The Bailout: On Behalf of the Youth

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Author: AmericanMikey

Started: September 25, 2008, 3:29:00 pm

Target: All our elected officials

Category: Government & Politics

Supporters:

Goal:

100,000

Goal Progress:

Status

Active

On Behalf of the Youth - http://www.theamericanboy.net

We don’t own a big house, nor do we have a lot of money invested in the stock market. Some of us do have a 401k, but it’s pretty small and we won’t see it until around 2048. We work hard every day but only because we too believe/want to believe that someday we’ll be able to afford to buy a house, have a family, and live well. Some of us have wives, some of us have children. We all have different priorities in life, but what brings us together is simple. We are all concerned about what this country and the world will look like when we are your age.

We pay taxes, we pay for insurance, and we pay for social security. We’re not stupid. We know that after you spent all of the social security money, the program is in trouble. We have no faith that we’ll receive anything close to what we put in to it. We’re not ungrateful, please don’t think that. We love you, you are our parents, and we want the best for you. We know that you worked hard all your life, and there have been ups and downs, bumps and grinds. We really appreciate all the things you have made available for us to pursue through your hard work. We want you to be rewarded with a comfortable retirement; we aspire for the same thing. With all this in mind, we must voice our opinion.

You want to spend 700 billion dollars of our money on a gamble that if you lose, only we will pay for. You want to invest in mortgage backed securities that are worthless. We know that even if you win in the short run, you’re only prolonging the inevitable long run problems. Do we understand correctly? You want to pump up the value of banks who tried to prey on us. You want to reward the individuals who told us that houses never fall in value, gave us adjustable rate mortgages, and hung us out to dry. Some of us are ruined. We’re not convinced you’re seeing this clearly. Here are our thoughts:

We learned about this guy, FDR, in history. Then we learned about this dude named Keynes. The first guy was influenced by the second guy and together they pulled us out of the great depression. It’s probably been a while since you were in school, and we’ve gathered that history wasn’t your favorite subject. We want to bring you up to speed.

When FDR led the last historic government bailout his priorities were different than yours. He understood that the middle class and youth were the life of this country and used government money in order to create jobs for the middle class. In turn, the middle class improved the infrastructure of this country. They built roads, dams, and new schools. Banks had failed, and FDR shut them all down until they could prove they were solvent. Most reopened and those banks were allowed to get quick access to needed money, but under certain regulations. The regulations were pretty tight, but it worked. FDR could have nationalized a lot of programs and most people wouldn’t have minded. Your parents remember FDR, he ended the great depression.

FDR got some heat from deregulators; he got in trouble from the overly greedy. Some of his programs were even ruled unconstitutional and after the wars most policies were overturned during the era of banking deregulation. Well, FDR’s program might not have been the best, we understand, but they had the absolute right intentions, and it worked for the time being. Food was put back on your tables and your parents could raise your families.
We think The Great Depression acted as a redistribution of affluence throughout our country. Rich people lost a lot of money and they made do with it. We became a people closer related. It was almost as if FDR kept the playing field level for us all. Say what you want about “The New Deal” but it set the structure for you to succeed.

Many of you guys did really well, and reaffirmed faith in the American dream. You made lots of money and produced lots of great products and technological advances in many different industries. Again, let us stress how grateful we are for all that you’ve done to make our country awesome. Through your hard work, we became a world economic leader. Because of you, we are the best. But then, some of you got greedy. We’re not sure why. We don’t understand why you would want to manipulate the system. You created Enron, you shipped jobs overseas, and lost that sense of nationalism that was so important to your parents. You made mistakes, and now you won’t live up to them. You’ve taught us all our lives to be accountable for the actions that we make and now you won’t.

We can’t support the bailout of these firms because we know that in the long run this will offer us no benefit. By the time you are dead and buried, we’ll be dealing with the effects of inflation and unemployment caused by this improper, un-American capitalization of failed businesses. We have a lot of bills already to pay for you, we can’t take on another one. We know that something needs to be done, but we don’t know how you expect us to stomach this proposal of yours. We know this is your fault. You’ve made a mess of our economy and it’s affecting us.

Why not pay off our college loans, create scholarship programs? Maybe you could improve property in our inner cities? How about creating some jobs to improve the environment? Maybe you could give us a 15-30k low interest, payment deferred loan to buy a house. You know, there are a bunch of us here who would love to buy a house, but we can’t afford the down payment. We have good jobs, and since you cut rates so much, mortgages are pretty similar to rent payments. We could probably do alright if you gave us a boost. This added demand would increase prices and stimulate the economy. Even the equity in your houses would probably go up.

About those jobs, we’d like to spend some more money on infrastructure. Build us some more schools, roads, libraries, parks. Even better, spend some money on training us to become energy self-sufficient. Maybe you could build some windmills to harvest electricity. We’ve got a lot of people who would like to go out and get jobs.

Well, we don’t mean to sound selfish, but it just seems like all you want to do is take our money to make sure you are alright. It seems like you just want to help out the people who are old and rich and don’t care about the younger generations. Are we wrong? What are you doing for us?

-The Youth