No bailout

I've had a hard time understanding the current financial crisis on Wall Street, and why it's been deemed so necessary for us taxpayers to bail out some private businesses (AIG, the auto industry) and not others (Lehman Brothers), given the complexity of the issue.

As an aside, I myself only have two first-hand experiences with the concept of government intervention into private business:

1. I was taught in the sixth grade that FDIC-insured accounts are guaranteed to $100,000 (it's usually posted right on the bank's front door), and that any other investments are made at one's own risk. And yes, to those paying close attention to my rantings, Mr. Sedberry and Ms. Mitchell are responsible for my knowledge of this fact as well. I learned more in that one year of school than in most of the other ones combined.

2. After the government's bailout of Chrysler in the mid-70's, my mother purchased a 1977 Plymouth Volare station wagon new from a dealer. Words cannot describe the level of suckiness that car achieved during its lifetime. I remember it going through at least 5 starters and 4 alternators during the warranty period alone, just to give an example. That company should have been allowed to die a quiet death. It just couldn't compete on its own.

Here is an unattributed presentation that makes it extremely simple for even the fairly financially ignorant such as myself to understand the shenanigans that have been played on Wall Street.

Not one dime to those shysters. Let 'em fail. After all, it's not a guaranteed solution to the problem anyway.

Maybe the next companies that enter the business will show a little more discretion as to who they make loans to (and better resist the government's inappropriate entreaties to give out those loans willy-nilly to people who obviously couldn't afford them).



Update 1: BikeBubba has informed me that the Chrysler bailout didn't happen until 1979, so my mother's car was part of the cause, not the result, of our rescuing of the company. Sorry for the error. In my defense, I was only 8 years old at the time, so my memory is a little fuzzy.

Update 2: My mother reminds me that she purchased that particular vehicle because it had been named Motor Trend magazine's "Car of the Year". Please take that into consideration if you decide to use them to research future purchases.