How To Attack The Root Problem
The bailout of Wall Street failed to pass the House of Representatives. Whether you were for it, against, disinterested, or what ever is now immaterial. The question is, how to halt the root cause(s) of the problem? Here are some things to think about, and I'm not claiming that I'm right, I'm just throwing them out there:
All sides seem to agree that the main problem is the housing market and foreclosures. Now, I'm NOT an economist, but what if the mortgage holders were forced to take less money from the homeowners, and payments were made affordable for the homeowners? What I'm getting at is, if I owe you $100,000, and I can't pay you back, would you rather get $75,000, and take the $25,000 hit, or would you prefer to foreclose, and when all is said and done, get $35,000 or $50,000? You write off the rest and move on with your life. For those homeowners who can't pay at pretty much any rate (perhaps due to the death or illness of the main income earner, for instance), then there would have to be another solution, including "possibly" some government involvement.
Then we need some kind of further stimulus plan to get money into the hands of the "non rich." No rebates or tax cuts for the rich. They got plenty from this current administration. They will benefit when Americans spend the money at their businesses. Further, there needs to be a beefed up job training/retraining program for people who have lost jobs in industries that are in decline due to technology changes. There needs to be an extensive rebuilding of America: roads, bridges, waterways, the electric supply system, etc. This should help employ many, many people. And let's not forget new and developing energy sources, like wind, solar power and other things. This helps push these new energy sources along, and it diminishes our dependence on foreign sources of energy and in the current environmentally unfriendly energy sources.
When it comes down to it, it will cost a bundle, but it will go to the non rich, initially, at least. We've just seen that most Americans do NOT seem to want to give more money to the rich directly, either in tax cuts, which were proposed by the House Republicans, or in any bailout of big financial interests, which was just proposed by the Bush Administration.
All sides seem to agree that the main problem is the housing market and foreclosures. Now, I'm NOT an economist, but what if the mortgage holders were forced to take less money from the homeowners, and payments were made affordable for the homeowners? What I'm getting at is, if I owe you $100,000, and I can't pay you back, would you rather get $75,000, and take the $25,000 hit, or would you prefer to foreclose, and when all is said and done, get $35,000 or $50,000? You write off the rest and move on with your life. For those homeowners who can't pay at pretty much any rate (perhaps due to the death or illness of the main income earner, for instance), then there would have to be another solution, including "possibly" some government involvement.
Then we need some kind of further stimulus plan to get money into the hands of the "non rich." No rebates or tax cuts for the rich. They got plenty from this current administration. They will benefit when Americans spend the money at their businesses. Further, there needs to be a beefed up job training/retraining program for people who have lost jobs in industries that are in decline due to technology changes. There needs to be an extensive rebuilding of America: roads, bridges, waterways, the electric supply system, etc. This should help employ many, many people. And let's not forget new and developing energy sources, like wind, solar power and other things. This helps push these new energy sources along, and it diminishes our dependence on foreign sources of energy and in the current environmentally unfriendly energy sources.
When it comes down to it, it will cost a bundle, but it will go to the non rich, initially, at least. We've just seen that most Americans do NOT seem to want to give more money to the rich directly, either in tax cuts, which were proposed by the House Republicans, or in any bailout of big financial interests, which was just proposed by the Bush Administration.
Labels: financial crisis, foreclosures, housing crisis, stimulus package
posted by Randy at 3:30 PM
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