So Geithner has a bank plan to try and save our banks thereby freeing up credit and getting the 'demand' part of our 'supply and demand' economy. Now I'm not saying that it will work or not, it is a risk. However, if it works it can get credit flowing again which will help increase spending. These are desperate times and sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures.
Of course, par for the course, the Republicans are offering to come to our rescue.
' Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House of Representatives, argued that Geithner should have instead adopted an insurance-based plan put forward by the congressional GOP last fall.
Under that plan, banks would have paid over time for any assistance required to clear their books of toxic assets. "The Republican insurance-based model institutes a system of government insurance guarantees to provide certainty to investors," Cantor said. "It would act as a containment plan to wall off toxic assets from the rest of the economy and bring liquidity back to our financial markets." '
Let's see - last fall when you had control you couldn't even get your own plan passed? Wow, it must really suck. Or maybe we should take a second look at it since things that most Republicans are against usually turn out to be a good idea.
Now I don't want the country to go another trillion dollars in debt either but if McSame had won, we would still be going into that much debt and then some because he wanted to stay in Iraq for at least 100 more years in order to stabilize the area. At least this trillion dollars is getting spent here on our companies.
Now to be fair, not all the members against the plan are Republicans.
'Rep. Brad Sherman, D-California, slammed the plan, saying it treated banks better than taxpayers. The plan "involves a thousand times as much money as AIG executives received in bonuses, and it would make the American people a thousand times as angry, except for the fact that it is so technical that the American people may not fully understand it," Sherman said in a speech on the House floor. Taxpayers "are going to overpay for some, they are going to underpay for others. They are going to make money on some. They are going to lose money on others. [But] when they make money, half the profit goes to Wall Street. When they lose money, 94 percent of the loss goes to the taxpayer." '
Now if that is true - and I can't comment because I haven't looked at the proposal yet - this thing called 'work' getting in my way - then I don't agree with it. If that's a correct interpretation of it then I would say vote against it. Because it should be more equitably split between Wall Street and Taxpayers. When we make money, it should be 60/40 (Wall Street/Taxpayers) and when we lose money it should be 80/20 (Wall Street/Taxpayers). Why should taxpayers have to shoulder the burden of their losses yet again? And why shouldn't more of a share of the profits go into paying off this loan from us to Wall Street? I understand they want to make money but we don't want to die in debt to the government.
Again, I haven't heard Obama discuss this nor have I read it so until then, the jury is still out on this one. It will all depend if what the naysayers are saying is true or not or if they're just spinning it to get people against it when they don't fully understand what they're against.
