Merry Christmas, from the government?

[dain]

In an interesting move to help stimulate the economy, our government is giving $1000 per child to parents and $1400 to each pensioner ($2100 for a couple) before Christmas with an encouragement that money is to be spent and not saved

Comments

[the_real_sorrow]

Well, maybe some of those good ideas will be looked at from afar and emulated, so that we see the stimulus to not only the business sector, but also to regular people.

[blonnie]

well, we have something similar already... not before christmas, but as a tax credit of $1000 per child. you can read about it here. however, obama is supposedly going to let this expire in 2010, rather than renewing it. who knows if he'll still have that plan, considering the state of things.

we also have a 'federal housing tax credit' of $7500. a 'new home owner' is anyone who hasn't purchased a home in 3 years or more (kind of a stupid term, since those people aren't 'new' home owners.)

[the_real_sorrow]

Well, what I was really referring to was the $750 billion stimulus/bailout for the mortgage lenders, which helps them out, but in all reality doesn't help out Mr. Joe Homeowner too much.

It would be nice to see them upgrade the stimulus for regular people, to help out the regular guy, instead of throwing money at things that are already broken.

Is it your fault or my fault that the mortgage lenders fucked things up? Nope. It's their own fault, but we are the ones who have been paying for it, are paying for it, and will continue to keep paying for it. That doesn't exactly seem fair.

Another reason that I am against the bailout for the auto-makers. Just because they have failing business models surely doesn't mean that we have to be the ones to pay for their failed plans. :/

[blonnie]

we agree :)
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but, in regards to the mortgage situations, i don't really appreciate money being given to regular joes who bought a ridiculously large houses that they couldn't afford because they were too stupid to realize that ARM loans were not a safe choice (of course, that's not -all- of the problem now, but it's part of it.)