Originally Posted by
DakarM
there are multiple clauses in the bail out package
#1 the government is buying the securities, which means when the market recovers they can sell the securities and recoup the full cost and possibly extra
#2 after 5 years if the market hasn't recovered, the President has the power to forced the companies that the government bought the securities from to pay back the amount.
and you are once again being dramatic, no one said the world would collapse or even the economy. I'm not going to sit here and pretend to know better than the economists of the world/US. However, I'm not seeing the lower "cost", no one will know for at least half a decade if this was the right decision or not. I for one feel the package could have been improved. I feel the package could have been bigger and I'm not talking about all the ear7am I referring to helping "the people" The whole toxic debt is estimated to be well into 3Trillion dollars. 700B I feel is not enough to offset the toxic debt. This isn't just my opinion but also the opinion of other economists that were interviewed in the past 2 weeks on various news outlets.
AFAIK, Bush, Paulson, and several key people all said that we were at the brink of economic situation and we would have to act immediately to resolve this issue. I listened to Paulson's testimony, and yeah, there was an air of "Immediate problem, give me money, don't ask questions."
We can't, and shouldn't offset the entire toxic debt. BUT, my oppositions to the plan are as follows (This is all AFAIK):
1) There's still no oversight committee, review process, or public inquiry into how Paulson doles out the money (My biggest complaint)
2) There is no specific tax provision to establish that all funds "earned" through taking these toxic debts to be provided back to the taxpayers as tax cuts.
3) I don't think the limits on the corporate spending of companies that receive this bailout go far enough.