Debate:$700 billion dollars

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So congress may, or may not, bail out the banks with $700 billion dollars. Is this a good use of the money? If not, what else could it be spent on - assuming it is going to be spent?

For example, what would it cost to set up an American health service?--Bob^{bing up} 15:15, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

So congress may, or may not, bail out the banks with $700 billion dollars. Is this a good use of the money? If not, what else could it be spent on - assuming it is going to be spent?

This is a ridiculous, over inflated, fear driven use of any money by the us government in a "spend frenzy" to once again put more money in teh pocket of the rich, less in the pockets of everyone else. Want to really change anything? 1) go ahead and appropriate the 700 billion but do not spend any of it. 2) have a dollar for dollar accounting of who will get what of the FIRST 200 billion. Justify where each dollar goes. this is typical if an individual were to declare bankruptcy, why not ask teh same of mega corps. 3) use 100 M to help those individuals who did not understand the language of the loans, or did not know their houses were over valued, or did not anticipate being laid off - provide for them 1-3 months mortgage payments (to be paid back out of their taxes, in small increments), and force the banks to renegotiate the loans to something realistic, and require the home owners sell but allow the loss to be written off by the banks and NOT tax included by the homeowners. (that is, right now if you go into short sale and the bank writes off teh 30,000 loss on the loan, you must list taht as "income" on your personal taxes). 4)Wait. 5) talk with some experts, watch carefully. 6) Wait some more. 7) decide if the next dole out of 100 billion is necessary... repete 2-7 until things stabolize. TIME IS NOT CRITICAL HERE. this is not an emergency like Ike or Katrina are emergencies. This is an "emergency" like the greenhouse is an emergency. we really have to act, but time here is relative.--En attendant Godot_{""We are all born mad. Some remain so."} 15:20, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

(EC) Look, there's a lot of things you could spend 3/4 of a trillion bucks on--but precious little of it would matter in the midst of a global banking meltdown. A fire extinguisher might cost a lot of money, but there's not a lot of point in discussing what else we could spend the money on while the house is on fire. Bush Inc and Congress and the capitalists who ultimately are responsible for this boondoggle let this get out of hand and ignored it until the time for debating "what to do" was long last being a moot point. PFoster 15:23, 26 September 2008 (EDT)