On the slippery slope to socializim.
Actually, I think this was already done.
And my former colleague and I used to discuss whether we were stupid for being responsible, as American culture now favors the irresponsible--if enough people do a stupid thing (e.g., build in a flood-prone area, overinvest, etc.), they get bailed out. And we realized that it would be difficult to live with ourselves being part of the problem.
So we remained with irrational, yet honorable, behavior.
"There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as a result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved."
---Ludwig Von Mises
“We will be told that the Federal Reserve and the Treasury have finally gotten it right. The scope and size of the proposed program will arrest the decline in home prices, restore stability to the financial markets, enable banks to get back to the business of lending, and restore the confidence of the American consumer.
While the program certainly has each of these points as a goal, the amount of time to achieve each goal is unknowable, but an important factor. Moses was told he would lead the Jews to the Promised Land. He didn’t know it would take 40 years. And, in all due respect to Bernanke and Paulsen, Moses was working with God. They are working with Congress.”
-Jim Welsh, Welsh Money Management
Frankly I don’t have a clue the best course of action so I entrust the conservative leadership to work it out.
This one time buyout must be about more than just the dollar amount, tho, since we spend the same amount—$700 billion—every single year on foreign oil for energy without even batting an eye.