Do banks deserve a bail-out?

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**Frazzled**

But only resin. Plastic is linked to hydrocarbon feedstocks and those fluctuate like a monkey's uncle.

**Necros**

Someone just mailed me this at work.. makes sense to me

I'm against the $85 BILLION bailout of AIG. Instead, I'm in favor of giving $85,000,000,000 to America in a 'We Deserve It' dividend. To make the math simple, let's assume there are 200,000,000 bona fide U.S. citizens, aged 18+.

Our population is about 301 million counting every man, woman and child. So, 200,000,000 might be a fair stab at adults 18 and up. Now, divide 200 million, 18+ adults into $85 billion - that equals $425,000.00 each! Yes, my plan is to give that $425,000 to every adult as a 'We Deserve It' dividend.

Of course, it would NOT be tax free. So, let's assume a tax rate of 30%. Every would pay $127,500.00 in taxes. That sends $25.5 billion right back to Uncle Sam! It also means that every adult 18+ has $297,500.00 in their pocket. A husband and wife would have $595,000.00!
=0 A
What would you do with $297,500.00 to $595,000.00?

* Pay off your mortgage - housing crisis solved
* Repay college loans - what a great boost to new grads
* Put away money for college - it'll really be there
* Save in a bank - create money to loan to entrepreneurs
* Buy a new car - create jobs
* Invest in the market - capital drives growth
* Pay for your parent's medical insurance - health care improves
* Enable Deadbeat Dads to come clean - or else

Remembe are this is for every adult U.S. citizen, 18 and older (including the folks who lost their jobs at Lehmann Brothers and every other company that is cutting back) and of course, for those serving in our Armed Forces.

If we're going to re-distribute wealth let's really do it! Instead of trickling out a puny $1,000.00 economic incentive.

If we're going to do an $85 billion bailout, let's bail out every adult U.S. citizen!!

As for AIG - liquidate it.
* Sell off its parts.
* Let American General go back to being American General.
* Sell off the real estate.
* Let the private sector bargain hunters cut it up and clean it up.
We deserve the money and AIG doesn't. Sure it's a crazy idea, but can you imagine the coast-to-coast block party?!

How do you spell Economic Boom? W-e D-e-S-e-R-v-e I-t d-I-v-I-d-e- n-d! I trust my fellow adult Americans to know how to use the $85 Billion 'We Deserve It' dividend more than I do the geniuses at AIG or in Washington, D.C. .

And remember, This plan only really costs $59.5 billion because $25.5 billion is returned instantly in taxes to Uncle Sam.

**Kilkrazy**

If the economic crisis is very serious we find ourselves in the position of a ship's crew whose engineers (the bankers) have broken the engines in the middle of the ocean by running them too hot. But we do not have the skills to fix the engines ourselves, so we can't simply pitch the stupid engineers over the side.

OTOH, why should we reward them for not screwing things up worse than they have done already?

I have total sympathy with the Main Street USA tax payer who is being asked to find $2,300 to bail out a bunch of guys who took home millions in pay and bonuses last year while setting up the disaster.

**Waaagh_Gonads**

My house would be paid off tomorrow if I had $297,000.

How do I become a US citizen?

**Necros**

Move here and marry someone.. that's how my bro on law did it

he's from Indonesia.

If you're already married, then move to Utah, you're allowed to marry as many as you want there.

**Orlanth**

What is the collective noun for Bankers?

Spoiler:

**sebster**

Necros wrote:Someone just mailed me this at work.. makes sense to me

I'm against the $85 BILLION bailout of AIG. Instead, I'm in favor of giving $85,000,000,000 to America in a 'We Deserve It' dividend. To make the math simple, let's assume there are 200,000,000 bona fide U.S. citizens, aged 18+.

Our population is about 301 million counting every man, woman and child. So, 200,000,000 might be a fair stab at adults 18 and up. Now, divide 200 million, 18+ adults into $85 billion - that equals $425,000.00 each! Yes, my plan is to give that $425,000 to every adult as a 'We Deserve It' dividend.

Wowsers. How many people at your work mailed this around without even looking at the numbers. It isn't $425,000 each, it's $425 each.

Some guy sat down and wrote out that email, it probably took him fifteen minutes to half an hour, and in all that time never stopped think 'do I have my numbers right because it seems a little ridiculous that a company could be worth or indebted to the tune of 425,000 for every person in the country, or that govt would have access to that kind of money'. I wonder how many people read the email and forwarded it on and never checked the logic, despite being easily checked with the numbers given in the email.

How do you spell Economic Boom? W-e D-e-S-e-R-v-e I-t d-I-v-I-d-e- n-d! I trust my fellow adult Americans to know how to use the $85 Billion 'We Deserve It' dividend more than I do the geniuses at AIG or in Washington, D.C. .

And remember, This plan only really costs $59.5 billion because $25.5 billion is returned instantly in taxes to Uncle Sam.

Yeah, they're idiots who have exposed themselves to far greater risk than they ever should have. But it's likely they can probably divide one number by another number.

**fullheadofhair**

sebster wrote:
Necros wrote:Someone just mailed me this at work.. makes sense to me

I'm against the $85 BILLION bailout of AIG. Instead, I'm in favor of giving $85,000,000,000 to America in a 'We Deserve It' dividend. To make the math simple, let's assume there are 200,000,000 bona fide U.S. citizens, aged 18+.

Our population is about 301 million counting every man, woman and child. So, 200,000,000 might be a fair stab at adults 18 and up. Now, divide 200 million, 18+ adults into $85 billion - that equals $425,000.00 each! Yes, my plan is to give that $425,000 to every adult as a 'We Deserve It' dividend.

Wowsers. How many people at your work mailed this around without even looking at the numbers. It isn't $425,000 each, it's $425 each.

And we wonder why our country is in some much trouble and underlines why math scores are so low. Maybe $100 billion out to get syphioned off to education. I received at least three copies of this - I laughed. We are so hosed in the next 30 years when this generation reaches middle management.

**Kilkrazy**

I read that the number of science and engineering graduates in the USA is increasing year on year, however the increase is thanks to Indian and Chinese students, who are in fact replacing the drop in native born students.

**dogma**

The sheer ubiquity of people in my generation who routinely say "Math is not my thing" is quite depressing. As if the absence of talent permits one to forfeit even a cursory knowledge of a subject which is essential to daily life.

**Miguelsan**

For me the math is right. 85 billion / 200 million = 425.000............. but of course spaniards and the rest of continental Europe use the long scale billion (10^12) not the punny short scale one used in the US/UK (10^9)

I was going to say that the OP used the long scale and that you simply translated to the short one without realising it but on a second reading I saw that he used full numbers for the ammounts so, yes math is a dead discipline for new students.

M.

**sebster**

Miguelsan wrote:For me the math is right. 85 billion / 200 million = 425.000............. but of course spaniards and the rest of continental Europe use the long scale billion (10^12) not the punny short scale one used in the US/UK (10^9)

I was going to say that the OP used the long scale and that you simply translated to the short one without realising it but on a second reading I saw that he used full numbers for the ammounts so, yes math is a dead discipline for new students.

M.

Yeah, I was guessing that might have been a part of the original mistake, but then they used the actual numbers. And even if they hadn't, shouldn't someone at some point have stopped and said 'hang on, does govt really have $425,000 per citizen and need that much to bail out a bank?'

**Orlanth**

Miguelsan wrote:For me the math is right. 85 billion / 200 million = 425.000............. but of course spaniards and the rest of continental Europe use the long scale billion (10^12) not the punny short scale one used in the US/UK (10^9)

Technically everyone is on the same system. 1,000,000,000 is a milliard. However this was back in the day when populations even economies were measured in millions at most. It was the US to first break the ten digit barrier in a useable form and made a meal of it by renaming milliard 'billion' in order to impress more and therefore gain more votes/investment/bigger hat whatever they were pushing at the time.

**utan**

There are many guilty parties in this crisis. Legislators meddling irresponsibly, average citizens borrowing (and voting) irresponsibly, financial institutions lending irresponsibly, etc.

I am against a "bailout" that buys up the "toxic" securities. There are many other ways we could spend this sort of money and avert the expected financial disaster.

**warpcrafter**

Every empire falls apart eventually. Either we implode under our own bloated financial system or we finally lose too many jobs to call centers in India or factories in China or our infrastructure becomes more reminiscent of a Mad Max movie or some other gradual decay leads to disaster. Lots of people will die, there will be war and famine, but another bunch of yahoos will emerge from the wreckage and start making the same mistakes all over again. Either lots of stuff starts going right on many different fronts pretty quick, or we'll all have a front row seat to the collapse of civilization. This bank bailout is just the first test of many.

**malfred**

So they are the barbankerians at the gates?

**Waaagh_Gonads**

I'm now of the opinion that they shouldn't bail them out.

The average american who doesn't want the bail out (stupid term as they aren't saving the banking system, it the US economy they are trying to save, should have called it a 'rescue package') and yet they are the ones who caused it.

1: Buying houses on rates of credit they couldn't afford (sub prime crisis)
2: Use the value of their house to take out loans to buy 'stuff' they don't really need, then when the house market dropped they suddenly don't have the money to pay back the loans.

Then the US govt chips in taking huge loans to keep the economy going when it should have been cutting back debt. Now they can't afford to pay it back.

Now the govt wants to print money (hello inflation) to bail out people who are already debted to the eyeballs, to keep them spending to keep the economy going.

Americans don't need to buy new cars. They need to drive the ones they have, start making better ones and then sell them to the rest of the world.

You have binged on the taco of excess USA, now you will suffer the unpleasent effects!

**Kilkrazy**

The US government will finance the package by issuing Treasury Bonds rather than printing money.

They will need to pay the bond interest by either higher taxation or reduced spending on other public works.

Of course they also hope that many of the assets they are buying will turn out to be good, so that they do not have to call on the whole $700 B.

The plan before Congress is to release $350 B straight away, and the rest has to be voted on again later.

There is method in this madness, since if the economy can be kept going, tax receipts will rise and social security payments will reduce, and the government will be more able to pay off the deficit.

**theHandofGork**

To the question "Do banks deserve a bail out?" the answer is certainly no. Unfortunately we're beyond what banks "deserve" and have to stop the ship from proverbially sinking. I don't like the idea of a bail out, but it seems the only option left for a semblance of economic security.

**Mad Doc Grotsnik**

If the ship sinks, blame the shipwright and the crew, NOT the passengers....

**dogma**

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:If the ship sinks, blame the shipwright and the crew, NOT the passengers....

Or recognize that blame is largely unproductive schadenfreude. The chain of causal force extends throughout the economy, government, and populace; any attempt to 'stop the buck' is one made under an arbitrary, and necessarily biased, aesthetic.

**Mad Doc Grotsnik**

AieEEEE!

Big words!

*runs from the thread to look them up and understand the above post*

**warpcrafter**

malfred wrote:So they are the barbankerians at the gates?

We're going to destroy ourselves with speculation and tax-dodge trickery. The problem with complicated systems like the bad old U.S.A. is that it ends up being run by people who are not nearly as smart as they tell each other they are.

**sebster**

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:If the ship sinks, blame the shipwright and the crew, NOT the passengers....

There’s the thing. The boat has hit the iceberg and is looking like it’s going to sink. There’s a plan in place to start towing the ship to shore, but there’s some people out there arguing that we shouldn’t do that because the captain and crew need to be punished, and that means letting the ship sink.

The fact that there’s another 300 million people on the boat doesn’t seem to register.

**avantgarde**

But fat catz, HURR!

**Arctik_Firangi**

Our lives are too hard!

The actual work we do equates to the glorious lives we live and wonderful foods that we eat!

Things might get a bit more expensive! How will I afford my plastic soldiers?

Boo hoo!

Hey, what's the sarcasm tag?

**Kilkrazy**

sebster wrote:
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:If the ship sinks, blame the shipwright and the crew, NOT the passengers....

There’s the thing. The boat has hit the iceberg and is looking like it’s going to sink. There’s a plan in place to start towing the ship to shore, but there’s some people out there arguing that we shouldn’t do that because the captain and crew need to be punished, and that means letting the ship sink.

The fact that there’s another 300 million people on the boat doesn’t seem to register.

That's what Paulson is saying. However average American wage earners are no better off now than in the 1970s. The deregulated finance and business system has not worked for them, so why should they pay to prop it up?

There is a wide spread suspicion that Paulson just wants to help out his old friends and colleagues.

I don't know what to think, and anyway I don't have a vote in the matter.

**Necros**

I have a vote and I don't even want to cast it.. I'm starting to not like either candidate... :(

**Dice Monkey**

Intweresting quote form a Forbes article

"It's not based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. "We just wanted to choose a really large number."

So the 700 billion dollar figure was pulled out of someone's rear.

**Mad Doc Grotsnik**

The Taxpayers one assumes.....