Oh The Cluster$#@!
I am frustrated and depressed, as are probably 95% of Americans (the rest are clueless). I can’t tell you if the financial bail-out is a necessary thing. I’m not a financial advisor, I don’t understand most of it. I can tell you that I – and a whole lot of my friends and family – are pissed off that it’s come to this. Whether or not this bailout happens – needed or not – the situation is bad and it’s getting worse. I watch the news with a sinking feeling.
I’m furthermore pissed that the news media, as always, just seems to be sensationalising things and making people paranoid. I work at a bank now, did I mention that? Yeah. Most banks are just fine. Stocks suck, mortgage companies are causing havoc, but most consumer banks are just sitting back and watching. But people are all nervous and panicking now.
I am really kind of confused about the new plan to increase the Federal Deposit Insurance (FDIC) limits from $100k to $250k per person. Okay, in theory this sounds like a good way to calm people down and protect them. But, umm, just last week I saw on the news about how people are concerned that there isn’t enough money in this fund to cover everyone’s insured deposits if some more banks should fail…. so they’re going to increase the limit and, what, conjure more money out of thin air?? (As my husband pointed out, apparently they can conjure money out of thin air, a la $700 billion.)
Plus? Whether or not this bailout money is necessary to stop the markets from collapsing completely, I want to hear some talk on how to prevent this from happening again. Hello, next time let’s catch it before it becomes this serious, okay? No more bailouts, yes? Not sure how to do it – like I said, I sure as hell am not a financial advisor. But could someone please start coming up with a plan on how to fix the problem, instead of handing over some cash and making Timmy promise he’ll never do it again?
And they’re going to do all of this while cutting taxes. (You did see the new proposal?) Right. I think they’re all morons at this point. Can anyone do simple arithmatic? Logic? Anyone?
I know there have been worse times. There have been wars, the depression. But it’s slowly dawning on me that we’re in a war, heading straight to a recession, and I’m really wondering how this time in history is going to be looked back on. And I’m pretty pissed to be living it.
I’m just pissed in general, I think. I think the Daily Show (which, by the way, was hysterical – if you favor that kind of humor) had it about right when it called it a giant clusterfuck.
You couldn’t have said it better!
Plus, if you read the fine print on the FDIC – they can take up to 99 years to return your money to you!!
A lady I work with was shocked to learn that there had been a gas shortage in the 70s – and she is easily in her 40s. Ignorance may be bliss, but it ain’t safe.
Bobbi – I hadn’t heard that before, sheesh. However some banks *have* failed and people did get their insured money.
The market has a history of ups and downs. It is the nature of the thing. It will always do this. You just have to ride it out and it will recover. As far as bailing companies out, I think that is a total crock of crap! If a business fails then it fails. What ever happened to free market? If a company runs itself into the ground then why should taxpayers have to ante up? But I am not financial guru either. Just a frustrated taxpayer like you! And the media drives me nuts too. LOL
Indeed. I wish I knew for sure what was the right thing to do, yet it seems like everyone who is qualified to have an opinion is too invested to have an unbiased one…
I can only say that claiming there is only ONE way out of this disaster – a bailout – smacks of blackmail.
¡Viva el Stewart!
The first thing I thought of when I saw the news of the potential bail out was “why aren’t they preventing it from happening again?”. GOOD POINT!
This started because blacks were accusing banks etc of not giving them mortgages for houses BECAUSE they are black. That was not the case at all, the problem was that they were low income and high risk borrowers and the banks KNEW that. But America being the way it is, you can scream racism and blame everyone else. The banks then started giving these bad loans out because the govt said they had to give so many to blacks (like affirmative action in a workplace). Credit should be extremely difficult to get and you should only be allowed to take out as much money as you can feasibly pay back. Problem solved.
And yes, the govt does seem to have a way of pulling money out of thin air, err, printing machine. Hubby told me that yesterday and I about died.
Brianne, do you have any links to support the idea that that’s why this all happened? Because I haven’t heard anything like that. As far as I know this happened because the lending agencies were greedy and giving loans to people who shouldn’t have them, and it had nothing to do with race whatsoever.