Bailout For Dummies

This is a great article from one of our good friends Danny Thornton who is allowing us to repost it here. Danny writes on a bunch of different sites, including his own. He has some strong views on the current economy and financial mess our country is in. There are MANY points in the article that we agree with 100%.

Bailout For Dummies, by Danny Thornton.
When I look at all the talk that concerns bailouts and failing companies, it really makes my stomach turn. For me to sit back and accept that the tax payers are going to be footing the bill for all these companies that can not stay afloat does more than makes me sick; it pisses me off. Now, if you are not ready to hear this point of view, then you might want to stop reading now. I am not going to hold back this morning as it is time that someone speaks up. Here it is in a nutshell.

The first and foremost thing that hurts our country is failing businesses. Lately, they are quick to stick out their hand and ask for a bailout. The issue is simple; either we help or they go out of business and then what are to do? This puts more people out on the street without a job. Then they end up dropping their kids off, taking advantage of the new safe haven law. Then they neglect their pets. Then they lose their home. Soon, the nation spins out of control. A little extreme you say? Well, that is BS because that is what is happening today. The bad thing is, we buy into it.

What baffles me is the fact that all of these companies that are begging for bailouts have people leading those same companies that are not wanting for anything. If you take a look at the top 500 companies, collectively, their CEOs have not taken a pay cut since 2002. When you put all of their salaries together, these people make $6.4 billion a year. Wonder how many companies we can bail out with that? What makes it worse is that in 2006, they took a collective 38% raise.

Now we are talking about bailing out the 3 big car companies? The first question I ask is why? Cut the top 10 salaries in the companies in half and then maybe you can make a profit. Or, better yet, put a product out that people actually want to buy? Or, and this I think is a novel idea, why not go ask for a loan from all the oil and gas companies? Maybe Exxon, Mobile, and BP can fork over this bailout. Since these three companies seem to keep raking in the dough and discouraging the develpment of hybrids, maybe they can help keep our country afloat.

Putting the debt back on a group of people that are struggling to keep their head above water is not what we need. We need to look at strong fiscal plans that make our country economically powerful. To do that, maybe we need to start trimming the fat. I think back to my early days of being a salesman. If i wanted to make a lot of money I had to push and push. I might have a small salary, but the bulk of my juice came from my sales. Maybe these top CEOs need to have an incentive filled contract instead of a salary filled contract.

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