Word (at this writing) is that the Government is going to take a $100 billion stake in Citicorp tomorrow.
Meanwhile, f*** you General Motors!
Why are financial institutions who produce nothing more important than manufacturers?
Surely no one thinks the banks are better managed than GM and that they don’t deserve to go down the drain just as fast.
And please tell me it isn’t anything as venal as Treasury officials work at financial institutions — and the current crop of Treasury officials will be returning there on January 21st — but none of them ever worked for General Motors.
FWIW, I completely agree the auto manufacturers are much more deserving of help (in the form of investment, management changes, rational plans for the future, etc.) than financial institutions, who are arguably the ones who triggered this mess.
Hey – I’m in the financial industry and I think GM is more deserving of some sort of “rescue” than the financial institutions are. This whole thing is so jacked up and I’m sick of being in the middle of it and I don’t want to play anymore. I’m taking my toys and I’m going home.
I say take all the money the Feds have been using to bail out any corporations and use it to create family wage jobs for all the millions of people who are getting screwed by these corporations, and then let these corporations go down the toilet.
They could start by building bridges, highways, sewers, water mains, hospitals, schools and factories.
Perhaps all these talented and hard-working people who are currently or soon to be unemployed will do bang-up job getting our economy healthy again, unlike the greedy people who have nearly buried our economy.
At least we would be getting something for our money.
I was pretty hard on Detroit, but I’m with you here. Quite frankly, the cynic in me says Washington is bailing out the finance industry because they sort of ‘get’ the finance industry (overprivileged white collar schmucks). Whereas Detroit involves not only overprivileged white collar schmucks but people who actually make a living making something other than money. I just don’t think Washingtonians can quite wrap their brains around that whole ‘work for a living’ thing.
SnoLepard – can our current service economy workers actually build bridges?
Are we at a level of desperation that will have former “mortgage brokers” trade in their girly loafers for work boots at 1/2 the pay? And can they get a bridge built you want to drive on?
Or perhaps we need a new WPA, that focuses on “services”?
Emmett, there are countless trained construction workers in need of work. As the economy tanks, one of the first things to cease is new building. In fact, the construction trades are often hit hardest in down times because no one else has money to spend on new building (and that includes local governments). Also, many aspects of building schools and hospitals, for example, involve decorating and stocking the interiors of those buildings. There is plenty of work for all skill levels. I can’t figure out why we haven’t been doing this all along. You can give a man (or woman) a hand-out and feed them for a month, or you can give them a job and turn them into tax-payers.
And don’t forget, when the construction workers are getting paid, they are spending money on houses, cars, electronics, food, entertainment, and services, so everyone else benefits, too.
Debby beat me to it. But I’m talking about trickle up economics.
And the mortgage brokers can sink or swim. They can learn to do jobs that are available or not work, the same as everyone else.