... But if the middle class suffers, then the suffering also spreads to the poor... More competition for affordable housing, if middle class people are squeezed, they are more likely to get second jobs to make ends meet, squeezing employment in the service industry...
We all know the rich are winning but the real losers are the MIDDLE class who are moving down the payscale approaching the poor. These are the people who when pissed will switch parties in a heartbeat, which is what's happening to McCain's numbers. The poor just try to survive and have little $$$ to do otherwise, but John Doe who makes $100,000/yr can and WILL revolt.
Fair enough. I haven't thought a solution all the way through, either. In fact, I probably don't know enough about economics and money-related math to understand a real solution.
I was not saying giving it to middle class people... I am talking about the high level managers who were knowingly trading while insolvent.-They were not checking people for their credit history when providing loans. These loans were called "no documentation loans" or "liar loans". They worked like this: The poor person took the loan, and paid till they were bankrupt. The bank keeps all the money, and keeps the house, which by this time would undoubtedly have risen in value. Unfortunately the house did NOT rise in value and this is where it failed. Middle class people are able to get normal loans, ones with sensible interest rates that they can actually pay off eventually. They did not take out subprime mortgages, because they did not need to.... by the way, I DID say that I hadnt thought it all the way through...-
If you consider it "screwing poor people" to offer home loans to people who want a home, but can't really afford them and don't have the credit history to justify the loan. There appear to have been differing opinions on that, back when Clinton signed the laws deregulating mortgages -- specifically for this purpose, and was widely hailed as a noble goal at the time.-This was caused by rich people screwing middle class people. There is no real point to screwing poor people. They don't have anything to take.-And if your proposal is that government takes tax money (predominantly collected from middle class people) and give that money to the middle class people who were screwed... Well, I don't really see how that's going to work. Just don't take our money to begin with.
But, of course, it was rich people screwing poor people over who caused this problem in the first place. If they really cared, they would put some teeth into the bill in order to avoid helping the rich (yes they might have lost half their wealth, but are still billionaires) and target to specifically help the poor people. And any banks that are insolvent, then simply giving money to them will not work, and they are dragging the rest of the banks down, as the banks do not know which other banks are insolvent. So my solution (although I have just thought of this, and have not thought it out at all) would be to increase the penalties for knowingly trading while insolvent, to include complete disposession of all property and imprisonment or something.
Per the New York Times and Scott Adams blog...In 1929, Meyer Mishkin owned a shop in New York that sold silk shirts to workingmen. When the stock market crashed that October, he turned to his son, then a student at City College, and offered a version of this sentiment: It serves those rich scoundrels right.-A year later, as Wall Street’s problems were starting to spill into the broader economy, Mr. Mishkin’s store went out of business. He no longer had enough customers. His son had to go to work to support the family, and Mr. Mishkin never held a steady job again. -Let's pause here to acknowledge that any governmental action to maintain the health of big banks, and the economy in general, will benefit rich people the most, simply because they have more money on the line. That's how capitalism is constructed. The relevant question is whether lower income people also gain by the $700 billion bailout. -Viewed in terms of suffering, it seems obvious that rescuing the economy helps low income people the most. A billionaire who becomes only a half-billionaire doesn't suffer as much as a factory worker who loses his job, or has to pay more taxes, or gets devoured by inflation. So if the price of helping the factory worker is that some rich people get richer, that's unavoidable under capitalism.
... But if the middle class suffers, then the suffering also spreads to the poor... More competition for affordable housing, if middle class people are squeezed, they are more likely to get second jobs to make ends meet, squeezing employment in the service industry...
We all know the rich are winning but the real losers are the MIDDLE class who are moving down the payscale approaching the poor. These are the people who when pissed will switch parties in a heartbeat, which is what's happening to McCain's numbers. The poor just try to survive and have little $$$ to do otherwise, but John Doe who makes $100,000/yr can and WILL revolt.
Fair enough. I haven't thought a solution all the way through, either. In fact, I probably don't know enough about economics and money-related math to understand a real solution.
I was not saying giving it to middle class people... I am talking about the high level managers who were knowingly trading while insolvent.-They were not checking people for their credit history when providing loans. These loans were called "no documentation loans" or "liar loans". They worked like this: The poor person took the loan, and paid till they were bankrupt. The bank keeps all the money, and keeps the house, which by this time would undoubtedly have risen in value. Unfortunately the house did NOT rise in value and this is where it failed. Middle class people are able to get normal loans, ones with sensible interest rates that they can actually pay off eventually. They did not take out subprime mortgages, because they did not need to.... by the way, I DID say that I hadnt thought it all the way through...-
If you consider it "screwing poor people" to offer home loans to people who want a home, but can't really afford them and don't have the credit history to justify the loan. There appear to have been differing opinions on that, back when Clinton signed the laws deregulating mortgages -- specifically for this purpose, and was widely hailed as a noble goal at the time.-This was caused by rich people screwing middle class people. There is no real point to screwing poor people. They don't have anything to take.-And if your proposal is that government takes tax money (predominantly collected from middle class people) and give that money to the middle class people who were screwed... Well, I don't really see how that's going to work. Just don't take our money to begin with.
But, of course, it was rich people screwing poor people over who caused this problem in the first place. If they really cared, they would put some teeth into the bill in order to avoid helping the rich (yes they might have lost half their wealth, but are still billionaires) and target to specifically help the poor people. And any banks that are insolvent, then simply giving money to them will not work, and they are dragging the rest of the banks down, as the banks do not know which other banks are insolvent. So my solution (although I have just thought of this, and have not thought it out at all) would be to increase the penalties for knowingly trading while insolvent, to include complete disposession of all property and imprisonment or something.
Per the New York Times and Scott Adams blog...In 1929, Meyer Mishkin owned a shop in New York that sold silk shirts to workingmen. When the stock market crashed that October, he turned to his son, then a student at City College, and offered a version of this sentiment: It serves those rich scoundrels right.-A year later, as Wall Street’s problems were starting to spill into the broader economy, Mr. Mishkin’s store went out of business. He no longer had enough customers. His son had to go to work to support the family, and Mr. Mishkin never held a steady job again. -Let's pause here to acknowledge that any governmental action to maintain the health of big banks, and the economy in general, will benefit rich people the most, simply because they have more money on the line. That's how capitalism is constructed. The relevant question is whether lower income people also gain by the $700 billion bailout. -Viewed in terms of suffering, it seems obvious that rescuing the economy helps low income people the most. A billionaire who becomes only a half-billionaire doesn't suffer as much as a factory worker who loses his job, or has to pay more taxes, or gets devoured by inflation. So if the price of helping the factory worker is that some rich people get richer, that's unavoidable under capitalism.