David Sirota: 'Bush Treasury Dept. Redacts More Bailout Contracts'

[leftchick]

video at link.....

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/18161


<snip>

What was fascinating about this CNBC exchange was the interplay between CNBC anchor Dylan Ratigan and CNBC correspondent Steve Liesman - interplay that suggests even the highest echelons of the media and business community are realizing something is very, very wrong.

Essentially, Liesman delivers the Treasury Department talking points, saying that it's acceptable for the government to hide the amounts that taxpayers will be forced to pay these well-connected execs and fat cats - and that this information will come out at some point in the future anyway. Ratigan, however, vehemently agreed with me that these kinds of redactions are absolutely outrageous, both substantively in terms of how they keep taxpayers in the dark, and psychologically in terms of how the behavior helps intensify the public's already seething anger about the bailout.

Topping it off, former Reagan official William Seidman piles on, making the point that government officials should behave differently than corporate executives, and that Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is using the redactions to keep heat off himself and from a public that believes he's going to use his authority to give away truckloads of taxpayer cash to his former Wall Street colleagues.

What this suggests to me is that even parts of the Establishment and the business community are waking up to the kleptocracy - and specifically, to how the intersection of kleptocracy and this bailout bill could continue to undermine confidence in the economy.

If part of what is ailing the economy is an understandable lack of psychological confidence in Corporate America and our government, then blacking out huge swaths of government-corporate contracts is not the way to turn that psychological tide - it's a way to exacerbate it, especially since the redactions come after both Congress and the Bush administration promised unprecedented transparency.

[Epiphany4z]

1. so much for transparency.

..that sure lasted long

[SpiralHawk]

2. "Smirk." - Republicon fatcat 'elites'

"Smirk. Too bad about you little people. Now shut up and sit down. Bwaaa ha ha ha ha ha. Smirk."

- Republicon fatcat 'elites'

[Bandit]

3. and the Bush administration promised unprecedented transparency.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: and someone believes anything Bush* says??

[leftchick]

5. he always does the OPPOSITE of what he says

typical repuke operation

[gratuitous]

4. Golly, I don't think anyone could have seen this coming

Instead, we get this nonsense about "socialism" if the Democrats gain the ascendancy in November. And what is this bailout, do you think? A whole hell of a lot more money being plundered from the Treasury, and not one more school will be built, not one pothole filled on an interstate highway, not one more cop hired, not one sick kid getting a doctor's visit. In fact, we the people are apparently not even entitled to know where it's going or on what terms.