Bailout: Isn’t Doing Nothing, Doing Something?
by Jeffrey Jena
I’ve been out at sea on a working cruise all week and get limited television in my cabin. Two of my five choices are CNN and Fox News so I get my fill of every news cycle, but never more than during this past week when every other talking head on Fox and every single one on CNN was some important Democrat repeating the Obama line of the week: “We have to do something!” Usually this is followed by one of the following sub-talking points:
1) It’s for the children.
2) Irreversible damage will be done to our economy!
3) The world as we know it will end!
4) It’s all Bush’s fault!
I would like to point out to my progressive friends that we already have done something. On his way out the door, The Greatest Democrat President Ever, threw somewhere between 7 and 8 hundred billion dollars down a huge rat hole known as the banking industry. Remember TARP? We had to get that done quickly too. Remember how the world was going to end and if we didn’t do something before such and such a day the damage would be too great and America would have to sell off Montana to the Chinese? John McCain even stopped his campaign for the presidency, which is like saying Elton John came out of the closet: who noticed? Then, right in the middle of the crisis, Congress took a five day break for a Jewish holiday. With no disrespect to my Jewish friends – but if our way of life was at stake the holiday could have waited.
So here we stand on the edge of the same cliff we were standing on in October, and the lemmings, joined by two RINOs from Maine, are ready to flush another trillion or so down the same rat hole with a few billion for roads and bridges and a couple hundred million for a new lawn somewhere in D.C. I didn’t know we had that many road and bridge builders out of work. Every interstate I drive down is lined with orange barrels, and though I see a lot of guys standing around not many seem to be working. Maybe they’re just standing at the ready waiting for the word the money has come in. Maybe the morons in Congress think that a lot of the Wall Street types who lost their gigs are just dying to go out and buy a pair of Dickies coveralls and get into the road building business. Maybe there are a few billion buried in the new bailout bill to retrain all the Ivy Leaguers in the use of a spade and pickaxe.
On the other hand, Wells Fargo has been taken to the woodshed by the media and by Congress for going ahead with their annual rewards trips for their workers. “Shameful!” scream the news readers and talking heads! Really? What about the folks who make a living planning corporate events? What about the caterers, waiters, cooks, truck drivers, hotels workers, stage hands and entertainers? Maybe they’re supposed to go out and join the Ivy Leaguers in shovel-training class.
The problem with bailouts and heroin is exactly the same; they feel good but once you start it’s hard to stop. If AIG, Bank of America, General Motors and a hundred other companies went belly up I know that would be painful but this is the system we believe in. Dinosaurs die and the little tiny creatures get stronger and take over.
What a shame the folks who are running things now weren’t around to bailout United Buggy Whip and Amalgamated Starched Collars at the beginning of the last century.
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47 Comments
Amazing!
Congress points to the private sector and complains about the salaries that are paid and then turns around and votes themselves another annual pay raise. Not bad for the congress with the lowest approval rating ever.
What about “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”?
Oh, wait, no they are saying the opposite.
That is devastating criticism, Tehstupid. I’m sure the Big Hollywood people are packing up their website right now.
Guys, TEHSTUPID is like the drunken hobo who lives in the stairwell of your apartment complex. If you keep feeding him he won’t go away.
It’s so basic….no, it’s beyond basic.
Don’t spend what you don’t have.
My wife’s been holding our household together for years with this basic philosophy.
What’s so hard to understand about that ?
I know my point is elementary. But that’s basically it, right?
Or is my point racist?
Someone please ’splain
So…you’re on a boat?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iUjx4_X1qA
Ok, more seriously, I agree with what you’re saying. I don’t think throwing borrowed money at the economy is going to ’save’ it. And I REALLY don’t want to envision what paying that money back is going to cost us.
Gary, actually you’re right about not spending what you don’t have. So, how exactly have we been paying for the war of choice we started in Iraq?
Titov,
Bring something different. Just once.
Something beyond your ill-informed talking points.
I love the poster on the podium those creeps are standing behind: Honest Leadership, Open Government. I think I hear the Culture of Corruption calling and it’s saying Donks, Donks, Donks.
“Don’t just do something, stand there”
At last night’s press conference, President Obama practically sneered at the concept of “doing nothing” as if it weren’t an option worth considering. Doing nothing is often the most prudent course in dealing with any major problem, particularly if the kneejerk solution comes with an $800,000,000,000 price tag.
On a related note, did anyone notice that our President spent an inordinate amount of time not directly answering any of the questions posed, except for that really good one about A-Rod’s steroid use?
Tehstupid…and you ALWAYS sound as STUPID as your name indicates!!!
The only thing I see these bailouts doing is driving the markets down. A little less than an hour before close and were hovering at -400pts.
“Maybe the morons in Congress think that a lot of the Wall Street types who lost their gigs are just dying to go out and buy a pair of Dickies coveralls and get into the road building business. ”
Great point!
Remember this is the Party who told us, all the new jobs of the Bush economy, were just burger-flipping jobs.
Why is digging ditches considered more dignified than working in a fast-food restaurant?
Personally, I’d rather work the grill. It’s warmer inside, and you get to eat all the hamburgers that fall on the floor.
This bill nor the ones before it have NOTHING to do with stimulating the economy. This bill is about consolidating power, and “hooking them up that got you there”. Wonder how much Olympia Snowe, Arlen Specter, and Susan Collins got in earmarks and pork for throwing their party and the american people under the bus. If the pinheads in our nations capital really were going to throw away all this money anyway, why not pay off or down mortgages for homeowners? Yesterday’s news reported that 9 out of 10 mortgages could be totally paid off by all of these boondogles. Hmmm wonder what would stimulate the economy more:
1) spending almost 10 trillion dollars of future gernerations money bailing out 10% of American companies who made bad decisions, but with our money will get it right in the future?
2) Spending that same 10 trillion dollars paying down everyone’s mortgage. This give the taxpayers back thier money, pays off their biggest expense, and leaves them with hundres, thousands, 10’s of thousands of dollars left in their pocket each month…..EACH MONTH? Wonder what all of us consumers would do with that? STIMULATE THE FRICKEN ECONOMY. That’s what we would do with it.
I mean if they are going to burden future generations anyway, then why not actually do it in a fashion that will actually stimulate the economy? That’s why this is all about consolidating power and very little about stimulus. welcome to the (USSA) United Socialist States of Amerika!!!!!!
Ronald Reagan said the following:
Government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.
Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.
I don’t know how you argue with ANY of those quotes!! Mr President, you are missed!!!!
Of course, the blind side of the “all government is evil” mantra of the modern GOP is why an entity that you feel is so out to lunch and incompetent that the very notion of the Federal Government needs to be rolled back to 1860’s levels is to be trusted implicitly when it’s time to bomb another country into cinders?
It’s funny that the “don’t run my life” conservatives certainly have no problem using government to deny equal rights to people who happen to be gay.
I suppose the anti-regulation crowd would like the Pure Food and Drug Act repealed. I mean, if food and drug companies weren’t required to make their products safe, think how much money they could save that would have had to be spent on inconveniences like quality control. If a bunch of people die because the government had no oversight of food and drugs, I guess the “free market” would magically kick in.
Jeff, 100% correct… BHO’s press conference recited the same messages and he gave a few examples of spending millions of dollars for schools, energy efficient government buildings and houses and how the health care system needs electronic medical records because nurses can’t read doctor’s orders. Another good point that is overlooked by all is that many white collar jobs are being lost in the thousands with the highly paid auto-workers. Will there be stimulus for those folks who are as much in need?
One point I would like to make is Bank of America was never in jeopardy of going belly up. For the most part if not for Countrywide and Merrill Lynch most of the bank’s lines of business made money.
OK, so today’s troll theme is Iraq and Prop. 8.
Got it.
But you’re missing the point ,troll.
The PEOPLE voted for 8.
People of all stripes, ya doofus.
“The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.”
– Cicero – 55 BC
Yes, the folk of California fairly narrowly voted against equal marriage rights.
And Jim Crow laws had a lot of support in the old South. Democratic decision and what is right do not always coincide. Popular vote is a decision mechanism, not a moral arbiter. And even as a decision mechanism, the US has a Bill of RIghts for a reason: the notion of the tyranny of the majority is hardly empty. Ask any conservative in Hollywood.
Reagan’s gone, let it go – blah, blah, blah. France and the Soviet Union are looking for idiots like you…..BYE!!
Once again the intolerance of another person’s thoughts comes out in the comments of TEHSTUPID. The last line “GO AWAY.” says it all.
You have to ask the question?
Oh – you intended it for progressives.
Nevermind.
The answer to ‘what’s in it for me’ is very very simple. Nothing.
I don’t own a home, so I guess help is out for me, despite having problems paying my inordinately high rent while I look for work (again) because my former company could not make decisions properly.
This country sucks.
“Man you guys just don’t get it. This is your handiwork, you own it. No one cares if you disagree because NO ONE IS LISTENING TO YOU. You are an epic failure and a disgrace. Your ideology is a colossal disaster.
GO AWAY.”
Nice try buddy boy. When GWB inherited Clinton’s recession, the libs were all over him. Ditto his neglect of the terrorism issue, which visited us on 9/11. Thanks Bill!
So, now the Libs get to put up or shut up. Shoot, if they keep it up, they can merge this country with Venezuela in a few short years. That ought to make you happy.
John
I have lived in several third world countries and I suggest that you move to one of them for several years and then see how much this country sucks.
If you keep losing your job why don't you start a business! Since you seem to know how to make decisions properly you should make a great boss. I am sure as a business owner you will love dealing with all of the levels of government and paying them off the top before you make a penny.
If your rent is too high I suggest you buy a home, prices are low right now and so are interest rates.
If you live some place where you can't afford a home why don't you move? Maybe you can go get one of those "shovel ready" jobs your guys is pushing
Here is the bottom line…quit complaining and take control of your life and quit looking o big brother to make you happy!
I could use a good buggy whip right about now. Doing nothing is doing something, sometimes.
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