Bailout or fail-out?

Holidays are just around the corner, so tis' the season... to be in trouble, at least if you're a big corporate company who appears "too big to fail." So what is too big or too small? And more importantly, how does this affect us (taxpayers)?

Well according to the government's bailout plan you must be a Tier 1 financial company in order for compensation for your misguided business actions. According to the US Department of Treasury's release on July 22, 2009 a Tier 1 financial holding company is " financial firms that are found to pose a threat to our economy's financial stability based on their size, leverage, and interconnectedness to the financial system."

Does this help? Probably not. The definition is still not very clean cut as to what makes a company valuable enough to "pose a threat." However, I can tell you one thing that is very clear: they are being bailed out with our tax dollars, 700 billion of our tax dollars to be even more precise.

So, now that we have the what and who covered, on to the why. A poll done by Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg posted on September 23, 2008 that 55% of American taxpayers were opposed to the Wall Street bailout. So why are we rescuing unsuccessful business plans? Why are we shouldering the burden for big businesses failures? Why are the majority of Americans suffering because of a minority of people's mistakes?

Because the government said so.
That used to work when my mother said that to me; however, I then developed a mind of my own. I suggest we let big business take on their own responsibilities and develop some personal accountability, and if they fail-out, so be it. But we can only hope that in the end, things end well, because after all tis' the season to be jolly.


Interested? Learn more:
US News- Rick Newman
USA Today- Peter Shweizer