Where have you been? This was a major part of the Clinton Welfare Reforms of the 90's. Three years is the limit and you have to be in training or actively looking for work in that time. Mostly only people with dependent children even qualify for welfare. The notion that Welfare supports millions of people who don't want to work is a stereotype. Unemployment is low in America--the people who don't want to work are homeless and receive no benefits at all. Most of the poor people in this country are the working poor and they work very hard for very little money.
You or me signing up for an Option ARM for a 400K house is exactly the same as someone who makes 12,000 a year signing up for an Option ARM for a 130K house. This is one of those "Welcome To The Republican Party" moments. I have a FHA mortgage through Citi right now, but it's 30 year fixed at 5.25%. They tried to sell me real hard for a Option ARM that started out at a paltry 150 a month. :lol: What if I would have accepted it?
All true.The real abuses are by the ones taking Mama's or Grandma's check and buying wine & crack then sit on the street corners all day watching the traffic, and life, go by.
Who in the hell said we couldnt agree on somethings.:thumb: Whats even scarier here is the conflict of interest for Henry Paulson, he was a top executive at Goldman Sachs making 70 million a year before taking the job he is in right now. I mean his company will probably be hired to manage a portion of this bail out. Just watch how this plays out.
Like others, I'm against the bail out. But admittedly, I'm not sure what the repercussions would be if we let these companies reap what they sow for their fiscal irresponsibility and NOT bail them out? If it's going to cause another our economy to collaspe to the point of another depression, wouldn't this be the right thing to do?
It's the right thing to do, if it's done right. Clearly from the uproar, the country does not trust the politicians to simply say "there is a disaster and this will fix it." The financial industry has more lobbyists in Washington than any other sector but The People are making themselves heard this time. Lobbyists can't bring in enough votes to match their bribes. Several things seem apparent: 1. There must be proper government regulation. Self-regulation by the financial industry led to this crisis. 2. Corporations and their stockholders must bear the lions share of the failure from their own risky speculation. 3. Government should intervene only to prevent a collapse of the economy, not to save individual banks and corporations. 4. The Corporate Executives and Boards who failed at their duties and led to this have to go. Period. And no Golden Parachutes. 5. The citizens must get a dividend if this effort saves the corporations, The People are assuming the risk, so they should reap the benefits first. 6. People who assumed mortgages they could not afford should get a moratorium from being foreclosed upon to give them time to refinance or downsize. But they should not be bailed out individually just because they made a foolish financial mistake. That is unfair to the many more Americans who bought a house they could afford, a fixed mortgage that was payable, and paid their debts. Those frugal citizens should not have to sit in their smallish houses while their government tax dollars bail out those that bought big houses with a pool and a sauna that they couldn't afford.
Darn Red. This is a first. I agree with most of what you say. I don't like the $700 billion bailout, or the heavy hand the bailout would give the government in the private sphere, or the power it would give to Paulson or his successor. I just don't know if there is a workable alternative. The GOP leadership is putting together one that would substitute the $700 bailout with insurance. I am interest to see what that looks like. While I don't believe the federal government should be dictating to the corporations what they can pay their CEOs, the golden parachute must come to an end. Severance pay must be tied to performance. As far as regulation of the private market is concerned, we need to put back firewalls between the investment and commercial banks. No more mergers between these competitors. And borrowers must have adequate income and other resources to cover the debt. But I would be real careful about much more regulation.
it seems to me if you were consistent you would also apply these principled statements to individual income and taxation as well.
