Here are the three premises which must be established by those "supporting" (as if any of our support matters) the bailout.
- Bad things will happen if there no bailout. - These bad things will not happen if there is a bailout. - The US Government cares about these bad things not happening.
Please be specific about the "bad things."
[WS:] I think hat Michael was explict about predicting future (nobody can do that), but there is a good reason to expact bad things if the current crisis continues. These include people's retirement accouns shrinking (e.g. I lost about $8k already), people being unable to bu or refinance their homes which will likley result in some people losing thier homes, people losing thier jobs due to recession - to name a few. Most people consider these things bad, especially when they happen to them, albeit an argument can be made that they are good things if one thinks they will lead to a popular revolution and end of capitalism as we know it. However, it is far more probable that this will end on the bad note i.e. people losing thier pensions, homes, and jobs, and not much else coming out of it, than this will be followed by a happy ending like a popular revolt, let alone end of capitalism as we know it.
Again, no certainty, but probability.
As to the intentions of the USG, I already addressed that in my previous post - they far from unified. Some parts of it want to help people for various resons (e..g. because they actually care or because they are afraid of losing thier jobs if they do not or becaouse their friends may gain from helping people) some do not give a shit and only want to help their Wall Street cronies, some want to oppose the Wall Street cronies and want more for their flyover states - and tactically side with those who care about people (for right or wrong reasons.) It really varies and a careful empirical analysis of who supports what and how it will likley to play out in the near feature is needed. Wojtek
--------------------------------------------------------------- "When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost. [...] All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men." - HL Mencken ----------------------------------------------------------------