Fun fact #1: In the past 4 days, the US government has placed a $85 billion dollar tax burden on the American people. The sum total of the bailouts so far is $900 billion This dollar amount is roughly twice the deficit increase every year of the 8 years of George W. Bush.
Fun fact #2: Ben Bernake -alone- controls $888 billion of that dollar amount.
6 comments:
Questions.
Why is there never enough money for Social Security?
Why is there never enough money for universal health care?
Why can't we spend money to fix our infrastructure, schools, and fund clean energy research for job creation?
Why is it ok to spend billions in Iraq, a war we should have never started?
Why is it ok to bail out Fannie and Freddie for billions?
Of course, funding these things points to the direct philosophical between the two parties in Washington. The real question is what are the American people going to do about it?
oops, apparently fun fact #1 is a factoid rather than a fact.
the sum total of all bailouts so far is $900bn. the total over the past 4 days is roughly 110 billion.
Time to have some fun.
1. Social Security is essentially a self-funding pyramid scheme. Not only did the architects fail to anticipate demographic shifts, they failed to force a 'lockbox' on future funders. They also failed to anticipate its effect on future retirees -- that is, convince people that SS would fund their retirement, when it is a program designed to stop you from eating cat food 3 times a day.
2. Because UHC is not possible in the US with our lifestyle and expectations of the healthcare system. Funding UHC to the level expected of your middle class US citizen would dwarf the bailouts.
3. No offense, but "clean energy research for job creation" is pretty much silly. While it would indeed be a Full Employment Act for Physical Scientists, there's pretty much no such thing as "clean energy" that's worth anything.
4. Sigh. This blog's not big enough for this answer.
5 and overall. Bruce, all of your questions are fundamentally about constituency. While retirees, the uninsured, the military-industrial complex and environmentalists are all powerful entities (some obviously more powerful than others), everyone is affected by the economy.
Perhaps the US should rethink its relationship to Wall Street. Nevertheless, they're incredibly important to the national and world economy. Thus, we pony up without blinking. I don't like it anymore than you, but if you have a better idea, I'm all ears.
I was glad to see Jim take this one...
I'd add that the bailout actually gets the govt. something, and we (the taxpayer) bought it cheap.
Also, you realize that the GDP/debt ratio is much worse in countries with UHC. Not only that, but most Europeans and Canadians that live in the US prefer our system.
Why again do you (Bruce) want to go that way? It doesn't work...
We're going to look back in 30 years and feel the same way we do about communism now, about UHC then. It's a nice concept, but it just doesn't work.
People will never appreciate what they don't earn, and anything "free" will never be the best.
Jim,
my better idea? lets support the "self correcting" free-market economy, ya know, the one Bernake and Paulsen and especially the Norquist types tout. If you want the market to regulate itself, let it crash and burn if you fuck it up. Yet, I was never for this in the first place. Moderation (regulation) is always a good thing.
Massive bankruptcy and then a huge fire sale is likely the best way to purge all the bad debt from the economy. The problem is that you create massive unemployment. Suddenly, people who didn't give two shits about UHC and SS, medicaid and the like, care very much. None of us may need these things now, yet despite our best efforts, we may some day.
The point is that Republicans scream about "individual responsibility." This should apply here, just on a massive scale. American banks and investors made bad investments. When I make a bad stock investment and lose my ass in the market, no one bails me out. This is why I don't invest. I save, at 0.6% interest mind you, but I save. Thanks to Paulsen and Bush, my hard earned savings is worth about 68 cents to the Euro.
You spoke about a return to "Depression era values?" We're there, Jim.
after reading, my inner angry liberal wrote that post. If any apologies are due, then I can give them.
Vigorous debate is always encouraged on this blog. I'm ready for my party to feel as I do about the issues. I'm also ready for my party to publicly and mercilessly ridicule idiocy in our political discourse, but that's another thing.
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