The President is using the last $100 billion from the $700 billion bailout for banks to continue to loan money to them, and he desires an option for another $250 billion. The optional $250 billion should not be approved and the $100 billion in loans should have significant restrictions.
The President instituted a $75 billion program to allow troubled homeowners to refinance their mortgages. They are mostly mortgages approved by conspiring banks for low income people with poor credit ratings, which were instituted under the Clinton Administration and continued in the Bush Administration.
After providing $17 billion in loans to the automobile industry the incompetent auto executives are back for another $20 billion, but thankfully the Administration is placing restrictions on future loans. The auto CEO’s have annual compensation packages worth tens of millions of dollars. The average hourly pay of the unionized workers, including hourly rate and all the extravagant fringe benefits is approximately $75 per hour compared to $45 per hour for non-union workers at foreign manufacturers with plants in the U.S. The U.S. auto industry has to reorganize, manufacture small, fuel efficient vehicles and cut the salaries of executives and get the pay of hourly workers close to $45 per hour. However, the government should not be running any private corporations, and should not be firing employees of these companies.
Despite the dire and gloomy economic predictions of Barack Obama and some of his staff from November 2008 through February 2009; the incompetence of the Detroit auto industry; and the greed of Wall Street, AIG and various large banks across the country, we will overcome the financial difficulties and prevail as a country because of the hard work, tenacity, stamina and wisdom of the American people, but we have to stop bailing out banks, the AIGs and the auto industry.
Donald A. Moskowitz
Londonderry, NH
The Pennsylvania State University
Class of 1963