A 700 Billion Dollar Bailout: Botox versus Systemic Change

Hank Paulson, Bernanke, and a morass of immature news reporters and legislators think a 700 billion dollar injection into the banking system will be the nostrum for our "dying" economy. They use doomsday rhetoric and prod us on the exegency of the situation, saying our entire economy will collapse if we do not pass this bill. It is true some people may go homeless, but will the whole economy fall off a cliff? Very unlikely, but I guess it could happen, in the worst case scenario, as it did in the Great Depression. But it would take a complete loss of confidence in the system and a mass run on all the banks.

We all know how we got here, and we all know what needs to be done to fix the situation. Namely, less leveraging and borrowing and more regulation. The US government rather than using taxpayers money to inject the economy with what would be equivalent to botox, need to go in and do some real surgery, in order to restore confidence versus enrage the US citizen and taxpayer with an outrageously expensive bailout bill.

Simply put the reason the bill did not pass was because the Republicans, who were listening to the myriad of phone calls and emails they were receiving from their constituents, that's us, the American people, said nay! becaus we the taxpayers said nay, nay, nay! (The Democrats, by the way, weren't listening). The bill just is not fair. Not only would it cost the taxpayers a lot of money, believe me, we aren't going to recoup anything on these purchases, but it uses our money to artificially sustain the real estate market. There is an underlying greed factor beyind this bill--a good amount of homeowners who dislike seeing their homevalues go down in value, said let's use taxpayers money to keep our massive credit cards afloat, which is what many people have been using their mortgages for, ie., let's use our childrens money to sustain our excessiveness.

Again the real problem needs to be addressed, and not a quick fix used, which would only sustain the problem further. A real long term program needs to be installed in order to rejuvenate confidence in the market. The toxic assets should be brought to the fore, so everyone can see them, and so they can be expunged, ie., whoever bought them should loose them and the money they "invested" in them, and not those who work hard for their money. Banks who sold the bad loans and are on the problem list of the FDIC should be disclosed, and all savings accounts should be moved to strengthen banks who didn't make the mistakes of 5yr APRs, and excessive leveraging.

These politicians are pointing out a fire, and spreading it to the rest of the system. Most banks have sound balance sheets. Since their bill didn't get passed they want to see the economy collapse so they can say I told you so. Pride needs to go away, greed needs to go away, and real, organic, systemic legislation and practices need to be employed.