Open Court Topic #2: Where Is The “Bailout” For The American Taxpayer?
By Corey Thompson, filed in Open Court on Mar.05, 2009
***(Editor’s Note: In an effort to promote more dialogue among our readers, “The Thirsty Quill” will run a special series entitled “Open Court” each week. Typically these questions/prompts will run in conjunction with a controversial issue or ‘hot topic,’ while others may be entirely random and cover a more obscure subject altogether. Regardless, the aim of these questions/prompts will be to encourage more debate, dialogue, and discussion among readers of ‘The Quill.’)***
“Open Court” Question of the Week:
Do you believe that those banks and financial institutions that accepted tax-funded government “bailout” money should be allowed to impose late-fees, charge extremely high interest rates, report negative information to credit bureaus, or enforce foreclosures against customers who are currently struggling to survive during this economic recession?
March 5th, 2009 on 4:03 pm
Haha, great question! I really wish I could give a good answer!
The only I can think of is that since we all have bought in so heavily into the credit system and this is the way capitalism has evolved in this country, we still have to play by the rules of the game or the last 100 years of economics will be for nothing.
Essentially, if we still want capitalism to work, we have to play by the rules we’ve set up.
March 5th, 2009 on 10:49 pm
Its like that; “I started a joke, that started the whole world crying” song. If the bank bailouts weren’t so belligerently irresponsible it would be funny. Here is my question “WHO HAS ALL THE FREAKING MONEY”!?
I mean GM lost 82 billion over the last few years, these Insurance companies have lost billions, these banks are getting billions and billions and I can tell you that none of the small businesses that I work with have received any relief from this (”/unquote) attempt to loosen up capital. You take the businesses that took the risk that got us into this mess in the first place and then give them money as they loose even more. What the heck?
The Quill loves it when I quote non-lame people and this current state of affairs makes me think of the words of the great John Prine:
“It don’t make no since that common since don’t make no since no more”
March 6th, 2009 on 11:37 am
“You take the businesses that took the risk that got us into this mess in the first place and then give them money as they loose even more. What the heck?”
Amen. In my opinion businesses like GM and AIG are what they call “Zombies”. Doing nothing but loosing money. So then yeah, why is the government spending billions of dollars to help 2 businesses? You kinda sound like a Conservative…
Let them die, let the markets figure out what to do with them like they always have done, and stop throwing billions of our childrens money at a problem that will never be fixed.
FYI, goodbye Hummer, Mercury and I believe I heard Saab also. Honda Civic sales in May of ‘08 matched that of Hummer sales in ALL OF ‘07!!!!! And this is the business our governement wants to put their money into? Forget politics and ideology, that’s just bad business in general. But they have all the money in the world to spend….
March 6th, 2009 on 5:14 pm
From what I heard today on NPR, the Japanese Yen is falling even more, which means cars like Toyotas and Hondas and going to be sold even cheaper, making even more cpmpetition for the US automakers.