The massive bailout of Wall Street was deemed as necessary a short while back, even by those that advocated Friedman’s idiotic ideals about a Free-Market economy. Both Presidential candidates backed the bailout, and while everyone seemed to be trying to save the financial markets from collapsing entirely, it remains to be seen if the blank checks we are giving out will actually prove to be the best idea. Hopefully the jack-asses from AIG will try to at least cut down on luxury outings, as taxpayers paying for them to have a relaxing weekend seems too idiotic for words. While AIG has insisted that the luxury outing in Phoenix was for independent financial planners, and payed mostly by others, the fact that we are helping to pay ANYTHING so that so-called independent planners can have some fun sickens me.
But what caught my eye was some quotes from the Republican Minority Leader in the Senate, Jon Kyl from Arizona. As the debate continues as to whether or not we should allocate taxpayer money to help the U.S. automakers, Kyl said; ”I suppose most of us will oppose it as a very bad idea,” he said in reference to Senate Republicans. “This didn’t happen to the auto companies overnight. For years they’ve been sick. They have a bad business model. They have contracts negotiated with the United Auto Workers that impose huge costs.”
He also noted ; “companies fail every day and others take their place.” Kyl says, “Just giving them $25 billion doesn’t change anything.”
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I do wonder what he was thinking when he said that companies fail every day, and others take their place, as Kyl voted for the Wall Street bailout bill. And the statements regarding how the auto industry has been sick for years seems a bit odd too, seeing as how the financial markets have screwed up so badly, and this had been years in coming. So how is it that the U.S. automakers are now failing because of their own inept behavior, while Wall Street seems to have been given a pass on everything they have done wrong? Make no mistake, the automakers lobbied heavily to delay things like raising fuel standards, as they were making a fortune of the sales of SUVs and trucks, but how are we not supposed to notice that the banking and finance industry was doing something very similar, leveraging themselves far beyond any reasonable point, and facing near-collapse because of it. Both of these industries were reckless, and are now in some pretty deep crapola because of it.
Democrats that are advocating this bailout are stipulating that such help will not come without conditions, unlike the insane plan to hand out well over 700 billion to Wall Street, only to be told we cannot know how a fair portion of the money is being allocated.
