News Release

Bailout or Corporate Robbery?

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CommonDreams reports: “‘Looting of America by Big Corporations’: Progressives Appalled as Senate Unanimously Passes Largest Bailout Bill in US History.”

See interview with David Dayen on “Rising”: “It’s not a bailout, it’s corporate robbery” and his piece at The American Prospect.

Newsweek reports: “Bernie Sanders Scolds Republicans Opposed to Unemployment Benefit Boost in Stimulus Bill.”

RICHARD ESKOW, rjeskow at gmail.com, @rjeskow
Eskow is senior advisor for health and economic justice at Social Security Works and the host of “The Zero Hour” on Free Speech TV. He recently wrote the piece “7 Rules for the Boeing Bailout” for Naked Capitalism.

He said today: “As the world struggles with the pandemic, corrupt corporations like Boeing should be held accountable for their failure to prepare for a known risk, and for their destructive social behavior. That behavior has been lethal at times, and socially destructive at others. In Boeing’s case, passengers died on its 737 MAX, while banks and other corporations ruined millions of people’s lives and cost many people their homes.

“Self-interest was their primary motivator. Instead of preparing for known risks, including a pandemic, corporate leaders looted the coffers while exploiting both their workforce and their customers. They ignored their own organizations’ long-term financial needs — and sometimes the law — to indulge in a 10-year sybaritic feast of reckless profit-grabbing.

“This reflects an unsustainable and inhumane economy, led by amoral and out-of-control executives. Instead of being held accountable, however, the government is putting those executives first in line for rescue — before working people, before sick people, before the poor and vulnerable.

“The picture’s still unclear, but it appears that the U.S. government will spend money at levels never seen before – not to save the planet or its people, but to save the executives and corporations that are destroying it.

“And now, the malefactors are coming forward triumphantly, one by one, to exult in their victory. Executives from Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo, dens of serial corporate criminality, are openly pontificating about the need to risk human lives to pump up an economy that works only for them. The secret is out: it’s an economy of death, and apparently they no longer feel the need to hide it.

“Unless something changes quickly, future generations will look back on this moment with regret and fury. They have turned our economy into a Boeing 737 MAX, and it has just been cleared for takeoff.”

Eskow also recently wrote the pieces “No, I Will Not Die for This Damned Economy” and “Health Benefit Plans Are Making the Pandemic Worse.”

See recent accuracy.org news releases including: “When Warren Buffet Bails Out Companies, He Shares in the Upside. Why Doesn’t the Taxpayer?” and “Slush Fund or Democratic Economy?