Women’s Space

So in the past year or so:

• The subprime mortgage market in the United States tanked;
• Bank stocks plummeted;
• Big Six investment firm Bear Stearns tanked;
• The British government seized insolvent mortgage lender Northern Rock;
• Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac went into receivership, taken over by the U.S. government;
• The largest insurance company in the nation, and probably the world, AIG, was nationalized;
• Lehman Brothers failed and filed for bankruptcy, setting off a global financial alarm;
• The U.S. government brokered a takeover of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America;
• Washington Mutual was seized by the FDIC with pieces sold to JPMorgan Chase;
• The British government seized Bradford & Bingley, a company specializing in liar loan” mortgages.  The sale was necessary, the government said, to protect the banking system.
• The German government put up a $51 billion dollar rescue package to bail out Hypo Real Estate Holdings AG., a multinational property lender “in response to the extremely challenging conditions on the international money markets following the Lehman collapse …”.  As of two days ago the rescue is failing.
• The Belgian, Dutch and Luxembourg governments bailed out (and nationalized) Fortis bank to the tune of $16 billion and Dexia multinational bank to the tune of $9 billion. 
• Iceland’s government bailed out Glitner, its third largest bank, because it was on the verge of collapse;
• The Russian government pledged $50 billion to Russian banks just in case.
• Citicorp bought Wachovia, we thought — which was in trouble because it had purchased Golden West Financial, a subprime mortgage lender — but really, Wells Fargo bought Wachovia late yesterday for about $12 billion more than what Citicorp had offered.

The house of cards, in other words, began to come crashing down.

In the midst of what is and has been an international financial crisis, both houses of Congress passed the $700 billion dollar “bailout” package yesterday.  It rescues the big guys and offers mostly empty and vague promises to the rest of us,  regular taxpayers, who are going to foot this bill.  We are supposed to feel reassured because all the companies and institutions that got us into this mess in the first place will be able to keep doing more of the same things that got us into the mess:  making more and more mortgage loans and car loans and student loans and other kinds of loans so more and more citizens in a neverending supply will continue to owe their collective souls to the company store that is corporate America, the banks, the credit card companies, financial institutions, the U.S. government, and with that certain future, no reason to expect more, or any, transparency, honesty, integrity, ethics, morality on the part of those to whom we will owe our souls.   

But gee, we got the limits raised on FDIC deposits so all those zillions of us with over $100K in the banks won’t have to worry so much about the banks failing!  And upper middle class people who made use of the Alternative Minimum Tax in filing their tax returns will get relief!  There are all sorts of tax relief and other deals legislators cut — read: pork — to get the bailout approved:

• Extending an expired provision that gives Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands a rebate against excise taxes charged on imported rum. The rebate, at $13.50 per proof gallon, helps finance local infrastructure projects. The cost is $192 million.

• Establishing a new tax credit ranging from $2,500 to $7,500 for purchasers of plug-in electric-drive vehicles. Cost: $758 million.

• Extending tax credits that expired at the end of 2007 for certain domestic corporations involved in American Samoa economic development. Cost: $33 million.

• Extending a credit of up to $10,000 for the training of mine rescue team members. The credit expires at the end of this year and the one-year extension costs $4 million.

• Enacting President Bush’s proposal to erase the debt of the black lung disability trust fund at a cost of $1.3 billion.

• Extending for one year a seven-year depreciation timetable that NASCAR and other motorsport racing facilities have had for some years, the same tax break that amusement parks enjoy. Without the extension, the tracks would have to depreciate the cost of their improvements over 15 years, raising their taxes by $100 million.

• Extending for five years a program that reduces import duties on some wool fabrics. The tariff relief benefits U.S. worsted wool fabric producers that use imported fibers and yarns. Cost: $148 million.

• Increasing the single-year deduction in production costs, from $15 million to $20 million, that film and TV productions may take if the costs are incurred in economically depressed areas. In an effort to keep film and TV productions in the U.S., it also allows more companies to use a domestic production deduction. Cost: $478 million.

• Allowing commercial fishermen and others hurt by the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska to average out damage awards over three years rather than taking a one-year hit from the IRS. Cost: $49 million.

• Extending two programs that fund rural schools and rural communities that have been relying on declining income from logging on federal land or have low property tax bases because they are located on or next to federal lands. This is a major issue in the West. Cost: $3.3 billion.

• Exempting wooden practice arrows used by children from an excise tax of 39 cents per arrow. Oregon’s two senators and two Wisconsin representatives previously introduced legislation calling for the action, saying the tax was meant for more expensive archery arrows and is untenable for makers of toy arrows that may cost only about 30 cents apiece. The bill would affect about a half-dozen manufacturers nationwide, including one in Oregon; the Oregon senators said they didn’t seek its addition to the bailout, however. Cost: $2 million.

• Allowing employers to exempt from taxation what they spend on some fringe benefits for workers who commute to work by bicycle, for example, reimbursing the cost of parking the bikes. Cost: $2 million.

Most of these things sound really good, it’s true.  But they ALL COST A LOT OF MONEY.   This bailout includes a hefty number of giveaways, and the money is going to come from whom?  Us.  All of us.  Taxpayers, including the poorest taxpayers.  On top of the $700 billion we will pay, ultimately, that will allow Wall Street to pretty much keep on doing what it’s been doing for a while longer, to buy a little more time, ’til next time.  And then what?

Meanwhile, homeowners in bankruptcy didn’t get the relief they need, i.e., allowing bankruptcy judges to restructure their mortgage loans.  There are vague promises only about the importance of restructuring mortgage loans about to go into foreclosure.  These folks’ homes will end up in foreclosure.  Importantly, for women, a $61 billion bill that would have directly helped the poor and that had the support of Democrats until the big meltdown “slipped into political oblivion last week…It would have pumped billions into infrastructure projects, extend unemployment insurance and beefed up subsidies for health care, food, housing and other programs. Nearly $600 million was envisioned for food subsidies to help offset steep price jumps at the supermarket.”  The bill would have helped women the most, because, of course, women are the majority of the nation’s poor.  The urgency of the bailout meant the quiet kicking to the curb of this important legislation for women.

Where was the leadership the nation and the world needed?  No where to be found, that I could see.  I see little for which to be grateful and so, so much that is just disturbing and wrong.

Heart