The TARP cop will save us

At one time, Washington DC had more cops per capita than any other US city. It also had one of the worst murder rates which goes to show that more cops don't protect working class life.

There are a lot of cops that come out of Washington DC. There are drug cops, environmental cops and now "Tarp Cops". Authorities have initiated more than a dozen investigations against allegations of fraud to do with the bank bailout funds. The new TARP cop, Neil Barofsky, says that there is a huge potential for billions of dollars to be stolen given the size of the bailouts so far at 3 thousand billion dollars. The size of the potential he bases on the average rate of fraud in federal programmes.

What is the rate of fraud in federal programs? It's pretty damn high that's for sure. The figures are staggering even though we don't know them specifically as the transparency all the capitalist class are talking about does not apply to their financial dealings and the ability of the working class to see them. Although Katrina one of the worst disasters in US history, much more devastating in scope than September 11th, has almost slipped from memory, the theft of taxpayer's money probably runs in to the hundreds of billions, maybe trillions. Contractors that were receiving hundreds of millions in taxpayer funds to clean up the city were, in some cases, picking up trash in one section of the city and simply dumping it in another.

It's interesting to note that the US treasury department has "suggested it would not be useful to require banks to disclose exactly how they use the TARP money."

In times of crisis, the class nature of society becomes harder to obscure. Workers on welfare not only receive little enough to survive on but they are told what they can and cannot spend it on. People work hard all their lives and are evicted from their homes for it. We hand the banker, or should I say, the bankers politicians hand them our money and they are free to do with it what they choose and without explanation; this doesn't go unnoticed

Every day there are mass killings in the US as people's lives collapse around them. People see what is happening and see the unfairness of it, but see no way out. Now the fox is policing the bailout of their friends making sure not too much of our money is stolen in blatant, hard to cover up schemes. The present crisis is far from over and further shocks are on the way.