To bail out or not to bail out? 
Whose marketing pitch are you leaning towards?
Against.
Rush Limbaugh. It’s a socialist bailout. “When the government fails to pass a socialism bill and the market goes south, let it go south. I don’t want to pass a socialism bill just to protect the stock market,” said Limbaugh, by far the most popular host on U.S. radio.
Liberals in Congress are to blame. “Democrats are to blame for the home mortgage crisis at the root of the problem, saying liberals put pressure on mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make housing loans to people who could not afford to repay them.” More…
Harvard Economist Jeffrey Miron. This bailout was a terrible idea. Here’s why.“The current mess would never have occurred in the absence of ill-conceived federal policies. The federal government chartered Fannie Mae in 1938 and Freddie Mac in 1970; these two mortgage lending institutions are at the center of the crisis. The government implicitly promised these institutions that it would make good on their debts, so Fannie and Freddie took on huge amounts of excessive risk…” More here.
Michael Moore (liberal film maker)
“No matter what they say, no matter how many scare words they use, they are up to their old tricks of creating fear and confusion in order to make and keep themselves and the upper one percent filthy rich…More.
For.
Hillary Clinton. ‘It Sounds Dire, But Commerce Could Stop’ Says She Understands The Concerns Of ‘Innocent Taxpayers,’ But A Possible ‘Recession Impacts Everyone’ More…
Barack Obama RENO, Nev. (AP) – Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is calling for Americans to get behind attempts to salvage a $700 billion rescue plan for the financial sector.
Obama told a crowd at the University of Nevada at Reno on Tuesday that if Wall Street fails, ordinary people will be hurt, too.
The Illinois Democrat warned that if Congress doesn’t take action, people will find it tougher to get a mortgage for a home, a loan for college or a loan to buy a car.More…
This may be politics, but it’s marketing marketing marketing from both sides.
Whose marketing pitch resonates with you?
This must be a first: Rush Limbaugh and Michael Moore actually agree this is bad, but for different reasons of course. Moore gets my vote as best marketer for: being passionate himself, reaching out to those who are passionate, not using “fear of loss” as a sales technique and for having actual ideas as to what we can do as individuals.
My major comment: Stop trying to place blame, and just do *something*. Call it a bailout, a rescue plan, whatever – to me it’s evident that something has to be done to restore credit availability to banks both big and small. Have you thought about the impact on retailers this Christmas season???
Ann Carter annsunvalley@aol.com
My view is unique from those listed, yet not so unique when speaking with others.
Easily summed up as 2+2=1984
Those who ‘get it’ do, those who don’t…don’t…
I support the bailout. Hadn’t thought about it as a response to marketing, but I see your point!
I am all for a bail out if the terms include getting our dollar back on a silver or gold backing….otherwise history tells us we are doomed for economic failure having our monetary system only backed by our “good looks”…and right now we are not looking too good so the bail out is a “smoke and mirror” to get the problems to the next generation….
Against.
Give the money back to the people from whence it came, and that will allow them to continue to pay their mortgages and keep the economy from collapsing. Duh.
Tracy
ITV Ventures closes tomorrow. Here’s what I’m doing now…
I agree with the Harvard economist, the bailout is a BAD idea. A bailout only gives money back to poor money managers to do it all over again. Why do we keep re-electing these same people back into their offices in the House and Senate. When we have Presidential candidates, past and present making 6 figures out of Fannie and Freddie bailout,there is something WRONG with our system.
A good article to read is “Bailout Politics” by former Stanford University economist Thomas Sowell.
I know that many are for the bailout or ‘rescue’, as it is now being referred to by some members of the media.
But here’s something to think about.
The federal government is currently in a multi billion dollar deficit. Now they want to add an additional $700 billion to this budget shortfall.
Who is going to bailout the federal government?
Hi Kim,
The corruption is using fear to prevent people from thinking rationally and to generate a false urgency so that hasty decisions can be slipped through.
Dave Ramsey is promoting a common sense approach that would require some government intervention in the form of legislative changes. These changes would then tickle our economy it the sensitive spots and encourage capitalism to right itself without burdening future American’s with more debt that we could tax our way out of.
Remember this fundamental truth: the primary motivator of every elected official is personal gain. If our senators and representatives were only allowed two years to make America a better place, most would not even take the job. From the time they are sworn in, their focus is on re-election and not doing anything that would jeopardize their chances of that happening. This short sightedness has help to steer us into this credit crisis.
What’s in it for me,
Tom Doiron
Atlanta
http://www.TomDoiron.com
Of the examples you present, only the “for” are issue focused. Your examples of against are all personal and contain tactics that seek to bury the real issue by labeling the enemy. The tactic works by focusing attention on those scary, evil folks and not on the issue.
It is the rhetoric of control and not the rhetoric reconciliation.
Tom,
Good points all.
In fact, I’m all for term limits to keep personal gain and always being in re-election mode from happening.
Michael Moore resonates with me, but then I am a social-democrat
Canadian, and a Dutch immigrant to boot. In both societies the mainstream is more left-wing than the USA.
If workers go on strike and third parties are inconvenienced, the government legislates them back to work. This was a strike by Capital, and they get bailed out.
I am no economist, and don’t have easy answers, but this whole set-up reeks.
I did a blogpost a while ago on economic ups and downs, and how parties will claim or deny the power to affect the economy depending on whether they are in power or not.
The title is “Fat Cows, Skinny Cows” and it lives here:
http://tinyurl.com/3g3erq
Ien in the Kootenays, humming “Solidarity Forever”.