nothing to do with Bush’s leadership or with his administration’s response to the tragedy.

Not one reporter asked George W. Bush to explain or justify why his Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson, threw the first $350 billion of the financial bailout at banks with no accountability.

The outgoing president stood at that podium in front of the White House Press Corps for three-quarters of an hour so it wasn’t like reporters didn’t have time enough to ask the tough questions.

If the media exists only to serve as a conduit for truth between us and them, why didn’t reporters hold George W. Bush accountable for his failures today?

Were those reporters more concerned about playing by the unspoken rules of presidential press conferences, which are designed, first and foremost, to protect the president’s image or were they more concerned about honoring their obligation to report the truth?

After today, we know the answer to that question.

Don’t we?

Copyright © 2008 by LTD Associates West, Ltd. All rights reserved.

If you have questions, comments, or concerns, Email me at ltdassociates@msn.com (goes right to my desk) and since I personally answer every Email, I look forward to hearing from you soon.

CONDI Rice . . . crazy or just stupid?

Photo Credit: Reuters

By l.t. Dravis

SOMEWHERE IN CONDI-WORLD – Sunday, December 28, 2008 – I’m worried that Condoleezza Rice, the least effective Secretary of State in recent memory, has lost her mind or is just plain stupid.

Why am I worried?

Because the Secretary of State was interviewed by Rita Braver on yesterday’s edition of the CBS Sunday Morning show and said, “people will soon start to thank this President for what he’s done.”

What?

Why on earth would the Secretary of State say something like this?

What was she thinking?

Does any sane, reasonably intelligent person seriously believe that, except for leaving Washington on January 20, 2009, George W. Bush has done anything that people will ever thank him for?

The sanity or intellectual capacity of the Secretary of State of the United States of America is too important for even me to play politics, so I’ll simply compare the Secretary’s words to the George W. Bush record.

Rice said, “So we can sit here and talk about the long record, but what I would say to you is that this President has faced tougher circumstances than perhaps at any time since the end of World War II, and he has delivered policies that are going to stand the test of time.”

Secretary Rice failed to tell us, specifically, which George W. Bush policies will ‘stand the test of time’?

Was she saying that the Bush policies which alienated even long-time allies around the world will ‘stand the test of time’?

Was Secretary Rice saying that George W. Bush’s unnecessary, unprovoked invasion of Iraq predicated on a series of orchestrated lies . . . the ‘policy’ that killed thousands of precious Americans, maimed thousands more, caused the deaths of a half million or more Iraqi men, women, and children, and indebted U.S. taxpayers for billions of dollars for decades to come . . . is a policy that will ‘stand the test of time’?

Would the Secretary of State be willing to sit down with the families of dead and injured American troops and tell them that it was okay for their husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, and sons and daughters to be killed or wounded because the Bush Iraq policy will ‘stand the test of time’?

Does Secretary Rice seriously believe that the Bush policies that created a $10 trillion dollar national debt and helped cause the near-collapse of our economic system, a system that was able to survive centuries of hot wars, cold wars, racial strife, political upheaval, depressions and recessions, but very nearly couldn’t (and still may not) survive eight years of Bush/Cheney will ‘stand the test of time’?

The Secretary of State praised George W. Bush for his ability to ‘change the conversation’ in the Middle East.

Rita Braver should have asked, What is Bush’s ‘new conversation’ and has it been worth the cost in lives and treasure?

But Rita didn’t ask.

So, Rice didn’t say.

Secretary Rice did say, “This isn’t a popularity contest. I’m sorry, it isn’t. What the administration is responsible to do is make good choices about American’s interests and values in the long run . . . not for today’s headlines, but for history’s judgment.”

I don’t know about you, but I was shocked to learn that the Secretary of State believes a President, Vice-President, and the Cabinet should invest its time and taxpayer money in making sure the administration looks good for ‘history’s judgment’.

If that wasn’t crazy enough or stupid enough, Rice went on to say, “And I am quite certain that when the final chapters are written and it’s clear that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq is gone in favor of an Iraq that is favorable to the future of the Middle East . . . when the history is written of a U.S.-China relationship that is better than it’s ever been . . . an India relationship that is deeper and better than it’s ever been . . . a relationship with Brazil and other countries of the left (sic) of Latin America, better than it’s ever been.”

How can Rice possibly know that today’s Iraq ‘is favorable to the future of the Middle East’ when Iraq is rife with corruption, is surrounded by hostile neighbors, and is divided by ethic and religious factions historically prone to violence.

The Secretary of State’s prediction seems to dismiss some troubling facts: Iran, a potential nuclear power, lies on Iraq’s eastern border while Syria, certainly not an ally, borders Iraq to the northwest. Rice seems also to have forgotten that Kurds, Shi'ites, and the Sunni are still in Iraq, will stay in Iraq, and are not likely to ever stop killing each other. The Secretary of State is either too crazy or too stupid to think beyond the day when U.S. troops are finally out of Iraq and Moqtada Sadr, his militia, other militias and ethnic, political, and religious factions, Al-Qaeda, and any other terrorist organization decide the time is right to start killing and maiming for oil, cash, and power.

Did Rice consider the possibility that when the history of the U.S.-China relationship in the early 21^st century is written that it may very well contain a chapter on how the Chinese foreclosed on America’s failure to repay the billions borrowed by George W. Bush, throwing us – not him - into bankruptcy?

Do you think Secretary Rice forgot that India always resented George W. Bush’s support and praise for former Pakistani strongman, General Pervez Musharraf, and that resentment has seriously, if not permanently damaged relations between India and the U.S.?

What has George W. Bush done to build a partnership with South America to develop sustainable, renewable, energy? What has George W. Bush done to help our South American neighbors fight climate change? What has George W. Bush done to manage immigration? What has George W. Bush done to promote the expansion of South American economies? What has George W. Bush done to protect the U.S., Mexico, Central America, and South America from drug traffickers and organized criminal activities?

Secretary Rice didn’t say.

Instead, she said, “I’m here to make tough choices, and this President is here to make tough choices, and we have. And, yes, I . . . there are some things that I would do very differently if I had it to do over again. You don’t have that luxury. You have to make the choices and take the positions that you do at the time.”

Wait a second, Madame Secretary!

When you say, “You have to make the choices and take the positions that you do at the time,” you make me wonder, what happened to your concern about ‘history’s judgment’?

Are you talking out of both sides of your mouth or are you crazy or stupid?

Or all three?

Copyright © 2008 by LTD Associates West, Ltd. All rights reserved.

If you have questions, comments, or concerns, Email me at ltdassociates@msn.com (goes right to my desk) and since I personally answer every Email, I look forward to hearing from you soon.

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WE'VE Been had bad . . . again!

By l.t. Dravis

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Sunday, December 21, 2008 – We’ve been had bad . . . again!

The Associated Press reports that two supposedly smart guys, Treasury Secretary Henry (Hank) Merritt Paulson, Jr. (B.A. in English from Dartmouth and an MBA from Harvard and former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs) and his bagman, Neel Kashkari (Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, University of Illinois; Master’s degree in Engineering, University of Illinois, and Master’s degree in Business Administration, Wharton School of Business) have handed out nearly 1.6 billion taxpayer dollars to banks that used the money for cash bonuses, chauffeurs, company jets, country club memberships, multi-million dollar executive pay packages, salaries and stock options.

Remember last September 21, when Treasury Secretary Paulson so somberly urged Congress to move quickly to give him 700 billion taxpayer dollars to bailout financial firms?

Paulson went on MEET THE PRESS and justified the historic bailout by saying, “Credit markets are still very fragile right now and frozen. We need to deal with this and deal with it quickly.”

The Treasury Secretary also said, “I am convinced that this bold approach will cost American families far less than the alternative – a continuing series of financial institution failures and frozen credit markets unable to fund economic expansion. The financial security of all Americans depends on our ability to restore our financial institutions to a sound footing.”

‘Hank’ didn’t say a word about giving banks $1.6 billion for cash bonuses, chauffeurs, company jets, country club memberships, multi-million dollar executive pay packages, salaries and stock options.

George W. Bush, the man who has all the financial expertise in the free world at his fingertips said, “My first instinct (sic) was to let the market work.” But then, according to White House insiders, Bush actually listened to some of his financial advisors, evidently changed his mind, and said, “a robust and strong bailout was necessary.”

Bush went on to explain to all of us who wouldn’t otherwise understand by saying, “It is a big package because it was a big problem.”

And, then, if that wasn’t enough, the 43^rd President made sure we were able to understand the complexity of his thought process by letting us know that “The risk of doing nothing far outweighed the risk of the package.”

Thank you, Mr. President, for explaining this very complex set of financial machinations so we can understand, too.

But, wait a minute . . . there was nothing in Bush’s statement about giving banks $1.6 billion for cash bonuses, chauffeurs, company jets, country club memberships, multi-million dollar executive pay packages, salaries and stock options.

Hmmm.

Okay, let’s give these guys the benefit of the doubt and take a hard look at where we are now . . . perhaps I’m being too picky about Paulson and Kashkari handing out $1.6 billion so banks could pay for cash bonuses, chauffeurs, company jets, country club memberships, multi-million dollar executive pay packages, salaries and stock options.

Three months after Paulson urged Congress to give him $700 billion, Paulson and Kashkari have handed out $350 billion.

How much better off is our economy today?

Paulson said the bailout was necessary to prevent a ‘series of financial institution failures’?

How’s that working for us?

Since Paulson got his $350 billion, the following financial institutions failed: Franklin Bank (Houston), Security Pacific Bank (Los Angeles), Community Bank (Loganville, Georgia), Downey Savings & Loan (Newport Beach, California), PFF Bank and Trust (Pomona, California), First Georgia Community Bank (Jackson, Georgia), Haven Trust Bank (Duluth, Georgia), and Sanderson State Bank (Sanderson, Texas).

Okay . . . but, surely, the inflow of $350 billion in taxpayer money into bank coffers has eased the credit crunch, hasn’t it?

Yes or no?

No.

Why?

Because nothing in the bailout bill requires banks to lend a red cent to any one, any time, under any circumstance.

I know it sounds nutty, but it’s true.

So . . . why on earth would any bank risk loaning ‘found’ money when the Treasury Department doesn’t require them to?

Does anyone believe bankers have the character it takes to use the bailout money to help anybody but themselves?

Of course not.

So, I wondered, why would supposedly ‘smart guys’ like Paulson and Kashkari hand out hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to prevent bank failures and free up credit markets without conditions to prevent bank failures and free up credit markets?

But then, I remembered the great words of wisdom left us by an equally great American, Forrest Gump, who said, “Stupid is as stupid does.”

And then I knew.

Copyright © 2008 by LTD Associates West, Ltd. All rights reserved.

If you have questions, comments, or concerns, Email me at ltdassociates@msn.com (goes right to my desk) and since I personally answer every Email, I look forward to hearing from you soon.

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THE Bush legacy . . . too late to change?

By l.t. Dravis

BAGHDAD, IRAQ – Sunday, December 14, 2008 – Under a strict veil of secrecy, the White House issued false schedules detailing George W. Bush’s activities for today so he could tiptoe off to Baghdad where he attempted - for the umpteenth time – to convince the world that the Iraq war was necessary.

“The work hasn’t been easy, but it has been necessary for American security, Iraqi hope, and world peace,” George W. Bush said with a straight face. “I’m just so grateful I had the chance to come back to Iraq before my presidency ends.”

Let’s evaluate the 43^rd President’s own words and we’ll decide the truth – not the spin - about Bush’s legacy!

“The work hasn’t been easy,”

Thinking people will ask, what work has George W. Bush done?

While Donald Rumsfeld was doing his senile best to screw things up in Iraq, by his own admission to Bob Woodward, George W. Bush had so little concern for hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops he put in harm’s way that he handed the Iraq war over to Stephen Hadley, a lawyer turned career bureaucrat who’d earned enough political points to become Bush’s National Security Advisor.

Hadley, a man with no military experience, was the White House Iraq Groupie who ‘allowed’ Bush to lie about Saddam Hussein’s supposed attempt to secure nuclear materials from Niger in the President’s 2003 State of the Union Address. Hadley is also the man who didn’t know the difference between Nepal and Tibet when interviewed by George Stephanopoulos as recently as last April.

This is also the man George W. Bush considered to be best qualified, in his abdicated absence, to protect more than a hundred thousand American men and women who went to Iraq to risk their lives in service to their Commander-in-Chief.

That this Commander-in-Chief would abdicate his responsibility to protect our troops, that he would turn over that responsibility to a Washington bureaucrat, fits what we know about George W. Bush’s character.

When George W. Bush assumed the Presidency, he had every power and every resource necessary to govern wisely, to use his office to protect and defend Americans in particular and the people of the world in general.

He was given a majority in the House and the Senate.

He was given a budget surplus by President Clinton.

Moreover, he was given the trust of millions of Americans and millions more freedom loving people around the world.

But George W. Bush lacked the intellectual curiosity, the compassion, the intelligence, the insight, and the vision to use the gifts he was given to make the nation and the world better today than it was when he took the oath of office . . . twice.

“but it has been necessary for American security,”

How does George W. Bush, with any true sense of history, reason or logic, say that the Iraq war was necessary for American security?

Do the families of 4,209 brave Americans who gave their lives because George W. Bush ordered them to fight an unnecessary war based on lies trust this assessment from a man whose own record of military service is at best questionable?

How about the thousands upon thousands of brave American men and women whose bodies and souls have been forever damaged by horrific war wounds? Do they believe they gave their limbs, their flesh and bones for a war that was necessary for American security?

Prove to us, George W. Bush . . . not with rhetoric, but with facts . . . that the Iraq war was indeed necessary to keep America safe, stay silent, or admit your culpability, apologize profusely to the victims of your misguided ego, then go away.

“Iraqi hope,”

Would George W. Bush have the courage to sit down, face-to-face with even one of the millions of Iraqis who’ve lost sons and daughters and husbands and wives and fathers and mothers in firefights, bombings, and mortar and rocket attacks in his war and tell him or her that their sacrifice was worth it because Iraqis now have hope?

“and world peace.”

World peace . . . by what measure beyond rhetoric?

Since the Bush/Cheney invasion of Iraq 5½ years and a trillion dollars ago, U.S. troops continue to lose life and limb in Iraq, terrorist organizations around the world still threaten to attack the United States and its allies, expanding conflicts threaten to engulf Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India, and a revived ‘Cold War’ with more nuclear players on the pitch than ever before is evolving even as I write this piece.

Epilogue: Mr. President, I have news for you: Your legacy is inviolable . . . it cannot be tampered with . . . no number of talking points can change eight years of bumbling, narrow-minded, stupid, wasteful actions, inactions disguised as your ‘policies’.

Just go away Mr. 43^rd President, quietly, while millions of Americans hope and pray we never see your kind again.

Copyright © 2008 by LTD Associates West, Ltd. All rights reserved.

If you have questions, comments, or concerns, Email me at ltdassociates@msn.com (goes right to my desk) and since I personally answer every Email, I look forward to hearing from you soon.

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IT'S 'Official' . . . finally!

Tony Fratto – Bush Deputy Press Secretary - Photo Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

By l.t. Dravis

WASHINGTON, DC - Monday, December 1, 2008 – The ‘experts’ have finally gotten around to telling us that we’re in a recession and we’ve been there . . . for an entire year!

This brilliant deduction came in the form of an announcement by an organization that calls itself the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) (http://www.nber.org/info).

NBER announced today that December, 2007 was when the economy went into recession; a recession which evidently precipitated the economic slide into the current financial crisis, culminating in September’s Wall Street meltdown and subsequent economic problems.

Who supports the National Bureau of Economic Research?

Well, don’t worry . . . you don’t.

NBER likes to say that it’s a non-profit, non-partisan research group dedicated to helping Americans understand how the economy functions.

Okay.

The NBER has been around since 1920 and is quite proud of the fact that it has produced 31 Nobel Prize Winners, 6 Chairs of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, and a thousand or so professors of economics and business teaching in universities all over the country.

Sounds good . . . but with all due respect to the NBER, thousands of people who lost their jobs a year ago could have told us – way back then- that we were in a recession.

All sorts of people in George W. Bush’s Administration with access to more economic data than you or me have yammered on and on about some sort of economic problem facing the nation at least since March; but not one of those people had the character or integrity to dare to use the “R” word.

Despite the fact that the 43^rd President of the United States and all the people he considers to be the best and the brightest the nation has to offer wouldn’t be honest about something the entire world already knows says more about character and integrity than I could ever explain.

However, if it is true that we can’t change what we won’t acknowledge, why wouldn’t the President, Vice-President, all their advisors, and all the Cabinet Secretaries who accept our money and benefits come clean with us in time to fix the economy before it ‘melted-down’?

If the Bush Administration hadn’t been so concerned about covering its collective butt, it could have taken steps at the time, on time, in time, to prevent the collapse of Wall Street, the banking industry, the auto industry, and other industries that are laying off American men and women at the rate of 500,000 each week, every week.

Now, I admit I shouldn’t be so one-sided . . . it’s just that I hate to see people lose their jobs through no fault of their own.

So I’ll give the Bush White House the benefit of the doubt and ask a fair question; How did the Bush White House react to the NBER’s announcement?

Did the White House admit that if it had acknowledged the fact that we were in a recession a year ago, it could have done something sooner to protect the jobs of millions of Americans? Did the White House accept responsibility for trillions of dollars in retirement savings and investments lost by millions of Americans over the past year? Moreover, did the White House admit that George W. Bush’s failed policies contributed to the recession?

No . . . the White House made a political statement.

The Bush Administration sent Deputy Press Secretary Tony Fratto, 42, (a well-connected Republican . . . former spokesman for ex-Senator Rick Santorum, former campaign worker for Tom Ridge’s re-election as Pennsylvania Governor, and lobbyist who was rewarded by George W. Bush with a position as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the Treasury Department and then re-rewarded by George W. Bush who named him Deputy Press Secretary in 2006) out to dismiss the fact that the nation has been in a recession for a year by saying, “The most important things we can do for the economy right now are to return the financial and credit markets to normal and to continue to make progress in housing and that’s where we’ll continue to focus.”

What?

What does that mean?

We have to ‘return the financial and credit markets to normal’?

Why the heck would we do that?

A year ago the financial and credit markets were normal and look where that’s gotten us!

By the way, what did you mean when you said, “continue to make progress in housing”?

Ask home builders and home owners to tell you about the ‘progress’ they see and they’ll ask, “What progress?”

I gotta tell you, Mr. Deputy Press Secretary, I’m disappointed.

The taxpayers of this great nation pay you $141,000.00 per year ($11,750.00 per month; $2,937.50 per week), plus cushy benefits they can’t afford for themselves.

Yet, where were you a year ago?

Why didn’t you or one of your highly-paid, well-benefited colleagues on the White House roster earn your pay by coming clean with the people who pay you? Why didn’t you admit then what the President, the Vice-President, advisors, plus Cabinet members were too chicken to admit . . . that we were in a recession?

Wait a second . . . since we just discovered that we’re running a year behind on ‘official’ economic news, could we already be out of the recession and not know it?

I could ask the NBER or I could ask Tony Fratto . . . or I could ask one of the half million Americans who lost their jobs last week.

Who do you think would know best?

Huh?

Copyright © 2008 by LTD Associates West, Ltd. All rights reserved.

If you have questions, comments, or concerns, Email me at ltdassociates@msn.com (goes right to my desk) and since I personally answer every Email, I look forward to hearing from you soon.

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WE'RE Screwed!

By l.t. Dravis

WASHINGTON, DC - Monday, September 24, 2008 – Why are we spending hundreds of billions of our dollars to save Citigroup?

We’re taxpayers and the Bush Administration and Congress have put us in debt more than $10 trillion, we’re losing our businesses and jobs at the fastest rate in decades, our retirement accounts are going bust, and trillions of dollars we invested in the stock market, are gone . . . perhaps forever.

Tragically, our children and grandchildren will pay for the sins we committed by electing and re-electing the wrong people.

That fact was underscored this weekend when Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke, abetted by George W. Bush, negotiated a secret deal to put us another $325 billion or so in debt.

Why does Citigroup need a bailout?

Because its management got greedy and funded thousands upon thousands of subprime (translation: potentially high profit) mortgages for people who couldn’t afford them.

And, because it got greedy and mismanaged its business, Citigroup lost money every quarter for the past four quarters.

The consequence of that greed and mismanagement was revealed yesterday when we learned that Bush, Bernanke, and Paulson agreed to give Citigroup a $20 billion cash bonus plus in excess of $300 billion in deferred bonuses.

Citigroup agreed to not pay more than a penny a share in the form of dividends for three years without approval from the federal government.

But why limit dividends? Why not require Citigroup to pay 75% of dividends to the taxpayers who made it possible for the company to be around to ever pay any dividends?

And why not require Citigroup to pay those dividends to taxpayers until it repays our investment?

Citigroup also agreed to limit compensation and bonuses for executives.

Limit bonuses?

What bonuses?

Why would any of the grossly incompetent Citigroup executives who created this mess or stood by and watched their colleagues create this mess, still have jobs, much less be eligible for a bonus of any kind?

The agreement ‘asks’, but does not require Citigroup to ‘take steps to help’ homeowners facing foreclosure.

Why not require Citigroup to use taxpayer money to help taxpayers save their homes?

Why can’t any portion of those hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars we are giving Citigroup go to revamp, revise, and refinance mortgages that have been foreclosed or will be foreclosed?

By the way, where’s the money coming from?

If any of the original $700 billion bailout ‘budget’ approved by Congress is still available, the Treasury Department will borrow and/or print the cash required to make this deal happen while the FED will ‘loan’ Citigroup enough cash to finance the remaining balance of its losses.

And where the FED will get the actual currency to ‘loan’ Citigroup?

Where else but to the same foreign banks and/or domestic printing presses?

And, what do we taxpayers give and get?

We give Citigroup approximately $325 billion in cash and loans and we get $7 billion in ‘preferred shares’ of Citigroup stock.

$325 billion for $7 billion?

Hmmmm.

Some deal.

By the way, what did George W. Bush, the obviously detached outgoing President, have to say about the Citigroup deal?

If anyone actually cares, the lame duck President threatened to reward other financial institutions for their greed and incompetence by saying, “If need be, we will make these kinds of decisions to safeguard our financial system in the future.”

So, where does this leave us?

Decorum prevents me from getting too graphic here, so permit me to simply say, “We’re screwed!”

What do you think?

Copyright © 2008 by LTD Associates West, Ltd. All rights reserved.

If you have questions, comments, or concerns, Email me at ltdassociates@msn.com (goes right to my desk) and since I personally answer every Email, I look forward to hearing from you soon.

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JOE Wollaceski's worst nightmare finally came true . . .

By l.t. Dravis

SMALL TOWN OHIO, Monday, September 24, 2008 – When 44 year old Doug Jones (not his real name) got his check last Friday, it was three times the normal amount.

You know how it is when you get your paycheck; even though you know it’ll be the same old amount, you kind of hope there’ll be more there just this once . . . and if there was more, you’d be happy . . . real happy!

But not Doug.

Not at all.

His check included two weeks’ severance pay.

After nineteen years as an equipment operator for Wollaceski Underground Contractors, Inc. (not the real company name), Doug ran a Wollaceski CAT 375 track-type excavator for the last time Friday morning, backfilling a repaired water line for the county.

Joe Wollaceski, founder of the company that bears his name, is a bear of a man. Six feet four, two hundred and fifty pounds, he resembles former Vice-President Al Gore. He’s a 57 year old who succeeded where so many fail by out-working and out-smarting his competition in the rough and tumble construction business. “I don’t see how we get out of this mess,” Joe says with a shake of his head. “Nobody has cash, nobody can borrow, and nobody knows what to do about it. We give Bush and Paulson $700 billion, they give half of it away, yet banks are still failing and nobody’s lending. So, where did all that money go? My guy who sweeps the shop coulda handled it better than those boneheads!”

Wollaceski knows exactly where he is and why. “We’re shutting down after 32 years mainly because of the car business,” he says. “GM, Ford, and Chrysler lay off workers, those folks stop spending, and we lose sales tax revenues, plus income tax. And then, the businesses that rely on car worker wages have to lay off and those folks stop spending and we lose more sales tax revenues and income tax and, pretty soon, the city, county, and state cut back on construction projects. Since banks aren’t lending, there are no more commercial and residential developments to bid on, so guys like me get forced out of business.

“It’s going to be tough for my people to find good jobs. They’re used to making fifteen-twenty bucks an hour and more and they been getting good benefits; there aren’t many businesses left in Ohio that can afford to pay a living wage and give good benefits.”

The Wollaceski Underground Contractors shutdown kills 34 jobs, takes a $1,700,000.00 annual payroll out of the local economy, cancels the lease on a ten thousand square foot building on a half acre, and dooms the CAT 375 and 11 other backhoes, tractors, and compactors, plus 4 Kenworth T810 dump trucks, 6 Ford F250 jobsite pick-ups, batches of tools, barricades, safety equipment, a complete lubrication system, several compressors, storage racks, office furniture, computers, monitors, and a GMC tractor/low boy trailer to be liquidated at auction.

Doug and his wife, Elizabeth (not her real name), have three children under the age of 17, and are worried about when, if ever, he’ll find another job that pays as well and provides the benefits they got from WUC. “There’s nothing here in Ohio,” Doug says with a defeated tone. “Me and Liz talked about moving to California or Texas where I might find work, but we’re upside down on our house and we can’t sell right now. So, we’re stuck. Can’t live on unemployment so if I don’t find work soon, we’ll have to rent out the house and move in with Liz’s folks up in Cleveland.”

The manager of ‘Sandi’s’, a popular family restaurant a block from Wollaceski’s yard, says, “We’re not seeing regulars like we used to. Friday and Saturday nights are about half of what they were even six months ago. I know Doug and Elizabeth Jones and their three kids. Used to see them here probably three Friday nights and maybe two Saturday nights a month and we’d see them just about every Sunday after church . . . but not now. Not since we heard Joe Wollaceski was shutting down.”

“What kills me,” Wollaceski says, “is that, after all the money and power we gave Bush and Cheney over eight years, they’re leaving us with the largest deficit ever, the biggest national debt in history, a failed banking system, an economy in the worst shape since the depression, and two wars that are bleeding us dry.

“Those two geniuses screwed up the economy so bad that millions of skilled workers who’ve been making forty, fifty thousand a year will be forced to take minimum wage jobs at fast-food joints and places like Wal-Mart and give up their homes, cars, and their futures.

“So, besides making my worst nightmare come true, what have Dick Cheney and George W. Bush ever done for me or my people?

“Nothing,” he says, answering his own question with a sardonic smile, “absolutely nothing.”

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