Full cost of the bailout....

[Dr Mordrid]

Chart from a C|NET article....

Anyone for a pre-election lynching of all concerned - the crooked congressmen & senators of both parties who pushed for poorly documented and unqualified loans, the non-regulating regulators, the Fanny May and Freddy Mac executives and the CEO's who wrote the bad paper?

[ND66]

I can feel it already, my second tax bill just showed up - 20% more than for the first half of the year...

.

[Evildead666]

And how many of those households are on none to low income, or on welfare ?
Those who cannot possibly pay...

Ouch. That leaves the rest of the households to cover for them.

[Umfriend]

One thing: "cost" implies the money is spent and the benefits reaped; it is gone, part of expenditure.

This is not the case though. It is (virtually all) investment that will prove to have value furtheron (maybe more, maybe less).

I'm trying hard to not get into politics with this here but I would otherwise argue that these actions do have wealth creation and transfer aspect that would be arguments for certain changes on income and capital taxation.

To bad P&R is dead atm.

Edit: The tax breaks though could be seen as costs (or negative revenue)...

[IM_Riktar]

First the reps vote no after getting calls from their constituents. Then wall street holds it breath until businesses turn blue and start calling to say DO IT!

Public lynching won't do as much good as people getting off their asses and calling now and voting later.

I guarantee you that if there was a public turnout at the polls this November in the 75+ percentage realm that reflected the publics disgust with this whole Wall Street mess you would see some action being taken. And not the kind of nonsense that is going on now.
And if that means hitting the Dems and the GOP where it hurts by voting in an alternative party, so be it. I am frankly fed up with the whole "Tastes great, less filling" arguments that go on between the 2 parties.

The 2 problems stopping this are:

1. Apathetic attitude by the NON-voters. It never ceases to amaze me how most of the people who I hear complaining are the majority of people who are NOT voting.

2. No pain, no fix. Folks want the problem fixed without any consequences falling on them. A crude analogy would be disciplining your children when they do something wrong. There are too many parents who don't have the stomach to carry out the measures when a problem occurs. And I don't just mean corporal punishment. I am talking any type of sanction that will get the point across to the child that will leave a lasting impression not to do this again. Either the parent ignores it, throws up their hands and says ????? or bribes them into being good.

Sound familiar?

In a humorous tone, why not take the numbers it would cost and provide that money to the households instead. Heck take the same scale to assign cost and just give it to the taxpayers. That way families could weather the storm while Wall Street gets it act together. And for those families who are not being hit as hard by this whole mess, well, consider it another "economic stimulus" package.

Rick

PS: And yes Virginia I do vote. And this year I am going to really see how many people I can convince to do the same. And not just for the front running candidates. And for all those who say the vote is wasted: GET a clue about the long term. Just because you cant make a long journey in a single stride does not mean you shouldn't bother taking the first step!

[KRSESQ]

I just hope they included some funding in that bailout package to supply everyone with enough K-Y. We're going to need it.

Kevin

[Gurm]

And if that means hitting the Dems and the GOP where it hurts by voting in an alternative party, so be it.

We've had THAT discussion before. You can't vote in a third party, at least not for president. So you have to start with voting in a third party for senate/house.