Thoughts on the bailout

As everyone who reads any semblance of news (even really biased "news" like Newsweek, for example) knows, the government is currently hashing out the details of the inevitable bailout program. Although, in all fairness it should be phrased as 'another' bailout program, since there have been several already and will be more in the future, but this one is the largest and most public to date. As I'm rarely short of opinions, I have some on this...

First, the people pitching the bailout could use a good solid bitch-slap about calling things what they are and not hiding behind spin and double-talk. First, Paulson and Bernanke were careful not to use the term 'bailout', even though it was blatantly obvious their plan was one (judges would have also accepted 'crony payout' or 'taxpayer anal rape' as alternatives). Then, there was the BS about the government might not lose too much money, even though the explicit point of the bailout (in their words) was to "recapitalize" the banks. Hello, how dumb do they think people are? I mean, that may work for Bush (apparently so since he repeated it) or Congress, but average Americans know you can't give money to banks without somebody losing it; in this case, that's you or your children.

Side note: I've been normally pretty pro-Bush during the last few years (aside from his who right-wing wacko aspects), but he gets the big thumbs-down for backing this steam pile of horse manure. Don't forget to wipe after you're done flushing what's left of your credibility and legacy down the crapper, captain hand-puppet.

Second, I think that any "representative" who supports this bill should have to stand in front of a crowd of people who have lost their homes, and explain why the government is giving $700 billion to the organizations which created and fueled the housing meltdown, while they made billions for themselves in the process. The people should be armed. We'll give each rep a five minute grace period to make their case, then the people who got screwed by the mess created by the banks getting the payoff (which, BTW, comes to ~$2000 from every man woman and child in the entire country, for reference) can decide if the payoff plan is something they approve of, or if they should do the country a service and remove an obviously corrupt beyond redemption stain from this country.

Side note: I think the news media should stop calling the people in Congress "representatives", and start calling them "corrupt corporate stooges". The whole idea of one or more of these scum sucking morons representing the peoples' interests is obscenely laughable. Hey scum in Congress, we the people don't want this payoff at all.

Tangent: There's one point which I don't agree with for many of the people outraged about this payoff, and it's worth stating. Unlike many people, I don't think this will actually cost the taxpayers anything. What, you say, how could it possibly not? Well, I don't think the country will every pay down, much less pay off, the national debt; it's just not likely to happen ever. Given that, there's no reason for taxes to increase as a result of this, now or in the future. It's still a bad idea, but I don't think it'll actually be taxpayer money.

Tangent side note: I can hear you thinking, "But, but... that doesn't make sense! You have to pay the piper eventually, right?" Well, not really. See, it's much more likely the US will lose its credit rating rather than our elected officials actually growing enough balls to deal with the massive deficit spending, at which point we can't borrow any more to finance the debt upkeep. At that point the entire country collapses, you really hope you're not living here, and who knows what happens after that. However, there's one thing I'm reasonably certain of: whatever new country crawls out of the ruins of the once great United States after our government is done destroying it, probably won't honor the debts of the previous country, so these ridiculous payoff amounts will never actually be paid by taxpayers. It's a silver lining, I guess.

Anyway, we should have a bailout bill passed by next Monday, which will have no positive effects, but will put a crap-load of money in the pockets of those people most directly responsible for the housing market meltdown and national economic crisis. Large banks and investors are already betting on it, and they are rarely wrong (remember how Gross and Pimco made hundreds of billions the day after the GSE bailout, after Gross said it was necessary and inevitable). Ain't our country grand?