Friday, November 28, 2008

Pay to Play is alive and well

Daniel Howes, Detroit News: Cashing in on double standards

The feds pump another $20 billion into teetering Citigroup Inc. and insure $306 billion in bad assets just days after Congress slaps Detroit's automakers for failing to table "a plan" to justify $25 billion in loans and folks 'round here cry, "Double standard! Double standard!"
......Double standard? You bet, but it's more than a geographic cabal of coastal Democrats and anti-union, pro-foreign auto Republicans from the South that clearly has it in for Detroit. It's money and political alliances, folks, neither of which the boys at General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC have in abundant supply.
How come Citigroup gets a pass and a big fat check? First, failure of its sprawling operations truly would pose a mortal threat to the global financial system. Second, the banking giant is exceedingly well connected to the campaign wallets of the very same folks -- and their allies -- who are poised to foist draconian terms on Detroit to keep it afloat.


Howes goes on do detail all the incestuous ties between the twits who brought us the financial crisis and the Democratic powerbrokers. It's a good thing that John McCain did such a bang up job getting corporate money out of Washington.

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