Does the Bailout Miss the Point?

DEMOGRAPHICS!!!!! This market is plunging because of deleveraging in the face of horrible demographics in the United States. Housing will continue to plummet and with it the market as we unwind are still highly leveraged economy.

The bailout is a bandaid when we need an operation. The problem did not occur overnight but has been in the works for years going back to the 1970s when President Carter signed legislation making it easier for low-income families to buy homes. Credit is easy. I get several credit card applications in the mail a week. The banks freely offer credit, at 18% interest and a $40 fee if the payment is late. They don't renegotiate their interest and offer to help customers meet a minimum payment. Now we, taxpayers, are asked to bail them out-no way! I'm accountable in my job, I have to pay my bills, I don't gamble on risky investments. The banking institutions do not seem to have the same responsibility as everyone else. They were rewarded for risky investments, made a lot of money, and now can't pay their bills and seek a bail out from the government. Where is the accountability and responsibility? Why do they get off free with their money? These people should be going to jail, not riding off into the sunset while we are saddled with the bailout. We don't need more regulations, we need prison sentences. That will help control the market.

Now, What's at stake with the homeless? Jointly efforts within -Freddie and Fannie under Housing Dept.- will be the real deal 'no more excuses' to get them out of the woods, I believe. Is not now when then? I wish someone in 'Washington' remember these peoples one of these days or nites as they been waiting since ever for rescue out of the streets. I think this is the moment of the true for them. With the few already overcrowded shelters is unbelievable that budgets spending cuts are directed to so much poors communities programs all the time, doesn't?

I absolutely disagree with this bailout bill. I cannot believe that our Congress is so close minded that it will not even consider any other option. God help us if it passes. As if government did not already have enough power to screw the American people over. I am so mad and upset, I am seeing red. Could Washington be any more selfish and grasping? I second the comment by Jim. I would rather take another Depression than a rewrite of our constitution. And Adam is exactly right. I am 24 years old myself, and my husband and I are very good at living within our means. We do not even have any credit cards and the only debt we have is our home mortgage. We pay extra principal every chance we get, and we have a low fixed interest rate. We were smart enough to refinance after a year since our mortgage rate was set to go up in two years. If people are not smart enough to refinance their variable rate mortgage before the interest rate balloons, they have no business buying a house. Let the credit freeze. People borrowing outside their means with the help of the federal government is what got us into this mess. So now we are supposed to give the government a blank check and unilateral power so that people and businesses can continue to borrow outside their means? AAAAUUUUUGGGH!

Alexis, I still say the free market economy should be allowed to straighten itself out. If you can't afford it, you can't buy it. simple! We are supposed to trust out representatives, yet here they go again. Get everybody's blood pressure up. Tell everyone something has to be done now, and then add a bunch of pork. The original Bill was 3 pages. The House had it up to about 100 pages. The Senate now has it to 451 pages. 6 pages of pork for Alaskan fishermen. Tax rebates for Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands. Tax breaks for film companies. $10 million credit to help employers who have employees who commute to work by bycicle. Hurricane disaster releif breaks. Just amazing, yet we are supposed to believe that they can control a $700 billion dollar slush fund. What crap. I say Nov 4th we vote everybody out. Can't be any worse than it is now.

Paulson's original Plan, about 3 pages long or so, was the correct plan. He also indicated an entire study on revisions of government agencies overseeing. Good. Quick strike with simplicity would have us working on something else now. The plan is now over 400 pages and we are still arguing.

I would like to propose what I feel would be a better solution to the financial crisis. Take that $700 billion and divide it up to all the tax-payers instead of Wall Street and the banks. It is the American people's money after all. This I feel would do several things: 1. Allow people who are in severe financial distress to pay-off mortgages, credit cards, etc. This would do away with all these so-called "Toxic" assetes that the government will be buying no longer making them "Toxic". In fact, they would go away entirely. Of course, a stipulation would have to be imposed that this money given to people would have to be used to pay off said debts. 2. Buy giving people this money and allowing them to pay-off these debts, you free up the economy in and of itself by people having more disposable income. This would create more consumer buying thereby raising demand for goods, creating jobs, and strengthening the economy. 3. As a result of this, income for the government itself would increase through the generation of more tax income. This income, particularly from income taxes (by putting anyones yearly refund toward what was given to them intitially) would be used to pay-off the $700 billion dollars thereby wiping out the debt incurred by the government to implement this. Essentially, the government becomes the bank. As I said, this is just my idea. I'm no financial guru, but I do have common sense. It seems to me, if you want to help the American people, help the people that are in trouble, not the people who created the trouble. In this way, you help us all. I pray that God will guide you in these troubling times. Regards, Robert H. Wriggins, Jr.

As I understand it this economic crisis was caused by lax credit standards. Yet, the goal of the bailout is to get credit flowing freely. The bailout is like giving a six pack to an alcoholic to fix a hangover. One commentator said that in the past 85% of people qualified for car loans and now it is only 65%. I say great that 20 % should not be buying a new car anyway and if a business needs credit to make payroll they are on the verge of bankruptcy anyway. I am 28 years old, I make 3500 a year, my house is paid off, I have 12 months emergency fund in the bank and I fully fund a roth for both my wife and I every month. I've been able to do that because I saved up 20% down on my house, bought a house I could afford and paid extra every month. I went without extras like cell phones, cable t.v., going out to eat and I always pay my credit card in full every month. I have never paid a penny interest to credit cards. Maybe if this country goes through a bad recession people will learn to value money and live on less than they make. Our economy has been fueled on cheap credit that people can't afford; that is a formula that can not be sustained. If we don't endure a little pain now it will be much worse in the future. thank you Adam