To Bail or Not to Bail...

[Gods-Spartan]

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.

 

[iKotomi]

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.

 

[BrewtusBibulus]

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?

 

[Darago]

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.

 

[Ghengis_John]

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.