Citibank, Automakers Bailout Are Not About Who Deserves It.

Watching Fox News (no real choice for me) I see the talking heads discussing who deserves a bailout, the white collar workers at Citibank or blue collar workers at GM and other auto makers.  The answer is easy, none of them do.  It is the people of the US that deserve it.  The entire economy deserves it.

The goal is to keep people in their jobs.  I’ve waffled on the idea of a bailout for the automakers but the truth is we can’t allow them to fold.  If they do, millions of people will loose their jobs and pensions.  I do want to see massive change made a part of the bailout.  They must change, they must go green and they should be scaled back.

I don’t think Citibank would be as big of a blow to the economy as all three automakers but it would be a huge blow.  The blow would be both psychological as well as financial.  The bank represents the US through out the world.  Their going under would further weaken our standing in the world.  Even with this bailout, Citibank is still laying off 60,000 people around the world.

While the stockholders of these companies may benefit directly, thats not the point.  That’s not what should be our concern.  Oh  yes, limit the big bonuses but the decisions should be made based on how it helps the economy and thus the American people.  Having these companies fold is just to costly to the economy.

I remember the first signal that got my attention.  I wrote a financial expert friend and asked, are we on the brink.  That was when I heard the Fed. had quadrupled the supply of money.  That’s a big move and I wondered what was going under.  Soon it was AIG that was in major trouble and they had to be bailed out to stop a run on the companies policies.  From there it mushroomed into the mess we have now.

So, we need to forget so much about fairness.  There is no fairness.   We humans, we have a big thing for fairness and there’s nothing wrong with that.  It’s a noble thing to strive for.   For me, not much in life has been fair.  I can’t believe that I’m alone in that.  Lets do what is best for all of us and try to forget who benefits more than they should.

Tagged with: Bailouts • Economic Crisis 2008 • Money

Filed under: Politics • US Politics

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