Bailout Ripoff: How To Fight Back

We're still getting a bad deal in the Wall Street bailout even after Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson changed course and decided to use some of the $700 billion approved by Congress to invest directly in banks rather than use it to buy toxic financial assets, according to Robert Johnson, former chief economist for the Senate Banking Committee and Wall Street fund manager. In this interview, Johnson explains how Warren Buffett struck a better deal in his investment in Goldman Sachs than the federal government struck with nine major banks.

Johnson says activists should get behind a plan that includes improving the bank deal, creating a new regulatory regime for the financial system, a $300 billion-a-year Main Street economic rebuilding program, reform the campaign finance system, create an independent finance corporation to manage the Wall Street component of the economic rescue and a vigorous mortgage relief program to protect struggling homeowners.