Would you be in favor of the US government sending out a Shock and Awe $5,000 stimulus debit card to every citizen of America?
Yes or No
If No, what amount if any would you be in favor of?
(note - $5k would cost $1.5 trillion)
November 14, 2008
Soot and Ashes Serious Question of the Day
Would you be in favor of the US government sending out a Shock and Awe $5,000 stimulus debit card to every citizen of America?
Yes or No
If No, what amount if any would you be in favor of?
(note - $5k would cost $1.5 trillion)
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75 comments:
I voted for the $10,000 :) If we're going to get screwed anyway, I would like to get mine first.
No way! -- Do I look like I'm made of money?
Seriously though, what would that really accomplish? A one-time spending binge is supposed to remind the consumer how great it feels to buy crap again, and thus get the good times rolling again?
It does sound American though -- no more housing ATM to fund consumption so the government steps in with a consumer bailout.
I can't think of anything stupider, so that makes it likely.
This question is meant to show the problem with democracy combined with irresponsible government.
If you asked this question to the general population, 90% would be in favor I bet.
Screw future generations. I want that flat screen!
I bet more checks are on the way. The only question is how big will they be.
This week's special: Milk (1 gal) $200
Against.
I didn't do anything to earn the money, and neither did anyone else.
Putting that much cash into circulation would certainly be inflationary. In the medium to long term there would be no real benefit, anyway.
No Stimulus checks for any amount.
1. Guy calls into Donny Duesch last night gripping about his ARM. The bald guy from CNBC has nerve to ask the guy if he was having problems before, didn’t the recent drop in gas prices help him to afford his mortgage? Yeah, like $20 a week is the cure to this guy’s ills. Stimulus checks will continue the denial by the well-off of this country’s real problems.
2. Friend late on car pymt was talking with collector earlier this year and said something derogatory about Bush. The collector responded “but he did send you $600 recently, what did you spend that on?” Stimulus checks will give excuse to the corp. robber barons to continue their double-dipping of being paid by both the consumer & govt.
I would be absolutely, 100% in favor of it. The more the better - hell, send $20,000! You see, I own gold bullion and ETFs, which have been taking me to the cleaners this year, so anything that accelerates the fall of the dollar is music to my ears. I'm serious.
Plus, why should the Wall Street big boys get all the funny money? I few thousand dollars in stimulus payments would go a long way toward placating the unwashed masses, who are liable to take to the streets with pitchforks if the dollar collapses and they didn't share in the helicopter drop.
I'd say 'Wow thanks government for taking the money out of my left hand and putting it into my right.'
Instead I would like to see less spending, more taxes, and zero increase in the money supply. Let's get out of debt so I don't have to send the government thousands dollars a year simply on interest payments for the national debt.
I know the genious economists always come up with ways justifying more debt. They could justify that smoking crack is good as well. But the economist are dead wrong.
Send cash!!! As long as tax payers are handing bundles over to Banks, AIG, and paying for CEO bonuses, why not? The tax payers should be the only ones getting money back and that right there would help the economy... trickle up instead of down, make them beg for you to spend.
what a stupid question. why would u want to devalue our currency by anymore?
I say if you are going to go broke do it in style. One last shopping spree before the end of the USA as we know it. I would spend half of my $10,000 on a new home theater that I have been wanting since my heloc got cut off and the rest on guns and ammo.
Come on Keith. You know as well as I do that the only people receiving tax dollars are those that pay no taxes. I won't receive one, just I like I didn't during the first round. I pay WAY more than my "fair share"
Actually, relative to the other ideas out there, this one is not that bad. As long as you stop the other bailouts.
Firstly, the cost is about the size of all the other bailouts, so that's a wash.
Secondly, our chief underlying, fundamental problem, contrary to media focus, is not merely liquidity, is not merely credit. Our chief problem is the solvency of borrowers and the commensurate consumption decline. $5k allows everyone to buy some more breathing room on their credit cards and mortgages (although they would still be better off just defaulting on their mortgages) and consumer sales will pick up again.
Thirdly, a $5k stimulus is flat and fair. Up this point, other recipients of bailouts have used at least part of them to preserve the wealth and income disparities entrenched in their corporate hierarchies. Bonuses are still being doled out to those who are already the highest paid. So far the bailouts have had a highly 'regressive' commponent to them in the way that they are disproportionately enjoyed by the wealthy.
Fourthly, the other big bogeyman of this downturn is deflation and this would definitely cause inflation.
On the downside, this invites the worst moral hazard and merely encourages the reckless borrowing and spending that got us here. Oh, and forget about international credibility and the US dollar remaining the world's reserve currency.
Expect Obama and the democrat-led congress to pass a scaled down version of this, along with the other 'Hanky-panky' bailouts already in progress.
America has lost its moral compass and the elected representatives of both major parties reflect this confusion.
What do you mean by 'debit card?'
If it means that the user has to to pay the cash back, perhaps at the Fed interest rate (now 1%?), then I'm all in favor.
What the economy needs is consumer cash for buying now, but it should be in loans that have to be paid back -- possibly with progressive repayment schedules (5% of your monthly income over poverty wages; 10% of your income over the median; 20% of your income over 2*mean).
Let folks reduce their mortgage debt, or other loans, or buy stuff. But give it to people, not Big Banks (who already gave out too much in bonuses to the rich but incompetent leaders).
Why not make it $ 15K, no $ 25K per person, non-taxable?
We don't have the money anyway so what is the difference?
If the chinks are stupid enough to loan us money we should be smart enough to Take It.
They, and no one else are geting paid back anything ever anyway. Call it a doing business with America tax or you send us ceap shitty toys and poison milk with lead in them we say "F*ck You Charlie"...
Punish BUSHCO & CHENEYBURTON FOR THEIR MORTAL SINS. DO IT NOW.
$1 million for every man woman and child!!
Make everybody a millionaire!!
We deserve it!!
It will be like Nellyville!!
Welcome to Nellyville, where all newborns get a half-a-mill'
Sons, get Sedan DeVilles, soon as they can reach the wheel
And daughters, get diamonds the size of their age - help me out now
One year get one carat, two years get two carats
Three years get three carats, and so on into marriage
Nobody livin average, everybody jang-a-lang
Nobody livin savage, e'rybody got change
Even the paperboy deliver out the back of a Range
It's not a game, it's a beautiful thang
Imagine blocks and blocks of no cocaine, blocks with no gunplay
Ain't nobody shot, so ain't no news that day
Ain't nobody snitchin, they refuse to say
Every month - we take a vote on what the weather should be
And if we vote it rains - know how wet we want it to be
And if we vote it snow - know how deep we want it to get
But the sun gon' shine 99 percent, in Nellyville
Things have become so ridiculous in this country that the clowns in government really do think like Nellyville. We live in astounding times. A nation gone mad.
Remember, 48% voted for Grandpa Munster John Herbert Hoover McCain and Sarah I will not go away and keep my mouth shut Palin.
Oh, the humanity...
Metamucil meets mooseturds...
A family of 4 could emigrate nicely on $20,000
We're a banana republic, why not?
We have to hit bottom before we can go up again. Let's hope for a massive implosion the like of which we've never seen. That way, we can get this over with, people will be so badly burned they will never do this again.
For a little while, anyway, LOL.
What a joke ... I'll take any amount that they are willing to print .Then while the illusion of paper money has any percieved value left i will turn around and buy gold with it , Just my way of saying F@#k you . You greedy irresponsible politicians and citizens alike..
The world has truly gone insane.
America is sending fat checks to all of it's citizens and trying to get rich off the printing press.
And the Mexicans are making diamonds with tequila!!
Diamonds Produced from Tequila
You can not make this sh*t up!!
I'm not in favor of it, but elected members of Congress and their staff don't seem to understand the concept of debt. Congress is back to deficits don't matter and if Hank "blank check" Paulson keeps creating Treasuries at this pace and the world allows the FED to keep purchasing them then I guess they don't.
Oh well, when they send out my debit card I'll use it. This time I won't buy gas. :)
I would like to see a $1000.00 stimulus in two $500.00 increments, six weeks apart, with the first to arrive before Christmas and the second in January.
No, it's not fiscally conservative, but we need a pyschological boost at this crucial time of year. After Christmas we will be in more of a mood to tighten our belts.
I could use $10,000. why not at this point. It's all monopoly money anyway. God, we are so f*&ked!
Spend now, pay later.
How well has that worked out for us so far?
Since the checks that were sent out earlier this year didn't pull us out of this economic funk that we are in, why would a bigger check fix the economy?
-Just askin'
Mammoth
why would I borrow 5K to spend 5K if I couldn't pay it back?
TOOLS,
HELL YEAH!!!! WHO CARES WE CAN ALL GET PLASMAS AND SUPPORT CHINA'S STIMULUS PACKAGE THAT THEY ARE USING TO BUILD ROADS, SCHOOLS, AIRPORTS, ETC.
SINCE I HAVE A PLASMA, I CAN BLOW MY $5K ON HOOKERS AND BOOZE!!!!
OR I CAN BUY MORE SILVER AND GOLD BULLION AT INFLATED PRICES!!!!
YEAH, WRONG TO ALL OF THE ABOVE!!!!
AMERCIANS DO NOT NEED NO STINKING CHECK, PUT THEM TO WORK!!!!
NEW DEAL 2, JUST PUT PEOPLE TO WORK, REGARDLESS THE TASKS!!!!
TOOLS!!!!
TARDS!!!!
DUPED!!!!
DOLTS!!!!
DOPES!!!!
That would be so INFLATIONARY that gold and silver would surely tank some more.
You F#ckin Americanos better wake up. The Dollar is worthless and the government is manipulating the price of gold and silver down. Go out today and buy yourself some physical silver and physical gold. Its the only safe investment.
The Fed is about to lose control of this Manipulating of the free market and when it does..your savings and all the US $'s you have will be instantly devalued.
I think that the only bail out that should happen at this point is for the soldiers overseas - when they come back, they should be set up with low cost houses that they can buy and afford, financial counseling and rail road jobs to get the rail lines back in some kind of decent shape in this country. A Manhattan Project rail project using vet labor.
Just look at it as a settlement in the biggest malfeasance lawsuit in history.
.
$5000 worth of cheap beer and lottery tickets!
.
Take the 700 billion TARP away from King Paulson and divide it by 300 million and mail a check to every citizen in the USA.
That would stimulate the economy, imo.
I think we'll see at least two more rounds of stimulus checks. One for $750/$1,500 and the second for $1,000/$2,000. We could see $5,000 or more but only if deflation gets completely out of control.
No and none.
Sooner or later we would pay for that.
How about any future federal bailouts must include a dollar for dollar match in distributions to citizens? So, the banks get their $700B bailout from Uncle Sugar, and I get a nice check from the government for $2295.08 ($750B / 305M peeps)... Our currency is doomed anyway, might as well have some fun with it :-)
If this shit is going to go down then what the hell, might as well go down fighting. Send us 5k or 10k! I am all for it!
It's more fair then giving double, triple or more to the people who helped make this happen. It's not good to only help the irresponsible, greedy and dumb.
It's 9:33 pst and market DOWN 344 -So Far on generally bleak and consistently bad US news of every kind...
PPT, where are you? Please prop up the Fuherer Bushco's illigitamate and corrupt stock Market another 2 months so he can escape with all his limbs still attached. All will be well by 1:00 pm pst.. Bet On It.
The AARP will be looking for George and those responsible for the financial holocost soon. Their members are getting restless as their retirement accounts go down like a cheap whore in a Senate retreat weekend. There are only so many Wal-Mart greeter jobs available and they are saving one for Bushco himself IF he passes the mental test, which looks like a long shot in a league with the hapless Sarah Palin as VP...
When the elderly must choose between starving or freezing to death this winter, the jig is up George and Dick. The raven is croaking your names again.
Nevermore.
Remember, these are the MEN who stormed Normandy in the face of machine gun fire,and kicked Hitler's ass until he croaked himself down in the bunker with Eva, (a lesson many Americans hope is not lost on our current 'leaders'), not some pussy Wall Street punk who lies for a living and would have trouble getting a job as a towel boy in a gay bath house...
The woman made bombers and guns in bulk during that time. They used them to kill our enemies, men, woman and children in mass quantity. Remember Dresden, Tokyo ring any bells?? I know you don't read much George.
When the boys and girls of the Greatest Generation come looking for revenge, there will No Place for the Bushco-Cheneyburton regime to Hide. George was 'the decider' Remember?
Many will be called, it will be an ugly scene, but worth the wait.
Buy the ticket - Take the Ride.
1-20-09 The END of an ERROR
no as it wouldn't do any good. the consumer spending of the past 10 years is not sustainable and will never reach the per capita peak it hit last year. everything needs to adjust to consumer spending withing their means. if you want to increase consumer spending then increase the consumers sustainable means (income).
I bet more checks are on the way. The only question is how big will they be.
-------------------------------------
i won't be getting any check just like I didn't get one from the last round of stimulus. I am considered to be "rich" so I get my stimulus from the trickle up effect!
What do you mean by 'debit card?'
---------------------------
i think the idea behind a debit card is so that you would have to spend it at a retailer rather than hoard the cash or pay down your mortgage.
wait, let me get out my short euro positions and into short dollar before start handing out 5k checks.
I don't think it should be a lump sum; but perhaps 500 a month until we are out of this mess.
I’m all for it,
Send me the money
Rather then blowing it on bank bailouts.
10-20K tax credit on purchase of home. 10-20% tax and penalty free withdrawal from my 401K. That's all I want.
You're right, K. I believe it is the wisdom behind the US being a representative republic and not a pure democracy. But both candidates were cut from the same cloth. The bailouts will continue. Obama has already called for a new stimulus package. It will be rolled in under the guise of prudence by stating that the money had been saved by cutting military spending, but the result is the same. Dollars rain from the sky. IMO, because we are currently in the disinflation cycle, the policy will seem safe. It will probably continue with abandon for the first six months of next year.
It's like the bailout of the automakers. Proponents say, "if we give them this money, we need to make sure and clean house first - by sweeping away all of the corrupt fat-cat management." THAT IS exactly what bankruptcy would do. The factories would all still be standing. The facilities would change hands, the labor would be working for the new management, and our children are saved the expense of the bailout.
This is the Krugman/Bernanke solution:
Krugman's Prescription for Disaster
To quote the discredited Keynesian professor:
“figure out how much help they think the economy needs, than add 50 percent. It’s much better in a depressed economy, to err on the side of too much stimulus.”
But hey! He won the Nobel Prize - he must be a genius!!
Look at all these posters that think we just need more "stimulus" to "kickstart" the economy.
Oh, just give everybody a check for 1000 bucks every month and everything will be A-OK.
Don't any of you stop to think where that money comes from?? Where do you think it comes from? Do you think the government has a vault full of cash somewhere?
Look people. It's very simple. Giving more money back to the people would be great for the economy and business but NOT when it's financed by borrowing, higher taxation and inflation!!
On top of that there's one thing that nobody ever mentions and that is the morality of distributing tax dollars and indirect inflation tax dollars to "stimulate" the economy. It's not only an economic issue it is a fundamental moral issue. The government does not have the right to rob Peter to bail out Paul Krugman and his inflationistas.
If the government wants to scale back it's spending and then reduce taxation then that would be awesome.
But that ain't gonna happen.
Its a better plan that giving it to banks to pay year end bonuses, dividends, and use it to acquire other banks.
It was supposed to be used to maintain lending, but it appears they aren't willing to do that.
So, yes, give it back to the taxpayers where it came from in the first place.
Why work?
Welfare for all.
Here is a stimulus for you.
-Go to work or starve.
-Make bad banking decisions and go broke.
Or...
-Work hard and save, make prudent purchases within your means, and live well.
The 1.5 trillion dollars should go to people who have the following qualification:
(A) they are current on their mortgages;
(B) in the past ten years they have held a steady job and have paid their taxes every year;
(C) they have never done time for any violent criminal offense;
(D) they can name their senators and representatives;
(E) they have the minimal intelligence to know that exporting American mnaufacturing jobs might not be the best idea and it should be stopped TODAY.
Must stop deflation at all cost.
Send in the Helicopters.
I voted myself some money from the treasury.
Democracy at work.
Keith; make that $1 Million, and let us-- we the people-- start lending money to the banks!!! Why not? Let us bail out Wall Street directly and pay those fat cats their well-deserved bonuses. Let us use that million to create jobs for ourselves, bribe our reps in Congress so that they make it $1.5 Million next year to keep up with inflation.
The world has gone mad! Nothing makes sense anymore. Our government, caught in the middle of this mess, is running out of bad ideas! So let's give them a hand!
No...$0.
Let "the market" deal pain where pain needs to be felt.
The PPT fails again market closes >-330 pts.
Whats it going to be grandma, heat OR food? You cannot have both.
Choose.
Starve or DIE courtesy of the Bush Administration and your friends like Henry Pailson and Helicopter Bernanke on Wall Street.
Are you PISSED yet?
Rumble. Blood in the Gutters...
Keith,
Read the posts so far:
You have started the 48% moron(McCain-Palin-Bushco/chimpy) population of the US thiking about spending money they don't have for things they don't need again.
They are drooling thinking about cheesedoodles and large fried rabbits asses dipped in butter down at the mall...
Imagine what these morons are capable of when they are hungry and without water and power...
Beware. You were warned.
PT Barnum was RIGHT.
My answer was sarcastic. Taxing ourselves into richness and wealth is impossible. It is already our money. D'uh.
Any further "stimulus packages" will surely *only* stimulate the rate of inflation, become the catalyst to stagflation in this country.
Don't forget about the cheap gas that act like a stimulus package also.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/
news?pid=20601116&sid=acH_6lVS.
OfA&refer=africa
Oil traders made their biggest bet yet that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will fail to prevent crude prices from plunging below $30 a barrel.
Trades in crude-oil options contracts that would allow the holder to sell oil for February delivery at $30 a barrel reached 1,407 on the New York Mercantile Exchange yesterday
A year ago I would have been very offended by the idea. Now,however, it is starting to look like a great idea. Why? Because this government is desperate to throw away their (our) money to all the housing gamblers and the binge spenders who could wait to live the good life. If the legislators are going to do things like write down mortgage values and suspend foreclosures (which basically amounts to legalizing "squatting"), then they are morally bound to do just as much for the people who pay their bills.
Of course there are many better ways to address this problem, but that would require an honest discussion about current moral and social values, and what really got us into this mess, something nobody but folks like Keith want to touch.
I'll take my check made out to Costco, please.
I want to be like "dopes 2" when I grow up.
It was supposed to be used to maintain lending, but it appears they aren't willing to do that.
So, yes, give it back to the taxpayers where it came from in the first place.
----------------------------
ah but there is the rub! to get lending back to the level it was at would be to require that banks lend to those who really can't afford to borrow the money!
auto and home loans borrowing requirements are back to where they historically have been.
encouraging banks to loan to those who really can't afford the loan is what got us into the mess.
here is BO's plan to save social security:
http://tinyurl.com/5wpjnb
oh, this is rich:
http://tinyurl.com/5wpjnb
401k accounts give the wealthy an unfair tax advantage because they are the only ones who can manage to save for retirement..... your average joe doesn't get any tax savings because they can't afford to put money away in a 401k!
amazing. last time I checked, a 401k simply defers taxes, you will pay taxes when you begin withdrawing.
you know, I am worried about what these monkeys might do when the SHTF, like FDR confiscating gold. Perhaps I should just withdraw my entire 401k, pay the tax and penalty.
No stimulus checks - spend the money on public works and keep people employed and creating things that will benefit the many.
here is BO's plan to save social security:
Yeah, good job Kweefer and the Obamarama zombies. You really picked a winner.
(not that you were given much of a choice but still this is what happens when you pick the lesser of two evils)
I like it better than giving it to the banks for bonuses and bloated salaries... I can actually do some good with it!
No.
That would put "stupid move" over the top for me. That would be scary.
I didn't cash the last check either. I gave it to my husband and he went to Costco and bought wine.
better main street than banks that will lend our tax dollars back to us with interest, or companies that will burn through it fast with nothing to show for it but products people don't want.
now that the "prices always go up" mentality is gone for a generation, people might actually buy useful stuff and save the rest, which will help worthy businesses and the FDIC indirectly.
10,000 bucks. Now! Gimmie the cash you bastards. Rifles, Pistols, Ammo, MREs, and Dragonskin body armor for me and my gal.
Party like it's 1939.
Good luck all -
Snow
I like the idea of stimulation by job creation .At least that way we as taxpayers get some benefit from it and the person employed will end up spending in the economy .
The government could set up a program of working on all the bridges and roads that need to be
shored up .
Saving the commercial Banks was a expense that the government would of had to shell out in the form of FDIC anyway ,so that did not gripe me as much as the bail outs of the Investment Banks . As a public we have to have a functioning banking system for deposits and withdraws and check writing and sending etc. etc. etc. We don't have to have
a excess amount of Banks to achieve that goal .When bad banks close down ,new banks can spring up with really good balance sheets .
Job creation will be part of the solution to the recession/depression .The jobs lost from the housing boom meltdown ,need to be replaced .
People who are in debt or have a dumb loan should talk to their lender . As long as the lenders think that they will get assistance from the bail-outs they are not going to re-write loans to much on their own . The gov needs to say "no more bail-outs" and the lenders will start doing re-writes in their best interest . Not that these loan modifications are going to work on a huge percentage of the bad paper out there . 40% of the re-writes are already defaulting according to a report someone posted .
here is BO's plan to save social security:
Yeah, good job Kweefer and the Obamarama zombies. You really picked a winner.
McStain said on his website that "social security benefits for future retirees are promises that can't be kept".
And in the second debate, he said he wanted to get all Reagan on our asses with respect to social security, which in 1983 meant lower benefits, higher tax rates, and older retirement ages.
So he admitted he'll raid your SS, and he admitted he'd use it to keep the taxes low for the richest americans.
And in 8 years of Reagan and 8 years of Bush, the spend-and-debt republican fascists took EVERY DIME you EVER paid into SS and your 401K, and every dime you EVER WILL put in, multiplied it by 100 or 1000, and gave it to the war profiteers and to the richest americans in the form of tax cuts.
You know what they do in Iraq when they get a flat tire? THEY BURN THE TRUCK AND HAVE YOU BUY THEM A NEW ONE. They charge you $250K to LEASE an Escalade for ONE YEAR--a truck that can be PURCHASED for 40K.
And they laugh at you while they do it.
So you really think Obama will do any worse?
Why not just send a check like this every month? Problems all solved. You could even give out free bread, maybe at some kind of circus for free. It'll be great.han
Not really, it would just create inflation. Like increasing the minimum wage, it just moves the field posts.
Yes, for this reason: the greatest danger is that the present nonsense continues for several years, at which time we'd all be in debt forever and/or in jails. Chinese water torture, remember? Drip...drip, drip
Let's give us all 10K; it will make the whole thing blow up now, and we can start rebuilding a healthy financial system out of the rubble.
Send me my last 3 years taxes back and every citizen that paid in gets their last 3 years taxes refunded. That is a stimulas.
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