Bailout Likely To Expand Beyond Mortgages

While most of the press surrounding the bailout plan thus far has been specifically focused on mortgages, the government was given the ability to buy up debt other than mortgages. Now the struggling finance wings of the major car manufacturers are trying to get in on the party, and the party crashing is unlikely to stop there.

Basically what the bailout bill says is that the government has the ability to buy up whatever they need to in order to save the economy. Thus, all the car companies need to do in order to receive aid is to convince the government that auto loans are vital to the U.S. economy. After that, who is to say that credit card debt isn’t just as important?

We will have to wait and see how it turns out, but from the sounds of things, the auto companies are prepared to lobby hard for support. Considering that this is an election year and that these companies hold a lot of power, I tend to think they will win the governmental support they seek. If they do win, the next question becomes: Where do we draw the line?

I find it hard to get behind the mortgage bailout, but at the same time I can see how it's important to the U.S. economy. Auto loans, though? Give me a break. I certainly don’t want my tax dollars going to support the car manufacturers who gave some guy a 0 percent loan so that he would buy a new Escalade. People can get by without cars; fewer cars are better for the environment, anyway.

Sure, we face the possibility of losing thousands of jobs if the auto companies don't get any aid, but realistically, these are jobs that are likely to be lost anyway. U.S. car manufacturers have been laying off people for a long time now. What makes us think that if we bail them out, things are going to be different?

Either way, people are going to buy fewer cars with the economy suffering the way it is, and layoffs are going to happen. I would rather save our tax dollars and bite the bullet now than simply postpone the inevitable.

Furthermore, if we start bailing out auto finance companies, then what do we say when American Express (AXP) and Discover (DFS) come calling, saying they need help? How can we justify bailing out the auto industry, but not the consumer credit card companies?

You can bet that just as people are having a hard time paying their mortgages and car loans, they are also going to have a hard time paying their credit card bills. Where, exactly, are we going to get all this money to bail out all these companies anyway?

Comments

[bosunj:]

Jump, capitalist pig -- the party is over!

Jump, because you do not deserve any bailout, especially with what remains of the taxpayers' money.

Jump, it is only right, as you have looted and plundered the land of your birth without any regard of the consequences for your friends and neighbors or the future of our children.

Jump, you rotten bastards in your three-piece suits, your wingtip shoes, your Rolex watches and your damned suspenders, you who threw good hard-working men with dirt under their fingernails out of work.

Jump, you stinking rats who lied to the American worker, who bribed and corrupted the representatives of the people to send Americas good paying jobs to sweatshops in Mexico, China, to India, leaving in their wake minimum wage jobs while you stuffed your pockets at the expense of your fellow Americans.

Jump, you bastards, who called it business when it was really treason when you sold out your Nation for profit.

Jump, you miserable scum, as you have destroyed the American family, forcing mothers to leave their children with strangers to make ends meet.

Jump, for having sold your fellow human beings into financial slavery, chained to a lifetime of debt without end.

Jump, for making Americas currency all but worthless.

Jump, for throwing families off their farms, for taking away peoples homes, for the stagnating wages.

Jump, you bastards for influencing the foreign policy of America to make war in order for your corporations and banks to seize and control the resources of other nations.

Jump, for you have the blood of the innocent on your hands, murdered in the name of corporate greed.

Jump, you bastards, for helping to give us Bush and Cheney who would turn America into a corporate controlled fascist state.

Jump, you capitalist exploiters of humanity, at least give us, your victims, the satisfaction of seeing you jump, along with all the other Wall St practitioners of soulless greed and exploitation.

Jump!

2008 Oct 16 06:39 PM

[PainfullyAware:]

The Bailout IS and will continue to be Larceny on the grandest scale.

2008 Oct 17 01:59 PM