Green Options

Bailout funds to fix the economy come at a higher cost to U.S. taxpayers.

A “persistent” President Obama addressed the nation last night, defending his plan to create jobs, boost the housing market and energize the credit markets. In a primetime address, Obama asked the American people and Congress to support his proposed $3.6 trillion budget, and his ambitious spending and tax proposals one day before the plan begins to move in Congress.

Despite public outrage over AIG bonuses, Obama had a good week. He traveled across America expressing his own outrage over the bonuses. He was warmly greeted in Orange County, California — once a bastion of conservative Republicanism. Republican Governor Swarzenegger warmly embraced him and assured him that California supported the stimulus plan. Obama appeared on the Tonight Show displaying his quick wit with the show’s host Jay Leno.

The banks have been paid after all as have massive bonuses for the very AIG employees that dragged the company down. All this with bailout money!

The bailout plan is not working. This morning’s New York Times has reported that the U.S. government is facing mounting pressure to add to the bailout kitty. Should the government continue to plug the hole?

President-elect Barack Obama has selected the economic team that will help him to ‘do what’s necessary’ to fix the economy.

The failure of Lehman Brothers is seen as the last straw that broke the credit market. The financial markets have been in a state of complete disarray ever since the U.S. Government allowed Lehman Brothers to file for bankruptcy on September 15th 2008 instead of intervening to save it as it had done with Bear Sterns and later with the insurance company, American International Group.

Thank you getthebigpicture.net. Video source: MBelinkie on YouTube

In view of the current Wall Street crisis, America’s credibility as a bastion of free markets has come under the radar. The Fed’s recent bailout of AIG, Fannie and Freddie are perceived by many as a free market detour.

The government’s latest bailout news involves a plan to make the biggest intervention in the financial markets since the 1930s. Central to this plan would be a mechanism to bad assets off the balance sheets of financial companies or instead perhaps [...]

A few details are starting to emerge about the proposed “bail out plan” of the US Government. While legislators wrestle with the finer details, here are a few figures to juggle with over the weekend.

So far, $200bn has been spent saving Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with another $300bn to prop up the Federal Housing Administration.

On top of that, there’s with an additional $69bn to buy up the companies’ discount notes, $29bn to keep Bear Sterns alive and $85bn to keep AIG going. That’s another $183bn, taking the running total to $683bn.