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StumbleLETTER TO THE EDITOR:
Example of a rescue plan that worked
Sunday, Sept. 28, 2008 | 2:03 a.m.
As a taxpayer and citizen, I oppose the bailout of Wall Street companies as it is being proposed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. It is a handout and corporate welfare, and it rewards bad management, greed and reckless decisions made by those companies and the people in charge of them.
But if financial assistance is needed for these companies, here are the conditions:
• It should be in the form of loans at a reasonable rate of interest.
• Government (read taxpayers) should not buy the “toxic” bad debts of these companies. The companies can write them off and/or rework them with the borrowers so the borrowers can meet their obligations.
• There should be restrictions on executive compensation as well as a moratorium on the companies’ dividend distributions.
• Government should be represented on the boards of these companies by government-appointed directors.
• Government should receive stock options to the extent there is an interest subsidy on the loans. This will compensate the taxpayers for footing the interest subsidy now, in the form of profits on sale of the stocks.
During Jimmy Carter’s presidency, there was a taxpayer bailout of Chrysler Corp. It was in the form of loan guarantees with restrictions on the company’s operations. The government also received stock options. Chrysler did well and paid off the loans sooner than expected, and the government made profits selling the stock options. It was a winner all the way around!
The Chrysler bailout should be the model for the current bailout, and not handouts to the Wall Street moguls at taxpayers’ expense.
I trust Congress is too smart to cave in to President Bush’s arm-twisting by agreeing to a quick and dirty fix in seven days with taxpayers paying the consequences for the next 20 years.
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I did'nt read hank paulson's bailout plan but this problem is not a wall street problem. Its been very clear for some time this is an america
problem. Big Gov and Joe taxpayer aint gettin outta this one cheap or easy no matter which way you look at it. No eating out at expensive restaurants for a while right carmine?
uddeboda;
one thing; this is america, its just one big money grubbing thief after another. remember,
carmine up there with his great wisdom? he is one of the profiteers of the so-called mortgage-boom here. let me remind you of the america-version its called s&l scandal and i am not talking about the first one, i am talking about the government bail-out which went corrupt, they tucked tail and swept it under the carpet. check history. america's way is, "now its my turn". on fridays debate obama said, he wants to make sure every american family gets a thousand bucks when he gets elected. do you know how many votes he just bought with yours and my tax dollar? lots of em. because too many americans have become cheap and sleazy, wal-mart loves those stimulus checks, and i think our government should mandate the waltons sponsor those. Its funny how you here people like carmine here say in their nit wit way, "i am not bailing out wall street" hey pal you already are whether you like it or not. cheeeeezzzz,
do you know what wall street is? we, the american people still own big chunks of it i hope.
heres why your way won't work carmine;
1) these institutions money problems are already
on borrowed money at reasonable rates of
interest. (banks can't borrow anymore based
on current regulation)
2) taxpayers not buy toxic debt? one million
dollar homes are now selling for half that.
how do you re-do that?
3) this problem aint the size of the chrysler
problem and building a few cheap k-cars
ain't the solution, even lee iocoacco would
agree.
Re: "one million dollar homes are now selling for half that"
I'd be surprised if they were even worth half a million, to be honest. Nothing to "re-do" there; they weren't worth the pre-bust selling price in the first place.