Monday, September 29, 2008

The Bailout

Cue scary music! The bailout has just failed, well several hours ago anyway, and it's scary either way you look at it. I am absolutely astounded at the ignorance of the average American and the cowardice of our "leaders". Main street 'hollers' let the Wall St. bastards hang, we're not rescuing them. What is wrong with people.

This is not a Wall St. bailout. Yes Wall St. will benefit in the sense that they will probably have jobs still. Companies like Goldman Sachs and Bank of America will still exist. Yes they will still be around, more than likely, if the bailout would succeed. Guess what America? So will you. You will still have your job and home and way of life, for the most part. I know that a lot of folks will lose their jobs and already have. I get that. It's already screwed up though. Trying to hang Wall St. won't help you though. Vengeance won't do anything other than hurt everyone.

What most people miss, is if we have a series of calamitous events, rather these series of events continue then the system WILL collapse. When that happens we all will suffer. This is not just a Wall St. problem, Main St. helped create it too. People who shouldn't have had mortgages got them and then didn't pay them. As a result, greedy Wall St. began to suffer and the whole spiral developed and continues to do so. The problems are global now too, the markets around the world are suffering, and millions, if not billions are losing trillions upon trillions of dollars(yen, Euros, etc.).

I am a hard working person, and I happen to pay my mortgage on time every month. Even when I had to relocate for a job and couldn't sell my home, I still paid my mortgage. Abandoning my home and letting the bank take the loss was never an option. Working multiple jobs, eating Ramen noodles, and walking in -40 winter weather were all options. (I live in Alaska currently). Sticking it to the people on Wall St. is not an option to me. Why? Because we are all connected in one way or another. I may not know that man with the 8 figure salary and the Rolls Royce. I may or may not ever be that man myself. I do think he should be held accountable, but letting those businesses fail is NOT accountability. It's suicide. It's stabbing myself in the eye. It's cutting my own hand off. It's ludicrous!

The main reason is this, trickle down economics. I do understand that the theory is, if big business does well, it will trickle down to Main St. The idea is that if the big businesses do well, salaries will be higher, there will be more jobs, and everyone will be better off. This is not theory, it is reality, to a point. So the people in charge take more than their fair share off the top, but it still makes it's way down, even if it is crumbs. The problem is this though, when there is no money for the man up top, there is less for the man on the bottom.

When Wall St. has nothing, or big business has nothing, we all have nothing. If you doubt that, go back a hundred years, before Lehman Bros., before Ford, before Wal Mart. Go back to when big businesses did not trickle down and compare the standard of living. The vast majority of us will never be wildly rich and successful, so we hate the next man who is. For the love of God, or whoever you do love, WAKE UP AMERICA. If you kill your brother, you kill yourself.

I am just in awe of my fellow countrymen. I cannot fathom taking such a huge risk to make other people suffer, when the consequences for all of us could be truly profound. I know that we could have another Great Depression and in these days I'm not at all looking forward to that. I'm not being an alarmist, but it IS possible. I don't know if it's likely or if it will happen, but we should do what it needed so that we don't roll the dice. Then we can work together to fix the system that if profoundly screwed up without profoundly suffering at the same time. Think about it! Look at the options on the table and figure it out for yourselves. But please, please, please don't let your bitterness get in the way . Think for yourselves and get over the ignorance and mob mentality and let's work towards a real solution. Even if it is marching on Washington and demanding real action, that is better than the current solution of doing nothing. I for one, will pray for all of us, because we need some sort of intervention, devine or not.

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