Candidates And The Bailout

Hold on tight to your wallet. They’ve both promised to save you from terrorism, and over the past eight years that’s cost nearly a trillion dollars.

Now they both promise to save you from Wall Street, or Wall Street from you, or somebody from something. But this time time it’s going to start with a bill of nearly a trillion dollars, and the sky’s the limit after that.

So if you’ve been good, and you’ve been responsible, and you avoided saddling yourself with crushing debt, well… you’ve been bad, and they’re going to save you from yourself too. By extending you unlimited credit you haven’t asked for and don’t want, and starting you on the path to personal prosperity with a balance of about 2300 dollars. Owing, that is.

Is “consumer confidence” an oxymoron from here on in? Are they Flying On Hot Air? Are we in for a crash landing?

September 24, 2008 – about 6 minutes

Wall St. waits for blank check from Congress but crisis will last into new presidential term

The markets in New York were anxiously awaiting for their blank check from Congress. A jittery market got rocked as the Dow lost 372 points. Presidential candidates express minor concerns, but skeptics are calling the bailout “Cash for Trash.” The crisis will last well into the new president’s term with both Obama and even McCain will have to be more interventionist if elected. Ron Blackwell, Chief Economist at the AFL-CIO and Prof. Ellen Frank, Economics University of Massachusetts comment.

Ron Blackwell is Chief Economist for the AFL-CIO, where he has also worked as Director of Corporate Affairs. Before coming to the AFL-CIO, Blackwell was assistant to the president of the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union, and chief economist of UNITE (Union of Needletrades, Textiles and Industrial Employees). Prior to joining the labor movement, Blackwell was an academic dean at the New School for Social Research in New York (now the New School University), where he taught economics, politics and philosophy.

Ellen Frank, Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, a member of the Dollars & Sense collective. She is the author of The Raw Deal: How Myths and Misinformation about Deficits, Inflation, and Wealth Impoverish America, published in 2004.