Bailout Backlash: Five Surprising Things That Happened on Thursday
By AlterNet Staff, AlterNet. Posted September 26, 2008.
Protests on Wall Street ... White House pow-wow flops ... Bailout plan implodes ... Obama will attend debate ... McCain's suspended campaign stunt.Even news junkies had a hard time keeping up with a flurry of events on September 25 on Wall Street, Washington and the presidential campaigns. Here's a round-up of what happened:
1. Outrage over the bailout spreads across the Internet and to Wall StreetThe Internet is flooded with angst about Treasury Secretary Paulson's proposed $700 billion bailout:
A lot of the online rage is channeled in the form of signatures on petitions and electronic letters to members of Congress. Senator Bernie Sanders (Independent-Vt.) is circulating a popular one on the left-wing blog Huffington Post. The 1.9-million member Service Employees International Union is also circulating a sign-on letter to Congress that reads in part: "No deal. No blank check." StopTheHousingBailout.com reasons: "A bailout tells responsible Americans that they are suckers."
The anger is coming from right-leaning groups as well. The National Taxpayers Union's "No More Bailouts!" petition reads: "Bailouts that keep mismanaged organizations afloat delay natural corrections to unsound business practices . Enough is enough. No more bailouts. Not with my tax dollars."
The conservative site townhall.com features a similar petition. Right-wing blogger Patrick Ruffini, meanwhile, urges Republicans to vote against the bailout, since "God Himself couldn't have given rank-and-file Republicans a better opportunity to create political space between themselves and the Administration."
And as Steven Wishnia reports for AlterNet, protesters took to New York's financial district:
Enraged by the prospect of $700 billion of their taxes going to reimburse Wall Street speculators for their dubious investments, about 500 protesters paraded through Lower Manhattan's financial district Thursday afternoon, their chants of "You broke it, you bought it" reverberating through the narrow office building canyons and off the flag-draped wall of the New York Stock Exchange.
2. White House pow-wow flopsThe White House summit originally billed as a bipartisan, non-partisan effort to come to a deal on Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's proposed $700 billion bailout plan ended bitterly. With the entire Senate and House leadership along with Barack Obama and John McCain in attendance, Paulson apparently got down on one knee at the end of the meeting and begged the Democratic congressional leaders not to publicly disclose how poorly the session had gone: ........(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.alternet.org/election08/100391/bailout_backlash%3A_five_surprising_things_that_happened_on_thursday/
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