Bernie Sanders, socialist, asks an important question.

It appears the Federal Reserve aid to the ailing banking sector went in no small amount to European financial institutions. While not alone in questioning the logic of the move of a country facing it's own solvency issues bailing out foreign institutions, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, asks one of the right questions (via FT);

“We’re talking about huge sums of money going to bail out large foreign banks,” said Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont. “Has the Federal Reserve of the United States become the central bank of the world?”

Sanders is a socialist.  Yet even he gets it.  It doesn't matter whether European banks have a presence in the U.S. or not - the bailout money was to keep financial institutions afloat. But not all institutions were meant to be protected.  That money comes from American taxpayers (or more correctly, future taxpayers). It is simply not meant to bail out Barclay's. Let Britain do that if it's needed. Or more appropriately, let the banks who have made bad lending decisions fail and it will teach the survivors a lesson - namely, be smarter about your lending decisions. And as a side note, another lesson is to keep the government out of lending decisions.

Bailout FI's owe back taxes

And the stupidity continues to compound itself. Yahoo is reporting today that 13 companies receiving TARP money owe a combined total of $220 million in back taxes.

Outrageous!

But save your anger. Or more appropriately, direct it in the right direction - these companies, while apparently bereft of common sense, in the real world would be cut loose to sink or swim on their own. Thanks to bailouts they can continue to behave foolishly and in fact are rewarded for it.

The real culprits here are the politicians and bureaucrats from Paulson, and Bush to Obama, Geithner, Pelosi and Reid who have been barrelling forward with bailouts and legislation without taking the time to even read their own plans and doing due diligence on their own decisions.

Government is not meant to run at high speed because you run the risk of making stupid, stupid, stupid decisions. It's meant to be a deliberative body. It's especially true of the Senate, Mr. Reid...

The lack of oversight and the lack of transparency and the lack of planning at the governmental is (or should be) criminal. Hang the rich? No, imprison the politicians (no inciting riots here). These people have no business being in charge of business, or of the government. Not unless they start acting like responsible officials instead of a bunch of reactionary, partisan unthinking hacks.

ARG!!!!!

Okay rant over - breathe.