Bail-outs

Here's a free market approach to the bail-outs of the big corporations: Instead of pumping up failing industries, industries mired in the old economy (auto companies, giant banks), instead give the bail-outs to people. The argument for saving GM was the preservation of jobs. But jobs that produce what? Why not give the money to ordinary citizens, and let them dictate the winners. The money will generate jobs. Of course, you can't win. That makes the assumption that the ordinary citizen and the market in general has any idea of what they are doing any more so than government and politicians. Also, the ordinary citizen will likely spend the money to pay down debt rather than on ordinary consumption. A total economic meltdown was averted, but perhaps that is what is needed. Germany and Japan are two of the most prosperous nations on earth, in large measure because not only their economies were leveled, but also all their industry and huge swaths of city. We kind of need a good calamity to jolt some action.

Hiroshima 1945 and 2010