TERROR LOANS Thus far, it appears that only eleven per cent of loans granted to business firms located in Washington, D.C and New York City areas designed to help them to recover from losses incurred during Terrorist Activities on September 11, 2001 got there. It appears obvious that most of such funds so allocated by our Congress have gone awry into other hands.
It is of special importance and urgency that we think about these facts while we are in the process of preparing loans for those who have suffered losses in the Katrina floods. Federal funds already total over six hundred million dollars and we all think we know where it is supposed to be used. To permit the commercial banks to profit from such an emergency program constitutes, to me, "a wrongful act." It crippled the previous program designed to help during the Terrorist scare, and the Flood package now being started is a potential bonanza for the same people who are especially aware of how to work loopholes in the legislation. This might well prove to be another example of the use of the old system of putting the foxes in charge of poultry house security. It doesn't work.
I am not aware of any investigation of such obvious mis-application of funds,but your daily paper is featuring them them one-by-one. Thus far, I have read of a Pet Shop located in a Rocky Mountain state which is alleged to have have contended that pet owners in New York City and around the Pentagon building in D.C. and the surrounding area of Northern Virginia could no longer, because of the Terrorist attacks could not afford to bring their pets in for regular shots, clips, curries and cures.
A Perfume Salon located in one of the Caribbean Isles is reported to have applied for and received such a loan. The owner once again can again walk tall with assurance among fellow West Indies perfume people confident of his abilities to deal with future problems of a like nature. The was another one in our own local paper yesterday but I forget what sort of gadget they make, I have been led to wonder why it appears that none of these loan applicants seem to have been informed of the origination of the loan funds.
What is the explanation? Or, need there be one?
A.L.M. Sept 10, 2005 [c416wds]
