patrick.net

No more Bailout please. The money are going to the CEOs & executives. Never you or me.

What would "ending" the bailout entail at this point in time? As I recall the majority of funds have been distributed to the relevant organizations already.

So yeah, you could file a useless petition asking that no other industries get bailed out, but it's highly unlikely that there will be any need for additional bailouts anyway.

"Never you or me" is an interesting argument. Did we already forget our $1200 checks from Bush last year? That was the first leg in the spending.

Next up we had the Bush (Paulson) financial sector bailout, which most economists agree actually did work (but, no, we'll never "get that money back"). If it hadn't happened, there's a fair chance that we'd be even worse off than we are now.

Then there's the auto bailout, which I think was probably the biggest waste overall. I'd much rather let the american auto industry die like it should have ten years ago so that we can actually make some progress on decent public transportation.

Last up was the Obama (Geithner) financial bailout, which was really just a reformulated version of Paulson's plan.

Ultimately I don't think any of this matters much. If the bailouts didn't happen at all, we probably would have a shorter, much stronger depression, and instead we're going to have a longer but weaker depression.

And no, I don't think the current debts are a meaningful issue. It's a shit ton of money, of course, but so is US GDP.

Kevin says

What would “ending” the bailout entail at this point in time? As I recall the majority of funds have been distributed to the relevant organizations already.
So yeah, you could file a useless petition asking that no other industries get bailed out, but it’s highly unlikely that there will be any need for additional bailouts anyway.
“Never you or me” is an interesting argument. Did we already forget our $1200 checks from Bush last year? That was the first leg in the spending.
Next up we had the Bush (Paulson) financial sector bailout, which most economists agree actually did work (but, no, we’ll never “get that money back”). If it hadn’t happened, there’s a fair chance that we’d be even worse off than we are now.
Then there’s the auto bailout, which I think was probably the biggest waste overall. I’d much rather let the american auto industry die like it should have ten years ago so that we can actually make some progress on decent public transportation.
Last up was the Obama (Geithner) financial bailout, which was really just a reformulated version of Paulson’s plan.
Ultimately I don’t think any of this matters much. If the bailouts didn’t happen at all, we probably would have a shorter, much stronger depression, and instead we’re going to have a longer but weaker depression.
And no, I don’t think the current debts are a meaningful issue. It’s a shit ton of money, of course, but so is US GDP.

Lets also mention the "stimulus package". The majority of funds from the stimulus bill, which was passed few months ago, will be spent in 2010. Interesting timing, just in time to prop-up the economy before the 2010 elections.
I see the stimulus as a slush fund for Dems to keep the seats in Congress, funded by the taxpayers.