Down the Rathole Again
Apr. 6th, 2009 12:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithThe government is again proposing to throw huge bundles of cash down the rathole to banks. I am disgusted.
Off the top of my head, I'd rather see that money spent on providing affordable health care to people who don't have any right now, or education, or green energy, homeowner rescue, or direct job creation. Supposing a modestly decent salary of $25,000 that amount would create 40 million jobs. We could pick 40 pretty big projects that need work and put a million people on each of them. Aim for areas that don't require much if any extra materials, where it's a shortage of money to hire people for things already in progress, and that will reduce overhead. But you could take out a fifth of that money for processing and materials, and still leave the salaries at a decent $20,000/year. That would benefit a lot of people directly, and get a lot of things done, and it would be better than pissing away another trillion dollars on rich imbeciles who apparently can't count without taking off their thousand-dollar shoes.
A Trillion Dollars for the Banks: How About a Second Opinion?
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner wants to have the government lend up to a trillion dollars to hedge funds, private equity, funds and the banks themselves to clear their books of toxic assets. The plan implies a substantial subsidy to the banks. It is likely to result in the disposal of these assets at far above market value, with the government picking up the losses.
As much as we all want to help out the Wall Street bankers in their hour of need, taxpayers may reasonably ask whether this is the best use of our money.
Off the top of my head, I'd rather see that money spent on providing affordable health care to people who don't have any right now, or education, or green energy, homeowner rescue, or direct job creation. Supposing a modestly decent salary of $25,000 that amount would create 40 million jobs. We could pick 40 pretty big projects that need work and put a million people on each of them. Aim for areas that don't require much if any extra materials, where it's a shortage of money to hire people for things already in progress, and that will reduce overhead. But you could take out a fifth of that money for processing and materials, and still leave the salaries at a decent $20,000/year. That would benefit a lot of people directly, and get a lot of things done, and it would be better than pissing away another trillion dollars on rich imbeciles who apparently can't count without taking off their thousand-dollar shoes.
