On Feb 4, 2009, at 9:51 PM, Charles Bennett wrote: > My problem is that I don't see how the stimulus package helps. It > literally fires up the printing presses and creates money out of thin > air > to give to the people that screwed it up in the first place. They > turn around and go to Vegas unless the reporters follow them around > 24/7 and your average person, little less a low income person, > still can't get a loan for a house.
FWIW, don't confuse the stimulus (bill pending in Congress) with the bailout (TARP). The bailout involved throwing money at the banks that screwed up in the first place under a nearly complete veil of secrecy, without much of an impression that Paulson knew what he was doing. I'm curious what the Obama administration is going to do, but I don't think they've said too much yet. The goal is to increase credit flow. I'm not fundamentally for or against it, because frankly I don't really understand what's been done, other than people I don't trust threw a lot of money at other people I don't trust. The stimulus bill is about attempting to jumpstart an economy in which there is far more unused supply than demand, because of high unemployment and (justified) fear: people either don't have money or won't spend it. The idea, I think, is to artificially raise demand by pumping money into the economy. Hence the emphasis on projects that create jobs, like repairing roads, building trains, renovating government buildings, funding research, etc. etc. Because it's deficit spending, it's money out of thin air, and that'll probably cause inflation and other problems, but the idea is that those problems will be easier to deal with than a dead economy and massive unemployment. At any rate, the stimulus and the bailout are different projects aimed at different aspects of the bad economy. -Patrick _______________________________________________ OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected] http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters List hosted at http://cat5.org/
