[quote=joec]Same reason people are annoyed with government bailing out homeowners who ATMed their house.[/quote]
Once again, off-target. The main recipient of fiscal and monetary bailout efforts wasn’t “Joe Homeowner”. Mortgage issues are a fraction of the problem. The total sum value of EVERY house in America is only about $20T.
Total wealth LOST by “Wall Street”? More than $200 TRILLION.
The main recipient of the bailout was “Wall Street” and the insolvent banking industry. The money went to PRIVATE financial services corporations. We have a PRIVATE financial services industry. Banks are not government. Banks are not Joe Homeowner.
So why did we bail out private sector banks, and ‘socialize’ the losses?
Banks are not some corporation making widgets in a factory. They are special because they HOLD OUR MONEY. The GOP and Clinton-era Dems deregulated the financial industry and the banks proceeded to gamble OUR MONEY away on bullshit financial leverage schemes. The bailout was necessary because the banks LOST OUR MONEY. Many of them were completely insolvent.
And too big to fail. We have a fractional reserve banking system. Loss of confidence in the banks leads DIRECTLY to bank runs, and bank runs on Chase, Citi, BofA, etc. would have caused a complex interdependent world economy to literally collapse overnight.
Mad about the Bailout? Blame BANKS and “Wall Street”. Enough of this Reagan-era “Government is bad” meme. The U.S. government very literally saved our ass. I don’t like the ‘bailout’ either, but I’m grateful the dollar has been strong enough to ward off the next Great Depression.
Anybody want to see a real Great Depression? Trip to Ralph’s, nothing on the shelves? Anybody have families? Careers? Businesses? Bank accounts? Retirement savings? Poof! Up in smoke… That was the scenario we were facing two years ago. That is the reason why there is a “Bailout”.
Unlike many of the right-wingers (and real estate gamblers) on this board, I am a conservative. I don’t like BUBBLES. I value stability in our economic and social systems. I also believe government (and the GOP) should mind its own business on the “Terry Schiavo” social issues of the day.
The tremendous irony is that by opting for stability, Obama has pursued a ‘Conservative’ agenda, while the raging-idiot “Tea Party” plays the puppet to the corporate interests that caused this mess.
