If we actually had to cut a check for our share of this freakin financial bailout how much would yours be? The total cost is estimated to be 700 billion dollars. That's a number that is so big it's hard to wrap your head around. They might as well say it's 700 gazillion, because to the average guy on the street a billion is incomprehensible.
Assuming there are 300 million people in the US then each person would owe $2333. So the share for my family of 5 is over $11k.
700 billion is a staggering number. Where is it going to come from. The US is already 10 trillion in the hole (give or take a trillion). A trillion is another number that is so big mortals cannot begin to understand it. It's like one of those scribbles a theoretical physicist writes on a board to explain why the universe weighs more than it should.
And the biggest question of them all is "how is this bailout going to help me?". Well it's not going to help you or me. Other than hopefully keeping the US out of another great depression the average Joe gets no benefit from this. The banks benefit, Wall street benefits, but the average Joe gets squat....again. This is not going to help the foreclosure crisis. It's likely to make it worse. There is now ZERO incentive for banks to save a loan. Why would they? when they can just unload it on the taxpayers.
I'd like to see a few added provisions to this bailout. I'd like to see some of that 700 billion spent on tracking down every last person that helped create this mess. From hedge fund managers right down to the strawberry picker that lied on their mortgage application. If the government is going to buy all the toxic waste from the banks with our tax dollars then I want the banks to offer low interest loans to home buyers. If our tax dollars are being spent to fix this mess then we should be able to get a low interest loan (as long as we can actually qualify). It seems only fair that we should get some benefit after bailing out the banks.
This whole thing just pisses me off. It's hard to believe that our so called leaders could not see this mess coming. Did they think we could all just keep spending more and more for ever. Did they think that houses doubling in price every 5 years was a good thing. Did any of them stop and ask themselves who would be able to afford to live in the US in 20 years if this kept up.