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[mirage]

Everyone is freaking out about the DOW and the bailout, so I'm offering up my opinion on it. I swear I wish Congress could masturbate its brain muscle once in awhile.

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You solve fundamental problems with fundamental solutions.Pumping liquidity into the market in the form of a $700 billion "bailout" plan is

Comments

[tixen]

It's a good solution for everyone except those few living on social security- and I know at least 4. They'd be completely and totally fucked.

[mirage]

Well, let's put it another way.

Would you rather have:
A) Everyone fucked
B) A few people fucked

I never said its an easy to stomach solution. Its a very real way of looking at life. You can play with numbers and I'm sure you could come up with middle ground to where only a small percentage of people get fucked, but in the end, you can't make everyone happy.

[the_brad]

I don't understand how continuing to allow and encourage people to make unsound financial decisions through unscrupulous, short-sighted financial institutions is going to solve the fundamental problem of people making unsound financial decisions through unscrupulous, short-sighted financial institutions. Why should people always be able to borrow and spend money they don't have?

How will buying the junk assets of failing banks at a much higher value than they're worth help this? Personally, I don't think they should be continuing these practices. I think they need some old-fashioned bankruptcy.

I think it's terrible that so many people will suffer, but part of the problem is that so many jobs are linked to this dangerous, credit-based economy, which was irresponsible to begin with. It shouldn't be propped up at all.

[mirage]

Everything is linked to credit in the US. Our country thrives off of debt, and it is fueled by debt/credit. The point of it all is to free up credit so the market doesn't stagnate. If the sources of credit dry up, the whole system fails. If that happens, the effects would be a lot worse than they are now. You have to have credit. Its not going to go away. Does it need to be overhauled? Yes, but its a long process.

[jedi_iwakura]

[zypher_kun]

Rerouting social security won't hurt the people on it now - they'll still get their entitlements (that's why they're called such). The people it will hurt is you and me, who aren't going to get any social security due to the SS fund going bankrupt.

[the_brad]

uh you live in sacramento, too, right? drive past mcclellan afb and talk to some of the people just scraping by.

[mirage]

Social security, unless its overhauled now, will be completely useless to Generation Y and beyond. Its a very much failed system long term. I guess that would depend on how social security tax is spent. Would that go into programs like Medicare, etc. If it does, it certainly has the potential to have impacts now.

[wilebobcat]

ummm.yeah. So people who have been screwed by this credit crunch and market crash and can't afford to lose any more money will get screwed even more. I don't think that's such a good idea.

The idea behind the bail out is to purchase the bad debts from the banks, so that the government takes the brunt of the losses and the banks can survive and save peoples savings, and very likely save the country and as a result the world from going into a depression.

No it's not a good idea, but in the long run it's better than doing nothing.

[mirage]

Well, out of your paycheck, a certain % of money goes to Social Security. You never see that money until you are at least 62, and that age is probably going to get pushed back in your lifetime. Social security gets collected over roughly 40 years on your life before you can theoretically tap it. I'm basically suggesting take it for 39 instead of 40, and use that to prop up the economy. You really aren't going to notice a huge difference when you start to collect social security over 1 year of not paying it for your retirement.

In short, you really don't give up anything you aren't already accustomed to financially from your paycheck. To you, its completely transparent for the most part. You still bring home the same amount of money you always have on a paycheck. That 5% for SS gets taken out regardless. Social Security will more than likely get wiped out as a program unless it undergoes serious reform.

[the_brad]

If I agreed with your idea, this wouldn't be so bad, so long as it didn't impact current recipients of SSI. It might be because I know a lot of old people, but if you're living on a fixed income and the cost of living and medical care keeps increasing, suddenly reducing that fixed amount can be disastrous.

[mirage]

Another thing too is that if businesses don't have to pay that tax, they can use the difference in money to grow their business, which helps turn the gears of the economy, which is part of the solution. A lot of people freaked out yesterday because of the DOW, and it rebounded 485 points today. A lot of it is just speculation :/

[kellic]

Wow. Spoken like someone under 50. We'll ignore the fact that SS is going to be bankrupt within 40 years at its current rate. A year's hiatus would probably drop that to 30 or 20.