8 Trillion so far this depression - what did you get?

[Warren Stupidity]

I got bupkiss.

I've got a new idea for a bailout plan. Rather than continuing to pour trillions into the Wall Street vortex, how about just initiating a general income tax moratorium? Starting Jan 20, the fed would stop collecting, and companies would stop withholding, all income tax (not FICA, income tax) from paychecks. Until further notice. No repayment required. By Executive Order.

[Phred42]

1. I didn't even get a Butt-kiss

[snappyturtle]

2. Headaches. nt

[begin_within]

3. The bill for it.

Or my descendants get it anyway.

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. ha. ! My way grown kids refuse to breed.

So take that ! Mr. taxman.

And the rest of our family is un-employed.
Hah ! again.

Gotcha, revenooers.

[fascisthunter]

4. Remember What Conservatives Claimed when Bush Cut Taxes for the Upperclass?

So where's all that prosperity they promised? All a lie.... but hey, as long as folks have the ability to rationalize, they will find a way... just as long as they don't have to admit they were wrong.

[Greyhound]

5. Not even a fucking T-shirt.

Loss of my career, house, living standard, all my money.

Oh wait I did get a bankruptcy...

[pnwmom]

6. I don't understand the 8 trillion dollar figure you're using.

And Obama's plan is to spend further monies on infrastructure (bridges, roads, infrastructure) not to send additional "trillions into the Wall Street vortex" -- or to pour money randomly into the economy, which is what your suggestion would do.

[Warren Stupidity]

12. 8 trillion is one estimate of what the fed and the official government

have either directly poured into this mess, or committed themselves into pouring into it over the short term. Other estimates put the figure at 2T so far and counting. Who cares? What exactly did we get for (insert some astronomical number here)? Nothing. Nothing at all.

[pnwmom]

17. So far, there's been the $700 Billion bailout, not all of which has been

spent yet. What have we gotten from it? There's no way to tell -- we don't know how much harder and faster we might have fallen without it.

As far as what we could get from future money spent -- I'd rather it go to seriously needed infrastructure work than randomly spent or saved by individuals.

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

7. Unemployed.

[DoctorMyEyes]

9. A lowered credit limit on one card

and a higher interest rate on another.


I bitched about the higher rate on the Wamu - got nowhere - and finally just emailed back something snarky about how my heart was gonna break when they found their asses standing in the unemployment line.

Luckily there's no balance on the Amex with the lowered credit limit and a small balance on the Wamu with the higher interest. They can both kiss my ass. And the next letter I write will be to my representative asking that the banks that came crawling for a bailout be held to the same kinda standards as they've held their customers.

Oh, did we promise you 50 billion? We meant 12 billion - work with it.

[MineralMan]

10. Well, I got

my $1200 stimulus check today. I finally filed my 2007 1040 on October 15, as I always do. I thought the stimulus check deal was all over, but there it was in today's mail.

I'm stimulated to pay off one of my credit cards, then cancel it. They just raised the interest rate to 28%.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

11. We got a lot of platitudes from politicians and their bosses telling us it's good for us.

And, a big fat bill for them screwing us.

[taught_me_patience]

13. To be fair... only $3B has been used

but I haven't recieve shit except the potential of a big tax burden for the rest of my life.

[Warren Stupidity]

14. Indeed the other 5 is merely committed.

But I won't argue the full extent of the damage: it is some huge number that my family and yours now have an obligation to pay back. For which, as far as I can tell, none of us peasants have received anything at all in exchange.

[taught_me_patience]

15. Hopefully, some of the assets we are buying

are not worthless, and some of the loans we're making will be paid back. Under a worst-case scenario, our government is bankrupt and we will have to suffer bad consequences for a long time. And you're totally right... us peons have gotten nothing (except maybe a reprieve from full financial meltdown).

[Warren Stupidity]

16. They are already floating an official devaluation

Sure, over the long term, say 25 years, some of the assets we bought with our bonds might be used to pay of the debt incurred. Meanwhile an ocean of obligations are piling up, and the debt service on this crap is going to be ludicrous and crippling. They've completed their mission, they've drowned the baby in the bathtub. We should be congratulating them on a job well done. The layoffs are just starting to kick in. The private sector is just starting to shed jobs, and the public sector state governments are all facing devastating funding shortages that cannot be made up with tax increases. We are just starting to head into the abyss here, nobody has an f*ing clue how deep or wide this journey is going to be, other than 'deep' and 'wide'.