Subprime TARP

Good news everyone, we're out of the economic crisis! Or so say the bankers, who have returned their TARP funds to the government after deciding they can't meet the terms of the loan. (Oh, so they do understand that sometimes people default on loans.)

Actually, they can meet the conditions of the loan, they just don’t want to. Specifically, the government is placing a cap on executive salaries for any banks who have accepted loans. Essentially, the government is saying that the executives themselves have to help pay back the loan, instead of just cutting the employees. So the banks said they’d rather just give the money back. All twelve were very proud of themselves and immediately released public statements, basically saying “good news everyone—we still can’t afford to help our customers, so we’re not going to be giving out any loans, but the government did let us give back the TARP money designed to enable us to help people so that we can continue to earn huge dividends!!!”

The reason why they’re so proud of this is because the shareholders are all going to get a bigger slice because of it, and they’re taking the slice right out of the actual business they’re supposed to provide. Like the skyscraper that Portland has invested billions into making (by Nordstroms), which has been suspended indefinitely because their bank has said that they won’t front the money, even though it’s guaranteed and has already been collected from people who have dropped hundreds of thousands of dollars on leases. Now the investors are trying to figure out what to do for all the businesses who paid six or seven figures for an office that they don’t have. It's like a season of LOST—just when you think that big business are the villains, you find out that they're right there with us as helpless victims of a far greater evil: the banks.

I hope the banks collapse. We’ll all be fucked in the short term, but it’s the only way we’ll ever move forward. Portland has room for a few more spangers, let the fat cats beg for change on the streets.