Earth Equity News

Oppose No-Strings-Attached Taxpayer-Funded Bailout, Says Friends of the Earth. Friends of the Earth Press Release, September 22, 2008. “Friends of the Earth announced its opposition to the Bush administration’s proposed trillion-dollar bailout of the financial system today, and called on... government action... [to fix] deep structural flaws... that have spawned not only the current... crisis [but are] jeopardizing our planet’s future... ‘This financial crisis has exposed the right-wing’s anti-regulation philosophy as an abject failure,’ [said FOE president Brent Blackwater]. ‘Their hands-off approach... has resulted in greedy corporate titans getting rich on the backs of working people... [and] is causing irreparable harm to the planet. And now we face a trillion-dollar taxpayer-funded bailout. Enough is enough. [We oppose] the Bush administration’s... blank-check bailout... What is needed is truly fundamental reform, not this no-strings-attached proposal. The government must impose oversight and re-regulation... The days of the fox guarding the henhouse, with corporate lobbyists writing the laws that regulate their industries, must end. And we must consider environmental impacts to be economic impacts as we move forward. While the risks posed to the economy by the current financial crisis are indeed dire, we also face long-term risks posed by the climate crisis. These problems are intertwined, and reforms of the financial system must take this into account... In response, Friends of the Earth is calling on Congress to consider the following specific reforms.”