This Bailout Thing Has Got To Stop!

There are a few things that just really set me off. Government getting in my business, someone telling me how to raise my kids, and people begging for my tax money that don't deserve it.

This morning I heard of some people who are asking for Federal Bailout money. There is a small town in Georgia, a village really, with less than 200 people, who are asking for millions of dollars of MY tax money so they can put in Solar traffic lights, plug in stations for electric golf carts, and an EcoMuseum among other things. Now my question to them is...Why? Does this town have such a high electric bill from their one traffic light that they are having trouble paying it? Is there a large number of golf carts in this little hamlet in Georgia? And would a museum even generate enough income to pay the one employee it would take to run the thing?

Or maybe it is just the prospect of free money that caused them to stick out their hand? I find it almost absurd that the Bank Bailout Package, which started out as an obscene $900 Billion is going to be used by every group of 3 or more people as an excuse to do stupid things. I was opposed to the original bailout to begin with. It is time for the greedy folks to pay the piper. They have been bilking the common joe for decades, and now that they have gotten "caught", they are whining about how it wasn't their fault. If any of these companies had a shred of common sense to begin with they would not have employed the business practices that lead to their downfall. It is their own danged fault they are going under. Have none of these people ever taken an economics class? Interest rates that border on usury, giving loans and credit to people who don't have jobs, giving multiple mortgage loans to people without verifiable income, robbing Peter to pay Paul, shipping jobs overseas and keeping Americans either underemployed or overpaid. None of these things are good business practices. When the average American Adult is more than $10,000 in debt, not counting their mortgages, you should know that there is a problem.

And now the same people who have killed us as a nation are wanting the taxpayer to pay them for being stupid? Just where do they think all of this money is going to come from? Can we just pull BILLIONS or TRILLIONS of dollars out of the air and say, "Here ya go. We are sorry it isn't more?"

There are only a couple of ways the government can get enough money to pay these people off. One is to raise taxes. Americans are already under such a tax burden that the average worker only sees maybe 60-70% of their paycheck. And if we add more taxes to pay for the bailout, it will suck even more out of our paychecks. The major problem with that idea is that most people are living paycheck to paycheck as it is. So people can't afford to buy anything, including food. Or they default on their loans and credit cards and file bankruptcy. Less people buying things means less being sold. That is bad, very bad, for retailers and manufacturers, Then they go bankrupt and lay off or fire employees. That causes more people to not be able to pay their bills. See the cycle here?

Or, the federal reserve can just print more money. Yeah, lets do that! Big mistake. Our money isn't really worth anything anymore since it isn't backed by anything but the good name of the United States. All of that gold sitting in Fort Knox is just sitting there useless. Used to be a time when the Fed would only have enough currency floating around the US equal to the value of the gold in the Federal Reserve. That kept our dollar worth something. We knew that each and every US dollar anywhere on earth was equal to a piece of the gold bars in Kentucky. That isn't the case anymore. We dropped the gold standard sometime back in the 80's, I think. Since then we have just been printing money to be printing money. It isn't really worth anything except in it's rarity. If we print more for the sake of the buyout, each piece of currency will be worth less and less. So it will take more of them to mean anything. That is called inflation. And if we actually print enough for the bailout, that will be called runaway inflation. Yes, boys and girls, if we inject $900 Billion new dollars into the economy just to pay people for being stupid, it will cost $10 for a loaf of bread, if you can find a bakery that is still in business. Hamburger, which is already $3.00 a pound will probably be over $15. And for people who are already out of work, and behind on their bills, how will they live?

All of this just burns my tail feathers. If corporations hadn't gotten greedy and made bad decisions, and if people in general hadn't taken on more debt than they could pay and banks encouraging them to take on more, none of this would be an issue.

And maybe, just maybe, we wouldn't be lambasted all over the world for being the largest consumer on the planet.

It just makes my teeth hurt.

Personal Responsibility

One of the many things that really bother me about the direction we are headed as a country is the sheer apathy that most of the country is falling under. No one really cares about anyone else, no one cares about anything but immediate satisfaction of a momentary urge, and no one cares about long term consequences of their actions.

I am a firm believer of Karma, what goes around comes around, and the Threefold Laws. As a country, we are all paying for our past actions. My generation grew up with the belief that we are owed everything by others, that we should be given given what we want and if we don't get it, we should just sue someone to get it. Now there are a few problems with that mindset. I am a bit different that most of my generation. First and foremost is that no one OWES anyone anything. If you do not wish to work, you should not be entitled to benefits that one would expect to receive by working. Those people who work all of their lives and barely make enough to live on expect to get Social Security benefits when they retire. Then there are those whose sole job is to get as much Social Security benefits as possible so they never have to work. There are even those people who have babies out of wedlock just so that they can draw a bigger welfare check. Our country is now paying for the excesses of corrupt society. Our banks are collapsing because they gave risky loans to risky people in the name of greed. Our factories are exporting jobs to third world countries as fast as they can because of wage inflation and over regulation. Bankruptcy courts are being flooded with people who can not pay their credit card bills.

Are we all so conceited that we believe that throwing money at a problem will fix it? Money is not going to fix what is wrong with our country any more. The problem is that corruption has spread into every facet of our lives. We have people who worship the all mighty dollar. We have people who believe that the one with the most toys, wins. And we have people, and corporations, who have no conscience at all when it comes to business matters. No one cares if their next door neighbor is getting laid off because his job is being outsourced to India or Poland because they are too worried about their own job.

We all want the luxuries that the media tell us we should have so we sell our souls to the credit card companies. But when it comes time to pay the piper, we can't. So to pay the credit card bills, we get a second mortgage to pay off the bills. Then, we lose our jobs to someone in another country. Now we have 2 mortgages, kids in school, a couple of car payments and no job. What do we do? File bankruptcy. Now, individually, it doesn't affect society as a whole. The problem is when thousands of people are in this situation. Mortgage companies are having so many people declaring bankruptcy that the banks that underwrite the mortgages are having solvency problems. Banks going bankrupt is bad. Very very bad. It causes everyone who can pay their bills to lose money. It causes stock prices to fall, the dollar to lose value in international markets, and it causes inflation to rise. Inflation, along with a higher unemployment rate, increased fuel prices, and tanking consumer confidence, is adding to the pressure on the government to bail everyone out. The problem with that is the government can't really pay for any kind of bailout without raising taxes. Taxes that are already bordering on the extreme.

I don't know if all of these are just symptoms of the disease that affects our country or if it is the cause. But it will not get any better in this country until we all just take a deep breath and own up to our responsibility.