Where's My Bailout?

For weeks now, we've all been hearing on the news about the big economic bailout for Wall Street, AIG, American Express, CitiGroup and now GM and Chrysler. Am I the only one who sees this as incredibly stupid?

The bailout for Wall Street was 750 billion dollars. So far, it has been reported that only a fraction of that has been released to the banks (supposedly to get them to start issuing credit again) and the rest is still being held back because they suddenly don't know what to do with it.

Originally, as it was discussed, the Fed was going to be buying up all the bad mortgage debt and free up the banks to begin issuing credit again. Has this happened? Not the way it was expected.

Latest reports show little credit being issued to companies in need. In fact, there have been reports that many of the financial institutions that have already received money have used it to pay executive bonuses and dividends to stockholders.

Personally, I feel that there needs to be a complete revolution against this crap. CEOs and other executives of these failing businesses should not be receiving multi-million dollar salaries, bonuses or golden-parachutes. They should be treated as anyone else who does not perform adequately in their jobs. They should be fired without severance. Or if kept on, their salaries should be reduced to less than $100, 000/yr.

Think about it. If the average person didn't do his job and the company lost huge amounts of money or had to file for bankruptcy, would that person be allowed to continue working, get raises and bonuses and be given a multi-million dollar severance package when they decided to leave? I think not.

Where is the outrage from the public? The shareholders? Why aren't we holding these people accountable and demanding they pay back the money? What did they do to earn it? What do they actually do and is it worth what they are paid?

Instead of paying these people so much, the salaries should be capped below what the President of the United States earns per year. The money saved could go to pay employee benefits, expand the business, etc.

I think the money should be divded equally and given out to the public. Think about this. The money would:

Pay off mortgages and credit card debt - The financial institutions would still get their money, just not directly from the government. Plus, it would help consumers get back on their feet at the same time.

Buy new vehicles - People could by newer, more fuel-efficient or hybrid cars.

Purchase goods and services - People would go out shopping for items they need (or want) or go out to eat or whatever. This could increase the number of jobs and maybe expand businesses.

Open new small businesses - How many of you would rather invest in starting your own business and be your own boss instead of being stuck in a hum-drum job that you could lose when the economy tanks?

Invest - Some people would invest their money in stock or bonds for the future.

Or countless other things could be done. The above are just some examples.

As President-Elect Obama has stated, we need to build the economy from the bottom up. Giving the money to the taxpayers insted of the financial institutions and car makers would be a start.

After all, if the banks and car makers and insurance companies and credit card companies hadn't conducted business as they did, they would not be in their current situation. Not that they are totally to blame (the consumers have to take some of the blame too), but these businesses ran themseleves down.

The banks lent money to people who could not afford it to buy homes they could not afford.

Credit card companies gave credit to people they knew could not afford it and then tacked on late fees and outrageous intrest rates when they could not pay.

Car manufacturers have continued to build and push vehicles off on the public that are expensive and mot overly fuel efficient. They've known for years that better improvements needed to be made to the technology and we needed to migrate from oil and gas to cleaner fuels.

And, we also have our government to blame for this as well. They could see for all these years where we were headed and could have legislated better laws to protect all of us from what happened.

Constant deregulation of the banking and oil industries have brought us to the edge of this cliff.

Congress could have mandated tighter controls over banking and investments. They could have mandated higher fuel efficiency for the last 30 years. And they are to blame for two pieces of legislation in the last few years that have made it almost impossible for people to declare bankrupcy and allowing the credit card companies to double the minimum payment due (to help the consumer pay of their debt faster - yeah, right).

As I said more needs to be done and it needs to start with us. Unless we put pressure on our legislators and the businesses affected, it will likely continue to be business as usual.

If they fail, so be it. Maybe others will learn from their mistakes and run their businesses correctly.