Updated bailout price tag: 840 Billion?

I'm surprised this hasn't come up over the past couple of days, but yesterday I saw something quite interesting in the news.

While we were all focused intently on the bailout negotiations, the Treasury Department quietly released a five-sentence statement saying it had repealed section 382 (I think) of the tax code.

Section 382 kept corporations from claiming losses taken on by buying failing corporations for tax deductions/exemptions (I don't know the exact way it works)

This was written in the 70's, I think, to keep big corporations from expanding their power during recessions. You know, the whole idea of encouraging competition instead of consolidating power in a few businesses. It's pretty basic foundations of sustainable free markets.

Let's all remember a couple important things about this.

Number 1: The bailout plan was sold to the taxpayers and to Congress as a way to encourage banks to lend. But, without any of us noticing until now, the Treasury Department gave a huge tax break to corporations that want to use the bailout to buy their rivals out. Not only is it completely unfair to encourage corporations to consolidate their power (remember the days of trusts and monopolies?), but we are handing them the resources to do it via the bailout.

Number 2:

ARTICLE I SECTION 8; CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;"

Is the Treasury Department "The Congress"? NO! This isn't only illegal, it goes against the highest legal document of the land!

Congress' response:
"We don't want to say it's illegal or do anything against the treasury for fear of creating another great depression" (paraphrasing an unnamed congressman)

So the taxpayers get ripped off 140 Billion in tax exemptions put in place to protect the spirit of competition that drives our economy, and Congress doesn't have the spine to act on it.

This is an outrage.
AN OUTRAGE!

Welcome to the New world order . You are owned by the banks who run the Fed.
News flash....... The federal reserve is about as federal as federal express.
The federal reserve is owned by private bankers to whom you pay interest on the money the government borrows from.
SURPRISE!!!!!!!!
Look at the dollar. FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE.

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Originally Posted by Gatekeeper777

Welcome to the New world order . You are owned by the banks who run the Fed.
News flash....... The federal reserve is about as federal as federal express.
The federal reserve is owned by private bankers to whom you pay interest on the money the government borrows from.
SURPRISE!!!!!!!!
Look at the dollar. FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE.

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That quote is taken right out of Zeitgeist, and it's true.

On Wikipedia, it says the profits made by the Fed go to its shareholders, as with any corporation.

However, its shareholders are the banks insured by the FDIC.

Not the Government, not the taxpayers, it's only the college of banks that make up the fed that get the profits from interest.

Welcome to socialism. Its a short step to communism.

it's only temporary socialism...the government doesn't want to stay in the bank business...but the banks (and now the bank customers) know that the government will continue to bail them out again and again and again

the US national debt increased by $1 trillion in only 53 days as of friday last week

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Originally Posted by JakeMartinez

That quote is taken right out of Zeitgeist, and it's true.

On Wikipedia, it says the profits made by the Fed go to its shareholders, as with any corporation.

However, its shareholders are the banks insured by the FDIC.

Not the Government, not the taxpayers, it's only the college of banks that make up the fed that get the profits from interest.

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It is a government enabled monopoly of the banking system.

I suggest anyone interested in the Fed to research Louis Thomas McFadden.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by killerweed420

Welcome to socialism. Its a short step to communism.

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if only that were true, then the people might regain some of the powers they have so blindly handed over to their so-called representatives. these bastards represent nothing but the consolidation of power and the slow stripping of the people of their liberties. the marxist concept that a government handed such powers over the lifeblood of a nation might willingly relinquish those powers to the citizenry has been disproved over and over again. no communalist society has ever been born of the consolidation of power in the few. only if all the people have the freedom to accumulate wealth and power individually is there any possibility of an equitable distribution of control over the nation's economy.

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Originally Posted by maladroit

it's only temporary socialism...the government doesn't want to stay in the bank business...

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do you honestly believe that such power will just be blithely returned to the private sector? once government has gotten its hooks into any private entity has it ever really loosed its grip entirely? please don't be so naive. every totalitarian regime has instituted a series of temporary measures for the good of the people and it has always taken a popular uprising for the people to regain control.

"once government has gotten its hooks into any private entity has it ever really loosed its grip entirely?"

- yes, privatization is happening all over the world...in my neck of the woods, the provincial government sold off a large government ferry corporation (with the largest ferries in the world) and a lucrative government natural gas utility (now owned by an american corporation)...governments will always retain the right to regulate business, but i don't believe that the US government wants to keep all that bank stock they have been buying...after the shit stops flicking off the fan, i think the US gov't will sell that stock, hopefully at a profit, and use it to buy more printing presses for the federal reserve

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Originally Posted by GoldenBoy812

It is a government enabled monopoly of the banking system.

I suggest anyone interested in the Fed to research Louis Thomas McFadden.

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Do you oppose the Fed, GoldenBoy?

If you do, it'd surprise the hell out of me.

Try 3 Trillion...ABC News: Bailout Critic: Plan Could Cost $3 Trillion