If the $700 billion Wall Street bailout means preserving jobs in this country; that is, preventing the unemployment rate from exceeding 10 percent, we've got to go for it.
A viable bailout plan must contain congressional oversight and "workouts" for homeowners, not to mention keeping an eye on CEO compensation.
More important than McCain being an idiot is the fact that he's an erratic idiot.
Whether we like golden parachutes or not, the current financial crisis is about jobs and American productivity. If it can be shown that unemployment will skyrocket, well then, they've got us by the balls. We have to spend the money to keep the country from going down the tubes.
However, any substantial bailout will ultimately lead to higher taxes and/or inflation, which means an increased cost of living. But, the bulk of us will be working-- yes, struggling-- yet somehow still getting through this. Better than selling apples on the corner, not?
The brains in this whole operation seems to be Bernanke, who's an expert in financial crises. His academic career has been spent studying the Great Depression, the problems of Japan in the 90s, the recent financial crisis in Sweden. His basic take on it all is that government has got to take action, dramatic action, to prevent a prolonged downturn. Can we trust Professor Bernanke?
What I'm surprised at is there have been no noticeable whistle blowers in the advent of this financial Three Mile Island. The tainted milk crisis in China is exposing concerned Chinese citizens and officials who tried to put a stop to the addition of melamine to baby milk. (Melamine is an industrial chemical used for tanning leather and making plastics which can artificially boost the supposed protein content of milk, dog food, etc.) Does this mean that nearly everyone in the U.S., with regard to the financial crisis, was either so duped or so stupid that they couldn't see this coming (i.e., making unqualified loans to millions of customers)?
McCain is showing himself to be a scarry dude in all this. He's thoroughly erratic, knee jerk, shoot from the hip, impulsive. You pick the appropriate adjective that describes him as unfit to hold high office. I mean he almost looks unstable, unhinged, confused, obfuscating, petulant, peevish. Wait, let me get out my thesaurus.
Oh yeah: bad-tempered, cantankerous, crabbed, cranky, cross, disagreeable, fretful, grouchy, grumpy, ill-tempered, irascible, irritable, nasty, querulous, snappish, snappy, surly, testy, ugly, waspish.
And those may be his positive qualities.