OT: Emergency Buy Out

[Kurt Granroth]

I don't typically participate in OT sessions that are *this* OT... but
here goes:

On Sun, Sep 28, 2008 at 5:16 PM, Craig White <craigwhite at azapple.com> wrote:
> If Congress elects to provide no aid other than to federally
> insured/underwritings and you accept the premise that without providing
> more capital to the market place and businesses continue laying off
> people, investment portfolios continue to devalue...
>
> are you willing to accept a recession, possibly a deep recession or even
> a wide scale depression so that taxpayers do not 'bail out' private
> interests?
>
> I think that is a very key question and merely tossing blame doesn't get
> anywhere near the answer...at some point, you have to stand up and be
> counted.

I agree that that is a very key question.  In fact, there are two key
questions:
1. "[do] you accept the premise that without providing more capital to
the market place and businesses continue laying off people, investment
portfolios continue to devalue...[?]"
2. "Are you willing to accept...a depression?"

It's that first question that I have the most problem with.  Will this
bailout really help prevent any of that or could it actually make things
WORSE?

I consider myself relatively well-read with reasonable logical
abilities.  I also have a better-than-most grasp of basic economics.
Alas, this is well past anything resembling "basic economics".  The
issues surrounding this bailout are complex enough that not even the
most respected experts in the field can agree on exactly what this will
do or won't do.

In cases like this, I tend to favor the opinions of people I have
trusted in the past.  Ron Paul, for as much as I disagree with him on so
many fundamental issues, is almost *prophetic* when it comes to issues
like this.  I've read things he wrote and transcripts of speeches he
gave YEARS that sounded like he could be describing exact details of
what is happening now.  His case against the bailout is pretty compelling.

I've long admired the Motely Fool crew for their reasoned analysis on
the business market.  Now, it appears that they are almost universally
against this bailout as they perceive it to be a massive disaster in the
making.

Over and over, the people that I have trusted in the past and have grown
to trust recently all say the same thing: Not only will this bailout
likely not help, but it could very well (almost surely will, according
to some) make things worse!

In light of that, I cannot accept your initial premise.  Therefore, I
*am* willing to "risk" not acting in that fashion, knowing that if I
(and all the people I've trusted) are wrong, that the result could be
horrendous.

One last thing: The one aspect of this that seems pretty clear to even
me is that the bailout will almost surely negatively impact "normal"
people in a very short order.  That's because pumping so much made up
money into the economy can only make our already weak dollar plummet
even more.  Us "normal" people are already noticing the skyrocketing
cost of everyday items as a result of the weak dollar.  If it gets even
weaker (as it surely will), then we can only expect things to get much
much worse.

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