To Bail or Not to Bail...

Should America be Bailed out?

  • Yes. This is a good thing for the economy.

    Votes: 33 34.4%

  • No. This is the wrong way. Try something else.

    Votes: 28 29.2%

  • Leave the economy alone. It will right itself.

    Votes: 15 15.6%

  • Not sure.

    Votes: 20 20.8%
  • Total voters
    96
G

Gods-Spartan

[09] Warrior
Well...I just figured you guys may have an opinion on the matter. Don't look for arguments here. Just vote and give your opinion as to why you think this will or will not work. If this gets heated to the point of stupid a mod should close this quick.
 
Industries unlike banks actually produce something useful to society. There's no point in doing a flat out bail-out without any guarantee of increased production. Furthermore, bail-outs create a moral hazard and promote the continuation of poor business practices.
 
The key to changing the economy IMHO is if your going to rely on the trickle down BS stop outsourcing all your jobs... like how do you expect consumer spending to be the brunt of the economy when your answer to less buying is to cut costs and cut out jobs on US soil?
 
I voted 'no.'

I'm no PhD-educated economist or anything, but if a bill for $800 billion in stimulus is over half pork-barrel spending, then it's not really a good bill.
 
I'd feel a lot better about this bill if the banks wouldn't keep grasping at and taking on more debt. We gave the banks money, they used it to acquire their bankrupt competitors, now they grin at us like the cat that ate the canary and say "We kind of got ourselves into a rough spot, lend a hand?". If they recover they'll be even larger and more influential entities than they were before they ever engineered this whole mess. And what's the deal? Why do they get to keep the money they "earned" from sub-prime loans and debt reselling? If you make money you get to keep it and if you lose it the tax payer has to bail you out? They're privatizing reward and socializing risk. That's just a losing combination for us as taxpayers and it encourages irresponsible behavior in financial markets. And then these guys object to a law that prevents them from making over 500k a year (aimed at keeping them from pocketing ridiculous sums of the stimulus the way the airline execs ate up their bailouts) because they say that over the last few years their families have become "accustomed to a style of living that 500k a year cannot afford" and that they need more money. It's just disgusting. Meanwhile I'm told so much of the economy is tied up in debt and foreign investment that if the banks were to collapse it would be catastrophic.

In short I don't like either option.
 
BrewtusBibulus said:
The key to changing the economy IMHO is if your going to rely on the trickle down BS stop outsourcing all your jobs... like how do you expect consumer spending to be the brunt of the economy when your answer to less buying is to cut costs and cut out jobs on US soil?
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Well trickle down does work but in the right economic conditions. I don't much like the term trickle down as it does not adequalty paint the picture of how things should work. Fact is we don't make money here anymore. How often are you going to find products made here in the U.S.A.?

So the trickle down effect hits a dead end. It should also be thought of as a loop, not an actual downward motion. Instead...in our economy, its a straight line right off our shores.

So...
Empoyer creates jobs-->provides money to workers-->workers buy stuff-->money goes to invest in foreign countries.

Then the employer is left with having to magically come up with funds to maintain a buisness that is failing only to be bailed out by the government. This might provide relief, but without a change in practice it only delays the inevitable.

Another problem with this country is that industry is looked at as the bad guys. We do very little to help them stay here. Instead, we jack up buisness tax (35% I think?) and also demand fairness when they profit. Profit helps these guys expand. I understand when these hoard the cash is wrong and unpatriotic but again who are we to tell them what to do with thier funds? I'll just not do buisness with them.

We all should decide to invest in America. And find ways to stregnthen growth here on our turf. If anything, spend. Spend your money. Spend it in places that provide jobs to your neighborhoods. Demand American products. Don't settle for what might be cheaper. invest in American products made by American workers.
 
Banks simply cannot fail. Volatility in the market went up like crazy when Lehmann collapsed. It is obvious that that was a big mistake.

So then what? Providing them with huge loans to buy off their 'infected' assets? That pure moral hazard right there.

I have no idea what the best plan at the moment is. I do know that incentive structures and risk management need a heavy restructure.
 
Trickle Down is a mistake in most situations... simply because nothing forces a company to put it back into the US Economy...

The bail out, and Obama's stimulus package are both mistakes... The economy is languishing, and they think they can fix it by creating $1,800,000,000,000 (1.8 trillion) out of thin air and giving it to the people who fucked our economy up in the first place? Why are we rewarding failure? The banks fucked us over by supporting sub-prime mortgages, and yet we are bailing them out... The auto-industry is failing because their product sucks, and yet we are bailing out; in 3 years, once they have consumed all the bail out money, their product will still suck! The economy is in crisis, and our government is trying to fix it by helping the people who put us here.

$1.8 trillion... there are 600,000 people in this country... If they want to stimulate this economy, they need to forget about the trickle DOWN effect and work on the trickle UP. Instead of giving money to big business; money that gets wasted... give $30,000 to every CITIZEN (fuck you illegal immigrants) and see how that stimulates the economy. Maybe people would actually be able to pay their CREDIT BILLS, and then the credit industry wont be so fucked. People may be able to afford houses, so the housing industry wont be fucked. etc... And if people want to spend their money on drugs and boos; at least they wont be able to blame the government.

Maybe then people could afford to get a one-way plane ticket to India... so they can get a real job.
 
THey should find the poorest people and give em $20,000 and tell them you have to spend this or you go to jail. That would help.
 
Jaxel said:
$1.8 trillion... there are 600,000 people in this country... If they want to stimulate this economy, they need to forget about the trickle DOWN effect and work on the trickle UP. Instead of giving money to big business; money that gets wasted... give $30,000 to every CITIZEN (fuck you illegal immigrants) and see how that stimulates the economy. Maybe people would actually be able to pay their CREDIT BILLS, and then the credit industry wont be so fucked. People may be able to afford houses, so the housing industry wont be fucked. etc... And if people want to spend their money on drugs and boos; at least they wont be able to blame the government.

Maybe then people could afford to get a one-way plane ticket to India... so they can get a real job.
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I pretty much agree with this other than the fact that there are not 600,000 people in this country there are more around 303,824,640 (July 2008 est.) people and 1.8 trillion dollars would give everyone in the united states about 6,000 dollars granted wtf is an infant going to do with 6,000 dollars but hey they are set for a while and the infant cash would hopefully just go into a bank account which will help the banks. This will be a good start if the legislation granted all that money to people and if you were under 18 it had to go into a bank of your Parent/Guardian's choice under your name. or something like that
 
I love all the talk about how this stimulus package needs to hurry up and be passed, but only a portion will be spent in 2009 as people continue to lose jobs. WTF? This economy is fail.

I would write about what needs to be done, but it doesn't matter since the gubment is going to do whatever it wants anyway and spend the money in areas where I don't think spending is needed along with not fixing the problems that put us in this situation to begin with or hold anyone accountable for putting us in this situation. So the only thing I can do is have faith that things turn around quick.

But if you are really looking to stimulate an economy that is built on spending, you could start with actually giving money to people to spend and stipulate that they have to spend it so it's not holed away in a bank. And then from there, work towards fixing the other segments of our economy.

And for bonus WTFness, the government plans to spend $1 trillion + but don't know how. That's awesome.
 
Jaxel said:
$1.8 trillion... there are 600,000 people in this country... If they want to stimulate this economy, they need to forget about the trickle DOWN effect and work on the trickle UP. Instead of giving money to big business; money that gets wasted... give $30,000 to every CITIZEN (fuck you illegal immigrants) and see how that stimulates the economy. Maybe people would actually be able to pay their CREDIT BILLS, and then the credit industry wont be so fucked. People may be able to afford houses, so the housing industry wont be fucked. etc... And if people want to spend their money on drugs and boos; at least they wont be able to blame the government.
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The problem you face there is that you can't give people $30,000 and expect them to use it for specific purposes. Normal people aren't that different from the people running this show, in that they're largely selfish and stupid. The people in charge just have more shit to play with. You give 30 large to a normal person who's having a credit crisis, odds are they're gonna use it to buy more stupid shit. Cars, expensive TVs, DRUGS, things like that. Not many people who are in financial crisis are there completely free of fault. Some were just unlucky like that, but most of them are just fucking stupid.

The real problem we face, is how to distribute any bailout or spending packages to fix the problems we have now, while minimalizing the possibility of someone doing something fucking stupid with all that chedda. I'm honestly not sure there even is a way to do that.
 
Well, whatever you guys decide to do, you better do it quick, cuz your ecomony is fucking our economy in the ass without a condom.

The MAIN problem is not the system (although it's obviously pooched). It's ppl taking advantage of the system, instead of changing it, to line their own pockets to carry out the rest of their measly 75 year life span in luxury... they don't give a flying fuckwad if their children's children have to fit the bill... they will be dead and it won't bother them.
 
iKotomi said:
Industries unlike banks actually produce something useful to society. There's no point in doing a flat out bail-out without any guarantee of increased production. Furthermore, bail-outs create a moral hazard and promote the continuation of poor business practices.
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So does doing nothing.
 
Marginal said:
So does doing nothing.
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Completely disagree... the economy is a living entity, if you leave it by itself, it will correct itself.

Our government's plan to stop this runaway DEFLATION, is to pump money into it, creating runaway INFLATION; which is the same thing they've been doing for 95 years since the Federal Reserve was founded in 1915. The economy suffers from the same laws of Supply and Demand... as supply goes up, demand goes down... so creating runaway inflation only prolongs the problem, and doesn't actually fix anything. It just restarts the cycle; there is a reason why our economy crashes every 20 years like clockwork (last crash was 1987).

Leave the economy to itself... take the government out of the equation, fuck keynesian economics in the ass... and all will correct itself. The Bush Administration was failing with their "Bail out" and now the Obama Administration will fail with the "Stimulus Package"... Eventually people will realise that Libertarians (Old Right Republicans according to Ron Paul) actually do know what they're talking about.
 
I would want to see where it goes from here, maybe I'll get a few laughs as the entire country falls apart, or maybe be thankful that it saved itself.
 
Jaxel said:
Completely disagree... the economy is a living entity, if you leave it by itself, it will correct itself.
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Just like it did during the Great Depression.

Personally, I don't have anything against the bailout, but I'm not a big supporter. There don't really seem to be any better plans yet.
 
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