By: Gregg Elberg

The Merriam-Webster Online dictionary defines a bailout as " a rescue from financial distress." This is what the bailout, some $700 billion in taxpayer money to rescue banks is supposed to do for the US economy. The Merriam-Webster Online dictionary defines a boondoggle as "a wasteful or impractical project or activity often involving graft."  Query: why does the US Treasury Department refuse to explain how it is doling out billions of dollars of taxpayer's money?

Harvard law Professor Elizabeth Warren, the chairwoman of a congressional oversight panel was unable to get the answers to this question from the Bush administration this week. The clear intent of congress in approving the bailout was to stimulate the US economy. Query: is this intent being ignored?

According to the San Francisco Chronicle Professor Warren stated: " "I don't but a winter coat without a plan. I can't imagine how someone could think they were going to repair a failing economy and undertake spending billions of dollars in taxpayer money without a plan."

The five-member oversight panel regarding the bailout echoes this sentiment.

Yesterday in a conversation
with a southern California mortgage broker Gregg Financial Services
learned of a bank that had processed a loan for 60 days with many
assurances that the transaction would be approved and funded. Suddenly
the bank, in effect said: "Never mind. We are not lending for the next 90 days. We plan to use the bailout money we received from the Treasury to purchase failed banks next year".

This experience is quite disturbing because commercial financing, accounts receivable financing and purchase order financing all depend on the availability of capital, much of which is supplied by banks that lend to lenders.

Query: why is the US government being so secretive regarding the most important economic issues that effect all Americans?

(c) 2008 Gregg Financial Services