From TARP to TRAP in a heartatta ... uhhh ... heartbeat!

Taxpayer's Rathole for Automobile Payments (TRAP)

From TARP to TRAP in a heartattack ... uhhh ... heartbeat!

Surely you all recall the much ballyhooed $700 billion bailout called TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) and its kid sister just signed off on last week by President Bush that uses some of the "troubled bank" monies to help out the troubled US auto companies (GM, Ford and Chrysler). You also know that the President did this even after the Republicans in Congress refused to go along with essentially the same thing three weeks ago--although it would have been far more legal as a Congressional Bill. It does involve your tax dollars, after all.

But if we are willing to think of the Big Three as a conglomerate of banks, it fits the wording (more or less) of the original bill that authorized the TARP. (Remember when John McCain raced back to Washington D.C. in the middle of his Presidential campaign to help circle the wagons? Doesn't that seem like a lifetime ago?)

The real point of this posting however is simply to state loud and clear that WE ARE ALL BEING TAKEN TO THE CLEANERS!!! Executive bonuses, golf outings and travel/entertainment expenses--including those private jets that they inadvisedly decided to ride to Washington to push for the bailout--are still roaring and now--worse of all--we just learned today that neither the banks nor the Big Three auto companies have to give us details as to how they are using our money.

How does one spell R-A-T-H-O-L-E ??

What is saddest of all is that the incoming President (Barack H. Obama) is in total agreement with the outgoing President (George W. Bush) in all of this. Perhaps the ugliest actual visual in all of this was watching Joe Biden and Dick Cheney chortling in agreement over the bailout decision last Saturday. Only McCain and Palin spoke out strongly against it--back when they had a voice in the matter--before November 4, 2008. (About the time that Messieurs Obama and Blagojevich were busy selling a soon-to-be-empty Senate seat!)

But what's the surprise? Doesn't this jibe perfectly with the follow-the-leader philosophy right or wrong that epitomized the funding the Iraq War, driving future generations into economic slavery to pay off a $10.6 trillion national debt burden?

A Very Merry Christmas to You All!!!