Our national debt currently stands are at balance of: $10,014,693,447,926. Yes, 10 trillion dollars. Nixon took us off the gold standard and ever since our currency wildly unbalanced. For those of you not educated on what exactly the gold standard means it is the basis for economics since the beginning of Man. Something worthless, such as a US dollar paper has to be backed by something... gold. Otherwise its just another piece of paper who's value is just justified by its current market value.
Why is all of this relevant? Well... if our nation is in over $10 trillion in debt, what makes us think we can spend another $700 billion to bailout capitalist interests? Now thats just the economic check book side of things, the other side is how we are gradually becoming a socialist society. The FDIC was created in 1934 to back banks incase they fell, to protect YOUR money, that is why all this is occurring. Don't get me wrong, I am happy the FDIC is around backing bank accounts up to $100,000. But lets talk about the social and constitutional ramifications for such a proposal...
PURE TYRANNY! As of today stands you have the nations two largest housing loan companies OWNED by the federal government. A company that was around for 184-years, stood through two world wars, the great depression, two major conflicts, and the cold war suddenly collapse out of nowhere. Washington Mutual in talks of being sold into peaces and Wachovia possibly being purchased by Bank of America. The irony almost makes me laugh for a second as you have a republican president touting liaise fair economics leading to one of the biggest government intervention take overs in history for any civilized country to own its major assets!!!!! Does anyone else find that pure hypocrisy to its core!?
So I make these points, ask these questions but so far I do not propose any solutions of great value. Maybe it is just these questions people should be asking our representatives in government, but alas I do have a plan of some sort. The term and notion of bailing out capitalist interests is totally absurd on such a large scale, your essentially talking about the United States federal government buying back its economy. The deregulation of the industry in 1999 I believe it was is causing all these issues from the get-go. Republican Congress closing the loopholes to create smaller competition and bigger pockets for the wealthy. So a solution is an interesting concept. We can NOT morally bail our companies like this at this scale, but we also can not morally allow them to fail.
AIG, the worlds largest insurance provider is now 80% owned by you and I under the house of big brother. i am no economist, as they are usually wrong, but in my education opinions I would say to deal with everything on a case-by-case basis. The SEC should allow major mergers with underhandedly forcing them to divide in a few years causing competition once more. Low-interest housing rates and high-yield savings accounts, essential bonds in all but name. The complexity of this situation is one of the greatest magnitude since 1929 and the Great Depression. DO NOT allow companies such as Citigroup or Barclay's to buy into our economy, im sorry but we can not allow foreign money to enter our economy and deflate the balance of the dollar to even high inflation values. Things will get worse before they get better and because of this we will probably see what we saw in the 1930's... a rise of right-wing dictators around the world but this time only more dangerous. Russia marching on Georgia, Iran and North Korea developing nuclear weapons, this time it is more dangerous. Without an economy we are not a nation, we can not build weapons or houses, grow food or drive to the store. Depression is a cycle, and we need to closely watch this or we will see a rapidly repeating first half of the 20th century!
“At least five others: unemployment rate is increasing, factory jobs are decreasing, a high school diploma is not longer good enough to get a middle class job but college tuitions are too high for people to get a higher education, lack of healthcare, losses in agricultural industry, Baby Boomers are starting to retire and Social Security and our medical industry is not prepared to handle it, an astronomical national debt, rising cost of living especially food, stagnated minimum raise that in no way reflects a living wage, and a welfare system that has lost site of how to help people find work and achieve self sufficiency.” A man on yahoo asked if there were any other economic reasons for USA’s apparent decline. This was the most powerful and on the money answer I could find. I personally think that it’s the dumbest thing in the world… No, I can’t go back in time and change GB from becoming president, but if I did this country wouldn’t learn its lesson. Honestly, we have dug our own grave; it’s as simple as that. We are already in billions of dollars in debt thanks to a monkey in a suit who wanted to be just like daddy. I think this is unacceptable, when you look up Bush Jr.’s past you will find drugs and alcohol, misbehavior, arrests and anything else you can think of that would make you cringe at the idea of that person lead a nation, ours fro that matter and I think it horrible that he was elected. I’m sorry but almost 1 trillion dollars to save the stock market? I don’t know if anyone else sees it this way but isn’t it a little odd that all these companies are crashing at the end of Bushes presidency? You know he is tied in with the big businesses like oil, and to me it makes perfect sense, power corrupted and now we have to look to our next elected leader to help us save our country.
To be completely honest i could care less about the failing US economy. As long as i keep getting paid for the work i do i don't care if the government does anything. however seeing as that this can and will be affecting us for years to come i have found an interesting article involving what the Democrats want the safeguards for the bailout to be. heres the link http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gqHjaJLH-qrI-G5y3OQXoyvbDRJw
I also believe that the government should help the economy because it is the governments job to protect its citizens and act in their best interests. that is my opinion on the current situation.
Through researching this topic I have gathered knowledge about the proposed $700 billion government bailout plan and I have formed an informed opinion of my own. I agree that action must be taking regarding this issue. People should not have their homes taken from them but I do not necessarily agree with giving this large a fund to do so. This plan essentially proposes giving Henry Paulson, secretary of the treasury, a blank check and I do not feel comfortable allowing congress to do so. As an American I know we must help, but I do not believe this is the way. The real question I ask is if not the $700 billion government bailout plan then how?
The Bush administration faces a race against the clock to get Congress to pass an unprecedented $700 billion bank bailout before lawmakers head into recess Friday.
The major problem about this bill is how is $700 billion dollars supposed to solve the debt? We're already in debt that's even higher than the bailout. Plus, how do you get banks to sell loans to the govt. at a price taxpayers will be willing to pay? This sounds like a very bad idea to send loans from the bank to the govt. then to investors throughout the world at lower prices. Especially, for the taxpayers. Saying that we can pay a $700 billion dollar bailout in like a week is absolutely ridiculous. We can’t afford to deal with a dilemma like that in a week! I definitely think there are some other ways to resolve this conflict besides paying $700 billion bailout.
I think this whole thing is just a big, absurd farce. Using what Aaron Fisher said above to back up my opinion, our country is already in some pretty deep dept ( personally didin't know we were in TRILLIONS of dollars in debt) but he's right. How is a country so deep in dept with no way to fund it supposed to pull 700 billion from?!
As for a solution, I admit to be no expert what-so-ever on the subject of economies. I want to say rely less on foreign trade to try to boost our own economy and maybe borrowing from other countries. I hate to sound derogitory, but the issue will persist as long as we have the same idiots in the whitehouse.
currently our country is in the biggest debt sine the great depression. taking 700 billion dollars for people who have put themselves into debt is ambiguous. our banks give out so many loans each year for people to be able to put down payments on homes. now that people have come to realization they cant afford it our economy is put into debt. i believe that if you can not afford to buy a home while managing other expenses why do it? i mean it puts not only you into debt but our country as well.people need to become more responsible with their money and what they invest it in. with our country already in debt and the u.s. already borrowing money from other countries makes no sense to me at all. however i believe that if tax rates and housing prices were lowed this may be the solution to our problem. the banks should learn a lesson with this because this will help them understand what they put themselves in. i do not think that this bailout will work because its almost like letting a guy get away with murder. people need to man up and take responsibilities for themselves.
The $700 billion bailout is truly a good thing for our ECONOMY because it allows our large corporations to restructure their businesses and furthermore allow more productive business and a stronger economy.
ON THE OTHER HAND, all American taxpayers will have to pay even higher taxes due to the $11 TRILLION DOLLAR DEBT our government is now in. Our government truly has no money, but they keep on spending it on personally unimportant things like the war, which we spent around $3 trillion on in the last 7 years and now $700 billion dollars on a bailout.
Our economy truly needs to be saved, but at to what costs? The president and the government will not be responsible for our HUGE debt, but the taxpayers will suffer and the economy I believe will still be bad even after the bailout, unless we allow ourselves to further go into debt as a country.
Like Fishy, although I wish i had 10 trillion dollars. Why can't they use $$$$700 billion of that to the bailout. Mhm, go for the loan of cash, pay them back, like, um, take $30 million from each country in the world and never give it back beacause we don't have to and we are the most powerful nation in the world. We're the "boss". Well, the good thing is that Bush need to wait like 2 months and he doesn't have to deal with it. Let Obama or McCain deal with it. Haha. Ok, to be honest now, $700 billion would suffer this country and we might have to move to England. This isn't good for our economic crisis. Well, at least, I'm not that good dealing with government stuff.
If someone deliberately sets a tree on fire in the forest, then someone else has to put out that fire so that other trees don't catch fire. Likewise, the US government must now put out a financial fire started by miscalculation and the greedy use of leverage. Our government is being forced to save a number of financial institutions before their downfall causes the economy to crash. This whole mess started 14 years ago when Congress began dismantling rules that regulated financial institutions. This allowed financial institutions to make risky loans that couldn’t be repaid. That’s what caused the tree to catch fire. Now it will cost the citizens of the United States at least $700 billion dollars to rescue that industry and put out the fire. Clearly, a lesson needs to be learned and that lesson is that even though a free market economy is probably the best economic system, even it needs some intelligent regulation.
What caused the need for a bailout? What do you think would happen if the US government does not bailout troubled financial institutions? What is unprecedented about what the US government is proposing to do?
It is true that America is in trillions of dollars in debt. But we need that 700 billion dollars to help the banks. 700 billion is alot and will only add onto the horibile debt we have but it is a deal that is worth taking for the future. A quote from one of the senate says that Bernanke and Paulson last week told Congress that, "the country was 'perhaps days from the collapse of financial markets' unless it adopted the 700-billion-dollar plan." Also the national debt of 10 trillion dollars does not reflect fully on what we owe to other countries but what the government also owes to the people so our actual emergency debt is drasticlly lower. I also do not agree with some people comments about the idiocracy of the government is to blame for the situatuion. It may be true that they are but wouldnt the esaiest way to lower our debt be to have more taxes? Of course, no oe would want to pay extra tazes and this attitude is pushing our country lower. Their is nothing to be gained from not putting the 700 billion dollars in circulation. More jobs will be lost, less homes, and the affects on society. The government is working hard at what they are doing. "They also want long-term regulatory reform to prevent a similar crisis from happening down the road." I consider this a good thing how the government is putting good efforts to stop this crisis.
If this crisis is not stopped drastic things will occur. "After reading this proposal, I can only conclude that it is not just our economy that is at risk, but our Constitution as well,' Dodd said. Noting that foreclosures were forcing 9,800 families out of their homes every day, Dodd called the crisis 'an extraordinary and perilous moment in our nation's history." I think with the evidence i collected, that the law should be passed to help benfit the nation.
Also i found a site for the proposed $700 billion bailout. Go to yahoo.com and click on the news and click on the government bailout, it should have an article all about on the bailout. :))))))))
I personally don't know what to think about the government bailout. Some of the above arguments have a good point for and against the government bailing out big companies. It is true that we are in deep debt, but we might be worse if we don't give the big companies help. However it might backfire and send us tumbling even deeper into debt so I really don't have a positive or negative view about this. Each side has problems and each side has solutions. If I knew what to do I'd say it, but there is nothing I can do here?
Honestly, this is rediculous. Its not our fault we are in debt its realy our president and the rest of our government. How is it that we are trillions of dollars in debt already?, well, its becasue it seems as though we can not say No to the countries that say they need the money. But guess what..., we never see them repaying it! Also we are paying for illegal immigrant who shouldnt even be here. The taxes are unbelievable as well, why should we pay more because our government is to busy spending it on things we dont need? Know they wast to take 700 billion dollars and put it to the bank...thats a great idea...WHERE ARE THEY GOING TO GET THE MONEY? Borrow it?!?! They are going to tax use more. It is outstanding that the government doesnt realize their so called "plans" are ruining our economy. They are going to put us into yet another great depression, i mean we are already in a reccission. People are lossing jobs, money and everything else. So i want to know... What is the so called government we trust going to do about it?
These ideas may be a tad unconventional but trust me entirely relevant and practical! Drastic situations call for drastic actions, aka New Deal during FDR's Presidency. One problem is it will get worse before it gets better and we need swift government intervention not handouts. This is what I would do if I were in the United States Senate or President of the United States...
1. Jobs continue to go overseas, argue that for your own but not everything can be exported. Agriculture must be here in the United States or at least North America. We have mass lands sitting, empty, grow more then food. We focus so much time on arguing if we can solve the hunger problems that we never realize we are wasting our time. Ethanol, which is fuel grown from substances such as corn, sugarcane, and switchgrass. The argument against Ethanol is it yields 1.3 for every 1 gallon of gasoline used to produce it. That is Corn ethanol! Switchgrass, which is a weed yields from 3 to 8 times as much fuel as it takes to grow and process. Environment aside, it can be grown almost anywhere and is key to jobs and national security! Flex-fuel vehicles are there, half of General Motors cars are flex, check their website. Its here, its real, its for us... and the oil companies will not sell it nationwide. FORCE them too Congress! Mandate by executive order, yes that is legal.
2. Marijuana. Now i am aware I am entering dangerous territory, especially since this blog is school related. But we have to be practical here. We have not had a balanced budget in decades and we could argue the reasons for that for eternity but lets leave that for another time. The ONLY way we can avoid a national economic crisis is to take moral steps toward reality. Legalize it. Yes, i said make it legal. Reason is simple, it is the largest cash crop in the entire United States and not a cent of it is taxed or regulated. Of course make it 21 years of age or older, but talk about revenue. Drug and border security, it would tear the fabric of drug based gang violence apart to a point of non-existence. Some research states it would wipe away more then 2/3rds our $10 trillion national deficit in two years and you can believe that but I will be more practical and say that if it is the number one cash crop, it would definitely have a MAJOR economic and safety advantage in this nation!
3. The Housing market and the lender markets are essentially government controlled now, socialist irony. So why stop there? You talk about socialism being bad and in all parts it is but so is capitalism in all parts. Health care should not be a competition because we all know that once all the companies come to realize they can keep prices steady with each other and not complete with each other, the consumer gets screwed. What is happening right now with our broken health care system. Im proposing a major overhaul of our entire view of capitalist economics followed by implementation of socialized capitalist healthcare for the masses. Force companies to compete with the government and see who wins, our health should not be a competition!
There are dozens more I could think of to overhaul our economy and national interests with government control and then handing it back to corporations with government oversight but I do not wanna bore anyone to death. Point and fact is these would create jobs, create tax revenue, and encourage investment in the American economy and currency. Create better national energy policy and security, not to mention withdraw our interest in the middle east. Self-dependency is somethings a good thing for we have become too dependent on others and are failing ourselves. Disgusting.
I agree with Aaron's methods. Legalizing marijuana is a reasonable solution. Used with limits it does no more harm to the body than cigarettes. However, I feel that there are other solutions. By simply cutting back our oil usage, the people save money and the government saves money. We have had the technology for alternate energy sources (primarily solar and cold fusion) for many years, but we haven't had a chance to put them into effect (as the oil companies have immense power).
I don't think that this proposal will make much of a difference. Not only because the debt is so large that 700 billion is almost insignificant, but because we need more than a large sum of money to boost the economy. The job market needs to be re-established, the housing prices need to rise again, and most importantly the INFLATION needs to stop. Inflation will only get worse if the government tries to come up with $700 billion on the spot. It will do nothing to benefit the US in the long run.
Also, the government officials seem to be forgetting that it isn't just the GOVERNMENT in debt.. its the PEOPLE. A study on this website shows that the average debt per household is $30,000. This may seem minute compared to the $700 billion, but for a low-income family it is not. Will taxing the people really solve the issue if the people are ALREADY struggling to make ends meet? I predict that if this bill is passed, crime rates will rise and the country will go into some sort of a panic when not all families are able to pay. It will create a scene of terror.
However, just so no one is misinformed.. While our national debt is soaring, it isn't that easy to get an accurate number. This is because much of America's debt is to itself. That may sound confusing, but what I mean is that the government owes money to American banks and individuals. While this does not necessarily benefit us, the money circulating within the country can hardly be considered debt.
I do not think that the government should bailout bankrupt companies. I find it unfair that taxpayers will have to pay for stupid mistakes that companies have made. If they are going to fail for poor choices, then they should not receive help from the government. I also think that giving $700 billion to one person to decide which company debts to buy is a bad idea. That much money in one person will not end up going well.
I agree to the $700 billion bailout plan because if the government doesn't do this the financial market could collapse. If they don't bailout all the banks and mortgage companies, no one can borrow money. They need to buy all the bad mortgages that people couldn't pay. This will release the money to the banks so that people could get loans. Too many people are loosing their homes and jobs. Some action somewhere needs to take place. I think that this will help the economy.
okay so the whole situation is still kind of confusing to me, but based on what we talked about in class i may have some understanding. its the government giving all this money back to the banks and big companies because their failing right? well there could be some positives and negatives that come from this. the positive is that people who have invested money in certain banks which are failing will not have to be worried, but if we give the banks all this money, wont the same thing happen all over again? i think restrictions need to be set up so the banks cannot just go loaning money to everyone who asks because if that happens again we will be a whole lot worse off then we are now.
After researching this absurd $700 billion bailout that is proposed, I have come to reach my own opinion on this subject. Our nation is in a HUGE debt as of now and lending $700 billion dollars to theses motgage companies is ridiculous. they don't even know if these companies will be able to pay back this money. Just looking at the numbers of of debt should make them stop and realize that putting that much more money in it will put us in more of a recession then ever(not that we aren't already). I believe the taxpayers should have a say in this bailout because they are the ones that are going to be paying for it over time. Even us in the future could end up paying for it. The economy shouldn't be punished for companies that can not support themselves. No one knows if that is enough money over time to help theses companies. What if they need more? Are we just going to give out money like a blank check? I believe that if this bailout is approved that we are going to be in more of an economic crisis than we are now. The recession we are in now are making people lose their jobs and lose money but,I honestly don't think that this bailout will help that much. I'm not an expert on this subject but thats my opinion. If we didn't go into this war and spend as much money as we did and if our nation wasn't in this much of a debt this bailout would have been okay but now isn't the time to do it.
This $700 billion government bail out is ridiculoud, purely a joke of humor made by the government. We are already so far into debt because of the war and other things, yet the Bush adminstration believes that gathering up $700 billion from tax payers will make things all better. =) How about no? This is not the first time our economy has been through some turbulence, the great depression anyone? I think that this proposition is powered by fear of the government that all is lost and all hope is gone. But instead of taking a clear and intelligent path to get our economy back on the right path we are taking drastic and quick options that are barely thought out and organized. If some of the great minds in politics can't understand what the aspects of this $700 billion propostion, then how could it possibly be the right thing to do?
I have yet to clearly comprehend the workings behind this.
This whole crisis is a complete disaster and it should never have happened in the first place. I am not saying that this bill is the right one, but the government does need to act and quickly. The problem is we can't go into a bigger debt when we're already in a huge debt (over $10 trillion). It is easy to point the finger at one person (Bush) but it is hard to say whose fault exactly this is. The banks shouldn't have given out bad loans to people who are now losing their houses (perhaps McCain could give up some of his houses to help). But the government has the responsibility to step in and stop this from happening, but they didn't. Now a ton of major companies are going bankrupt. If big companies like AIG go bankrupt, that will ruin the economy and put this country into a depression. We're not there yet but we very well could be. In closing, I think yes, the government needs to bailout the corporations in this case that should have been avoided. There is a great interview that you should watch with Bill Clinton.
Ok so i don't really know much about this but i don't think it was very smart of the banks to ggive out loans to people if they knew they couldn't pay it back. i think it's good that the government wants to help fix this as long as it doesn't make things worse. i, like Hillary, think there needs to be restrictions set on the banks because this could keep happening a it wouldn't be a very fun cycle to be a part of.
Since were already in a HUGE debt,i really don't understand where were going to get this money from. If we borrow more money then we're just going to be in an even bugger debt. it just doesn't make much sense.
After researching this topic and gathering information on it I agree with Laila. The nation is already in a huge amount of debt and lending 700 billion dollars for a bailout is not a smart move. How do they plan on getting the 700 billion dollars? By borrowing it, which would put the nation in an even higher debt and cause the economy to worsen. I feel like there has to be another way out of the situation that wouldn't put the country in even more debt, and making it tax payers problems by having them pay. The whole idea just doesn't make sense because it doesn't seem like it would make situations any better.
I'm really confused about if this is going to end up being a bad thing or a good thing for our government. Part of me thinks it will be good because by giving companies all that money, many assets that the companies own will be saved so i think it kind of has to be done. But then again, by giving away SO much money, we will go into a much larger debt but i really have no idea how we are planning on getting out of that. What's really going to happen to our country and economy if we keep giving away money so freely? I really can't make a firm opinion about how i feel about this topic becasue i see both sides completly. Nobody should have their homes and jobs taken away from then but by giving away so much money, it may end up hurting many other things in our economy much worse than we actually think.
^^ That site is an article about 7 questions relating to this topic and after i read it, it really made me think much depper about the subject. Like, really, what will happen if this ends up costing more than $700 billion?
As of today, the bill has been re-written and is now going to be passed onto congress tomorrow. I believe this solves Faye's concern along with probably a few more thousand American's concerns that the Secratary of Treasury was giving himself too much power. I think the banks do need to be bailed out, maybe its not the only way to save our economy but it's what we have right now. What I think the government did right was loan AIG money and take an 80% ownership share with a high interest rate, so in the end we will make profit. I think they should put an interest rate on all the loans, then in a few years, will we be making money.
Bill Clinton is awesome. http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/index.jhtml?episodeId=185193
Overall, I feel like if anything this is a lesson to be learned for the banks. Up until now they have been handing out bad loans to people who are very likely to have a hard time paying them off. This is irresponsible of the people, for accepting these terms, and the banks for giving these loans out. That being said I still see the argument that the average person doesn't really understand the true conditions of the loan they are accepting; and the argument that the banks have been de-regulated, which leads me to my next point.
We discussed this in class, but I'd just like to say it again. I still believe it is irresponsible and shady of a bank to just hand out loans after the de-regulation. Just because the laws have been taken away does not mean these banks aren't smart enough to know what will work and what won't work in terms of paying off the loans. Its like if the government took away speeding laws, would you go 200 everywhere? No you wouldn't because it would end up in mass chaos and accidents that authorites would have to take care of, which is exactly what is happening with the 700 billion dollar bailout. The banks decided to do whatever they wanted because there was nobody telling them not to, and now we have to clean up their mess. It is just a matter of responsibility.
Our country is definitely in a critical situation. Our banks are failing thanks to ridiculous home loans, and it has the potential to destroy our economy. The government has proposed a plan, a $700 billion plan, that MIGHT save us, or at least buy us some time until something bad happens. Is it worth $700 billion for a chance to throw us back into balance? I'm not sure. The alternative though, could cost much more than $700 billion in the end. I think there has to be another way to help out our system, rather than bailing out all these huge companies, costing our country incredible amounts of money. Hopefully the great minds of America will figure out a way to get us out of this mess.
Personally, I do not know where I stand on this issue. I have researched and researched and it only confuses me even more. From what I can tell it is hard to judge weather or not it will help our economy, mostly because the specifics of it change seemingly everyday. As of right now, it is impossible to tell weather or not the bailout will solve this crisis. It is a huge risk, but I haven’t heard anyone come up with any other solutions. Whatever does happen I'm sure it will be the best possible plan that they could come up with. Especially with all of the heavily criticized things our current administration has done, congress will be watching closely to make sure it is our best possible solution. But with everything that has already happened I guess you never know.
So this whole thing totally confuses me. But to my understanding by doing this bailout thing we are going to raise the nation debt to $11.3 trillion. Like I feel bad for the incoming president who has to deal with all of this. Anyways the new proposal pretty much gives unrestricted power to the secretary of treasury. So the government is relying on one guy to make all the decisions with money?! The point of this is to apparently take the stress off of Wall Street and onto taxpaying Americans. Wow that totally sucks for us.
From researching this topic, i agree with Tal that it is not our fault that we are in debt. Its partially the banks fault because over the past years they have been loaning money to people. I think that if the banks knew that our society was going toward bankruptcy then there would be no doubt that they would hold off letting people take loans, because they knew that they would not be able to pay them back.
Like we discussed in class, it is partially also the governments fault too, because there the ones letting the banks loan out the money. Whats the point of this?, to make our country in more debt? we need to figure out a way to stabalize the banks and help our country dig our way out of our giant whole. Being in debt sucks so there is only one way to fix it, the 700 billion dollar bailout!
Heres a link i found useful to this topic and i believe it fits perfect to this current event.
I am VERY disappointed that our congressman have voted against the $700 billion dollar bailout, and i know exactly why they voted against it.
The congressman have voted for their own personal benefits, not for the benefit of our now weak nation. They voted against the bill to help their own political campaigns. For example, pretend you are a congressman. You want to run for president, but many people will attack you for voting in support of the bill.
I think we should completely reorganize our political structure and only allow people of the middle class who have a much stronger idea over what is happening in their surroundings.
In addition, with the economic crisis, all the large corporations have fired a large portion of their employees who did not make the economic risks that caused such havoc, but have either kept their pathetic CEO's or have laid them off by paying them large sums of money, which in a sense is rewarding these non brite CEO's who made such high risks.
I think the word "bailout" puts a negative feel on this situation. Maybe recovery plan would be better. When i first heard about this, I did not know what to think. I didn't know which side (liberal or conservative) proposed this, or which side was against it. Maybe we have finally found something in politics where you don't have to take sides. Right?
Wrong. I came to school on monday, the 29th, and heard people talking about how the house has rejected this offer. And these people were mad! Now wasn't everyone angry when they heard about this? Why else would they use such a negative word as bailout? Aaron's first blog says it all.
But wait a second. If im correct, the house made this decision, and if am also correct, the liberals run the house (and the senate for that matter). If the house shot it down, why are people mad at bush? Why are they mad at the republicans?
I think this topic is a great example of political hysteria. The people that were mad at this being brought up are now mad at it being shot down. What do they want? To say this is the republicans fault is borderline dishonest. Yes it is true that only 1/3 of the republicans voted yes. But what about the liberal majority in both ends of the house? What did they vote? Like i said, its hysteria. Everyone is blaming everyone else, so much that they are too busy to take a step back and look at their own footprints.
Am i a republican? No. I can't vote, and i dont even want to begin to take sides. Do i really dislike politics, Yes. The truth is never told, no matter how good it sounds. A politician would sell their soul for a vote. Just look at the word itself:
Politics: poly, meaning many, and ticks, meaning bloodsucking parasitic flies.
After conducting research about the $700 billion bailout, i think that it is both necessary and unecessay. I think that the only way it would be necessary is if it actully helped to get our ecomomy up and running agian. Which in my opinion is unlikley to happen. Other than that, i think that this bailout is absurd. If we print $700 billion we will be the ones who end up paying for that $700 billion in the long run. I also believe that if it did get passed it wouldnt all of a sudden help us that much.
what i do not understand is how our country got this deep in a recession in the first place?
I do not understand why the government did not pass the bailout. It was what we needed to jumpstart the economy. Did they not pass it for their own purposes? If so, what were those reasons.
I don't think that borrowing another 700 billion dollars will be good for our economy. America is just putting themselves in a bigger hole then they already are in. If you get yourself stuck in a hole, you dig yourself out. America happens to be in a huge debt and they are just creating a bigger problem by taking another 700 billion dollars on themselves. I think that finding a way to get rid of a debt would be just a little better idea then making the debt bigger. We need to get rid of the debt and after we are out of it, we can do anything we want with the money WE have. Instead we would be causing more and more problems with the bigger and bigger debt we create.
Seeing as this is one of the biggest crisis' America has ever encountered I believe no solution is two outrageous. Banks has foreclosed an in doing so humble families across all of America, that were already struggling with gas and energy prices have had hundreds of thousands of dollars just disappear as did almost 1 trillion dollars disappear off the stock market in 1 day. The stock-market fell in that one day nearly 800 points rivaling that of the stock market drop during 9/11. America needs something, and they need it soon if we wait much longer depression number two will happen and be just as unsettling. Thats why i pray that Barack Obama wins the election and saves our country before its too late.
Seeing as this is one of the biggest crisis' America has ever encountered I believe no solution is too outrageous. Banks have foreclosed and in doing so humble families across all of America, that were already struggling with gas and energy prices have had hundreds of thousands of dollars just disappear as did almost 1 trillion dollars disappear off the stock market in 1 day. The stock-market fell in that one day nearly 800 points rivaling that of the stock market drop during 9/11. America needs something, and they need it soon if we wait much longer depression number two will happen and be just as unsettling. Thats why i pray that Barack Obama wins the election and saves our country before its too late.
(continued from previous post)... Fortunately my family has not experienced the hit of the economy that much. Obviously everyone in the country is experiencing this hit at least a little but I can't even imagine what a family is going through if they lost their house or their job. Congress needs to think very hard about this decision because it effects everyone. Is this the right plan for our country? I don't know and most people don't. We are leaving this up to the government who needs to make the right decision. They are a big part of the problem that caused this mess so maybe they aren't the best group of people to make this decision. Maybe it would be better if they just gave each person a million dollars, i don't know. All I'm saying is that they need to make the right decision what ever it might be because starting in January things are going to change for the better (because they can't get any worse).
Okay, I think this is a big rip off. The government is giving all these big corporations all this money. They ripped off all the people, collected all this money on mortgages and loans, took spa trips and luxury trips all over the place. Now they need more money for more vacation retreats or what? They failed. They screwed up. Since the government has decided to bail them out and expects taxpayers to pay for it, I think the taxpayers should have stock in the companies.
The government should lay it out in black and white. Here's who gets how much money. Then they should show how much those crooks of those companies are making in salary and bonuses because it's like $1 million/ month with $10 million in bonuses or somthing ridiculous.
Now the government is buying up banks. I don't think we want our banks under government regulation. There should have been oversight over these Wall Street companies from the beginning so maybe this wouldn't have happened. They had to have seen it coming for a long time, but up to a couple weeks before, that Fed Chairman guy was telling people, yeah, everything's cool, so people can go blow more money with these companies. Now they took the people for their money twice.
Bad idea. Private financial people could have come up with a better plan I think.
44 comments:
Our national debt currently stands are at balance of: $10,014,693,447,926. Yes, 10 trillion dollars. Nixon took us off the gold standard and ever since our currency wildly unbalanced. For those of you not educated on what exactly the gold standard means it is the basis for economics since the beginning of Man. Something worthless, such as a US dollar paper has to be backed by something... gold. Otherwise its just another piece of paper who's value is just justified by its current market value.
Why is all of this relevant? Well... if our nation is in over $10 trillion in debt, what makes us think we can spend another $700 billion to bailout capitalist interests? Now thats just the economic check book side of things, the other side is how we are gradually becoming a socialist society. The FDIC was created in 1934 to back banks incase they fell, to protect YOUR money, that is why all this is occurring. Don't get me wrong, I am happy the FDIC is around backing bank accounts up to $100,000. But lets talk about the social and constitutional ramifications for such a proposal...
PURE TYRANNY! As of today stands you have the nations two largest housing loan companies OWNED by the federal government. A company that was around for 184-years, stood through two world wars, the great depression, two major conflicts, and the cold war suddenly collapse out of nowhere. Washington Mutual in talks of being sold into peaces and Wachovia possibly being purchased by Bank of America. The irony almost makes me laugh for a second as you have a republican president touting liaise fair economics leading to one of the biggest government intervention take overs in history for any civilized country to own its major assets!!!!! Does anyone else find that pure hypocrisy to its core!?
So I make these points, ask these questions but so far I do not propose any solutions of great value. Maybe it is just these questions people should be asking our representatives in government, but alas I do have a plan of some sort. The term and notion of bailing out capitalist interests is totally absurd on such a large scale, your essentially talking about the United States federal government buying back its economy. The deregulation of the industry in 1999 I believe it was is causing all these issues from the get-go. Republican Congress closing the loopholes to create smaller competition and bigger pockets for the wealthy. So a solution is an interesting concept. We can NOT morally bail our companies like this at this scale, but we also can not morally allow them to fail.
AIG, the worlds largest insurance provider is now 80% owned by you and I under the house of big brother. i am no economist, as they are usually wrong, but in my education opinions I would say to deal with everything on a case-by-case basis. The SEC should allow major mergers with underhandedly forcing them to divide in a few years causing competition once more. Low-interest housing rates and high-yield savings accounts, essential bonds in all but name. The complexity of this situation is one of the greatest magnitude since 1929 and the Great Depression. DO NOT allow companies such as Citigroup or Barclay's to buy into our economy, im sorry but we can not allow foreign money to enter our economy and deflate the balance of the dollar to even high inflation values. Things will get worse before they get better and because of this we will probably see what we saw in the 1930's... a rise of right-wing dictators around the world but this time only more dangerous. Russia marching on Georgia, Iran and North Korea developing nuclear weapons, this time it is more dangerous. Without an economy we are not a nation, we can not build weapons or houses, grow food or drive to the store. Depression is a cycle, and we need to closely watch this or we will see a rapidly repeating first half of the 20th century!
“At least five others: unemployment rate is increasing, factory jobs are decreasing, a high school diploma is not longer good enough to get a middle class job but college tuitions are too high for people to get a higher education, lack of healthcare, losses in agricultural industry, Baby Boomers are starting to retire and Social Security and our medical industry is not prepared to handle it, an astronomical national debt, rising cost of living especially food, stagnated minimum raise that in no way reflects a living wage, and a welfare system that has lost site of how to help people find work and achieve self sufficiency.” A man on yahoo asked if there were any other economic reasons for USA’s apparent decline. This was the most powerful and on the money answer I could find. I personally think that it’s the dumbest thing in the world… No, I can’t go back in time and change GB from becoming president, but if I did this country wouldn’t learn its lesson. Honestly, we have dug our own grave; it’s as simple as that. We are already in billions of dollars in debt thanks to a monkey in a suit who wanted to be just like daddy. I think this is unacceptable, when you look up Bush Jr.’s past you will find drugs and alcohol, misbehavior, arrests and anything else you can think of that would make you cringe at the idea of that person lead a nation, ours fro that matter and I think it horrible that he was elected. I’m sorry but almost 1 trillion dollars to save the stock market? I don’t know if anyone else sees it this way but isn’t it a little odd that all these companies are crashing at the end of Bushes presidency? You know he is tied in with the big businesses like oil, and to me it makes perfect sense, power corrupted and now we have to look to our next elected leader to help us save our country.
To be completely honest i could care less about the failing US economy. As long as i keep getting paid for the work i do i don't care if the government does anything. however seeing as that this can and will be affecting us for years to come i have found an interesting article involving what the Democrats want the safeguards for the bailout to be. heres the link http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gqHjaJLH-qrI-G5y3OQXoyvbDRJw
I also believe that the government should help the economy because it is the governments job to protect its citizens and act in their best interests. that is my opinion on the current situation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVSbnG5ipjI
Through researching this topic I have gathered knowledge about the proposed $700 billion government bailout plan and I have formed an informed opinion of my own. I agree that action must be taking regarding this issue. People should not have their homes taken from them but I do not necessarily agree with giving this large a fund to do so. This plan essentially proposes giving Henry Paulson, secretary of the treasury, a blank check and I do not feel comfortable allowing congress to do so. As an American I know we must help, but I do not believe this is the way. The real question I ask is if not the $700 billion government bailout plan then how?
The Bush administration faces a race against the clock to get Congress to pass an unprecedented $700 billion bank bailout before lawmakers head into recess Friday.
The major problem about this bill is how is $700 billion dollars supposed to solve the debt? We're already in debt that's even higher than the bailout. Plus, how do you get banks to sell loans to the govt. at a price taxpayers will be willing to pay? This sounds like a very bad idea to send loans from the bank to the govt. then to investors throughout the world at lower prices. Especially, for the taxpayers. Saying that we can pay a $700 billion dollar bailout in like a week is absolutely ridiculous. We can’t afford to deal with a dilemma like that in a week! I definitely think there are some other ways to resolve this conflict besides paying $700 billion bailout.
I think this whole thing is just a big, absurd farce. Using what Aaron Fisher said above to back up my opinion, our country is already in some pretty deep dept ( personally didin't know we were in TRILLIONS of dollars in debt) but he's right. How is a country so deep in dept with no way to fund it supposed to pull 700 billion from?!
As for a solution, I admit to be no expert what-so-ever on the subject of economies. I want to say rely less on foreign trade to try to boost our own economy and maybe borrowing from other countries. I hate to sound derogitory, but the issue will persist as long as we have the same idiots in the whitehouse.
currently our country is in the biggest debt sine the great depression. taking 700 billion dollars for people who have put themselves into debt is ambiguous. our banks give out so many loans each year for people to be able to put down payments on homes. now that people have come to realization they cant afford it our economy is put into debt. i believe that if you can not afford to buy a home while managing other expenses why do it? i mean it puts not only you into debt but our country as well.people need to become more responsible with their money and what they invest it in. with our country already in debt and the u.s. already borrowing money from other countries makes no sense to me at all. however i believe that if tax rates and housing prices were lowed this may be the solution to our problem. the banks should learn a lesson with this because this will help them understand what they put themselves in. i do not think that this bailout will work because its almost like letting a guy get away with murder. people need to man up and take responsibilities for themselves.
http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewarticle+articleid_2638701.html
The $700 billion bailout is truly a good thing for our ECONOMY because it allows our large corporations to restructure their businesses and furthermore allow more productive business and a stronger economy.
ON THE OTHER HAND, all American taxpayers will have to pay even higher taxes due to the $11 TRILLION DOLLAR DEBT our government is now in. Our government truly has no money, but they keep on spending it on personally unimportant things like the war, which we spent around $3 trillion on in the last 7 years and now $700 billion dollars on a bailout.
Our economy truly needs to be saved, but at to what costs? The president and the government will not be responsible for our HUGE debt, but the taxpayers will suffer and the economy I believe will still be bad even after the bailout, unless we allow ourselves to further go into debt as a country.
Like Fishy, although I wish i had 10 trillion dollars. Why can't they use $$$$700 billion of that to the bailout. Mhm, go for the loan of cash, pay them back, like, um, take $30 million from each country in the world and never give it back beacause we don't have to and we are the most powerful nation in the world. We're the "boss". Well, the good thing is that Bush need to wait like 2 months and he doesn't have to deal with it. Let Obama or McCain deal with it. Haha. Ok, to be honest now, $700 billion would suffer this country and we might have to move to England. This isn't good for our economic crisis. Well, at least, I'm not that good dealing with government stuff.
If someone deliberately sets a tree on fire in the forest, then someone else has to put out that fire so that other trees don't catch fire. Likewise, the US government must now put out a financial fire started by miscalculation and the greedy use of leverage. Our government is being forced to save a number of financial institutions before their downfall causes the economy to crash. This whole mess started 14 years ago when Congress began dismantling rules that regulated financial institutions. This allowed financial institutions to make risky loans that couldn’t be repaid. That’s what caused the tree to catch fire. Now it will cost the citizens of the United States at least $700 billion dollars to rescue that industry and put out the fire. Clearly, a lesson needs to be learned and that lesson is that even though a free market economy is probably the best economic system, even it needs some intelligent regulation.
What caused the need for a bailout? What do you think would happen if the US government does not bailout troubled financial institutions? What is unprecedented about what the US government is proposing to do?
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/business/news/article_1432682.php/White_House_finance_gurus_face_skeptical_Senate_on_bailout__Roundup__
It is true that America is in trillions of dollars in debt. But we need that 700 billion dollars to help the banks. 700 billion is alot and will only add onto the horibile debt we have but it is a deal that is worth taking for the future. A quote from one of the senate says that Bernanke and Paulson last week told Congress that, "the country was 'perhaps days from the collapse of financial markets' unless it adopted the 700-billion-dollar plan." Also the national debt of 10 trillion dollars does not reflect fully on what we owe to other countries but what the government also owes to the people so our actual emergency debt is drasticlly lower. I also do not agree with some people comments about the idiocracy of the government is to blame for the situatuion. It may be true that they are but wouldnt the esaiest way to lower our debt be to have more taxes? Of course, no oe would want to pay extra tazes and this attitude is pushing our country lower.
Their is nothing to be gained from not putting the 700 billion dollars in circulation. More jobs will be lost, less homes, and the affects on society. The government is working hard at what they are doing. "They also want long-term regulatory reform to prevent a similar crisis from happening down the road." I consider this a good thing how the government is putting good efforts to stop this crisis.
If this crisis is not stopped drastic things will occur. "After reading this proposal, I can only conclude that it is not just our economy that is at risk, but our Constitution as well,' Dodd said. Noting that foreclosures were forcing 9,800 families out of their homes every day, Dodd called the crisis 'an extraordinary and perilous moment in our nation's history." I think with the evidence i collected, that the law should be passed to help benfit the nation.
Also i found a site for the proposed $700 billion bailout. Go to yahoo.com and click on the news and click on the government bailout, it should have an article all about on the bailout. :))))))))
I personally don't know what to think about the government bailout. Some of the above arguments have a good point for and against the government bailing out big companies. It is true that we are in deep debt, but we might be worse if we don't give the big companies help. However it might backfire and send us tumbling even deeper into debt so I really don't have a positive or negative view about this. Each side has problems and each side has solutions. If I knew what to do I'd say it, but there is nothing I can do here?
Honestly, this is rediculous. Its not our fault we are in debt its realy our president and the rest of our government. How is it that we are trillions of dollars in debt already?, well, its becasue it seems as though we can not say No to the countries that say they need the money. But guess what..., we never see them repaying it! Also we are paying for illegal immigrant who shouldnt even be here. The taxes are unbelievable as well, why should we pay more because our government is to busy spending it on things we dont need? Know they wast to take 700 billion dollars and put it to the bank...thats a great idea...WHERE ARE THEY GOING TO GET THE MONEY? Borrow it?!?! They are going to tax use more. It is outstanding that the government doesnt realize their so called "plans" are ruining our economy. They are going to put us into yet another great depression, i mean we are already in a reccission. People are lossing jobs, money and everything else. So i want to know... What is the so called government we trust going to do about it?
Fear not, I have an idea!
These ideas may be a tad unconventional but trust me entirely relevant and practical! Drastic situations call for drastic actions, aka New Deal during FDR's Presidency. One problem is it will get worse before it gets better and we need swift government intervention not handouts. This is what I would do if I were in the United States Senate or President of the United States...
1. Jobs continue to go overseas, argue that for your own but not everything can be exported. Agriculture must be here in the United States or at least North America. We have mass lands sitting, empty, grow more then food. We focus so much time on arguing if we can solve the hunger problems that we never realize we are wasting our time. Ethanol, which is fuel grown from substances such as corn, sugarcane, and switchgrass. The argument against Ethanol is it yields 1.3 for every 1 gallon of gasoline used to produce it. That is Corn ethanol! Switchgrass, which is a weed yields from 3 to 8 times as much fuel as it takes to grow and process. Environment aside, it can be grown almost anywhere and is key to jobs and national security! Flex-fuel vehicles are there, half of General Motors cars are flex, check their website. Its here, its real, its for us... and the oil companies will not sell it nationwide. FORCE them too Congress! Mandate by executive order, yes that is legal.
2. Marijuana. Now i am aware I am entering dangerous territory, especially since this blog is school related. But we have to be practical here. We have not had a balanced budget in decades and we could argue the reasons for that for eternity but lets leave that for another time. The ONLY way we can avoid a national economic crisis is to take moral steps toward reality. Legalize it. Yes, i said make it legal. Reason is simple, it is the largest cash crop in the entire United States and not a cent of it is taxed or regulated. Of course make it 21 years of age or older, but talk about revenue. Drug and border security, it would tear the fabric of drug based gang violence apart to a point of non-existence. Some research states it would wipe away more then 2/3rds our $10 trillion national deficit in two years and you can believe that but I will be more practical and say that if it is the number one cash crop, it would definitely have a MAJOR economic and safety advantage in this nation!
3. The Housing market and the lender markets are essentially government controlled now, socialist irony. So why stop there? You talk about socialism being bad and in all parts it is but so is capitalism in all parts. Health care should not be a competition because we all know that once all the companies come to realize they can keep prices steady with each other and not complete with each other, the consumer gets screwed. What is happening right now with our broken health care system. Im proposing a major overhaul of our entire view of capitalist economics followed by implementation of socialized capitalist healthcare for the masses. Force companies to compete with the government and see who wins, our health should not be a competition!
There are dozens more I could think of to overhaul our economy and national interests with government control and then handing it back to corporations with government oversight but I do not wanna bore anyone to death. Point and fact is these would create jobs, create tax revenue, and encourage investment in the American economy and currency. Create better national energy policy and security, not to mention withdraw our interest in the middle east. Self-dependency is somethings a good thing for we have become too dependent on others and are failing ourselves. Disgusting.
-AF
I agree with Aaron's methods. Legalizing marijuana is a reasonable solution. Used with limits it does no more harm to the body than cigarettes.
However, I feel that there are other solutions. By simply cutting back our oil usage, the people save money and the government saves money. We have had the technology for alternate energy sources (primarily solar and cold fusion) for many years, but we haven't had a chance to put them into effect (as the oil companies have immense power).
I don't think that this proposal will make much of a difference. Not only because the debt is so large that 700 billion is almost insignificant, but because we need more than a large sum of money to boost the economy. The job market needs to be re-established, the housing prices need to rise again, and most importantly the INFLATION needs to stop. Inflation will only get worse if the government tries to come up with $700 billion on the spot. It will do nothing to benefit the US in the long run.
Also, the government officials seem to be forgetting that it isn't just the GOVERNMENT in debt.. its the PEOPLE. A study on this website shows that the average debt per household is $30,000. This may seem minute compared to the $700 billion, but for a low-income family it is not. Will taxing the people really solve the issue if the people are ALREADY struggling to make ends meet? I predict that if this bill is passed, crime rates will rise and the country will go into some sort of a panic when not all families are able to pay. It will create a scene of terror.
However, just so no one is misinformed..
While our national debt is soaring, it isn't that easy to get an accurate number. This is because much of America's debt is to itself. That may sound confusing, but what I mean is that the government owes money to American banks and individuals. While this does not necessarily benefit us, the money circulating within the country can hardly be considered debt.
http://wooga.drbacchus.com/700-billion-dollars
I do not think that the government should bailout bankrupt companies. I find it unfair that taxpayers will have to pay for stupid mistakes that companies have made. If they are going to fail for poor choices, then they should not receive help from the government. I also think that giving $700 billion to one person to decide which company debts to buy is a bad idea. That much money in one person will not end up going well.
this doesn't count as my post,
but tonight on The Colbert Report (10pm comedy central), he's talking about the bailout... should be interesting :)
I agree to the $700 billion bailout plan because if the government doesn't do this the financial market could collapse. If they don't bailout all the banks and mortgage companies, no one can borrow money. They need to buy all the bad mortgages that people couldn't pay. This will release the money to the banks so that people could get loans. Too many people are loosing their homes and jobs. Some action somewhere needs to take place. I think that this will help the economy.
Posting incase some of you didn't see what just happened today....
we thought it was bad before, the federal government just seized control of the nations 3rd largest bank! Washington Mutual (WaMu).
this... this is bad
okay so the whole situation is still kind of confusing to me, but based on what we talked about in class i may have some understanding. its the government giving all this money back to the banks and big companies because their failing right? well there could be some positives and negatives that come from this. the positive is that people who have invested money in certain banks which are failing will not have to be worried, but if we give the banks all this money, wont the same thing happen all over again? i think restrictions need to be set up so the banks cannot just go loaning money to everyone who asks because if that happens again we will be a whole lot worse off then we are now.
After researching this absurd $700 billion bailout that is proposed, I have come to reach my own opinion on this subject. Our nation is in a HUGE debt as of now and lending $700 billion dollars to theses motgage companies is ridiculous. they don't even know if these companies will be able to pay back this money. Just looking at the numbers of of debt should make them stop and realize that putting that much more money in it will put us in more of a recession then ever(not that we aren't already). I believe the taxpayers should have a say in this bailout because they are the ones that are going to be paying for it over time. Even us in the future could end up paying for it. The economy shouldn't be punished for companies that can not support themselves. No one knows if that is enough money over time to help theses companies. What if they need more? Are we just going to give out money like a blank check? I believe that if this bailout is approved that we are going to be in more of an economic crisis than we are now. The recession we are in now are making people lose their jobs and lose money but,I honestly don't think that this bailout will help that much. I'm not an expert on this subject but thats my opinion. If we didn't go into this war and spend as much money as we did and if our nation wasn't in this much of a debt this bailout would have been okay but now isn't the time to do it.
This $700 billion government bail out is ridiculoud, purely a joke of humor made by the government. We are already so far into debt because of the war and other things, yet the Bush adminstration believes that gathering up $700 billion from tax payers will make things all better. =) How about no?
This is not the first time our economy has been through some turbulence, the great depression anyone?
I think that this proposition is powered by fear of the government that all is lost and all hope is gone. But instead of taking a clear and intelligent path to get our economy back on the right path we are taking drastic and quick options that are barely thought out and organized. If some of the great minds in politics can't understand what the aspects of this $700 billion propostion, then how could it possibly be the right thing to do?
I have yet to clearly comprehend the workings behind this.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bailout29-2008sep29,0,2085831.story
This whole crisis is a complete disaster and it should never have happened in the first place. I am not saying that this bill is the right one, but the government does need to act and quickly. The problem is we can't go into a bigger debt when we're already in a huge debt (over $10 trillion). It is easy to point the finger at one person (Bush) but it is hard to say whose fault exactly this is. The banks shouldn't have given out bad loans to people who are now losing their houses (perhaps McCain could give up some of his houses to help). But the government has the responsibility to step in and stop this from happening, but they didn't. Now a ton of major companies are going bankrupt. If big companies like AIG go bankrupt, that will ruin the economy and put this country into a depression. We're not there yet but we very well could be. In closing, I think yes, the government needs to bailout the corporations in this case that should have been avoided. There is a great interview that you should watch with Bill Clinton.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBUpTJuS4pE
Ok so i don't really know much about this but i don't think it was very smart of the banks to ggive out loans to people if they knew they couldn't pay it back. i think it's good that the government wants to help fix this as long as it doesn't make things worse. i, like Hillary, think there needs to be restrictions set on the banks because this could keep happening a it wouldn't be a very fun cycle to be a part of.
Since were already in a HUGE debt,i really don't understand where were going to get this money from. If we borrow more money then we're just going to be in an even bugger debt. it just doesn't make much sense.
After researching this topic and gathering information on it I agree with Laila. The nation is already in a huge amount of debt and lending 700 billion dollars for a bailout is not a smart move. How do they plan on getting the 700 billion dollars? By borrowing it, which would put the nation in an even higher debt and cause the economy to worsen. I feel like there has to be another way out of the situation that wouldn't put the country in even more debt, and making it tax payers problems by having them pay. The whole idea just doesn't make sense because it doesn't seem like it would make situations any better.
I'm really confused about if this is going to end up being a bad thing or a good thing for our government. Part of me thinks it will be good because by giving companies all that money, many assets that the companies own will be saved so i think it kind of has to be done. But then again, by giving away SO much money, we will go into a much larger debt but i really have no idea how we are planning on getting out of that. What's really going to happen to our country and economy if we keep giving away money so freely? I really can't make a firm opinion about how i feel about this topic becasue i see both sides completly. Nobody should have their homes and jobs taken away from then but by giving away so much money, it may end up hurting many other things in our economy much worse than we actually think.
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1843941,00.html?imw=Y
^^ That site is an article about 7 questions relating to this topic and after i read it, it really made me think much depper about the subject. Like, really, what will happen if this ends up costing more than $700 billion?
As of today, the bill has been re-written and is now going to be passed onto congress tomorrow. I believe this solves Faye's concern along with probably a few more thousand American's concerns that the Secratary of Treasury was giving himself too much power. I think the banks do need to be bailed out, maybe its not the only way to save our economy but it's what we have right now.
What I think the government did right was loan AIG money and take an 80% ownership share with a high interest rate, so in the end we will make profit. I think they should put an interest rate on all the loans, then in a few years, will we be making money.
Bill Clinton is awesome.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/index.jhtml?episodeId=185193
Overall, I feel like if anything this is a lesson to be learned for the banks. Up until now they have been handing out bad loans to people who are very likely to have a hard time paying them off. This is irresponsible of the people, for accepting these terms, and the banks for giving these loans out. That being said I still see the argument that the average person doesn't really understand the true conditions of the loan they are accepting; and the argument that the banks have been de-regulated, which leads me to my next point.
We discussed this in class, but I'd just like to say it again. I still believe it is irresponsible and shady of a bank to just hand out loans after the de-regulation. Just because the laws have been taken away does not mean these banks aren't smart enough to know what will work and what won't work in terms of paying off the loans. Its like if the government took away speeding laws, would you go 200 everywhere? No you wouldn't because it would end up in mass chaos and accidents that authorites would have to take care of, which is exactly what is happening with the 700 billion dollar bailout. The banks decided to do whatever they wanted because there was nobody telling them not to, and now we have to clean up their mess. It is just a matter of responsibility.
Our country is definitely in a critical situation. Our banks are failing thanks to ridiculous home loans, and it has the potential to destroy our economy. The government has proposed a plan, a $700 billion plan, that MIGHT save us, or at least buy us some time until something bad happens. Is it worth $700 billion for a chance to throw us back into balance? I'm not sure. The alternative though, could cost much more than $700 billion in the end. I think there has to be another way to help out our system, rather than bailing out all these huge companies, costing our country incredible amounts of money. Hopefully the great minds of America will figure out a way to get us out of this mess.
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fi-bailout29-2008sep29,0,855202.story
Personally, I do not know where I stand on this issue. I have researched and researched and it only confuses me even more. From what I can tell it is hard to judge weather or not it will help our economy, mostly because the specifics of it change seemingly everyday. As of right now, it is impossible to tell weather or not the bailout will solve this crisis. It is a huge risk, but I haven’t heard anyone come up with any other solutions. Whatever does happen I'm sure it will be the best possible plan that they could come up with. Especially with all of the heavily criticized things our current administration has done, congress will be watching closely to make sure it is our best possible solution. But with everything that has already happened I guess you never know.
So this whole thing totally confuses me. But to my understanding by doing this bailout thing we are going to raise the nation debt to $11.3 trillion. Like I feel bad for the incoming president who has to deal with all of this. Anyways the new proposal pretty much gives unrestricted power to the secretary of treasury. So the government is relying on one guy to make all the decisions with money?! The point of this is to apparently take the stress off of Wall Street and onto taxpaying Americans. Wow that totally sucks for us.
http://thedailyvoice.com/voice/2008/09/bush-outlines-700-billion-gove-001154.php
From researching this topic, i agree with Tal that it is not our fault that we are in debt. Its partially the banks fault because over the past years they have been loaning money to people. I think that if the banks knew that our society was going toward bankruptcy then there would be no doubt that they would hold off letting people take loans, because they knew that they would not be able to pay them back.
Like we discussed in class, it is partially also the governments fault too, because there the ones letting the banks loan out the money. Whats the point of this?, to make our country in more debt? we need to figure out a way to stabalize the banks and help our country dig our way out of our giant whole. Being in debt sucks so there is only one way to fix it, the 700 billion dollar bailout!
Heres a link i found useful to this topic and i believe it fits perfect to this current event.
http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=91040
I am VERY disappointed that our congressman have voted against the $700 billion dollar bailout, and i know exactly why they voted against it.
The congressman have voted for their own personal benefits, not for the benefit of our now weak nation. They voted against the bill to help their own political campaigns. For example, pretend you are a congressman. You want to run for president, but many people will attack you for voting in support of the bill.
I think we should completely reorganize our political structure and only allow people of the middle class who have a much stronger idea over what is happening in their surroundings.
In addition, with the economic crisis, all the large corporations have fired a large portion of their employees who did not make the economic risks that caused such havoc, but have either kept their pathetic CEO's or have laid them off by paying them large sums of money, which in a sense is rewarding these non brite CEO's who made such high risks.
I think the word "bailout" puts a negative feel on this situation. Maybe recovery plan would be better. When i first heard about this, I did not know what to think. I didn't know which side (liberal or conservative) proposed this, or which side was against it. Maybe we have finally found something in politics where you don't have to take sides. Right?
Wrong. I came to school on monday, the 29th, and heard people talking about how the house has rejected this offer. And these people were mad! Now wasn't everyone angry when they heard about this? Why else would they use such a negative word as bailout? Aaron's first blog says it all.
But wait a second. If im correct, the house made this decision, and if am also correct, the liberals run the house (and the senate for that matter). If the house shot it down, why are people mad at bush? Why are they mad at the republicans?
I think this topic is a great example of political hysteria. The people that were mad at this being brought up are now mad at it being shot down. What do they want? To say this is the republicans fault is borderline dishonest. Yes it is true that only 1/3 of the republicans voted yes. But what about the liberal majority in both ends of the house? What did they vote? Like i said, its hysteria. Everyone is blaming everyone else, so much that they are too busy to take a step back and look at their own footprints.
Am i a republican? No. I can't vote, and i dont even want to begin to take sides. Do i really dislike politics, Yes. The truth is never told, no matter how good it sounds. A politician would sell their soul for a vote. Just look at the word itself:
Politics: poly, meaning many, and ticks, meaning bloodsucking parasitic flies.
After conducting research about the $700 billion bailout, i think that it is both necessary and unecessay.
I think that the only way it would be necessary is if it actully helped to get our ecomomy up and running agian. Which in my opinion is unlikley to happen.
Other than that, i think that this bailout is absurd. If we print $700 billion we will be the ones who end up paying for that $700 billion in the long run. I also believe that if it did get passed it wouldnt all of a sudden help us that much.
what i do not understand is how our country got this deep in a recession in the first place?
I do not understand why the government did not pass the bailout. It was what we needed to jumpstart the economy. Did they not pass it for their own purposes? If so, what were those reasons.
I don't think that borrowing another 700 billion dollars will be good for our economy. America is just putting themselves in a bigger hole then they already are in. If you get yourself stuck in a hole, you dig yourself out. America happens to be in a huge debt and they are just creating a bigger problem by taking another 700 billion dollars on themselves. I think that finding a way to get rid of a debt would be just a little better idea then making the debt bigger. We need to get rid of the debt and after we are out of it, we can do anything we want with the money WE have. Instead we would be causing more and more problems with the bigger and bigger debt we create.
Seeing as this is one of the biggest crisis' America has ever encountered I believe no solution is two outrageous. Banks has foreclosed an in doing so humble families across all of America, that were already struggling with gas and energy prices have had hundreds of thousands of dollars just disappear as did almost 1 trillion dollars disappear off the stock market in 1 day. The stock-market fell in that one day nearly 800 points rivaling that of the stock market drop during 9/11. America needs something, and they need it soon if we wait much longer depression number two will happen and be just as unsettling. Thats why i pray that Barack Obama wins the election and saves our country before its too late.
Seeing as this is one of the biggest crisis' America has ever encountered I believe no solution is too outrageous. Banks have foreclosed and in doing so humble families across all of America, that were already struggling with gas and energy prices have had hundreds of thousands of dollars just disappear as did almost 1 trillion dollars disappear off the stock market in 1 day. The stock-market fell in that one day nearly 800 points rivaling that of the stock market drop during 9/11. America needs something, and they need it soon if we wait much longer depression number two will happen and be just as unsettling. Thats why i pray that Barack Obama wins the election and saves our country before its too late.
(continued from previous post)... Fortunately my family has not experienced the hit of the economy that much. Obviously everyone in the country is experiencing this hit at least a little but I can't even imagine what a family is going through if they lost their house or their job. Congress needs to think very hard about this decision because it effects everyone. Is this the right plan for our country? I don't know and most people don't. We are leaving this up to the government who needs to make the right decision. They are a big part of the problem that caused this mess so maybe they aren't the best group of people to make this decision. Maybe it would be better if they just gave each person a million dollars, i don't know. All I'm saying is that they need to make the right decision what ever it might be because starting in January things are going to change for the better (because they can't get any worse).
Okay, I think this is a big rip off. The government is giving all these big corporations all this money. They ripped off all the people, collected all this money on mortgages and loans, took spa trips and luxury trips all over the place. Now they need more money for more vacation retreats or what? They failed. They screwed up. Since the government has decided to bail them out and expects taxpayers to pay for it, I think the taxpayers should have stock in the companies.
The government should lay it out in black and white. Here's who gets how much money. Then they should show how much those crooks of those companies are making in salary and bonuses because it's like $1 million/ month with $10 million in bonuses or somthing ridiculous.
Now the government is buying up banks. I don't think we want our banks under government regulation. There should have been oversight over these Wall Street companies from the beginning so maybe this wouldn't have happened. They had to have seen it coming for a long time, but up to a couple weeks before, that Fed Chairman guy was telling people, yeah, everything's cool, so people can go blow more money with these companies. Now they took the people for their money twice.
Bad idea. Private financial people could have come up with a better plan I think.
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