This is terrifying and absurd. When the first bailout was being discussed many of us predicted that it would lead to a huge money grab and that’s clearly what’s happening. None of the millions that have been shelled out so far have done one damned thing to improve the economy, so why bankrupt the country to keep these CEOs from facing the consequences of their greed and corruption? Maybe they should try a matching funds concept. Let the government match $ for $ everything those billionaire CEOs put back into the businesses they’ve gouged it out of.

I read this this morning and it speaks to this issue, with good advise. Folks, this will not be easy…… “Bailouts Won’t Work Until The Money Flows” by David Ignatius November 24, 2008 Rather than continuing to debate who’s worthy of federal money and who isn’t, maybe Congress should just follow John Maynard Keynes’ suggestion about burying money underground and letting people dig it up. That’s as efficient a stimulus package as anything else I’ve heard lately. We’re now on Bailout 3.0, and the credit markets are beginning to unfreeze, at least by the primitive measure of banks’ overnight lending to each other. The problem is that banks don’t want to make riskier loans in this business environment, and who can blame them? They’re looking over the edge of a cliff, and they can’t afford to make more mistakes. So they’re sitting on a lot of the $159 billion in government money they’ve already received. The sad fact is that the global economic situation is continuing to worsen, and the time has passed for bickering over who deserves government money and who doesn’t. Just get it out the door. “I’m angry too, and I don’t want to pay for this mess,” says Eugene Ludwig, a former comptroller of the currency who has accurately predicted each stage of this unfolding crisis. “But we’ve got to keep this country together, and help people who are losing their jobs and their homes. Otherwise we’re going to have bread lines.” David Smick, whose book “The World Is Curved” provided an eerily accurate forecast of the economic disaster we’re now experiencing, was reviewing some numbers last week that help clarify the crisis. He noted that banks’ excess cash reserves, which normally total less than $7 billion, have recently approached $400 billion. A lot of that is taxpayer money, which the banks aren’t putting to use. Why? “You’d have to be crazy to lend in this environment,” Smick says. “They aren’t lending because it’s going to be a terrible 2009,” and the banks don’t want to get caught out. As trade dries up, the engine of growth in Asia will begin to power out. I’m told that when Chinese President Hu Jintao was in Washington last weekend for the G-20 summit, he talked privately about the risks for his country of slower growth. But China is relatively well-situated. The real danger lies with the emerging economies that have borrowed heavily to finance their export-led growth. By some estimates, this emerging-market debt totals $4 trillion to $5 trillion. What happens when these debtor countries can’t pay? In this high-risk environment, Washington should stop talking in either/or terms about the economic rescue. Assistance should be available for both bankers and automakers, and perhaps also for other industries caught in the downdraft. I’d like to see this aid administered in a less haphazard way — through a national investment bank. Let’s ask companies to come to this institution with their business plans; let’s have a blue-ribbon board evaluate their proposals; and let’s get money into people’s hands, quickly. That was Keynes’ message in 1936 as he looked at the trauma of the Great Depression. The details of the stimulus plan mattered less than the fact of government spending. During an economic crisis, what matters is that the government keeps its foot on the accelerator. In managing the monetary side of the recovery, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has understood this need. His policy has been to hose the markets with liquidity, “and worry about mopping it up later,” Smick says. A similar pedal-to-the-metal approach is needed in fiscal policy. As Keynes wryly observed, “Pyramid-building, earthquakes, even wars may serve to increase wealth.” It will fall to President-elect Barack Obama to complete the engine of recovery. I hope he will think about a national investment bank as a nonpolitical, market-oriented way to distribute the cash. But however he decides to do it, Obama will have to get money quickly into the hands of people who need it.

You know I dont know if I have anything nice to say other than WHAT THE HELL? I mean I work for BofA and we got money that we didnt even need according to our CEO, Ken Lewis. I mean if we didnt need the money then why can’t we lend that money out? I mean we got it so lend it? Its so hard now to get a loan with BofA its not even funny. Associates are even having difficult times getting loans for homes they want to buy. We are also going to experience lay offs but not b/c of this financial situation but b/c we bought out Countrywide and all the bigger BofA execs jumped ship & are now leaving Countrywide Execs in charge…NICE! I just wonder whats going to still happen? With the auto industries not having anymore money & now the banks won’t lend…Where does that leave us?

This is ridiculous! Citigroup tried to buy Wachovia a month ago…Now they need 20 billion???? They will still lay off the 52,000 employees…I will bet ANY money on that! Citigroup will used the money to buy another financial institution…This was Citigroup’s plan when they planned to buy Wachovia. Citigroup wanted to buy all but the mortgages from Wachovia and seek the bailout as well…in order to acquire Wachovia. The sale price for wachovia was 15 Billion…but Wells Fargo purchased it for 10 Billion.

I knew it…..

It is interesting to me that social security is running out of money but the government is talking about billions for this and billions for that. So I guess seniors weren’t considered that important all along.

We have not yet gotten to the crescendo—-I truly believe this mess is going to get worse before it gets better. I was not in favor of the first bail-out, nor am I in favor of the Big-3 getting bailed out, nor Citibank….nor was I in favor of bailing out the children when they went overboard in their spending, rather than plan for their obligations first, and the party-times last. So now we have the schoolyard chants—-“he got some, I want some too—it’s only fair!” I wish the Government and Pelosi would give ME some money——I have a really easy-to-read ‘plan’, with solid justifications, as to why they should give me money, if they are going to give it to every other industry, that forgot the number one Capitalism rule: If you screw up, mismanage, make bad decisions, you go out of business. MY industry is LIFE…..and I did NOT make the decisions to lose my retirement portfolio value—-my employment—the opporunity to pay for my electricity, or my food, or my water, or my gasoline——all that was thrust upon me—-so, since I want to keep living, while I at least have a hosue to live in—-AT LEAST, I should be given a bail-out, to cover me for the next 2 years!!!!! It would be similar to a penny in the bucket of bail-out being given to those who screwed things up! Personally, I think a lot of this was ‘manufactured’, and that these companies KNEW there would be severe consequences for some of their choices—-but didn;t want to upset THEIR OWN incoming windfalls!

CEO Pay Rates and Minimum Wages in the U.S. vs. Other Nations Data are as of 2005: Country Ratio of CEO pay to average worker pay Japan 11:1 Germany 12:1 France 15:1 Italy 20:1 Canada 20:1 South Africa 21:1 Britain 22:1 Hong Kong 41:1 Mexico 47:1 Venezuela 50:1 United States 475:1 Country Minimum wages around the world and what percent of gross domestic product it currently accounts for Country Min. Wage ($US) % of GDP Australia $362/week 54% Belgium $1,500/month 48% France $9.18 51% Greece $34/day 42% Ireland $8/hour 32% Netherlands $1,507/month 47% New Zealand $6.45/hour 49% Spain $592/month 26% UK $8.53/hour 45% USA $5.15/hour 25% From http://74.125.45.132/search?q=cache:veODt0kVP7wJ:www.cab.latech.edu/~mkr…