Now this would be a Bailout

So yesterday at the airport I overheard a passenger with one of my co-workers ranting about this $700 billion, or rather now $850 billion bailout. He was mentioning a scenario where if the government hadn't bailed out the institutions that got us in this mess and rather had given that money to the taxpayers, we all would have ended up with about $500,000/ a piece. I haven't checked his math, nor do I fully understand the logic how he came up with this number, but it is interesting to think about. If they gave this money to the American people, who could then buy there homes outright and pay off their bills, including all those ugly bad loans, pay off their cars, get back what they had lost in the stock market and with their retirement 401k's, and then some would surely buy back into companies stocks, and we then might be just fine. There's a lot of scenarios that come to mind about this whole concept and even though it wasn't an option, I've thought a lot about it.

And yes, you know that not everyone would use the money wisely. There's a lot of dumbshits (excuse the appropriate phrase) out there who, upon receiving $500,000 would likely blow it, instead of paying off or buying what they'd really need. But as they would do this, they'd still be putting the money back into the economy boosting it from almost every industry. And yet how would it work, if they had selected this option- should they just send money to every head of household or every tax payer? Would it depend on your tax bracket status to begin with? If you are a couple, both working, that's $1,000,000, again according to the unknown math of the passenger. But just think of it. That would relieve a lot of financial pressure, everyone would have the opportunity to buy their home outright and live the american dream in a million different ways. No one would care about the price of gas either. I guess it would open the flood gates of immigrants to become citizens even more, but if this was a one time payout, then it would be done and we'd all pledge allegiance to the flag, and sing cumbiyah (sp?), and EVERYONE would love George Bush, (for once) and congress and we'd accomplish very quickly bi-partisanism that they always talk about having.

And then, yes, at the end of the calendar year we all would enter a completely different tax bracket, which brings up all sorts of further questions and scenarios that are too countless to mention. But isn't it an interesting thought?

Alright, now- WAKE UP BACK TO REALITY. Instead, No one thought of the average American citizen (that's you and me) this way. No one wanted to invest in America this way, Uncle Sam still wants to make money again after all of this is said and done, (even though we owe China in umpteen billions for everything). So I guess we're back to just working hard and paying a lot of taxes for that American dream and maybe the chance to retire before we're physically incapable of working, and pretending that we're bi-partisan again as a united country. I just don't believe that in this outcome that we all stood "United" with passing this bill under duress and now affecting the rest of the world's markets too. Maybe we'll all wake up from this nightmare and Bill Clinton will still be president. If not, we need another Boston Tea party. :-)