If You Were Like Me And Against The Bailout

[Harry]

http://www.fool.com/investing/dividends-in...akes-sense.aspx

[MDH]

I wasn't...but I attribute that to many econ, finance, and acct courses

Good article

[JesseMartin]

Definitely changed my mind. We should have spent the $700 billion on rivers of delicious chocolate fudge.

[eulesseagle]

The $700-B has already increased close to or just over $1-T.....and will continue to grow. Come on folks, when has our govt. ever got financial estimates right? If we really knew the "actual" cost of this bail out ... the bail out would have failed because no congressman would have voted for it. Now Pelosi want to give Americans another stimulus check to shut us up about the "tip of the iceburg" bail out....

I just finished reading, "The Challenge to Liberty" (1934) by Herbert Hoover. If it were not for the date (1934) and the author (HH) you would think that the book was published several months ago. The book deals with the same transformations of govt., then, as what we are experiencing now......along with the governmental consequences that other european countries encountered.

I am not going to give a book review....just look it up on the "net" if you are interested.

[Censored by Laurie]

The $700-B has already increased close to or just over $1-T.....and will continue to grow. Come on folks, when has our govt. ever got financial estimates right? If we really knew the "actual" cost of this bail out ... the bail out would have failed because no congressman would have voted for it. Now Pelosi want to give Americans another stimulus check to shut us up about the "tip of the iceburg" bail out....

I just finished reading, "The Challenge to Liberty" (1934) by Herbert Hoover. If it were not for the date (1934) and the author (HH) you would think that the book was published several months ago. The book deals with the same transformations of govt., then, as what we are experiencing now......along with the governmental consequences that other european countries encountered.

I am not going to give a book review....just look it up on the "net" if you are interested.

So are you saying its time to jump? Just tell me when.

[eulesseagle]

CBL-

Jump ship??

I can only point to you reviewing the causes of the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire......please don't read the whole book but just the cause of the fall in the Cliff Note's version.

Prez Hoover points to .... at his time in history .... countries that swung from Republics to socialist types of governments after WWI with the emphasis on a large middle class population.

Just google all this information and make your own determination. To me, I see simularities in various aspects of each change.

[FirefightnRick]

For those who may be interested with how their Reps and Senators voted in regards to the bailout prior to voting this November, here's the roll call for both the House and Senate.

The House.

The Senate.

U.S. Rep Kay Granger and U.S. Senator John Cornyn both voted for the bailout.

Rick

[Quoner]

CBL-

Jump ship??

I can only point to you reviewing the causes of the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire......please don't read the whole book but just the cause of the fall in the Cliff Note's version.

Prez Hoover points to .... at his time in history .... countries that swung from Republics to socialist types of governments after WWI with the emphasis on a large middle class population.

Just google all this information and make your own determination. To me, I see simularities in various aspects of each change.

CBL - I think the policy on jumping ship has long been established, you filthy rodent.

[Censored by Laurie]

CBL - I think the policy on jumping ship has long been established, you filthy rodent.

Dude...I'm too high to care about policy and the only rodents I'm concerned with are the ones that have been eating the community eggplants...how am I supposed to make Baba Ghanouj if those damn rats keep eating my eggplant, man? It's so un-groovy.

[Eagle1855]

I can only point to you reviewing the causes of the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire......

The "fall" of the roman empire is the subject of much debate. Many dont believe there was an actual fall, rather Rome just gradually (over centuries) became less relevant. Of course it still existed for over a thousand years while the US is just getting into the mid-200s. Im sure some of the history buffs on this board could expound upon it. I, admittedly, am not an expert by any means.

While there are many similarities between the US and Rome, there are also several significant differences. I read a book called "Are We Rome" by Cullen Murphy that I believe did a decent job of highlighting many of them.

One difference related to this thread is that Rome couldn't just print up new money or electronically transfer funds. Currency then was made of actual precious metals that had intrinsic value. Our money today does not. Im not sure where this leads us, just pointing out differences.

Edited October 22, 2008 by Eagle1855

[JesseMartin]

Let me preface this by saying there is a difference between what I prefer and what may work in the short-term.

My preference is a freer America with a smaller government and privitization of many of the initiatives FDR used to pull us out of the Depression, as well as their offspring. I do not fault FDR for initiating them; I do fault the American Government for making the people, the economy, and the system of government dependent upon them. Had we moved to wean off of many of these programs sooner, as quite a few experts and politicians have proposed over the years, we would likely not be in the current "crisis".

Again, as there is no definite answer to "what would have happened otherwise", I can't comment on whether the bailout and other recent semi-socialist moves were a good idea. The writer of the article posted above seems certain, but anyone publishing such a piece needs to sound convincing. I'm still unconvinced either way, because unlike the way he puts it, we really don't know for sure.

The skinny is that I'm not against temporary socialist-style cures to ensure the existence of the Union, but I do NOT want to see it become a way of life like the New Deal stuff did. Once a given crisis is over, you wean America back off of your changes and get people back to a degree of normalcy. Covering failing programs with more programs covered by more taxes will, eventually, lead to our downfall.

Unlike the mainstream "Libertarians", I am not so shortsighted to believe that a sudden removal of all of these programs would be anything short of disastrous. Most of them are entirely unfamiliar with the inner workings of government agencies and their relationship to the US economy. A moderate Libertarian ideal, with the flexibility to do very un-Libertarian things in the face of adversity, could be very useful.

Extremism to any degree, and adherence to a set of principles inflexible to the changes that tend to occur in the course of human events, can tend to be disastrous. Just ask anyone who lived in Communist Russia (with a few exceptions) and any number of other societies over the years who held to extremely rigid political standards.

[KRAM1]

The sky is not falling.