Now this is one near and dear to my heart! Since our lovely little economy is down the toilet, and being out of work, you have time to contemplate all the things that went wrong. Of the many blunders made along the way, this is one of my favorites!
$700 billion of the tax payers’ money was sent to the banks to jumpstart the economy. Why not? The housing market was crashing and nobody had money to lend… Trickle down theory, that always works, right? Yeah, always works to make rich people wealthy! Basically, they passed a bill to hand over a ton of money to the banks, but left out the part saying “oh by the way, you HAVE to lend this money out!” I mean, how hard is it? Just a little sentence to create accountability for this massive sum of money. But no… what happens? That’s right, you just have bank owners handing out massive layoffs or shutting down completely and making off like bandits.
Someday, when we look back at the Great Depression II, I hope they play some Benny Hill music as they watch “The Greatest Bloopers of The 21st Century” on the History Channel. Of course, this isn’t what killed the economy… but it didn’t help a whole lot. Oh, and by the way, the trickle down theory NEVER WORKS! I don’t understand why economists think this will, but it never has and never will.
Oh well… what can ya do?
You’re forgetting that the banks are taking that bailout money that we’re being taxed for and are lending it back to us with interest rates. In truth, they are borrowing money from us (interest free) and lending it right back to us at super interest rates.
I don’t think you’re giving reaganomics enough credit. Trickle-down does work sometimes. I mean when you consistently throw bags of cash at the companies, you’re bound to have them accidentally drop a dollar or two (though I wouldn’t count on it). It’s fine though, because we’ll end up spending that dropped money on them anyway -.-
I think I’d rather keep my money and charge my own interest… sigh… And as an additional hurt, the national interest rate levels are rock bottom, so even our bank/savings/bond accounts get barely anything back.
Sigh… you’re right about that! sadly… if there was only a way to “butter up” their sticky fingers to help increase the drop rate. >)