RealEstate Progress will bring up the economy rapidly, but the banks need to corporate,
especially the ones that took buyout. This should be a part of the deal.
I am not sure what your question is, but your statement is far more perceptive than most I see on Y!A. The bailout itself was heavily tilted by the power, wealth, and political influence of its benefactors solely in favor of those benefactors.
The callous greed of these benefactors is evidenced in their obdurate opposition to any contribution on their part to rebuilding our economy. We helped the wrong people.
We would have acted much more prudently had we bailed out most of the people who have lost their homes to foreclosure. The banks and other speculators holding questionable mortgages would have been paid off and thereby avoided bankruptcy without the hundreds of billions we poured directly into their coffers. Millions of homeowners would still have their homes; these houses would not be flooding the market depressing the value of residential estate.
With millions of people able to keep their homes and their equity, personal spending would not have fallen as precipitously as it did. Portfolios would not have lost their value; as a result, the big banks, insurance companies, etc., would have remained solvent and would have been able to keep all (or most of) their employees. With more people able to spend money, fewer businesses would have lost their customers. With more businesses solvent, fewer people would have lot their jobs.
The bailouts accomplished very little beyond quickly restoring to a few ultra-rich speculators and to monopolistic Corporate America the wealth (and much more) that they had lost in the early part of the recession. Now these corporations sit awash in $2 trillion, which they do not invest, their promises to do so notwithstanding.
We can still salvage our economy. Since the greedy elite will not invest this immense treasure without assurance of immediate profit, we should take much of that idle capital through taxation and spend it on rebuilding and modernizing our infrastructure. Doing so would not be MAKING work; it is doing work that is long overdue. In the process, we could put millions of Americans back to work--and back to spending and restarting our economy.
