Billionaire

If it were up to me I would immediately bring all the soldiers home from the middle east and save about $200 billion per year. I'm not against fighting wars if it makes sense, but the Iraq war is just a big waste and accomplishes nothing. The Iraqis are going to do whatever they want to do anyway the minute we leave there and it will have all been for nothing.

I would also stop all foreign aid. Israel & Egypt each get several billion dollars per year from the U.S. forever just because it was in a peace treaty that Jimmy Carter negotiated (or someone else).

Our politicians are like crack & heroin addicts addicted to spending as much of our money as they can and it is so unnecessary and so wasteful. Trying to get them to cut spending is harder than pulling teeth.

One thing I'd like to spend more money on though, is space exploration. I love all the things we've done in space, like the Hubble telescope. I'd also like to spend more money on some other scientific projects.

KMPX2

The boys on Wall Street got greedy and now we have to fix it [sm=boohoo.gif]. They found a way to make money & it back fired on them. Funny how they did not share the weath when they were makeing money off of us. But now that it is costing them they want us to fix it ie makeing money off of us again!!

DSkippy

I'm no soothsayer and I'm no Warren Buffet (I put money in a Mutual Fund and an ING savings account) so I won't wax like I know much about finances. But I do have eyes and a brain. I've watched the market plummet, then rebound on the news of this bailout, then dip again at the news the bailout might come.

If it were just the elite of Wall Street, I'd say let'em twist in the wind or impale them on a poke as some sort of discouragement to less than scrupulous scoundrels who erred advertently AND inadvertently (would their be mercy for an Air Traffic Controller to blame because he took his eye off the screen to browse the web or a train conductor who didn't mean it when he cost innocents their lives for selfish disconnection in his job?), BUT, since the nation's money is in Wall Street it is as much all of our (at least anyone who doesn't hide their money in their mattress) problem as any other things listed not just investors. It's all interconnected.

I would certainly hope politician would be stupid enough to allow a Bill that would provide a golden parachute for any exec that mismanaged his company, in fact the Bill should contain some verbiage in it that imposes life sentences for these leaders of industry who lose investors money and create misery in the form of mass layoffs. It seems many of them just get the job, win or lose

This is a tough pill to swallow, but no tougher than the myriad of other things that have been grossly mismanaged by a status quo government. I would rather eat some more taxes than to roll the dice on the collapse of the market.

I've only been alive since 1970, the 70's were the worst economically that I remember. If not bailing out these miscreants avoids something worse than that, then fine.

But, as a country need to get off the sidelines and start demanding more of those who wield power in the federal government.

Additionally, I think Billionaire is correct on this. Personal credit needs to be revamped. I was just talking with a team member of mine and found out he had $37K in credit card debt. He's not from this country, so I corrected him saying "You mean thiry seven HUNDRED"...he said no $#7K. Maybe outlawing credit (or greatly reducing the level of credit should be legistlated). I'm not much for government interference in business, but it seems like too much of a, here comes the next sub-prime debacle scenario.

Before we start casting a blind eye to our fellow earthwalkers as opposed to righteous scrutiny the evil doers in palaces and their twisted deeds (which should be punished), we should look at America as a collective of people who really living beyond their means at all economic levels.

Maybe a little modesty and patience would go a long way.

DSkippy

More to this, here are numbers for 2009 U.S. Federal Budget:

$737 billion for the Department of Health and Human Services, including $408 billion for Medicare and $224 billion for Medicaid


$651 billion for the Department of Defense, including $70 billion in "emergency funding for the Global War on Terror" established.


$95 billion for the Department of Agriculture, including $61 billion for "nutrition assistance programs" like food stamps


$92 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs, including $44 billion for disability compensation and $39 billion for medical care


$71 billion for the Department of Transportation, including $37 billion for the Federal Highway Administration


$67 billion for the Department of the Treasury, including $11 billion for the Internal Revenue Service


$64 billion for the Department of Education, including $21 billion to support the No Child Left Behind Act


$54 billion for the Department of Labor, including $37 billion for unemployment insurance benefits


$46 billion for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, including $16 billion for tenant rental assistance and $6 billion for public housing


$44 billion for the Department of Homeland Security, including $16 billion for customs and border enforcement


$39 billion for the Department of State, including $5 billion for foreign military financing and $5 billion for AIDS relief


$27 billion for the Department of Justice, including $7 billion for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and $6 billion for the federal prison system


$25 billion for the Department of Energy, including $10 billion for "maintaining the nuclear stockpile and transforming the weapons complex"


$11 billion for the Department of the Interior, including $2 billion for the National Park Service and $2 billion for the Bureau of Indian Affairs


$8 billion for the Department of Commerce, including $4 billion for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and $3 billion for the Bureau of the Census


"Of course, all of these numbers are a drop in the bucket of the national debtthe amount the U.S. government owes to all of its creditors. That figure is just under $10 trillion. So $700 billion represents about 7 percent of the national debt." KnowledgeNews.net

So we as a nation are living beyond our means. Which is normal while at war, but we should keep this in mind.

BLK 6050

I agree with many of the points laid out by both Billionaire and DSkippy, but the bottomline is...**personal responsiblity** People need to take responsiblity for their own actions, and not count on others (Government or otherwise) to bail them out when they make bad decisions. It's like when you were a kid....when you fell, you learned the lession much faster and it stayed with you a lot longer...
Today many individuals look to the government to save them from everything whether it's health care..retirement..whatever...........the truth is...the government is NOT the answer to all your problems, and in fact they seem to mess up most if not all things they touch. Question....what happened to the American made up of tough individuals who could and did handle both good and bad times through strength and individualism....the ones that made this such a great country?? Perhaps it's time for more of us to stand up on our own two feet and stop looking to others to make our lives better......it's up to us, not others..............
***The answer is less goverment and more personal responsiblity!!!!!!


*(On another note: If there is a big bailout.....the goverment should payoff my Challenger!)

[Stepping off soap box]

MrKrisSullivan

Umm... hmm... If Wall-Street crashed our dollar wouldn't be worth anything... prolly nothing... We are in a reccesion... If the market crashed like say it did back in the late 20's... Who the hell is going to have a job? Or money to spend? Credit? Lol... there wouldn't even be cash. Listen to what some of you guy's are saying let our Stock-Market crash????? W.T.F? That is the most ignorant thing i've heard in a long time, and kinda makes me mad. If that were to happen im pretty sure China and the other major foreign competitors would buy up everything in the United States nothing would be American owned and we would be like rats in our own caged economy. Budweiser is gone... foreingers have bought intrests in the Chrysler building if we don't have a Stock-Market to speek of we don't have any foreign trade, import or export we go broke zip, zero, zilch, nada. Have you guy's seriously thought about that scenario? I don't think so it's to easy to say let the fish fry. But how about a "Bail-Out" and then the reform that the Nation needs. Let it crash?? Jeezus... O.M.G. No matter what if we don't help ourselves in some way shape or form were considerbly screwed. Not just rich big-wigs that are CEO's. They do employ tens of thousands of people. A crash wouldn't just oust the "big wigs" it would deprive the whole nation and it would be catastrophic. Sincerely Me.

Jeremiah 29:11

I too feel that these financial institutions should learn the lesson the hard way because of the bad behavior/business practices and greed that has them spiraling down.

That being said, I also don't agree with we the tax payers/bailout program should help them out either.

But unless we do something, this country will be in financial ruins.

I hope the current administration comes up with a happy medium and also puts strict policies in place to prevent this greed behaviour in the future.

Kind of like the government policies and penalities we put in place on how companies report their financial statements.

We certainly need to be praying for our country right now. The eastern part of our country can't even get gasoline for their cars to go watch football games. How sad is that?

mopar2ya

Looks like we bailed on the bailout. Good news for those of us who would like to see a natural recovery to the current financial crisis... your thoughts?

Billionaire

The magnitude of the recession or depression depends on how much the mortgage crisis chokes off credit, consumer spending, and business spending.

I heard from a republican congressman on the radio today that much of the mortgage-backed securities are actually owned by foreigners and some of them are already being bailed out by their own governments. So if our government did the bailout, to a large extent we'd be bailing out foreigners. That made me feel a little better about not doing it.

I just hope the economy doesn't get bad. I was doing pretty well and I was expecting a good Christmas season. I was feeling pretty scared earlier today, but now I'm leaning more towards thinking this problem has been exaggerated. The news is always trying to say that the economy is terrible, but at the same time I've had good sales. I hate how the news reporters act like it's a disaster just because consumer spending is "only" up a little bit from the previous year. I will GLADLY take any increase or for it to stay the same as it was!