Where'd the Money Go!

Obama is going to catch the flak for the bailout, but the giant federal giveaway started during the Bush administration. In 2008 the Republicans and their owners, the big east coast banking concerns, could see the jig was up. The Democrats could run a young, unknown black guy and sweep into Washington. This was the last time for at least four years and maybe much longer that the good ol' boys could feed at the Washington trough. And, let's face it, the country had been rammed down the free trader's rabbit hole chasing after Milton Friedman's economic fantasy.

So by 2008, the last strategy to rape, er … reap the benefits of power came in the form of a massive bailout. The government just had to dump billions of unregulated money into the Wall Street banks or the country would be flushed down the toilet.

Remember, this is 2008. George W. Bush is president. So where'd all that bailout money go? All those billions of dollars? Well, apparently, millions of it, or perhaps even billions of it, went into the silky pockets of the very same Wall Street manipulators who brought the crisis on in the first place. In the form of massive bonuses.

According to The New York Times, "At Goldman Sachs, for example, bonuses of more than $1 million went to 953 traders and bankers, and Morgan Stanley awarded seven-figure bonuses to 428 employees. Even at weaker banks like Citigroup and Bank of America, million-dollar awards were distributed to hundreds of workers."