The Problem with the Bailout Plan: That Pesky B-Word!

Posted by Alex in Money & Finance, Pictures on October 1, 2008 at 2:58 am



Modified from this Bail Bonds photo by Lance McCord and the US Capitol photo from Wikipedia

The problem with the Bailout Plan, according to the White House, is that it has the word "bailout" in it! Here’s what White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto prefers us to use instead of the B-word:

To hear the White House tell it, one factor in the House vote yesterday against the administration’s bailout plan – was the word "bailout."

"It’s really unfortunate shorthand for a very complicated issue." says White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto. He says the administration plan to rescue the financial markets is "not a bailout for Wall Street" and "certainly not a bailout for Wall Street CEOs."

Okay then – what should we call it?

"It’s an effort to fix this problem of a frozen asset class that has implications over our entire economy," said Fratto at the daily White House press briefing. That certainly rolls off the tongue: "an effort to fix the problem of a frozen asset class."

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COMMENT

13 comments to "The Problem with the Bailout Plan: That Pesky B-Word!"

  1. Coyote
    October 1st, 2008 at 7:35 am

    It is a bailout if all the people that caused the problem in the first place keep their jobs, pensions, and golden parachutes, and those that fell for it to continue in foreclosure and bankruptcy. Fixing the problem would mean restructuring the businesses, renegotiating tons of loans and *ghasp* lower the wages and outright fire alot of them.

  2. Dave
    October 1st, 2008 at 7:47 am

    All you need to do is use another word; the awesome and holy Barack has taken to calling it a “RESCUE PLAN”.

    Yeah. That helps. A lot.

  3. rintrah
    October 1st, 2008 at 7:59 am

    George Orwell would be so proud.

  4. MaxVan
    October 1st, 2008 at 8:32 am

    The actual legislation refers to it as a “TARP”- Troubled Asset Rescue Plan. So, without pledging to either fraternity, I’ll go with that.
    However, you can call it whatever you want. The bottom line is that, as is, it’s bad legislation. Take a look at the Swedish model for better legislation. I think the main problem with the current TARP (or is that TRAP) is that it fails to address the “moral hazard” issue: it still “seems wrong”. The Swedes went after stockholders, and took ownership of some of the banks, and, therefore, seemed “right” to the “just folks” brigade.

  5. sleeper
    October 1st, 2008 at 11:08 am

    why not have a contest to come up with a more
    approppriate name for what is being done to the
    taxpayers. so many names come to mind, many NSFW.

  6. notfromconcentrate
    October 1st, 2008 at 11:34 am

    ok, here’s an accurate name for the plan:
    Socialism.

  7. biltmore
    October 1st, 2008 at 12:55 pm

    We shouldn’t bail them out. Where was our governments help when many small businesses were failing because of bigger stores/corporations moving into their territory? It’s ridiculous that they’ll bail out Wall Street, but they won’t bail out the American people.

  8. CheeseDuck
    October 1st, 2008 at 2:45 pm

    The “unseen hand” of the free market will fix everything!

  9. Evil Pundit
    October 1st, 2008 at 3:20 pm

    If the free market had been allowed to operate, this crisis wouldn’t have happened. It was the federal government forcing lenders to give home loans to people who were poor credit risks that brought it on.

  10. Peeves
    October 1st, 2008 at 10:15 pm

    hahahaha. Yes all those powerful libbers who forced all those rich connected people to give out loans to..what did Neil Cavuto say? oh yes, ‘African Americans and other high risk people’. It wasn’t the lessening of oversight that did it, it was holding a knife to the necks of all those tight belted CEOs.

  11. Shme
    October 2nd, 2008 at 10:55 am

    The problem is not the name its what its doing and that the president is a complete moron on his philosophy of fixing things.
    He is trying to take 700 BILLION dollars and give it to the tax payers but indefinatley the upper class because of their poor decisions of buying and selling for ore and going bankrupt and screwing the economy for all of us so the plan is to hand them a big fat check and say here do what u want with it.
    Second nature for these “upper class” will be to try and make a profit (again) screw up and then the economy goes down the shitter again and this time harder.

  12. Shme
    October 2nd, 2008 at 10:56 am

    buying and selling for more*

  13. MoonCake
    October 3rd, 2008 at 6:43 am

    “Where was our governments help when many small businesses were failing because of bigger stores/corporations moving into their territory?”

    the government was handing them subsidies.

    “A May 2004 study by the Washington, DC-based Good Jobs First titled “Shopping for Subsidies: How Wal-Mart Uses Taxpayer Money to Finance Its Never Ending Growth,” found that the company has siphoned more than $1 billion in economic development subsidies from state and local governments across the country.”

    and

    “…the Walton Family devotes a significant portion of its holdings to boosting conservative political candidates and a conservative social agenda centered on the privatization of public education.”

    (here is the article i found this in: http://www.mediatransparency.org/storyprinterfriendly.php?storyID=88)

    @notfromconcentrate: i second that position.

    what i find ironic about this whole thing is that they have been trying for over a week now to convince the american people that this “rescue plan” will give the economy the boost it needs to get out of the weeds, and are basically asking for us to support their spending of our dollars… if they had no problem with spending $7 trillion of our dollars on the war and such without our consent, why do they need our permission to spend another $700 billion?


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