Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Feeling Fleeced?

If not, you should. I've repeatedly said that I am no economist, and I don't really have a concrete understanding of everything that is going on. I'm going by some basic common sense and gut instinct. Here's what I think:

The large...no the enormous sums of money that the Federal government is using to bail out the economy...the banks, AIG (I'm so foaming-at-the-mouth livid about this I have to ignore the news), TARP, and on down the list...is simply a way for certain (few) folks to line their pockets at taxpayer expense. It's a free for all and we are essentially printing money and handing out. (Note that I heard the Treasury printed $1 trillion last week.)

The problem is, they are not making the money available to the common man, woman and child where it would do the most good. Give an entity a couple of billion dollars and watch what happens. Nothing. The money goes into a black hole. It makes the entity whole again, in theory. It makes the board of directors whole again, in theory. It makes the stockholders (owners) whole again, in theory. It makes the banks' creditors whole again, in theory - a good thing.

Once made whole after huge losses, do you think they are going to go out and put those funds at risk again? No. You are going to hold on to it. You are most definitely going to hold on to it.

And there it is.

The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.

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