"bailing out" the economy

[Rook]

Me, like most of the poor to middle class set people feel bad about this 700 billion dollar bailout proposed. I think this is a ridiculous amount first off and to pay it off on top of our already several trillion dollar debt EVERY American would have to pay $38,000 some dollars. hypothetically of course, well into my middle - old age we will barley have a dent in this american debt payed off from our taxes. I remember back when bill clinton was president, when I was little... we were actually in the green?


BS or 700bil really needed?


Also my feelings, I don't expect there to be much of a America, or world for that matter by the time I'm 40 some years old. oh nice I just looked this up try to imagine the scale of this. $ 53 Trillion - - and soaring

53,000,000,000,000

[pyrofyr]

They're just not Jewish, it's the problem. If they were Jewish, banking would be in their blood from the olden times, but they're not. You see, they tax everything and make money, pay off everyone who works for them, and on top of that have some left over to put back in the next year (building a budget), the problem is when you take from one budget (education!) and put it into another budget (Iraq war).

Now you have an unexplained deficit in one area, and you can't tax any higher as it would be without representation or reasonable cause.
700 billion is probably to be in the safe zone to be honest.

According to the following we currently have have 53 trillion dollars in debt, which is not cool.
http://www.myconfinedspace.com/wp-co.../05/i-lold.jpg

The problem is how fast we are to **** up and waste money, we're the biggest country producing the most, we should be making money like hotcakes, but the problem is that the government allows companies to take a big hit of the bulk instead of doing it themselves.


Soon enough, people will be calling for either
A)Complete commercial control of many different matters by the government, to avoid having to deal with big companies, and so that the government is slightly more self-sustaining.
B)Complete separation of commercial and government, so that no money goes in or out.

[ClericLordLeo]

I thought we already payed off Wall Street with 700b?

[pyrofyr]

Wall street isn't our problem, it's going to war without changing our economy to suit it. We borrowed a ****load from China, and I believe most of our debt is from them now, however we have debt pretty much everywhere and most of it is out of country

[Chicle]

actually, no one really knows how much money will get us out of this rut

so $700,000,000,000 might not be enough
you never know

[pyrofyr]

Many people know, and they deem that number acceptable yet we have problems elsewhere and they're cutting possible funding because kids are too 'fat' like it will stop them.

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/r.../mspd/mspd.htm
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

Different numbers different places. TreasuryDirect is the Dept. of Treasury's site though, so that's the one to look for.

According to TreasuryDirect's current day, "Debt by the Penny"

Current: 09/24/2008
Debt Held by the Public: 5,614,420,276,276.55
Intragovernmental Holdings:4,173,660,385,551.68
Total Public Debt Outstanding : 9,788,080,661,828.23

source: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPD...application=np
Will change at 11:50 AM tomorrow, but you can check pevious dates.

[Chicle]

sure, we can say we know the amount
the government won't say they will

they'll just keep saying "uhh, we don't know how much money would completely pay off all this stuff with the banks" and it'll be a few months until the wall street crisis is sorted out

then we can focus on our debt

[Morgana]

Actually, the government being in debt (to domestic interests, not foreign ones) isn't that bad. Heck, it's what held this country together when we first started out. People don't want to overthrow a government that owes them money. xD Even foreign debt isn't necessarily bad, as long as you can keep the world's confidence. It's a ******, though, and it backfired on us.

The problem is that we wouldn't have had to do any of this if we'd actually regulated business like we were supposed to. Basically, it reminds me of more history... For most of our history, we'd have a financial "panic" every 10-50 years where loose credit would spiral out of control, lots of private banks would fail (we used to have a National Bank through most of these), people would lose their savings, bad stuff would happen, etc. Then there'd be a boom afterward, but the cycle would begin again.

After the Great Depression, which was similar, but much worse and different in many aspects, the government got wise and realized that if they stopped business from getting overenthusiastic by requiring it to be honest and save for a rainy day, the panics would stop. And by and large, they did... There were still recessions, but they didn't involve large-scale financial collapse.

The Bushies decided to let business hold its own reins. We can all see how well that worked. :rolleyes:

Honestly, I don't know what the solution is now. Whatever it is, though, it better have the regulations that actually work tacked on to it. You know, the ones that don't allow companies to hide their balance sheets from shareholders... x_X

[pyrofyr]

sure, we can say we know the amount
the government won't say they will

they'll just keep saying "uhh, we don't know how much money would completely pay off all this stuff with the banks" and it'll be a few months until the wall street crisis is sorted out

then we can focus on our debt

Eh? Paying foreign countries is more important than our own debts within the country considering that it doesn't matter as much, although should be eventually paid.

To be honest the system doesn't work because it has a voice for all of us, yet none of us have a voice. I vote for a direct democracy, who follows?

[Ulyana]

Businesses cannot be trusted to do what's right for anyone but themselves.
The government, as a business, runs itself poorly.
Catch 22 much?

In the 70's it was the government that told banks they had to start handing out more loans to people with bad credit. The banks agreed because high, variable interest rates could pass that on to their reliable customers who were buying far more expensive houses, therefore they felt they should be able to make it up. Also "what we are owed" looks good on paper to shareholders.

This bill will probably pass because something needs to be done immediately and no one is putting forth any better ideas. What it NEEDS is heavy regulation regarding where the money goes and to PAY BACK the government, with interest. That would be the smart thing to do, but it's probably not how it's going to go down. The thing that would make me maddest is if some of it ends up as severance packages for the CEO's who ****ed up so royally. They deserve nothing. They deserve to go home to their trophy wives and explain that they'll only be able to keep two of their houses and the kids can't go to Harvard. :rolleyes: