CORPORATE WELFARE IN 'THE LAND OF THE FREE'

According to the United States government’s own figures, nearly 36 million Americans were living below the poverty line in 2007, including 13 million children.

Yet we continue to see welfare budgets decreased and eligibility criteria tightened.

But while having no money to assist working class America, the US administration has more than enough money to spare when the corporations and financial speculators come calling.

It is now going to give investment giant AIG a staggering $85 billion. This is more than the gross national product of Romania or Nigeria. New Zealand's GDP in 2005 was $107 billion.

The US government can’t help ordinary people looking for secure jobs that pay decent wages, but when Wall Street comes banging on the door it’s an entirely different story altogether.

It was nonsensical then for TV3 News to describe the AIG bailout as offering a ‘glimmer of hope’.

Wall Street has engaged in a frenzy of speculation and greed but now there is a price to be paid. But it won’t be paid by corporate America – no, ordinary Americans are expected to pick up the tab,

The U.S. government is plundering the pockets of ordinary Americans to bail out the large corporations.

These are the very same corporations who constantly promote the virtues of ‘private enterprise' and constantly attack the ‘sins’ of welfarism. But apparently welfare is acceptable when all the money is funnelled towards them.

It was nonsensical then for TV3 News tonight to describe the AIG bailout as offering a ‘glimmer of hope’. It might possibly help ward off disaster for corporate America but it offers nothing for ordinary Americans and ordinary people around the world - just an even more uncertain future. After all, capitalism only knows one way out of this crisis, and that is through slump and mass unemployment.