by Linda Burleson

Created on: October 01, 2008

To begin, the bailout in and of itself goes against the grain, as I see our country slipping further and further into socialism. The government really should not be a safety net for business gone bad. After all, who is the government? According to the United States Constitution, it is US. When I am struggling to pay my mortgage, why must I take on the added burden of someone elses?

There is plenty of fault to go around in this scandal, and it is certainly not just the executives of the companies. They probably could not have managed anything on the scope of this fiasco without "friends in high places". Though perhaps not for long, we are still a free capitalist society and a ceiing on the salary of anyone in private business is not something that should be considered, particularly unless a cap is also placed on the salary of legislators who have no problem voting themselves a raise no matter what the state of the economy.

Just this morning I read an article from the New York Times by someone named Steve White who explained the Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac programs and discussed how the pressure from government entities was being weilded for the banks to make the loans almost down payment free to persons who obviously could not show ability to pay. He specified Bill Clinton and Barney Frank as well as others. Countless people have gotten rich on the backs of the American public in schemes, but this is the topper. Many of the people who profited are people whom we should be able to trust as our representatives. Why should company executives bear the brunt of this alone. There is plenty of blame to go around.

If companies are legitimately profitable enough to pay the CEO a large salary, so be it. The stockholder will have to be more diligent in overseeing company activities in these situations. Are they not the ones who usually vote the CEO's their raises? When these raises begin to get exhorbitant, someone should investigate the financial activities.

In the last few days, I have seen several videos of people who, at a time when it would not have been too late to remedy the situation, insisted that there was nothing amiss and who severly criticised anyone who said otherwise. People have tried to blow the whistle on these precarious loans for years, but they met roadblocks at every turn. What about the organizations such as ACORN, an extreme liberal activist group, receiving "donations" or "kickbacks" from the monies from these business practices-organizations that in turn gave large donations to liberal politicians. Who is going to put a cap on this?

It is unreasonable to put a cap on one entity of this problem. If we can't control them all, we shouldn't control any of them.

Learn more about this author, Linda Burleson.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.