A Small Potato Gets Fried; Bailout Anyone?

I moderate a debt discussion forum. By itself, that’s no big deal given there are probably 20,000 forum moderators in the U.S. However, I thought one post from the forum was worthy of exposing. I am not hawking the site, I am taking one post for discussion purposes and for anyone who cares to check out the quality of the posts.

The poster – I deleted his name – sounds like a person who was living the American dream and doing what we would call the right things to better his life and those of others. After all, here in America, we have the right to profit from our efforts. We also have the right to fail as a result of our efforts. Most people, including me, don’t like the failure end of the spectrum especially when it was foistered on us.

The Post

I had a construction company, built house even for Katrina victim, housing market goes bust and I cannot even file chapter 7. I kept people working paid taxes and ALL my bills. Now that I am stuck with properties I cannot sell, I look to pay off what I can, all the new laws are stacked against consumers. I hope all the congressmen enjoy the payoff they got while they screwed the rest of us!!!! Now our tax money goes to the bailouts, try and get these companies to work with you– they do not!! I forsee some major unrest in this coutry if we the people don’t get some relief, and soon!

I redacted one sentence from this post I didn’t feel was germane to the discussion. I also didn’t clean up the spelling. To me, the spelling errors were indicative of someone who is tilting to the extreme side of remedy. His last sentence also indicates he is tilting towards that end of the arena.

By the way, he isn’t the only one predicting major unrest but I believe that is a topic for another post. Hence, I will leave that alone for now.

My thinking tells me he isn’t the only one who fell into a bucket of horse poo poo not through his own efforts but as a result of this thing we have labeled an economic crisis. If we could find out with some exactness how many are like this fellow, I bet we would better know the extent of the exposed underbelly and probably generate a real working remedy.

How Many Are In The Same Bucket?

To me, we have propped up the wrong end of the market. The bailout money should have been directed to people like the above poster. But, that refrain has been hashed and rehashed too many times. In my opinion, the rhetoric of bailout money placement should be replaced by an effort on gathering an as close to number of the people in this fellow’s situation as we can get.

Would it be wiser and more productive to travel this path? I believe so but I’m only one guy with an opinion. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

By the way, the forum I mentioned above has quite a few international members. The sentiment seems to be the same from many of the posters. I guess people don’t like being screwed no matter where they live.

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