The Rich Are Staging a Coup This Morning ...a message from Michael Moore

Edwardlizardhands

Friends,

Let me cut to the chase. The biggest robbery in the history of this country is taking place as you read this. Though no guns are being used, 300 million hostages are being taken. Make no mistake about it: After stealing a half trillion dollars to line the pockets of their war-profiteering backers for the past five years, after lining the pockets of their fellow oilmen to the tune of over a hundred billion dollars in just the last two years, Bush and his cronies -- who must soon vacate the White House -- are looting the U.S. Treasury of every dollar they can grab. They are swiping as much of the silverware as they can on their way out the door.

No matter what they say, no matter how many scare words they use, they are up to their old tricks of creating fear and confusion in order to make and keep themselves and the upper one percent filthy rich. Just read the first four paragraphs of the lead story in last Monday's New York Times and you can see what the real deal is:

"Even as policy makers worked on details of a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, Wall Street began looking for ways to profit from it.

"Financial firms were lobbying to have all manner of troubled investments covered, not just those related to mortgages.

"At the same time, investment firms were jockeying to oversee all the assets that Treasury plans to take off the books of financial institutions, a role that could earn them hundreds of millions of dollars a year in fees.

"Nobody wants to be left out of Treasury's proposal to buy up bad assets of financial institutions."

Unbelievable. Wall Street and its backers created this mess and now they are going to clean up like bandits. Even Rudy Giuliani is lobbying for his firm to be hired (and paid) to "consult" in the bailout.

The problem is, nobody truly knows what this "collapse" is all about. Even Treasury Secretary Paulson admitted he doesn't know the exact amount that is needed (he just picked the $700 billion number out of his head!). The head of the congressional budget office said he can't figure it out nor can he explain it to anyone.

And yet, they are screeching about how the end is near! Panic! Recession! The Great Depression! Y2K! Bird flu! Killer bees! We must pass the bailout bill today!! The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

Falling for whom? NOTHING in this "bailout" package will lower the price of the gas you have to put in your car to get to work. NOTHING in this bill will protect you from losing your home. NOTHING in this bill will give you health insurance.

Health insurance? Mike, why are you bringing this up? What's this got to do with the Wall Street collapse?

It has everything to do with it. This so-called "collapse" was triggered by the massive defaulting and foreclosures going on with people's home mortgages. Do you know why so many Americans are losing their homes? To hear the Republicans describe it, it's because too many working class idiots were given mortgages that they really couldn't afford. Here's the truth: The number one cause of people declaring bankruptcy is because of medical bills. Let me state this simply: If we had had universal health coverage, this mortgage "crisis" may never have happened.

This bailout's mission is to protect the obscene amount of wealth that has been accumulated in the last eight years. It's to protect the top shareholders who own and control corporate America. It's to make sure their yachts and mansions and "way of life" go uninterrupted while the rest of America suffers and struggles to pay the bills. Let the rich suffer for once. Let them pay for the bailout. We are spending 400 million dollars a day on the war in Iraq. Let them end the war immediately and save us all another half-trillion dollars!

I have to stop writing this and you have to stop reading it. They are staging a financial coup this morning in our country. They are hoping Congress will act fast before they stop to think, before we have a chance to stop them ourselves. So stop reading this and do something -- NOW! Here's what you can do immediately:

1. Call or e-mail Senator Obama (http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/cgi-bin/newmemberbio.cgi?lang=&member=ILJR&site=ctc&address=&city=&state=IL&zipcode=&plusfour=). Tell him he does not need to be sitting there trying to help prop up Bush and Cheney and the mess they've made. Tell him we know he has the smarts to slow this thing down and figure out what's the best route to take. Tell him the rich have to pay for whatever help is offered. Use the leverage we have now to insist on a moratorium on home foreclosures, to insist on a move to universal health coverage, and tell him that we the people need to be in charge of the economic decisions that affect our lives, not the barons of Wall Street.

2. Take to the streets. Participate in one of the hundreds of quickly-called demonstrations that are taking place all over the country (especially those near Wall Street and DC).http://truemajority.wiredforchange.com/event/distributedEventCalendar.jsp

3. Call your Representative in Congress and your Senators. (click here to find their phone numbers, http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/). Tell them what you told Senator Obama.

When you screw up in life, there is hell to pay. Each and every one of you reading this knows that basic lesson and has paid the consequences of your actions at some point. In this great democracy, we cannot let there be one set of rules for the vast majority of hard-working citizens, and another set of rules for the elite, who, when they screw up, are handed one more gift on a silver platter. No more! Not again!

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. Having read further the details of this bailout bill, you need to know you are being lied to. They talk about how they will prevent golden parachutes. It says NOTHING about what these executives and fat cats will make in SALARY. According to Rep. Brad Sherman of California, these top managers will continue to receive million-dollar-a-month paychecks under this new bill. There is no direct ownership given to the American people for the money being handed over. Foreign banks and investors will be allowed to receive billion-dollar handouts. A large chunk of this $700 billion is going to be given directly to Chinese and Middle Eastern banks. There is NO guarantee of ever seeing that money again.

P.P.S. From talking to people I know in DC, they say the reason so many Dems are behind this is because Wall Street this weekend put a gun to their heads and said either turn over the $700 billion or the first thing we'll start blowing up are the pension funds and 401(k)s of your middle class constituents. The Dems are scared they may make good on their threat. But this is not the time to back down or act like the typical Democrat we have witnessed for the last eight years. The Dems handed a stolen election over to Bush. The Dems gave Bush the votes he needed to invade a sovereign country. Once they took over Congress in 2007, they refused to pull the plug on the war. And now they have been cowered into being accomplices in the crime of the century. You have to call them now and say "NO!" If we let them do this, just imagine how hard it will be to get anything good done when President Obama is in the White House. THESE DEMOCRATS ARE ONLY AS STRONG AS THE BACKBONE WE GIVE THEM. CALL CONGRESS NOW.

Kann

It's kind of ironic he is denouncing a fear-mongering manoeuvre with fear based arguments. But he is right on something though, there are definetely not enough accounting/demands compared to the sum that is handed. Reclaiming a minimum of assurance for this money to come back to the tax payers is not a bad idea

even flow?

With all these bailouts down there, the States seems to be more socialist then us up here in Canada.

DeLukin

I was with him until he tied the mortgage crisis to medical bills. That's like Ed saying betterman was written about an abusive government. Kind of a stretch there, Mike. I'm surprised he didn't include a link to his latest DVD, Sicko. Talk about profiting from fear mongering...

inmytree

DeLukin wrote:

I was with him until he tied the mortgage crisis to medical bills. That's like Ed saying betterman was written about an abusive government. Kind of a stretch there, Mike. I'm surprised he didn't include a link to his latest DVD, Sicko. Talk about profiting from fear mongering...

there was a link embedded in the original email that led to this article...

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/02/business/02insure.html

know1

Michael Moore is delusional. Everyone knows that.

DriftingByTheStorm

even flow? wrote:

With all these bailouts down there, the States seems to be more socialist then us up here in Canada.

and "more Communist than China".

Jim Rogers wrote:

"America is more communist than China is right now," Rogers told CNBC Europe's "Squawk Box Europe" September 8. "You can at least have a free market in housing and a lot of other things in China. And you can see that this is welfare for the rich. This is socialism for the rich. It's bailing out the financiers, the banks, the Wall Streeters."

:(

dunkman

know1 wrote:

Michael Moore is delusional. Everyone knows that.

i had no idea he was a deeply religious man?

DeLukin

inmytree wrote:

there was a link embedded in the original email that led to this article...

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/02/business/02insure.html

Article:
The researchers acknowledged that often there was no single reason why someone went bankrupt. "There's definitely overlapping reasons,"

Moore:
The number one cause of people declaring bankruptcy is because of medical bills.

know1

dunkman wrote:

i had no idea he was a deeply religious man?

He's not. That's my point!

inmytree

DeLukin wrote:

Article:
The researchers acknowledged that often there was no single reason why someone went bankrupt. "There's definitely overlapping reasons,"

Moore:
The number one cause of people declaring bankruptcy is because of medical bills.

here's the entire article so folks can read it for themselves....

Study Ties Bankruptcy to Medical Bills
By REED ABELSON

Published: February 2, 2005

Sometimes, all it takes is one bad fall for a working person with health insurance to be pushed into bankruptcy.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans file for personal bankruptcy each year because of medical bills - even though they have health insurance, according to a new study by Harvard University legal and medical researchers.

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"It doesn't take a medical catastrophe to create a financial catastrophe," said Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor who studies bankruptcy and is one of the authors of the study.

The study, which is scheduled to appear today on the Web site of Health Affairs, an academic journal, provides a glimpse into a little-researched area connecting bankruptcy and medical costs. About 30 percent of people said they filed for bankruptcy because of an illness or injury, even though most of them had health insurance when they first got sick.

Many lost their jobs - and their insurance - because they got sick, while others faced thousands of dollars in co-payments and deductibles and for services not covered by their insurance.

One person cited in the bankruptcy study, for example, broke a leg, missed a couple of months of work and then had $13,000 in unpaid medical bills, though his employer-based health plan had already paid for much of his care, Ms. Warren said.

Another respondent to the survey was able to pay for hospital stays for lung surgery and a heart attack but could not return to his old job. When he found a new job, he was denied coverage because of his pre-existing conditions, which continued to require costly medical care and contributed to his bankruptcy.

Policy analysts say these findings underscore the limitations of the nation's current system of providing health insurance largely through employers. Some argue that even for those with insurance, benefits can be ephemeral.

"You can lose it because it's tied to employment," said Joseph Antos, a health policy researcher with the American Enterprise Institute, who said people were also at risk if their employers went out of business.

To understand the effect of illness or injury on bankruptcy, the researchers surveyed 1,771 people who filed for bankruptcy in 2001 and interviewed 931 of them. They discovered a complex web of factors leading to bankruptcy, particularly as illness caused people to lose their jobs or cut back the hours they worked just as they were facing high medical bills.

Many of those families, Ms. Warren said, then "endured a one-two punch."

The researchers examined those who specifically reported that their bankruptcies were precipitated by financial burdens caused by medical illness. They also included in a broader category of medical-related bankruptcy people who had more than $1,000 in unpaid medical bills at the time of the bankruptcy filing or had mortgaged their home to pay those bills.

The researchers acknowledged that often there was no single reason why someone went bankrupt. "There's definitely overlapping reasons," said Steffie Woolhandler, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard and one of the authors of the report.

They also pointed to gaps in coverage that left people vulnerable to financial crisis - particularly when workers switched jobs or were temporarily unable to afford contributions to a health plan. The high cost of continuing coverage under Cobra, the federal rule that allows former employees to stay on health plans for a time if they pay the entire cost, "is a cruel joke to these people," Ms. Warren said.

Even when people remain insured, the study also notes that many health plans have limits on certain kinds of coverage, like physical therapy or prescription drugs.

"If you're sick enough long enough, you're in deep trouble in our society," said David Himmelstein, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, another of the study's authors.

While some policies do offer catastrophic coverage, which pays for care after costs reach a certain threshold, Dr. Himmelstein said that coverage "often kicks in after people are bankrupted" because they must incur high medical bills to qualify.

And employees, who often have little choice of plans and frequently do not understand the differences among plans, are increasingly offered policies with less and less coverage, some policy analysts say.

"There's a race to the bottom in terms of what health insurance means today," said Ron Pollack, the executive director of Families USA, a consumer advocacy group in Washington.

This area is ripe for additional research, said Uwe E. Reinhardt, a professor at Princeton University, who said that there had not been enough hard evidence about working Americans who became ill and then went broke. "We put together vignettes, but they are not powerful enough," he said.

The findings also raise questions about the effect of asking employees to bear a greater share of health cost through higher co-payments and the like. Many employers are shifting the increasing cost of care onto their employees, arguing that that trend gives workers an incentive to make judicious use of health care. But the researchers say higher co-payments and deductibles may well exacerbate the problem of medical bankruptcies.

DeLukin

Nowhere does it say that medical bills are the biggest cause of bankruptcy. And in the name of being unbiased, if you're going to highlight facts you should include these:

The researchers examined those who specifically reported that their bankruptcies were precipitated by financial burdens caused by medical illness.

The researchers acknowledged that often there was no single reason why someone went bankrupt.

oil alternative

The big cause of house reposessions in this country is the massive rise in resorce (Gas, Electricity, Petrol) bills, our natural gas is held to ransom by Russia and as they proved with Ukraine they can just turn the supply off if you don't play ball.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/dec/12/business.oil

The price of Petrol is unbelievable and unjustifyable when you consider we could be driving round in cars powered by our own shit if there wasn't so many greedy arseholes with a vested interest in bleeding every last droplet of the stuff from our planets veins.

And as the article touched on, alot of people were conned into believing they could take on bigger mortgages then their wages would allow given a hike in the cost of living.

So maybe they should spend the $700 billion on shit conversion kits for our cars, stop chucking million pound missiles at arabs and chasing their oil supplies.

just a thought!

Strangest Tribe

This bailout is pure smoke and mirrors anyway. I'm with Ron Paul on this one, he seems to be the only logical thinker in Washington right now.

Why can't they see the money is worthless? In less than 6 months we're right back where we are now except with a much weaker dollar. Our country will quickly be sold to the Saudis, Chinese, and Europeans. The large corporations will now have even more incentive to move their factories overseas.

The only way to solve this problem is to liquidate the debt at the root and let the weak companies get absorbed into the stronger.

Ghetto Star

"That's like Ed saying betterman was written about an abusive government. Kind of a stretch there, Mike."

I believe Ed was attempting to demonstrate a point about abusive relationships and the government...he never said that it was WRITTEN about abusive government...much like al gore never actually said he created interenet...only that he passed legislation that enabled the creation of the internet...but it's only the details...

Edwardlizardhands

Congratulations, Corporate Crime Fighters! Coup Averted for Three Days! ...from Michael Moore

Friends,

Everyone said the bill would pass. The masters of the universe were already making celebratory dinner reservations at Manhattan's finest restaurants. Personal shoppers in Dallas and Atlanta were dispatched to do the early Christmas gifting. Mad Men of Chicago and Miami were popping corks and toasting each other long before the morning latte run.

But what they didn't know was that hundreds of thousands of Americans woke up yesterday morning and decided it was time for revolt. The politicians never saw it coming. Millions of phone calls and emails hit Congress so hard it was as if Marshall Dillon, Elliot Ness and Dog the Bounty Hunter had descended on D.C. to stop the looting and arrest the thieves.

The Corporate Crime of the Century was halted by a vote of 228 to 205. It was rare and historic; no one could remember a time when a bill supported by the president and the leadership of both parties went down in defeat. That just never happens.

A lot of people are wondering why the right wing of the Republican Party joined with the left wing of the Democratic Party in voting down the thievery. Forty percent of Democrats and two-thirds of Republicans voted against the bill.

Here's what happened:

The presidential race may still be close in the polls, but the Congressional races are pointing toward a landslide for the Democrats. Few dispute the prediction that the Republicans are in for a whoopin' on November 4th. Up to 30 Republican House seats could be lost in what would be a stunning repudiation of their agenda.

The Republican reps are so scared of losing their seats, when this "financial crisis" reared its head two weeks ago, they realized they had just been handed their one and only chance to separate themselves from Bush before the election, while doing something that would make them look like they were on the side of "the people."

Watching C-Span yesterday morning was one of the best comedy shows I'd seen in ages. There they were, one Republican after another who had backed the war and sunk the country into record debt, who had voted to kill every regulation that would have kept Wall Street in check -- there they were, now crying foul and standing up for the little guy! One after another, they stood at the microphone on the House floor and threw Bush under the bus, under the train (even though they had voted to kill off our nation's trains, too), heck, they would've thrown him under the rising waters of the Lower Ninth Ward if they could've conjured up another hurricane. You know how your dog acts when sprayed by a skunk? He howls and runs around trying to shake it off, rubbing and rolling himself on every piece of your carpet, trying to get rid of the stench. That's what it looked like on the Republican side of the aisle yesterday, and it was a sight to behold.

The 95 brave Dems who broke with Barney Frank and Chris Dodd were the real heroes, just like those few who stood up and voted against the war in October of 2002. Watch the remarks from yesterday of Reps. Marcy Kaptur, Sheila Jackson Lee, and Dennis Kucinich. They spoke the truth.

The Dems who voted for the giveaway did so mostly because they were scared by the threats of Wall Street, that if the rich didn't get their handout, the market would go nuts and then it's bye-bye stock-based pension and retirement funds.

And guess what? That's exactly what Wall Street did! The largest, single-day drop in the Dow in the history of the New York Stock exchange. The news anchors last night screamed it out: Americans just lost 1.2 trillion dollars in the stock market!! It's a financial Pearl Harbor! The sky is falling! Bird flu! Killer Bees!

Of course, sane people know that nobody "lost" anything yesterday, that stocks go up and down and this too shall pass because the rich will now buy low, hold, then sell off, then buy low again.

But for now, Wall Street and its propaganda arm (the networks and media it owns) will continue to try and scare the bejesus out of you. It will be harder to get a loan. Some people will lose their jobs. A weak nation of wimps won't last long under this torture. Or will we? Is this our line in the sand?

Here's my guess: The Democratic leadership in the House secretly hoped all along that this lousy bill would go down. With Bush's proposals shredded, the Dems knew they could then write their own bill that favors the average American, not the upper 10% who were hoping for another kegger of gold.

So the ball is in the Democrats' hands. The gun from Wall Street remains at their head. Before they make their next move, let me tell you what the media kept silent about while this bill was being debated:

1. The bailout bill had NO enforcement provisions for the so-called oversight group that was going to monitor Wall Street's spending of the $700 billion;

2. It had NO penalties, fines or imprisonment for any executive who might steal any of the people's money;

3. It did NOTHING to force banks and lenders to rewrite people's mortgages to avoid foreclosures -- this bill would not have stopped ONE foreclosure!;

4. It had NO teeth anywhere in the entire piece of legislation, using words like "suggested" when referring to the government being paid back for the bailout;

5. Over 200 economists wrote to Congress and said this bill might actually WORSEN the "financial crisis" and cause even MORE of a meltdown.

Put a fork in this slab of pork. It's over. Now it is time for our side to state very clearly the laws WE want passed. I will send you my proposals later today. We've bought ourselves less than 72 hours.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

LikeAnOpeningBandForTheSun

funny how he doesnt mention how most democrats voted in favor of it and says The republicans that voted against it were just doing it for poilitcal reasons and the dems that voted for it were just trying to do the right thing.

what a douche.

but otherwise i basically agree.