Privatization

The phrase “What the fuck?” is perhaps overused in times such as these, but given all the efficiencies and improved services privatization created in Iraq, what else is there to say about this?

The Treasury Department this week plans to start outsourcing the management of up to $700 billion in troubled securities, using special contracting authorities that enable it to retain private portfolio managers, custodians and other financial services consultants without following standard acquisition procedures.

The department's quick turn to the private sector will help it prepare for the massive task of overseeing mortgages and other financial assets to be acquired by the government as part of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act that was approved by Congress and signed by President Bush on Friday.

But it means that the government has little time to assess the companies that will be partners in what could become one of the largest public-sector funds in American history. Some of the same firms that have played roles in the rise and collapse of the mortgage-backed securities market may end up guiding the government as the bailout unfolds, department officials said.

So the bailout that does nothing about the root of our nation’s economic collapse, mortgage defaults and foreclosures, is going to be orchestrated by the same greedy criminal shitbags who got us into this mess in the first place.

This is madness. This is a raid of the national treasury. This is a government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich grabbing every dime it can steal on its way out the door. This is government by Republicans.

Things are bad, and are going to get much worse.