What do you think was bad about it so far? The net cost thus far is $0, while it has eased the credit crunch. The government has bought about $300 billion in securities - but that's an asset for the government. Unless our banking industry fails, that part should breakeven at a very minimum. If our banking system does fail, then it really doesn't matter because the US dollar won't be worth anything anyway. Paulson has already stated he's going to leave the remaining $350 billion for the next administration. But my point is that hitting rock bottom now will leave your kids in *more* debt than otherwise because you'll have even more debt with a substantially smaller tax base to pay it off with. I agree - though I obviously see the bailout as more of a long-term improvement. I do think if there's another stimulus package, it needs to be infrastructure-building, job-driven spending rather than simple rebate checks.
How can you say that at this point? Faith in the Masters of the Universe? Might be time to look into apostasy. Nobody (except Paulie and cronies) knows with any certainty what the hell the money is being used for, who it is going to, or what we might get in return. And we keep forgetting the $2,000,000,000,000.00 the Fed won't tell us about. I'll believe it if the money is still there when Obama places his hand on the bible. And my point is that rock bottom would be deeper if we waste the opportunity and do ridiculous stuff with trillions of dollars.
for the government to borrow more money to keep taxes coming in is like eating another donut a day so you can jog an extra 10 feet each day the tax base is already too small to do anything with the debt- any change to the tax base is a mute point as far as a constriction in the economy, we are going to have to live with in our means and so is the government, we have to find out what our real standard of living is at this moment... in fact we will find out eventually that is inevitible but the borrowing more makes it worse not better, short term and long term we really don't have a choice but to stop borrowing, sorry no bailouts
I don't buy any of the "worldwide financial collapse" malarky. Big banks fail. Some pain ensues. Small banks that are unscathed become new big banks. Roll on.
The government really needs to have both a short-term and a long-term plan. I want to see us pull out of this difficult situation as softly as possible. I believe doing anything to restrict the money supply right now would be extremely dangerous. We know that the government is going to be spending money big time in the near future and I hope it is spent to improve our infrastructure. Infrastructure spending can benefit in both the short-term (by putting people to work) and in the long-term (improved travel, energy independence, etc.). The problem is that we must have a long-term plan for paying down the debt we create. We need to be thinking about and fixing all of the unfunded liabilities. Medicare is in real trouble. Social security is not in trouble yet, but it will be in the near future. If we do not start planning now, those are the items that will destroy this country.
If/when GM fails their many suppliers are going to feel the same pain. It's about more than just the car company.
There is not going to be a soft landing period. This is only a matter of timing. Can we crash later than sooner. This is a debt crisis- both federal debt and consumer debt federal debt piggy backs consumer debt and takes a long time to hit mainstreet, but it is the most dangerous debt... it is one thing for corporations to sink and another for the govt. to sink any increases to either debt at this time is not good, short term solutions to this problem is like turning up the car radio to drown out the sound of knocking in your engine.
True it will be a big hit, one we have to get through instead of making it worse later, I think we are getting numb to the numbers... we are leveraging huge amounts of debt for the taxpayers/consumers/citizens It would be nice to have a soft time for the next couple years by infusing large amounts of cash through the govt. It would be easier on all of us. But what happens if oil prices go back up? Who can predict? What if things get worse inspite of the bailouts. The only hope the bailout offers is short term hope and even if it works 2-7 years from now we are at the same cliff only we will have a bulldozer pushing us over the edge.
I don't like facing the music right now, I prefer a truckload of bailouts to get some temporary relief, we might discover huge oil reserves offshore and gold mines in Florida. I will admit I don't want to go through real hard times. I realize the catch 22, eventually we are going to drown in debt so the govt has to do something to try to ease the fall; but raising the level of debt means we still all drown, eventually. I feel that too often we have taken the easy way and that has got us into this very position we are in. I think more debt will bite us.
