It seems our government(Both sides of the isle) is planning on paying $700 billion to bail out some to most of our financial institutions effected by this bad mortgage debt. While most, including myself, are not sure about whether this is a good thing, there is one thing I think everyone from both sides of the isle can agree on. A 2.5 billion dollar bonus for the execs who ran a company into bankruptcy paid prior to the taxpayers and the government picking up the tab should be criminal.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/3...okes-fury.html

I cant see anyone being for this, unless you are one of the people on the receiving end of the bonus. If you are a stockholder in Lehman, it ads insult to injury. If you are a U.S. taxpayer, I'm sure you feel that 2.5 billion could be used to lower the cost of the bailout. Is there some other way to see this?

Originally Posted by cbwm

Is there some other way to see this?

Sure, but none most people would call valid.

Fedyakin suggested resurrecting "debtor's prisons" to replace bankruptcy - if ever there was an arguably decent reason for such a thing, this is it.

On the other hand, capitalism is Darwinian system by definition, although conservatives squawk every time the law looks sideways at the market. By this popular philosophy, these companies should be allowed to fail. I don't know that I agree with that, but it's the only reasonable end to conservative, free (from government intrusion) method. Like it or not, government bailouts are communism. The Russians have Gazprom, and we have AIG. Go state run "free" market!

It's simple, you start with the guys at the top, the CEOs..

Take all their money.. Then go to the VPs, take all their money.. USe that for the bailout "first".. Then, if there is still debt to be paid, look at the bailout from that point on..

The issue is that in the previous administration rules were changed to allow insurance and mortgage to mix and mingle and also mandated getting less able people in to homes.. This started the strange mortgages we are seeing collapse now..

Before that, in the first Bush administration other rules were changed that contributed to the problem as well..

And as long as the economy was chugging along just fine, it worked.. But when it turned, as it "always" does, the cards started falling.. So we go back to the people that created the issue.. The Enrons, the AIGs, the Lehman Bros., etc, that allowed greed to cloud better business judgement.. And we force them to make it "right" by taking what can be viewed as "ill gotten gains" away from them and using that money to stabilize things..

But the "gubment" isn't alone in the blame for this.. I know people that 5 or 6 years ago were thrilled that they were able to "buy" 5 and 6 million dollar homes on $200k incomes by getting interest only loans and just planning on making more money later to pay for it.. It never happened.. Sort of strange to see people with that level of income turn homeless.. So there is plenty of blame to pass around..

Personally, I bought a home that I could afford.. It should be paid off in three years.. After living in it for just 11 years.. And once it's paid off we will look at buying a larger piece of land to build our dream home on.. And if the economy is such that we can't sell the home that's paid for at a reasonable price, we'll do the hard thing and actually "wait" until we can afford to do it..

No sympathy from me..