Where would we be today?

[kentuck]

If the Big Banks had not been "bailed out"? If General Motors had not been "bailed out"? If the "stimulus" package had not been passed? Would we be better off or worse off? Or would we be in about the same situation?

This is really the question that every voter will be wrestling with come November. Would we have been better off with John McCain and Sarah Pain in the White House?? Would we have been better off with more tax cuts for the wealthy, rather than a stimulus bill?

What would be our unemployment rate today if the above measures had not been taken? There are many arguments on both sides but no one can say with certainty where we would be today.

What would the world look like today with a McCain Presidency?

[TwilightGardener]

1. Shit creek, no paddle.

[applegrove]

13. Yup.

[Greyhound]

2. This is a question for a book, not a message board.

It's just too big, but I think today we would be more hurt yet still better off looking forward. The problems with our economy are systemic and they will not be addressed w/o a collapse. Thanks to pretending that doing more of the same will yield different results, we'll get another bite at it.
:kick: & R

[FBI_Un_Sub]

3. Worse in short run -- much worse

Better in long range -- after much intervening dislocation and unemployment.

[lunatica]

4. Well we'd be at war with Iran so that means more jobs as soldiers

Plus no telling what other countries we could go to war with. The making of more weapons would create more jobs too.

And drill baby drill would have been implemented immediately so this little mishap wouldn't be so bad because the MSM would just ignore it as usual and therefore the problem wouldn't exist. Building more oil rigs would help unemployment too.

We'd have more coal mines too. More jobs there.

Who needs American car companies anyway. We'll buy foreign and happy to do it if it destroys those hateful unions that are so bad for the economy.

As for all those poor people well they can fend for themselves. They don't deserve health care because they're lazy. That's why they're poor. To hell with them. They're a drag on the greatest country in the world anyway.

And besides, our economy is fundamentally still good just like McCain said in 2008.

[tridim]

5. There would be no "bikini" graph to talk about

Just a steady decline in job losses as far as the eye can see.

However I don't equate TARP with the stimulous package. They're two entirely different things implimented by two completely different administrations.

[kentuck]

6. But Obama supported the TARP...

and expanded it's impact once in office, did he not?

[tridim]

8. He would have lost the election had he not voted for it.

And the expansion includes getting paid back with interest, which also wouldn't have happened had Obama not won.

[mrcheerful]

7. Lets see employment would be nill, out sourcing more jobs going to China

Social Security/medicare would be privatized with the stock market crashing every other day. People would be either abandoning their homes or fore closers would be so high that people would be moving from state to state looking for jobs that were there until they were moved to China the week before. Tar paper shacks and over pass living would be nation wide with 1,000's living in them.

Only the top 10% would have any health insurance, hospitals would be sleeping stations where it would take up to a month before anyone could see an emergency room doctor before hospitals started closing. Gas would be $10 a gallon and no effort to stop the gulf oil mess. Palin would be doing stump speechs blaming the Dem senate for all the countries ill's while raiding whatever was left of tax dollars, but hey her and her brood would have new shoes for the year.

Everyone would be getting bible style justice, abortion providers would be open hunting season, women that had abortions would be rounded up and given life imprisonment or the DP. Pat Robertson would be a judge on the S court. Schools would close all science classes and replace them with bible study. Women would loose all rights given in the last 100 years. Just to name a few of the nit wits wet dreams.

[Donnachaidh]

9. you honestly think if McCain had won, there would have been NO bail out?

Must be nice living in a fantasy world. :sarcasm:

There would have had to be a bail out, regardless of WHO was in the WH. And anyone who says it wouldn't have been done if Gramps was in office -- needs SERIOUS medication for delusions.

:eyes:

[kentuck]

11. You are correct.

Whomever had won the election would have bailed out the banks. Because it was intended to stop a world-wide depression and to save the economic system. That is what the "experts" told us. Experts like Hank Paulson, George W Bush, and Timothy Geithner. Who would dare to question them? Who had the expertise?

[Taitertots]

10. We could have just taken the money/easy credit and put it toward productive enterprises

How much better would we be if GM and AIG went down, and instead of bailing them out, we bailed in green technology. If we extended trillions in zero real interest rate loans to green technology and green infrastructure.

No question we needed some sort of bailout. There is no reason it had to be institutionalized theft to cover gambling losses.

[branders seine]

12. question 1--better off economically

question 2--same place, but with a slightly stronger auto workers union
question 3--about the same place; stimulus portions of the "stimulus" were too watered down with Obama's rapublican tax nonsense to do much good.