Bailout misses mark; money must go to us
I completely agree with Mark of Buffalo Grove in his letter, "It's time to simplify our bailout plan." The problem with the current bailout plan is that the billions of dollars being given to these corporations will never make it past their own balance sheets. As much as the government would like to think that they will be responsible with the money and that those actions will cause a trickle-down effect that will in turn help Middle America, they won't and in turn it won't happen. I have been in banking/commercial finance for the past 15 years.
Conversations I have heard from colleagues that some of the banks were using the money for acquisitions of other banks or for their own internal expenses.
I believe as Mark does that you need to get the money into the hands of the American taxpayers that actually spend the money. I recently e-mailed a similar plan to both Sen. Dick Durbin and Rep. Bill Foster where the money would be provided to people in the form of a pre-loaded Visa or MasterCard. The card would not be able to be cash advanced against. The money would have to be spent in turn resolving the issue we had from the last stimulus package that most people saved their checks instead of spending it. We need to get the money directly into the economy. My plan would provide $20,000 per married couple or head of household with an additional $2,500 per child and $10,000 for individuals.
Economists will tell us that for the economy to recover what we need is for the American people to start spending again. Well, as we have seen in the past the trickle down effect does not work but generating a groundswell of spending by Middle America will. Spending to the economy is like gasoline to a car engine, it gets it running and moving. That in turn will cause a domino effect within the economy of more spending which will create jobs which will recover the housing market, etc. . . . causing a steamroller effect across the board and across all aspects of the economy itself.
Unfortunately the government doesn't listen to little guys like Mark or me.
Giovanni A. DeLisi
Elgin