Cash for kitchens...

[Alondro]

... and laundry rooms.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/bw/20090824/bs_bw/aug2009db20090821304909

So let me see... a couple billion for cars starts to jump-start the auto industry.  This will probably do the same for appliances (they don't think it will, but then they never expected Cash for Clunkers to be the instant success it was).

This means two major manufacturing sectors will have been revived with a mere approximately $2.5 billion.

Vs $780 billion in highly mis-managed bailouts to the pigs who got  us into this mess and who've yet to parry up to what was expected of them.

As I said, and as many other have also said, if the money had simply been given back to tax-payers to pay their mortgages and credit card bills, the economy's growth would have exploded almost instantly.

The surge from just the Cash for Clunkers program is proof that when you give people money to buy stuff, they WILL BUY STUFF!!

OMG!  When people have money, they tend to spend it!  Who woulda thunk it?! 

The fact that our 'brilliant' politicians failed to understand this fact (both R's and D's fail at this), indicates how isolated, out-of-touch, and ignorant of basic human behavior (save for what is useful for getting them re-elected) they really are.

In other words... MAKE ME YOUR EMPEROR!!!  And I'll give you money.   

[Valynth]

The key is not to give people money, but to make them earn it.

Sadly the U.S. has fallen to the thinking of entitlement that caused most of the western world to become reliant on the U.S. production and trading in the first place.

I'll just be out building my bunker for when the remaining nations who still build without incurring massive defecits get infected by this train of thought.

[LionHeart]

OMG!  When people have money, they tend to spend it!  Who woulda thunk it?! 

A lot of people will spend money on stuff even when they don't have it...

[Reese Tora]

In other words... MAKE ME YOUR EMPEROR!!!  And I'll give you money.   

How about promise me you'll let me keep the value of the money I already have and that of any future earnings, and I make you emperor subject to removal upon breach of contract?

The three things I do not want my government doing to be are taking my money overtly without providing a useful service to the majority(such as roads, military, or reliable and fair courts of law), taking my money covertly, and infinging on my freedom to choose to do waht I darn well please so long as I don't directly infringe on others' rights to do what they darn well please. (and vis versa)

so far all the plans you mentioned above are going to do one or both of the first two items (either by raising taxes or devaluing the currency with inflation) in order to pay for all that stuff.

All these plans add no value to the economy, they simply shift existing wealth or borrow future wealth(which will damage the economy in the future), and shift it to undeserving people.  Yes, that is a harsh and mean thing to say, some of the people taking advantage of everyone else are in pretty sad and desperate shape, but no one deserves to be handed large amounts of cash for no effort, and it's the sickening sense of entitlement that lead to the whole collapse in the first place.  You know who deserves to have that money? The people who worked hard and earned it in the first place, and the people who will have to work hard to produce the future weath that's being borrowed.

[Alondro]

Well, I'm against the bailouts over all.

My point is, since they were going to ram a bailout through no matter what, it should have at least gone back to the people from whom it was being taken (all that money is our taxes, after all).

It's not the politicians who have to remember that we're their bosses, WE the people need to realize it, and start demanding that they stop helping themselves to our hard-earned money and do their jobs right!

Their job is not to experiment with our society, it's to make sure that the laws are followed and the country is protected from threats without and from within, and come up with better laws when needed.

[rabid_fox]

I don't think I'd like to live in a world where politicians considered others more important than themselves.