Sep 23, 2008 3:18pm
$700,000,000,000
Email 700 billion dollars is THE number of the moment. A best guess on how much buying up all of the bad debt from the nation’s bank will cost. The Portland Oregonian breaks that number down a little for perspective.
$700 Billion is: -$4,780 for each taxpayer -It could buy 4,590 McDonald’s apple pies for each and every American -Could build 1,077 Chicago Trump Towers -Is about the same of Pentagon budget this year
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Call them NOW, tell them no, No and HELL NO… to using your tax dollars to bailout Wall St.!!!
Posted by: hmn | September 23, 2008, 3:36 pm 3:36 pm
Why don’t we put this bailot on the ballot come November and vote on it. If the vote is held right now, may I suggest that only Dr. Paul’s vote count.
Posted by: Huh | September 23, 2008, 3:39 pm 3:39 pm
You folks reprinted a letter to the editor from the NY Times the other day:
“Dear Mr. Bernanke and Mr Paulson: My student loans are too big and it is hurting the economy. Can I have a bailout, please? I need $92,000.”
The note was obviously tongue-in-cheek, but it got me thinking. If economic good times truly start with the financial well-being of the middle class, as the Democrats and the Obama campaign have been saying, what would be the effect of letting these behemoths in the financial sector fail and giving the same amount of stimulus directly to ordinary citizens, by forgiving student loans or small business loans, and investing in public schools, job training, and so forth? I’d be far happier as a taxpayer to see my money going to programs like these than to corporate bailout programs. Or is it true that the only way to keep the economy healthy is to start at the top? I’m not an economist, but claims like that always make me suspicious. I don’t mean my question as a platitude either – I’d love to know what the calculus of such an alternative would be. It might be horrendous – after all, if we woke up tomorrow, and, as Cokie Roberts said recently, our credit cards don’t work, that would obviously be ugly. At the same time, if you suddenly owed less in other respects, perhaps it wouldn’t be THAT ugly.
Posted by: Josh Braun | September 23, 2008, 3:40 pm 3:40 pm
*didn’t work
Posted by: Josh Braun | September 23, 2008, 3:41 pm 3:41 pm
Bernarke has a lot of nerve telling congress that a recession (depression?) will be on Congress if they don’t instantly pass a bail-out bill. Who was asleep at the switch and failed to inform congress that economic Collapse was looming?
As best I can recall, Paulson, Bernarke, and Cox were all saying that the economy was fundamentally sound until the day *after* the s*** hit the fan.
Posted by: Joel | September 23, 2008, 3:43 pm 3:43 pm
well
it’s less than the war
1,000,000,000,000
from Mccain and Bush
or the S&L crisis
1,000,000,000,000
you remember when Mccain went on trial with keating the first time his deregulation policies and his friends cost us that much.
Posted by: dl | September 23, 2008, 3:45 pm 3:45 pm
What does McCain care about average Americans, he’s worth over 100 million dollars. So what if Wall Street and the financial institutions fail, he won’t be one of the millions out of work, he’s not worried about losing his house (any of the 8), he’s not worried about being able to retire (ever), no Ole John cares about himself first, like all REPUBLICANS.
Posted by: JR | September 23, 2008, 3:45 pm 3:45 pm
“mushroom cloud” anyone?
too bad Mccain didn’t stop on that face of that threat
too bad he was actually using that threat.
Posted by: dl | September 23, 2008, 3:46 pm 3:46 pm
Good God.
Posted by: a reader in georgia | September 23, 2008, 3:51 pm 3:51 pm
Yeah my son could use 100,000 for his school loans that he is expected to pay over 30 years. And don’t forget if he becomes disabled they will take the money from his Social Security check.Last year they wrote about some poor guy who was in an accident and was totally disabled and the goverment was told they have every right to tap his SS check for repayment.Talk about hitting someone when they are down!!!
Posted by: cissy55 | September 23, 2008, 4:11 pm 4:11 pm
@cissy55: Hear, hear on your son’s student loans. The SS bit sounds gruesome. If you think that we need new thinking in the financial sector (not to mention everywhere else in this economy), why not help people with their education costs? And if you believe that today’s small businesses are tomorrow’s big businesses, why wouldn’t the government invest in them right now, instead of bailing out huge corporations? I can’t help but wonder why a one-time bailout shouldn’t go to the people who are getting undermined by these lousy economic conditions, rather than the people and institutions who created them in the first place.
Posted by: Josh Braun | September 23, 2008, 4:17 pm 4:17 pm
If the GOP is so concerned about taxes, why don’t they come forward with a plan to give each taxpayer a tax rebate of $4,780 with that $700 billion. That would be guaranteed to improve the lot of every taxpayer in America and be a shot in the arm for the economy. As a Democrat I would think that far preferable to pumping $700 billion into a risky rescue package for greedy Wall Street fatcats. Give rebates of their taxes to overburdened American taxpayers and let the chips fall where they may. That way a bus driver would get $4,780 as would an investment house ceo — let them each spend their money in the way they think best.
Posted by: hopesprings52 | September 23, 2008, 4:25 pm 4:25 pm
Let me get this straight……
Welfare for the poor is bad. Useless eaters deserve to starve.
Helping people who are losing their homes is bad. They should learn to live within their means.
Personal responsibility and accepting the consequences of your actions is good.
Corporate welfare is good. The working class taxpayers of America should pay for the poor judgement of billionaires so they don’t have to suffer the consequenses of their greed. Now more than ever, the tax cuts for the elite must be made permanent. We can’t have them suffer for their mistakes.
Am I missing something here?
Posted by: Tom | September 23, 2008, 4:31 pm 4:31 pm
Republican Bush appointed Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson (former CEO of floundering Goldman Sachs) aka “Mr. Risk”, believes “we the people” will bend over and write him a blank check for $700,000,000,000 with the following demands:
“Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.” ———
WOW!!!! THAT’S WORSE THAN A HALLIBURTON NO-BID CONTRACT FOLKS!!!
THIS REAKS OF AN ECONOMIC COUP!!! SO THE REPUBLICANS EXPECT US TO REWARD THEIR DEREGULATION INCOMPETENCE WITH A NATION-KILLING BLANK CHECK???
THE AUDACITY IS JAW DROPPING!!!!
VOTE ALL THE BUMS OUT!!!
Posted by: Mark | September 23, 2008, 4:32 pm 4:32 pm
And a follow up question…….
Is this 700 billion in addition to the 900 billion sank into the corporate bailouts of a couple of weeks ago?
The media has not made that very clear.
Posted by: Tom | September 23, 2008, 4:36 pm 4:36 pm
THIS REAKS OF REPUBLICAN “STARVE THE BEAST” DOCTRINE – “CAN’T HAVE ALTERNATIVE ENERGY, HEALTHCARE OR JOBS YA KNOW. WE SPENT THE ENTIRE TREASURY ON IRAQ AND WALL STREET.” MARK MY WORDS….
Posted by: John | September 23, 2008, 5:02 pm 5:02 pm