Why Not a Bailout for the Rest of Us? That's What's Really Required

[Better Believe It]

October 1 , 2008
Market Failure
Why Not a Bailout for the Rest of Us?
By ALAN MAASS and LEE SUSTAR

Are we all--the multi-millionaire bankers on Wall Street and the tens of millions of workers on every other street--in the same boat after all? Do we really need the Paulson bailout to avert a second Great Depression?

The answer is no.

* * *

WHAT'S REALLY required is an entirely different kind of government intervention in the economy.

For starters, the banking system should be nationalized. This could provide immediate relief for the international credit squeeze, in which banks are choking off economic growth by refusing to lend to one another.

The next order of business: ban the Wall Street casino for high-stakes gambling on incomprehensible investments like "collateralized debt obligations" and "credit default swaps." The banks' ability to damage our livelihoods with their speculation should be ended immediately.

An economic bailout on pro-worker terms would include much more than nationalizing the banks.

There would be a moratorium on home foreclosures, mandatory renegotiations of adjustable-rate mortgages, and incentives to convert empty, newly constructed condominiums into affordable rental housing. Also badly needed is a plan to create jobs, starting with a public works infrastructure program that could rebuild schools and housing in run-down inner cities. The expansion of public transportation and government investment in alternative energy would also be priorities.

We need to start the debate on the real alternatives now--to raise the ideas, the strategies and the organization that working people need to resist the attempt to make them pay for the crisis.

Please read the entire article at:

http://www.counterpunch.org/maass10012008.html

[Xenotime]

1. I would like to see one united bank account where everybody has access to money.

That way, if you need it, it's there for you to use and then when you are paid money, you put it back in.

[Better Believe It]

3. And They Don't Gamble Our Money Away On Wall Street!

[Poseidan]

2. couple points

I don't agree the entire banking system should be nationalized. Most of it is perfectly fine. I do like the idea of lending through the government. I also think credit could be, and possibly should be, provided through state governments first, federal government if necessary.

Besides, by nationalizing the whole banking system, the government has control of everyone's money (very dangerous for the people).