say a village was burning and everyone had to work extra hard one day to “save” one person’s house so that the fire didn’t spread. Clearly, the cost to you would be worth it, particularly if you had thatched roofs. I think some see the program as “stopping a wildfire”, and that failure to act would lead to everyone’s values going down, so it’s really a jointly shared enterprise, like everybody keeping up their lawn. on the other hand, it might not at all be like a house burning down, it might just bethat someobdy wgot drunk, went nuts one night and wrecked their own home, and now everyone has to pitch in to get his house back in order. yoou probably wouldnt be as excited about helping the drunka nd berserk dude out. and if you were a guy living on the fringes of a village waiting for a better permanent space, you mgiht be happy to see the drunk dude kicked to the curb so you coudl have his house at a distressed value. is the plan more like putting out a fire — “saving” the financial system and all the strange MBS that undergird many transactions, or is it more just about individuals, whose impaired actions harm only themselves? thisdebate reflects those underlying assumptions to some extent, but until that issue is made explicit, and one’s underlying assumptions are explained and supported, the debaters cannot really talk to eahc other, they just yell at each other. i myself would say I have no idea. I have a feeling it’s a strange combination of both, but more liek the drunk guy than the fire situation.
