In the days of my parents you saved your 20-30% and put it down on a house. Possibly not until your thirties or later. I don’t know a single person that has todays equivalent stashed away. Quite the opposite I know plenty of people with that quantity in credit card DEBT. And really, I have no sympathy for them because they know just as well as I do that they chose to spend he money at rates of 16% or more. You don’t hear crying out for a bailout of these indebted people. However, we should all feel sorry for the people who didn’t read their mortgage contract? I think not. There is risk in everything, from crossing the street to taking a loan. You dramatically increase that risk by not reading and making sure you understand what you’re signing your name too. Those that signed without understanding were accepting every last bit of that additional risk and now they should lose big because of it.

As for the credit system and companies not being able to make payroll on a line of credit. What a crock of !@#$. My business makes profits. Part of those profits gets set aside into what’s called Operating Capital. A portion of which goes to, you guess it, PAYROLL. We operating off of “cash” derived from believe it or not, PROFITS. Subsequently we make more because we don’t have to pay interest on balances carried over.
Cute concept right? You can figure out where this leads.

A credit based economy is a bad economy. If we were to base our money on a physical substance instead of imaginary numbers it would save the world a lot of grief. After all it’s hard to inflate the value of something that actually exists in a limited quantity.

Something else. Can someone explain to me how banks got stuck with so many mortgage back securities? As I recall the mortgage securitization process was created to get 30 year loans off of bank balance sheets. So “investors” would hold the securities and banks could continue the lending cycle.

What is the difference between holding the security and issuing mortgages directly? (Excluding the leverage that was piled on to own them in the first place.)

Dude it would only be $425 each. While I could use it to supplement my unemployment check, I don’t think it’s the answer.

They’ve been sweeping AMT under the the Congres’s rug since 1986; this matter should have been taken long ago, but they stalled!

We need separate tax reform, alone, before any other pork barrels get bailed out!

Let’s srick to the issues, O.K.?

Happy Friday!

This idea sounds just crazy enough to possibly work, so naturally it
won’t be given serious consideration. How great is our bureaucracy!!

I’m against the $85,000,000,000.00 bailout of AIG.

Instead, I’m in favor of giving $85,000,000,000 to America in a We
Deserve It Dividend.

To make the math simple, let’s assume there are 200,000,000 bonafide
U.S.
Citizens 18+.

Our population is about 301,000,000 +/- counting every man, woman and
child. So 200,000,000 might be a fair stab at adults 18 and up..

So divide 200 million adults 18+ into $85 billion that equals
$425,000.00.

My plan is to give $425,000 to every person 18+ as a We Deserve It
Dividend.

Of course, it would NOT be tax free.

So let’s assume a tax rate of 30%.

Every individual 18+ has to pay $127,500.00 in taxes.

That sends $25,500,000,000 right back to Uncle Sam.

But it means that every adult 18+ has $297,500.00 in their pocket.

A husband and wife has $595,000.00.

What would you do with $297,500.00 to $595,000.00 in your family?

Pay off your mortgage – housing crisis solved.

Repay college loans – what a great boost to new grads

Put away money for college – it’ll be there

Save in a bank – create money to loan to entrepreneurs.

Buy a new car – create jobs

Invest in the market – capital drives growth

Pay for your parent’s medical insurance – health care improves

Enable Deadbeat Dads to come clean – or else

Remember this is for every adult U S Citizen 18+ including the folks who
lost their jobs at Lehman Brothers and every other company that is
cutting back. And of course, for those serving in our Armed Forces.

If we’re going to re-distribute wealth let’s really do it…instead of
trickling out a puny $1000.00 ( “vote buy” ) economic incentive that is
being proposed by one of our candidates for President.

If we’re going to do an $85 billion bailout, let’s bail out every adult
U S Citizen 18+!

As for AIG – liquidate it.

Sell off its parts.

Let American General go back to being American General.

Sell off the real estate.

Let the private sector bargain hunters cut it up and clean it up.

Here’s my rationale. We deserve it and AIG doesn’t.

Sure it’s a crazy idea that can “never work.”

But can you imagine the Coast-To-Coast Block Party!

How do you spell Economic Boom?

I trust my fellow adult Americans to know how to use the $85 Billion

We Deserve It Dividend more than I do the geniuses at AIG or in
Washington DC

And remember, The plan only really costs $59.5 Billion because $25.5
Billion is returned instantly in taxes to Uncle Sam.

Ahhh…I feel so much better getting that off my chest

My husband and I don’t own a home because we can’t afford to buy one. But, now we’re expected to pay for somebody else’s home and bail out the corporations that mismanaged their business – when we can’t even afford a home of our own?

We are just barely surviving on today’s economy, and both of us work very hard to earn what little we have. Our taxes are already way too high. Doesn’t anybody remember the Boston Tea Party?

The Obama administration totally lied about reducing IL taxes and increasing jobs during the convention. I sure haven’t seen it and have lived her all my life – our taxes have drastically increased and IL unemployment has at least doubled if not much more, since he took office. We had to move to the IA/IL border for work, because we couldn’t find work in IL.

We manage our finances and debt by going without and cutting expenses where we can to make sure that we don’t have excessive debt, but still have what we need to survive. About time all these corrupt politicians that voted yes and corporate executives start learning to do the same. You can’t spend money you don’t have – that’s just plain common sense that our government doesn’t seem to have.

Maybe we should try making them work so hard that they physically drop at the end of the day for very little and not enough to live on like the rest of the American middle – lower class. Then see if they want to pay more taxes when they can’t hardly survive on what they make.

I am a struggling small business owner – I’ve worked very hard and struggled for many years to make the little bit that I do. I built my business with my own sweat and hard earned money, no loans – no help from the Government. Americans have a hard time getting small business loans to get a good start, those seem to be reserved mostly for foreignors that don’t even pay taxes. But now the government wants me to bail out these wealthy executives, when they wouldn’t help me? I don’t think so.

My husband is a dislocated, but retired Maytag worker, but we both still have to work so that we can afford to eat and put a roof over our heads. Maytag’s measley pension just barely feeds us without putting a roof over our head. But now we’re expected to bail out corrupt Corporate executives that aren’t having any personal financial troubles and are living in luxury.

I can guarantee that I will NOT vote for any person that is favor of the bail out. Let the corporate executives use all that money they made mismanging it to bail themselves out. Make them spend their own money or file for bankruptcy like a other business would be legally required to do. We didn’t create this problem, they did. I’m sick and tired of doing without and not having the basic living needs to survive because of corporate crooks, corrupt politicians, and over-taxation.

Bailing them out will only make it all much worse later down the road. They need to be held accountable for their own actions, not hold the rest of us accountable for their actions. That’s the same as knowingly and wrongfully putting somebody in jail for another person’s crime.

now what? we are to pay for these with our tax money?

the serious problen is who can we trust?

our leaders are not leaders at all.

There are quite a few of us out here who hate, loathe and despise everything that Wall Street has become, and we’re even less enthusiastic about Washington. The only politicians who apparently understand that are the ones who voted against the bailout. As far as we’re concerned, Wall Street can go to hell, and then maybe the rest of us can get to work on restoring this country to what it was before Wall Street slimed it.

Michael- I think you have hit the nail on the head with regard to your comments about our current economic situation.
When the current call to action came from Bush and his cohorts, my original reaction was shock and disgust, but I realized that doing nothing was worse than the alternative of letting the American economy slide into a position of freefall.

Subsequently however, I’ve come to believe that the financial fallout of the current situation may well be the type of “market correction” that is exactly what is called for as a result of the last eight years of financial deregulation. The old saying is: There is no altruism in business; and that includes what is currently referred to as moral hazard in the financial sector.

Yes, it is possible to bail out our current fiscal conundrum with a huge influx of taxpayer cash; but this infusion of funds will not change the mindset that resulted in our current toxic financial position.

Although I am a liberally minded Democrat, I believe it may be time for every American to take it on the chin, and realize that the days of out-of-control consumer spending, as well as obscene CEO compensation, must be relegated firmly to a past that we can never resort to in the future.

From this moment forward, altruism must be an integral part of the capitalistic world in which we live; making profits in a global market requires that the individuals in charge of profit making decisions must also take into account the requirements of the vast majority of individuals required to produce those profits, if for no other reason than someone has to have enough money to buy the huge output of the global economic machine.