Tell me the difference again??

[kentuck]

Between bailing out the auto makers and bailing out Bear Stearns and AIG?? Between giving the banks $700 billion in a bailout and giving the manufacturing cornerstone of our country, the auto makers, $50 billion in a bailout??

I know there are those that say we have bailed out the banks to save our capitalist system and to prevent our economy from going into a depression. But would not the refusal to save our auto industry do exactly that - send us into a deep depression? How can we afford one but not the other?

[liberalmuse]

1. It's looking like the Bail Out is going to the wealthy, investor class.

and fuck the working class. It's our money, and it's WRONG. There is a difference. Paulson and Bush are playing the same ol' 'trickle down' game we've been seeing for a couple decades now, and it doesn't work! The money needs to go where it will do the most good--with the working and middle class who are the backbone of this country, and who are struggling right now. And yes, this is class warfare.

Anyway, we need to go from a credit society to a cash and barter society.

[ColbertWatcher]

2. Good questions.

The difference is that one is done before the other.

We accepted the first one not realizing that there would ever be the need for a second one.

When we allowed the first one, subsequently found out we were fucked over by the details, it was almost as if we'd been played just so a second bailout would be unpalatable.

Yeah, we got played. It's a damn good thing, though, that we have that tiny stop-gap measure at $350 billion.

[Kutjara]

3. Supposedly, bailing out the banks was intended...

...to enable them to continue extending credit to sound businesses. If banks were allowed to go broke, so the reasoning went, there'd be no one left to lend money, so all of industry would grind to a halt.

Of course, the reality is that the banks have simply taken the money and sat on it (or, as in AIG's case, paid it out in fat bonuses to their senior employees), so industry is still grinding to a halt.

As a result, companies like GM and Chrysler, who should have been the direct beneficiaries of the credit-loosening the $700 billion was intended to achieve, are instead in precisely the same position they would have been if the bailout hadn't occurred at all.

It's "strategic industries" like automaking that the government should have invested in, not the "get rich quick" numbers racket on Wall Street. After all, why would a banker want to take a risk on a loan on which he'll make maybe 0.5%, when he can just sit around and wait for Uncle Sam to hand him billions?

Of course, investing in the auto industry would allow them to continue making the same kind of outdated, low quality, inefficient vehicles that were slowly killing "The Big 3" long before the "credit crunch" finished the job, but that strikes me as a lesser evil in the short term than the alternative.

[kentuck]

4. And what's this crap about....?

Well, since we have given the money already to Paulson and the Treasury, there is nothing we can do about it - even if he wants to spend it on pizza and beer? Did not they vote that $700 billion with conditions?? I thought it was to save the bad assets, the foreclosed mortgages, that all the banks were holding? As I recall, they told us we faced a possible collapse if we didn't get the money before the weekend. It didn't happen. Where is the Congressman that will say, WTF!?

[rucky]

5. In fairness, automakers actually MAKE something.

FWIW.

[ColoradoMagician]

8. Yeah, and those are skilled workers.

The union folks are trained to do work that makes them shower have to shower when they get home. I don't think we should just let them bear this brunt.

[prayin4rain]

6. Simple, one helps the super rich, one helps the middle class n/t

[stray cat]

7. Banks were to keep money and credit flowing supposedly

hoping to save company meltdowns downstream because how do you bail out ever company and state that needs it?