The Economy vs. The Stimulus Package

I was watching the president’s speech the other night and had a few thoughts. First of all, it was a great speech and very inspiring. I think we all hope that this mess can be fixed and I am optimistic but with certain reservations. When you look at what got us here you have to think of the motivation that led us to such ruin and that would be unbridled greed. These rich bastards, you know the bankers and corporate CEO’s, have no clue as to what makes the economy tick. All they care about is hoarding money. It’s like the old saying “He with the most toys wins”. All they care about is getting the most money they can before they die and screw everybody else. Not a very altruistic bunch of folks, and mostly self serving by nature. Quite despicable!

I look at the economy as a big water fountain in the middle of the town square that everybody contributes to and therefore gets to enjoy. The fountain has a pump (business) that draws in water (money) from a pool and circulates the water through the fountain. When it rains (profit) the pool fills up and can even flow over (windfall) and the pump will keep the water flowing and everybody is allowed to get water from the pool and all is well. But when there is no rain, the pool gets lower and has to be refilled (investment or reinvestment) or the pool will dry up and the pump will cease to function. Now when times are hard and the pool is low and everybody needs water, a few of our citizens (the wealthy or elite) are allowed to go to the pool and fill up their buckets while the rest of us don’t even know that it’s going on. So, when I hear that all these banks and insurance companies get to fill their buckets it makes me sick.

Why the hell would we give money to the very same people that wasted it in the first place? If we are to get the economy going again we need to give the money to the consumers not the bankers that like to hoard it and dole it out as they see fit. This, apparently, does not work. They are talking about getting the credit markets moving and making loans available to businesses and such, but isn’t this how we got into this mess in the first place? More loans means more debt and I don’t know about you but I have all the debt I need right now. What they should do in my opinion is give the money to the consumer. That $700 billion that they gave the banks should be distributed to every homeowner to pay down their debt. Let’s look at what might happen….say there are 20 million homeowners and you divide that $700 billion by 20 million and it works out to $35,000 each. Now if every homeowner had $35,000 to pay down their mortgage and pay off their credit cards wouldn’t that help the pump keep flowing? The banks would be happy and people could get out of debt and consumer spending would stabilize and even increase.

The next thing we would need to do is round up all these greedy corrupt corporate greed pigs and put them on an island somewhere where they can’t cause any more trouble. There is a show on TNT called “Leverage” and last nights episode was a perfect example of the greedy corporate CEO who had absolute authority to dictate policy and that usually meant squeezing every penny from their customers any way they could to fill their pockets and those of their “shareholders” (read: rich investors). In the end he was stripped of all his assets and faced legal proceedings. Yeah, I know, it is just a show but wouldn’t that be great if that could happen to people like Bernie Madoff and those like him.

When I see corporate CEO’s getting multi-million dollar salaries and bonuses it makes my skin crawl. If somebody can’t live on a couple of million dollars or even half-a-million a year then there is something wrong with our society. Our capitalist greed and corporate monopolies are creating a society of elitists and slowly dissipating the middle class, which is the life blood of our economy. If I hear one more rich CEO say “I work hard for my money”, somehow implying that the rest of us don’t,
I’m going to hit somebody. When they imply that they work harder than the carpenters, steel workers or any other trade or profession out there it just pisses me off. They rose to their position mainly because they had the education or stepped on the right people to make their way there. There are a lot of educated people out there that work hard everyday to make a life in the American dream without having to step on others. Honest, hardworking people that deserve more than these dishonest, unethical yahoos.

Sorry for the rant, but now that I’ve got that off my chest I feel better.