Posted by Mark on 9/25/2008, 7:43 pm, in reply to "No, the economy won't collapse"
First of all, I'm no expert on this subject. And, yes, I am fundamentally opposed to a bailout. However, I do believe that if we DON'T act, things will be worse in the short term (because of falling stock market, devaluing citizens investments). I do think that the government should seize the assets of every officer of every one of these corporations it's bailing out, and let the officers spend at least a good 10 years in jail.
It is not the government's job to tell private businesses how to run themselves, and it's also not government's job to bail them out when they screw up. However, I do think the government has to step in in this case, but those who have profited massively, need to repay their ill-gotten gains, and spend a good portion of time living in jail.
One of the things that I think got us into this mess is someone (and I don't know who) passed predatory lending laws, which allowed banks to make loans to people they knew couldn't afford to repay them. All so someone else could profit from this, but nobody thinking about the repercussions of doing this on a mass scale.
The other thing I don't understand about the economy is how we can have these financial institutions failing massively, and at the same time have big oil companies reporting record profits. There is corruption on that side of the house, too, and those people who are making exorbitant profits should be made to pay for some of this and their corrupt executives should repay their ill-gotten gains, too.
Obviously, I know there are many factors to this, and it's a huge problem to try to solve, but at some point, we as a nation -- of individuals, of businesses -- have to encourage fiscal responsibility of our citizens and businesses over profits at any cost. On some level, we have to live within our means and quit being so greedy.
Mark
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