Hoosiers Thought Bailout was BS

NYC - Bowling Green: Charging Bull

The economy continues to sink into the depths I guess. I’m still confused about how all this works though. Somehow I made it through high school and college without taking a single economics or finance class.

I just read in the IBJ that Hoosiers opposed the bailout by a margin of 2-to-1.

The WISH-TV Indiana Poll released last night found 62 percent disapproved of the bailout plan while 31 percent favored it. Seven percent said they were not sure.

An even larger majority – 72 percent – said taxpayer money shouldn’t be used to protect private companies from financial losses. Seventeen percent said it should, while 11 percent weren’t sure.

Yet majorities of those surveyed said the government should protect the home mortgage industry (58 percent) and individual mortgage holders facing foreclosure (56 percent).

What’s your opinion?

My opinion is that I don’t like the idea of government bailing out companies that can’t make the right decisions to stay in business. Should the government subsidize a company that still produces music on 8-track tapes?

I know that’s not quite the same as this situation but if Bank A goes out of business, won’t Banks B & C snag up the assets and accounts of the other bank at a discount? I’m sure that discount won’t be passed onto the consumers, but maybe that’s where the government should step in perhaps.

I also know that something probably had to be done to "save" the economy, but it doesn’t look like the $700B did anything yet did it? Stock prices still tumbled. Gas prices are down below $3.00/gallon. No, wait, that’s good right? Hmmm.

The stock market is the other thing that I’m confused about. Economists and other people "in the know" make comments and statements and Company A’s stock price tanks. Did Company A actually stop doing something that was a core part of their business and screw it up between one day to the next? No. I’m worked for and with a number of large companies and I can tell you, they don’t work or change anything that fast. So what happened?

Speculation on the value of the company caused the stock market to change what the perceived value of the company is at that moment. Pretty powerful words and statements from individuals that can sink a company isn’t it? Maybe all the economists should just shut-up and produce something for the market instead of speculation and conjecture.