Jump to content

Discomfort With The Bailout


Recommended Posts

  • Replies 502
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

I've found myself wishing the last couple of days that my parents were still alive. They lived through the Great Depression and I'd really like to have had their perspective on all this. Anyway, from what I understand is that if this bailout, however it goes down doesn't happen then credit is basically dried up. Banks don't have money to lend, mortgage companies don't either or if they do they choose not to because they don't know where this will go. And eventually this gets down to basic consumer in that credit cards become more difficult to get and the terms tighten up etc. So we then see the true inflationary aspect of the credit economy. 1. How much would your house be worth if nobody could get a mortgage? 2. But if we prop this system up, then how inflationary does it become? Do we get to a point where the dollar is devalued against other currency? After all, where do you think the $700 billion will come from except that the U.S. government is printing more money? I am very discomforted with the bailout and I wrote to my congresspeople to vote no on it.

Link to post
Share on other sites
I'll go back to sports as an example. Soriano is making what. 20 Million a year? Does his salary provide the Cubs with more income and improve the revenue? Simple answer is yes, he helps them win, put fans in the seats and take them to the playoffs were the get more income.If the Cubs did not pay him, he would have gone somewhere else, the cubs would most likely have had to gotten a worse player, that may have not provided the same type of return, even though they paid him less.Does Soriano need 20 M a year. No, but it is worth it for the Cubs to pay him that.Same thing applies to a flailing company. You are going to have to pay, and pay heavily to attract the top talent. And like I said it may be with stock options, who knows.
Fair enough. And that's fine if you go on a company by company basis, but all these huge companies are intertwined in the markets and the entire economy as a whole. There's just a lot more people to answer to. Paying Soriano is good for the cubs, and good for the owners, but it pretty much ends there. It doesn't help the fans other than mentally. It doesn't do anything for them financially. But economically we need to fix things for everyone, not just shareholders.
Link to post
Share on other sites
You're kidding, right?
If we're talking about a new guy taking over and helping fix things, that's different than just paying the guy who screwed up originally. I forgot about that aspect, so hopefully that's what you mean.
Link to post
Share on other sites
Come on. I have to believe you are smarter than this.
Marginally.No, to be serious, I'm pretty smart, but I don't know much at all about the ins and outs of economics. But I see things in a semi general sense, and I can see there are major issues and I personally think the entire system is bad.
Link to post
Share on other sites
Sounds flawed to me.It's great for the top half.... not so much for everyone else. What about those people who still can't afford to buy a house? I don't think we should hand out money either, but I think that wages are ridiculously disproportionate for the cost of living in most places now. It's not about welfare as far as I'm concerned. I hate welfare too. I think we should cut it off completely and let them rot if they don't get their shit together. But there's also the issue that you can't create enough jobs for that to work unless the bottom half has money to spend, and job wages are big enough to survive. Right now they're not. At least not in the places with the biggest populations.The entire system is flawed. I wish I had a solution, but it seems pretty apparent if you look at the classes all the way down to the bottom, that something is obviously not working. Seems to me that the whole system is backwards. The people up top should be making money because the ones on the bottom are funneling it up the chain. But it's pretty hard to do that when there isn't any money left on the bottom. It has to come back around somehow, but everyone at the top is so greedy that it never will. Salaries keep inflating up top and hardly moving at the bottom, that sounds like a recipe for exactly what's happening right now.
It sounds flawed because???????....... People get paid what they are worth for the jobs they do. You're reasoning is flawed. You're young, though. There is time.
Link to post
Share on other sites
Fair enough. And that's fine if you go on a company by company basis, but all these huge companies are intertwined in the markets and the entire economy as a whole. There's just a lot more people to answer to. Paying Soriano is good for the cubs, and good for the owners, but it pretty much ends there. It doesn't help the fans other than mentally. It doesn't do anything for them financially. But economically we need to fix things for everyone, not just shareholders.
There is no other way but to go company to company. And the cubs are intertwined with the surrounding chicago area. The 7 story sports authority that has an entire level of cubs gear, Murphy's bar, and the other restaurants surrounding Wrigley, the hotel and airline companies that I gave my money to, to fly into Chicago just to see the cubs.If the Cubs were totally crappy and on the verge of failing, all of that would be affected to.There is a merging of Micro and Macro economics here.
Link to post
Share on other sites
It sounds flawed because???????....... People get paid what they are worth for the jobs they do. You're reasoning is flawed. You're young, though. There is time.
It's fine to scale it upwards. But the size of the scale is screwed up. It looks more like a poker tourney payout. It shouldn't be that steep.
Link to post
Share on other sites
If we're talking about a new guy taking over and helping fix things, that's different than just paying the guy who screwed up originally. I forgot about that aspect, so hopefully that's what you mean.
That is all I have been talking about.
Link to post
Share on other sites
One thing is certain: The rush to solve the crisis has nothing at all to do with the impending election.
Lol. I don't think so. Democrats want it to go through to bad, and the more economic turmoil the better for them. I think this is actually a case where they recognize something needs to be done.
Link to post
Share on other sites
There is no other way but to go company to company. And the cubs are intertwined with the surrounding chicago area. The 7 story sports authority that has an entire level of cubs gear, Murphy's bar, and the other restaurants surrounding Wrigley, the hotel and airline companies that I gave my money to, to fly into Chicago just to see the cubs.If the Cubs were totally crappy and on the verge of failing, all of that would be affected to.There is a merging of Micro and Macro economics here.
Sure there's things you can point to, but when you branch outside of this city it becomes pretty insignificant.
Link to post
Share on other sites
That is all I have been talking about.
I was with you at first. Got caught up arguing too many different things at once.I still think that the guy who steps in might have value, but I think you need to limit how ridiculous his salary is until the company actually makes enough money to pay him that much.
Link to post
Share on other sites
Sure there's things you can point to, but when you branch outside of this city it becomes pretty insignificant.
Well I used a Chicago example so you could relate it to your self. Now take a national company that has offices all over the country an apply the same logic.
I was with you at first. Got caught up arguing too many different things at once.I still think that the guy who steps in might have value, but I think you need to limit how ridiculous his salary is until the company actually makes enough money to pay him that much.
I don't disagree, nobody will. But if a guy comes in and saves a billion dollars for a company, even if they don't technically turn a profit. That is a huge, huge value and deserves to be compensated for. Again, it may be down the road, or with stock options, preferred stock, etc.Amazon.com operated at a loss for years while it was being created. In fact the CEO in the late 90's actually said that there was no foreseeable future when they will have a profit, but they were still compensated very nicely.
Link to post
Share on other sites
Well I used a Chicago example so you could relate it to your self. Now take a national company that has offices all over the country an apply the same logic.I don't disagree, nobody will. But if a guy comes in and saves a billion dollars for a company, even if they don't technically turn a profit. That is a huge, huge value and deserves to be compensated for. Again, it may be down the road, or with stock options, preferred stock, etc.Amazon.com operated at a loss for years while it was being created. In fact the CEO in the late 90's actually said that there was no foreseeable future when they will have a profit, but they were still compensated very nicely.
I can't really argue with that. As long as there's some decent reasoning behind it, it's fine with me.
Link to post
Share on other sites

Know what I think might actually help. (Based on my simple ideas)Double the minimum wage. (And obviously balance the middle areas somewhat proportionately) It would have to force companies to funnel some money back to the bottom. That's what we really need, money at the bottom so there's actually something to flow back upwards.Only issue would then be inflation. It's always growing faster than it should be. Inflation seems to be based on the top tier, and it should be based on the bottom.

Link to post
Share on other sites
It's certainly pretty well known that current minimum wages cannot keep pace with cost of living. Same is true here in Canada, if to a slightly lesser extent.
Then maybe they should do that instead of giving 700m to the companies that lost the money in the first place.
Link to post
Share on other sites
Well I thought we were getting somewhere...Until this
What problem can you possibly have with this?If you can pay the top guys whatever the hell you want, I think you should be able to bump up things all the way down the line. How can you argue for both sides of this?
Link to post
Share on other sites
What problem can you possibly have with this?
I am afraid that you are serious right now.You actually want to pay people to work at McDonalds $16.00 an hour? That would make the economy collapse overnight. $.99 menu would be the $5.00 menu.EDIT: McDonalds has about 400,000 employees. < than 1% are earning top executive dollars. 300,000 or so are around min wage. Simple math.
Link to post
Share on other sites
I am afraid that you are serious right now.You actually want to pay people to work at McDonalds $16.00 an hour? That would make the economy collapse overnight. $.99 menu would be the $5.00 menu.
I told you, the inflation needs to somehow not go up with the wage.But as it stands now... minimum wage is not enough to even eat off the dollar menu. How does that somehow seem like the right thing to you?
Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

Announcements


×
×
  • Create New...