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Okay, I have heard enough about AIG to make me ill and sick to my stomach. I am fully on board with people who believe these executives that did such a good job the company needed a $170 billion dollar bailout from the U.S. Government, do not deserve pay, much less bonuses; they need to be fired. However, after hearing about it for so long, and realizing that, as usual, the rich will win and the poor will lose, I am through listening. The inequity of our society that has been widened greatly in the past 28 years, since Reagan started the current war on the middle class, is truly disgusting. But here is the question: why do big banks and insurance companies get $170 billion in taxpayer money and the little guy who is losing his house, gets nothing? How many lives could be fixed and saved from financial ruin or maybe even homelessness by that same $170 billion? Let's just say we took that money and gave everyone who lost their job and have a mortgage, $10 thousand dollars. That would pay a $1500 mortgage for a year for up to 170 million people. It would most likely get the economy moving again. I am no economist, so I seriously doubt that my figures are correct, or that it would make as much difference as I think, but imagine what it would do for the moral of the people.
It's time to bring back the 91 percent tax on earnings of more than 3.5 million dollars. This amount of money is more than enough to live on extremely comfortably for anyone. I don't think someone who scrapes by their entire life and is able to buy a piece of property, then sell it for 5 million dollars should be taxed at this rate, only the people who earn this amount of money on an ongoing basis. With the money that has been stolen from the middle class over the past 28 years, we could probably end the national debt, or at least put a major dent in it. This idea of the rich getting more and more rich and the poor barely able to survive is an idea that needs to be forsaken forever!
4 comments:
On one hand I like your idea, but it brings up some questions. Like do you think those receivers would actually keep the money to pay the mortgage? Or would they buy cars of other stuff with it..
Or lets say that the 170 billion was not used to rescue AIG, but was in fact divided into those in need. What effect would have the failure of AIG had on the economy? Could it be outweighed by the positive effect of the 170 billion given to the jobless? Just something to think about.
Take care,
Julie
Julie,
Thanks very much for commenting on my blog, it's nice to hear from new people. I was thinking about your questions and what came to mind was this: people tend to think of their homes as their biggest investment and treat them as the most important investment in their lives. Because of this, I believe the majority of people would pay their mortgages instead of losing their homes if given a choice. As for AIG, maybe we could divest their insurance policies to other companies, although I am not at all sure that other companies would just take the policies without underwriting. This of course would not be a good thing because people would lose their insurance. The government could take over the ones that the insurance companies would not underwrite. What they would do with the bad debt, I have no idea. What do you think?
Thanks again Julie... hope to hear from you again.
Thunter
Thunter,
No, I do not want g/gals getting millions in bonuses, but everyone I know in the industry says their year's work is tied up in contracts that deal with sales. Most of these g/gals are lower to upper middle class income range who say they had great sales (remember this is not realty sales) and claim that they, too, got caught up in the collapse. They feel they were lied too and deceived by the very corporations that claimed to love their "sales".
Hello again, Thunter. I was thinking of my questions too and I also came to the same conclusion as you, i.e. most people would actually use this money to pay for their mortgage. In fact that could even be the condition in order to get such a support, which technically wouldn't be that difficult to set up.
But I guess the main problem lies with the bad debt, which brings us back to the base of our problem. Maybe the only thing that could be done now is to make sure it won't happen in the future through some new legislation. But maybe even that is a long shot...
Take care,
Julie
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