What Will the Bailout Cost?

"ABOVE ALL THINGS I hope that the education of the common people will be attended to, convinced that on their good sense we may rely with the most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty." -Thomas Jefferson

Smart, regulatory policies are an unfortunate necessity (and can boost confidence) when human beings have unlimited wants and organized GREED will always seek to be unbridled. History teaches this when you analyze any large market system with many competing interests.

As a public high school teacher, the current state of our public institutions reflect our values as a society, from my point of view. I ask Newsweek readers to PLEASE consider the following comparison of our institutions: our pubic schools and our private financial "powerhouses" that are now being bailed out with our taxpayer dollars.

We are bailing out these failing institutions with taxpayer dollars while the state of our public school system continues to decline. Think about this, voters PLEASE! Not just for the sake of your own personal interests, but for the sake of our country.

Good teachers are being laid off and class sizes are growing. No child left behind is a law that requires improvements without funding to implement these improvements. Schools are listed as "failing schools" (terrible for morale) because of unrealistic goals/unfunded mandates funded by politicians seeking to score political points. What is often "left behind" in our public schools is often a stressed out skeleton staff that does not have the ability to properly educate our students.

Meanwhile, these corporate lobbyists that effectively secured deregulation and what they consider "optimal" conditions for success (deregulation). And a few well-connected people have lined their pockets with enormous amounts of other peoples' money.

John McCain has a record of being a major player and advocate of deregulation and has taken money TIME AFTER TIME from the deregulation lobbyists - the very same "fat cats" he's now criticizing! NOW McCain is calling for change, when his deregulation in part has created this mess?

This sort of short-term gain at the expense of long-term growth way of thinking has infected our entire way of running our society.

Unfortunately, young people (the MAJORITY) of our future do not have the money or the resources to hire corporate lobbyists. Their teachers and their schools have limited resources. And there are little organized efforts to reform and progress/ lead our public schools into the 21st century. In every other developed and developing country we compare our students' progress with, there are sustained efforts to improve, fund, and prioritize education.

In America, we are starving our schools while bailing out reckless fat cats who've thrived on greed. Is this the American Way? Or have we lost our way?

Let this difficult period be a lesson. We all want healthy money markets and retirements. We must see the connection between healthy public schools and a healthy economy that is investing in human capital. Hopefully (as we say in class) we will learn from all of this and use it to improve, grow, and succeed.

Comrade Paulson and Commissar Bernanke are making the world safe from those capitalist pigs. Let's hear it for globalization and the free markets that require such help. In China, they call this intervention business as usual. In America, we call it saving the people who caused the problem because they are too big to fail. These people also make the largest campaign contributions, but that was never a consideration.The market is free until it is not. Or enough people realize it never was. If you play with cheaters and you don't know it; shame on you. If you knew they would cheat; shame on you. If you believe they are just helping the free market through a bad time; shame on you. If you are investing because you think Comrades and Commissars are on your side; forget shame, go directly to suicide.

If cash deposits were "removed" in the FDIC's takeover of IndyMac bank is this cash now restored if the Administration is rescuing subprime borrowers or do cash depositors at IndyMac just take the hit anyway?

The personnel in these agencies need to be totally replaced w. new blood willing to work rather than these "dead wood" gov???t "fund raisers" rewarded with agency jobs. Pelosi, Dodd, Barney Frank, McCain and Obama both: where were Ben Bernanke, Hank Paulson, and the entire crew for the past eight years?

10,000 cash depositors were hurt in the FDIC takeover because the FDIC is apparently under no obligation to require its member banks to ???alert??? depositors if they ???go over??? and allowed their member banks to take depositor funds and put them into these risky mortgages right up until the last moment. ???My??? FDIC ombudsman told me providing an alert to depositors whose accounts were ???over??? would require an ???Act of Congress.??? I guess that this same ???Act of Congress??? requirement is not applied to employees of agencies whose job it was to appropriately supervise and manage what was going=2 0on, who got paid for doing ???zero???, getting all of us into this horrible situation. Clear the lot of them.

If you can achieve one thing, I ask that it be this: For the FDIC to require its member banks to inform depositors who are "over", just the way it is done for a credit card or mileage account. It is the simplest solution, for goodness sake. the FDIC said it would take "An Act of Congress". Why?

"Dear Mr./Ms. Depositor: To be fully insured, your funds at our institution held under a single tax ID need to be less than $100,000 in personal accounts and $250,000 in IRA accounts. If you have one or more accounts with a single tax ID that exceed these limits, please call 1-800-customer service at your earliest convenience."

As a public high school teacher, the current state of our public institutions reflect our values as a society, from my point of view. We are bailing out these failing institutions with taxpayer dollars while the state of our public school system continues to decline.

I invite readers to compare the federal funding and bailouts for failing economic powerhouses verses the declining support and funding of our public schools: Strong schools and education that ALL of our children and citizens benefit from.

Good teachers are being laid off and class sizes are growing. No child left behind is a law that requires improvements without the promised funding to implement these improvements. And our schools are listed as "failing schools" because of unrealistic goals that are never supported or funded by the federal government in the first place. What is left in our public schools is often a stressed out skeleton staff that does not have the ability to properly educate our students, which we would hope will lead us someday to more effective ways of running this country.

Meanwhile, these corporate lobbyists have effectively secured deregulation and what they consider "optimal" conditions for their financial success (deregulation). And a few well-connected people have lined their pockets with enormous amounts of other peoples' money.

This sort of short-term gain at the expense of long-term growth way of thinking has infected our entire way of running our society. This is NOT A REPUBLICAN VS DEMOCRATIC "WEDGE" issue. Enough is enough!

Unfortunately middle and lower class young people (the MAJORITY) of our future do not have the money or the resources to hire corporate lobbyists. Their teachers and their schools have limited resources. And there is little to NO organized efforts to effectively support the reform and progress to lead our public schools to educate and prepare our future. In every other developed and developing country we compare our students' progress with, there is a clear and dedicated effort to improve, fund, and prioritize education. In America, we are starving our schools while bailing out reckless fat cats who've thrived on greed. Is this the American Way? Or have we lost our way?

Let this be a lesson to us!!! Hopefully (as we say in class) we will learn from these mistakes and become better - isn't this the American Way?

melbee71@yahoo.com

Government bailout is not the answer unless "We the people" gets a share of the bailout. The honest "Tax Payers" will continue to pay mortgages of lesser valued homes and the banks get saved? Shouldn't a homeowner of a house bought at 500K in 2006, now valued at 350K in 2008 with a mortgage of 400K be helped? The government will continue to benefit with property Taxes of 600K, the banks will continue with the interest from the 400K loan, and the homeowner of the now 350K home is the only one who will suffer, since he/she will still make the payments of his obligations. To do things right, the government should put a deposit to help the "Citizens" at the banks, and get down to the basic of addressing the real cause, keeping people from foreclosures. It's a piece-meal process for the government and homeowners. Every homeower must file a declaration of homeownership along with physical occupation of the property similiar to a "Tax Return." The government using a formula of how much property values in the area have declined, adjust their loans accordingly with the banks (all loans) and address the ones in foreclosures. Fair is fair, because the baks and stock market are not the only ones that needs rescuing. "We the People" needs to be healthy to make this Great Nation of ours grow stronger and its' ability to move forward. "Take Care Of The People First!"

Government bailout is not the answer unless "We the people" gets a share of the bailout. The honest "Tax Payers" will continue to pay mortgages of lesser valued homes and the banks get saved? Shouldn't a homeowner of a house bought at 500K in 2006, now valued at 350K in 2008 with a mortgage of 400K be helped? The government will continue to benefit with property Taxes of 600K, the banks will continue with the interest from the 400K loan, and the homeowner of the now 350K home is the only one who will suffer, since he/she will still make the payments of his obligations. To do things right, the government should put a deposit to help the "Citizens" at the banks, and get down to the basic of addressing the real cause, keeping people from foreclosures. It's a piece-meal process for the government and homeowners. Every homeower must file a declaration of homeownership along with physical occupation of the property similiar to a "Tax Return." The government using a formula of how much property values in the area have declined, adjust their loans accordingly with the banks (all loans) and address the ones in foreclosures. Fair is fair, because the baks and stock market are not the only ones that needs rescuing. "We the People" needs to be healthy to make this Great Nation of ours grow stronger and its' ability to move forward. "Take Care Of The People First!"