If GM and Ford don’t want to go out of business, they should start making decent cars. To bail them out would be to reward their terrible manufacturing standards.

Agreed. They were having trouble making money when times were good and their cars were flying off the lot. What makes anyone think they can turn that around when times are bad?

To make a quick addition to your point, it’s very interesting to me that there is no public outrage at all, but hardly surprising considering how complacent the public has become over the years. As long as they have a TV set in front of them and a job to keep them busy nothing will bother them.

Also, it is no surprise that we are becoming a nation who believes it’s alright to cheat, lie, and swindle. We learn it from the best cheaters, liars, and swindlers there are–the politicians of our government.

This obsession by our leaders to keep homeowners in their home will mark the end of whatever is left in this country resembling prudence and morality. I support saving all homeowners not just the irresponsible 3 million living in Mcmansions.

Congress and Sheila Bair’s obsession with this spend-only bailout rewards the reckless and punishes the prudent. Consider the lesson it imparts to promote bailouts to the reckless. City by city, neighborhood by neighborhood, people who live beneath their means and manage money carefully will see more careless neighbors supported by federal decree. And what about the 30 percent of this nation who were smart enough to rent? Or how about the large percentage of us who gave plenty of warnings to these same people the government now wants to redistribute my taxes to so they can stay in a house twice the size the home I live in. The backlash to the 700 B bailout package was not only because of the bailout of wall street but also the bailout of the reckless homeowners and their relentless ATM / HELOC spending. As it is now these people can live in their home for over a year rent free while they find a home they should have been living in from the start.

We are becoming a nation of people who feel it is not only okay but justified to cheat, lie, and swindle each other and the rest of the population. Personal responsibility is discouraged by the government and the mainstream media. Our nation is eating ourselves from within just to keep a facade of prosperity. Hope is being replaced by anger and desperation. Welcome to the new dawn.

the deficit is currently at a manageable level of 3% of GDP. And we need to run a deficit in this economic downturn to ensure we don’t have skyrocketing rates of unemployment.

The IMF calculates our GDP at $13.807 trillion. The United States’ deficit is projected at just over half a trillion dollars which calculates somewhere near 3%, although I think the deficit will be much greater than projected. If the numbers I’m banging around in my head are correct I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s really going to be 10% of GDP. However, it’s not just something we can chock up to circumstances. The public debt is already at over $10 trillion, getting closer and closer to equaling our GDP (really though, not that GDP is a relevant number). We have to recognize how we got here. Which is to say we got here by facilitating this bad debt with cheap and easy money a la the Federal Reserve.

I think running up the deficit is the wrong course of action. No matter what we do we are going to have higher rates and more unemployment. This is a market correction and before it can completely correct it will need to reorganize and the freer the market we have the quicker and less messy it will correct. Sure, it will hurt, but it’s gonna hurt more with more resistance.

The CEPR seem to be advocating a more centralized, single payer health care system. I can not support that for many reasons. The first, it will not help our budget deficit. In fact, it would make it higher–and I don’t see how the chart proves the opposite. It merely uses some *cool* chart to somehow *prove* something that isn’t. Second, it would be really hard to protect privacy such as the patient-confidentiality laws that we have had for decades. Third, how’s Medicare doing?

With oil prices tumbling many so-called experts believe this bubble has burst, along with the other commodities such as precious metals and agriculture. The claim is these commodities have been over bought by irrational speculators and ……

We must all obey in the USSA!

(While I would like Obama to come out in full support of this, I doubt he is that inept of a campaigner.)

A little early for dressing up to trick or treat but nonetheless, it’s Washington Mutual Bank spooking customers with frightful news of their financial troubles. But, have no fear WaMu bank account holders as JPMorgan Chase is now here with a re…