I have not expressed a position on bailouts. What I said, if you paid better attention, was that the greedy investment bankers seemed to have been counting on bailouts. Suggesting, in case you missed it, that there may have been some collusion between the financial industry lobbyists and the Neo-cons. You are attempting to change the subject again. You had said that I "favor taking billions from hardworking taxpayers to give to your special interests" when I had said no such thing and called you on it. You lie.
Ok. Perhaps you would. Maybe everyone around you would have gone broke and you would be fine. I can't predict what would have happened if something were not done. I can just show you that in the past, when action wasn't taken, our economy collapsed for a long time. You can blame someone else for applying for a bad sub prime mortgage when they couldn't afford it. You can blame Fannie Mae for underwriting these loans. You can blame the govt for strongly encouraging this. Someone else can blame evil greedy financial institutions that insured these and passed these around like a hot potato, spreading this toxic debt across the entire market and affecting everything from local credit unions to Goldman Sachs. One may blame financial deregulation for opening up the system for all of this to happen. After all of the finger pointing we were still left with a dilemma; bailout or collapse. Collapse is already in the history books.
I don't know if I trust the govt to do very much of anything but I think in this instance that they took to least terrible option.
I have read a few reports that some economist think more bailout is needed............. and that just sounds utterly stupid.
It may be now. Things seem to be running smooth. Bailouts can't become a welfare program for stupid corporations. We already broke the glass and put out the fire. I'm worried about the govt bailout that will happen if Obama gets elected.
The debt isn't my concern as it is the socialization of the economy and the governments finger in it. Lets face it, we all now have a vested interest in GM and the Banks. We are now on the hook. So if it fails again, which it can, we would have lost some of those jobs anyway and now "tax payer money." However, we will continue to funnel money to it like the failed USPS.
Of the $245 billion bank bailout, over $169 billion has been paid back, including $13.7 billion in dividends and interest. This won't last much longer. The government owns about 26% of GM and only needs 16 billion to be paid of and GM returned to profitability last year. The problem is the Congress refusing to allow the USPS to close thousands of unneeded rural post offices, end saturday delivery (like UPS and Fed-Ex) and raise postage enough to cover their costs (like UPS and Fed-Ex). They privatized the Post Office but refused to let go of operational interference for political reasons and it has become the worst of both worlds. Either revert it back into a Federal agency and pay for it with spending cuts and taxes or fully privatize it and let them pay for it with spending cuts and postage increases. The Frankenstein monster isn't working.
