‘All of a Sudden’
A Links entry from Monday, September 22, 2008‘All of a Sudden’
Senator Bernie Sanders:
For years now, they’ve told us that we can’t afford — that the government providing healthcare to all people is just unimaginable; it can’t be done. We don’t have the money to rebuild our infrastructure. We don’t have the money to wipe out poverty. We can’t do it. But all of a sudden, yeah, we do have $700 billion for a bailout of Wall Street.
Watch the video interview here. (Via Daring Fireball.)
Jason
To be fair, the Wall Street bailout is an investment. The idea, if successful, would effectively pay for itself. Say what you want about healthcare, but it’s consumption. It doesn’t explicitly pay dividends like buying up Wall Street does. Of course, we don’t have the money to bail out Wall Street, so we’ll print it.
Furthermore, it’s not as if a bail out of Wall Street is something that only affects those with 6+ figure incomes. The financial sector of the United States affects every single American, and the allocation of capital has far, far reaching long term effects. The bailout is total bullshit, but not for the reason that Bernie Sanders says.
Mark Elliot Cullen
I may be a neophyte to economics but I still fail to see why a more substantial mortgage relief package wouldn’t go a long way towards solving the problem. If the problem stems from the sub prime mortgage meltdown, why not just shore up those mortgages?
It seems bizarre to bailout companies that knew they were selling unfit loans with variable interest rates and not implementing any policies to stem rampant foreclosures until possibly October. Necessary maybe, but bizarre.
Jason
Well, the money just isn’t there, at all. I don’t even know where the hell this $700,000,000,000 package is coming from. The other problem is that the government can buy up all the poisonous debt it wants, but that doesn’t make it less poisonous. I think it was…Bank of America that was actually downgraded to AA- after buying up some shitty debt.
Bryan Klausmeyer
bryklaus@umich.edu
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