Bail-out schmail-out

My poor husband has had to deal with a very grumpy version of my normally sunshine-y self for the past few days. Probably it's brain chemistry but the object of my anger has been the economic bail-out and surrounding hubbub. So, I'm going to share with you the opinion I've developed. If you don't feel like reading to the bottom, here's the synopsis: I hate the bail-out, I dislike Nancy Pulosi, and I feel consternation towards my beloved Barack Obama. Also, I dis-like being blamed (as a democrat) for things that everybody first hated and then reluctantly voted for. Finally, I think Paulson is a crook.

Now, here's my rant. I am responding to a question about why the "democrats want to bail out GM" and an assertion that, if you want to know, you should ask John Lewis.

First of all, this is the same $700 billion that we're talking about, the $700 billion that everyone agreed should be used to "save the economy". And, for the record, John Lewis voted against the bail-out initially, before everyone got bullied into it with the whole "financial armagedon" argument. There was no real plan for the $700 bilion. It was just a number pulled out of a hat. So now it's up for grabs. It was $700 billion that never existed but now it's a giant number that can be used to bail out whomever.

Clearly, this is a situation like the weapons of mass destruction, wherein we realize we've had our chain yanked and then we can't figure out how to get out of it. I'm not sure that it's a great idea to have a banker (i.e., Paulson) in charge of deciding that some infinite amount of money should be allocated exclusively to bailing out banks. I also think that if we have a giant pile of money available to bail people out, particularly people who have behaved quite badly (i.e., subprime lenders and leveragers), why not preserve the jobs of hardworking wage earners. I mean, bailing out GM seems dumb but, seriously? The leveraging and the subprime mortgages is, you know, unethical, as opposed to just bad management.

So, then, my friend said: Good point, Sara. [that's my favorite part]

Not in favor of the $$ going to AIG either, but I guess I just assumed that if the people in the know say it was necessary to prevent the financial collapse of our entire economic system, I believed they knew better than I. Now I'm hearing things like the artificial propping up will, in the long run, make things worse. I don't want half a million hard working folks to lose their jobs, but I wonder what happens if there's no bailout? Will someone buy those factories? Does another automaker move into that gap in the market and potentially make use of that workforce? Where do the people who are owed pensions fall in line when GM's debtors line up during bankruptcy?

I think that these are all excellent points that my friend made and Kevin made similar ones last night when I was screaming at him in the car. He was sort of whispering...I wonder if I should apologize... Anyway, another thing that Kevin said is that he doesn't just want to give them more money to buy more steel so that they can make more Chevy Tahoes that nobody wants. And this is an excellent point. But my Barack Obama is in favor of the GM bailout! I suggested that maybe this is a good opportunity for him to start implementing one of his stated goals, which is to get American automakers in the green business. To create jobs while also putting more fuel-efficient vehicles on the road. When you give out money, you get to make all sorts of conditions, right? I hope?

Finally, I promised that I would discuss Nancy Pelosi. I find that I don't like her. I don't like agreeing with Republicans if I can help it but I do find her to be sort of combative and partisan and I find that when she talks, whatever she's talking about sounds like a bad idea. She has this sort of textbook "bleeding heart liberal" tone that really gets under my skin. Like she's constantly saying, "Has anybody considered the downy moth?" in the face of an argument about a labor dispute. I realize that, in this case, she's on the side of the workers but, somehow, I get that overly-liberal vibe. I get the feeling that she thinks that giant piles of money are the best solution to any problem and that this money is being withheld from her and her cause out of hatefulness and greed, rather than that money is a finite resource that needs to be parsed out with careful consideration. The problem that I've noticed is that now no one is considering money as a finite resource. Everyone is just making up giant numbers and saying that anyone who wants to withhold the money is trying to bring down catastrophe on all our heads. So, I find it hard to pick a side.