Shared Sacrifice: Where's Wall Street's Share?

[Donnachaidh]

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/12/19/shared_sacrifice_wheres_wall_streets_share/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+tpmcafe-main+%28TPMCafe%29

The theme in Washington these days is "shared sacrifice." Many of the country's most prominent political figures are insisting that the public must get used to sacrifice. This means giving up some of the benefits, like Social Security and Medicare, that they have come to rely upon.

The shared sacrifice might also mean that middle-income people have to pay higher taxes. Telling a country that is suffering from near double-digit unemployment that it must get used to sacrifice might seem a bit strange, but polite Washington circles have never had much connection to the lives of normal people.

Even more striking than this push to impose even more sacrifice on a middle class that has already paid an enormous cost for the economic policies of the last three decades is the fact that the Wall Street is not expecting to share in these future sacrifices. This is peculiar since reckless Wall Street greed played a central role in inflating the housing bubble whose collapse gave us the current economic crisis.

The Wall Street banks also tapped taxpayers for trillions of dollars in below market loans at the peak of the crisis, allowing them to avoid bankruptcy. Thanks to the taxpayers' generosity, the Wall Street banks are now back on their feet again, as profitable as ever with the bonus pools slated to hit record highs.

More at the link ---

[Poboy]

1. Record bonuses, cash flush, and Obama openly begs them.

What a fucking LOSER.

[kenny blankenship]

2. They are really sucking it up for us.

[notesdev]

3. Wall Street's share is what you used to have

now they have it

if you ever wondered what it was like to live in a fascist economy, wonder no longer.

[Newest Reality]

4. This is the way it is and the way it will be

only more so. Nothing remarkable is being done to change it and we participate with our lifestyles because it is very parasitic and lives off of what we want, need and do.

Well, I must clarify, it is being changed in ways that feed the parasite more effectively and the poison works to paralyze the hosts.

[jtown1123]

5. When shared "sacrifice" really just means cut Social Security:

http://www.ncpssm.org/entitledtoknow/?p=1369

[MichiganVote]

6. Prolly' have to buy a souped up BMW in place of a Benz

Oh the horror!

[pa28]

7. A transaction tax is a nice idea.

Unfortunately the only thing Simpson-Bowles contains in that vein is an gradual increase in capital gains.

With the middle class squarely in the austerity crosshairs by deduction and credit curtailments as well as possible SS and Medicare cuts I'm guessing Congress will conveniently forget that part. The plan is clearly to screw earners in the bottom 95%.