The Raw Deal

Do you know why Jimmy Carter gave away the Panama canal? Well this is what he said at the signing ceremony in September 1979.

'The Panama Canal Treaty and the Neutrality Treaty were the result of years of careful negotiations. They have been hailed throughout this hemisphere as a model for equitable negotiations between ourselves and our smaller neighbors. As I said when I signed the treaties, they express the commitment of the United States to the belief that fairness, and not force, should lie at the heart of our dealings with nations of the world.'

WHAT, 'fairness, and not force,' you must be joking. The real reason for the giveaway was that outstanding bank loans to Panama were in jeopardy of default if the failing Panamanian economy collapsed. The bankers pressured Carter to sell out the Canal to protect their profits. After all how do you really think that a peanut farmer and nobody ever heard of him before small time governor of Georgia became the president of the US any way? Well history doesn't repeat it rhymes and these days it rhymes in harmony. Do you know why Paulson really wants to help homeowners avoid foreclosure? Well I'll betch ya it has something to do with those dam bankers again. Check this from the New York Times,

"As Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard bankruptcy expert, puts it, “The administration’s subprime mortgage plan is the bank lobby’s dream.” "

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/10/opinion/10krugman.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin