The Sucker Punch

Here's a brisk statement of common horse-sense. Be sure & click on over & read the whole thing.

Bailout: The Sucker Punch
By Alyce Lomax
September 25, 2008
Motley Fool MSN

QUOTE I know many people are convinced that something akin to a financial apocalypse will occur if the $700 billion bailout isn't rammed through quickly.
Some major questions and issues about our socioeconomic situation are getting lost in all the panic and noise.
The big sucker punch On one side: "Save the banks; ask questions later." On the other: "But what about the poor homeowners, losing their homes?"
Although attention is being paid to "the taxpayer," I can't understand why more emphasis isn't put on the biggest victims of all, those poor suckers who:
Save money, even with no incentive to do so since interest rates are ridiculously low, and possibly don't even utilize credit card debt.
Rent and refused to buy overpriced homes with some cockamamie mortgage scheme, and have been waiting for a major price correction so they can achieve the American Dream the proper way.
I'm sorry, but they're really getting the shaft, even if their fiscal conservatism and cheapness just look so darn un-American to many people these days. You know, "the paradox of thrift" and all that. Add in runaway inflation from printing out money, and the potential for major tax increases to pay for our profligate ways, and these people are really getting the business.
The geniuses -- Wall Street and individuals -- who got us into this mess probably looked down their noses at these "infernal" savers and "cheapskates" for not tinkering with their own personal capital structures in a more sophisticated manner. Now they're trying to cheat those people out of affordable homes by making an artificial floor in the prices. Thanks, guys. UNQUOTE
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