Say the words Goldman and Sachs
and most Americans get sick to the stomach. During our country’s bank bailout debacle,
Goldman Sachs became the poster child for all things hated and every vice known
to man. The banking and investment giant
became more famous for tales of executive greed and excess than it had ever
been known for being an international financial giant and it has been blamed
for everything that has gone bad in the United States including our embroilment
in an international war on terrorism that has for all intent and purpose
bankrupted the country. It’s no secret
that our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and our other military misadventures in
the ME were bankrolled by Wall Street and cost the US trillions of dollars in
loans, loans that are not payable because they are overburdened with
compounding interest.
On October 17th,
payment on the interest on our loans is due, again. We never pay down the principle
amount of our loans because we don’t have the money to pay it, yet we raise the
debt ceiling every time the payment on the interest comes due because we fear
being seen as a dead beat country that will not pay its debts. There are also those evil credit raters like
Moody and Finch who stand behind us ready at any second to lower the US credit
rating as punishment for even thinking about defaulting on our debt We can’t
even afford to borrow the amount needed to pay on the principle because the
rate of compounding interest is so high that all we would be doing is still
paying for more interest while increasing the amount of our principle debt.
The reality is that the pressure
to raise the debt ceiling and pay the interest really has nothing to do with
the United States’ attitude towards the debt. It has everything to do with the
fact that banks want to get paid, and paying the principle would only give them
back what they gave us. The interest is their profit and they want to be paid
first, even if it means that the US remain in debt forever, which we will
unless we come up with a new strategy and model for debt reduction and that is
where Goldman Sachs and the other Wall Street devils come in.
America needs to refinance. We
need money and not only the money to pay the interest on our national debt. The United States needs money to fund our
government so it can reopen and function fully. We need money to stave off very
destructive austerity cuts that will take billions of dollars out of the market
place at a time when consumer confidence in the economy is falling and retail
sales are falling too. That is not to mention the social instability caused by
growing hunger and joblessness. Raising the debt ceiling pleases Wall Street because
they get paid, yet when we raise the debt ceiling, the United States gets
nothing except more debt and more compounding interest and more destructive
austerity.
The solution: The United States Secretary
of the Treasury Department needs to put together a proposal for refinancing the
United States. That proposal should
begin with a request to have the compounding interest on our present loans
written off by the banks. Once that is accomplished, we must submit a request
to refinance our present debt and to fully fund our government, while borrowing
an additional amount, approximately 20% of GDP, to invest in our country and
create real jobs and 15% of the total loan amount is to be paid as a simple
flat fee for the loan. This would allow
us to immediately pay off the principle amount of our past debt, fully fund the
day to day operations of the government, and employ
a strategy of government investment in our country’s private sector manufacturing
industry and also to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure while also creating
jobs.
If Goldman Sachs and the other
Wall Street banks step up to the plate and bail out the people who once bailed
them out, everyone wins. If they continue to sit on the sidelines, demanding to
be paid and threatening economic collapse as an incentive for us to go further into
unpayable debt, while our country’s economy implodes, they will lose and so
will the global markets. The present situation is no longer sustainable.
The Wall Street devils have an opportunity
for redemption, the value of which is greater than any amount of gold. Can Goldman Sachs save the US economy? Yes it
can, but it cannot do it alone. We need our leaders to stop fighting over
ideological approaches to health care and get to work on saving our country’s
economy. Call Goldman’s now and let’s make a deal.
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