Some Thoughts on the Bailout

As we all know by now, the $700 billion bailout, aka: “one step closer to Socialism,” Congress was supposed to pass, didn’t. As a result the market dropped 777 points on Monday. Or, to put it another way, during one day of trading my 401 (k) lost 6% of its value. Ouch!

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I have no pity for the banks (Indy Mac, Bear-Stearns, Wachovia, Washington Mutual), that have gone down in flames due to their sub-prime mortgage practices. Giving loans to people who had no business having loans was a recipe for disaster, and they deserve to reap what they sow.

On the other hand, I don’t want our nation’s entire economy to collapse. That would be a slight bit inconvenient, and probably result in my 401 (k) dropping by a bit more than 6%.

I found the behavior of certain members of the GOP after the vote to be fairly appalling. Saying someone might not have voted for the bill because their feelings were hurt by Pelosi’s opening speech is just childish. If anyone did choose that as their reason not to vote I certainly hope they get voted out in November. There’s lots of legitimate reasons not to vote for this bill, but being offended is not one of them.

It’s my understanding the Congress will try again after the Jewish holidays (… huh? How much of Congress is Jewish? Are they taking Eid off as well?). I do hope this bill passes, but I certainly want there to be some very thick strings (cables, really), attached to it, and more oversight than the glass platform view of the Grand Canyon.

One last note about this bailout. It had damn well better work.

Slightly Current Events

I meant to talk about this last week, but it slipped my mind. Sorry.

It seems there’s a group of preachers who decided to defy the US government and, from the pulpit, endorse a specific candidate (care to guess who?). This is in violation of their tax-exempt status. They say it’s an expression of free speech.

I actually have no problem with them standing up there and saying anything about anything. I’ve mentioned this before. If they want to tell their followers “God wants you to vote for John McCain”, then by all means they should be able to do so. All religious organizations should have this right. They should have the same rights as any other group, business or individual.

Of course there’s a trade-off here. If they want those same rights, they need to take on the same responsibilities. I want them to be able to say what they please. I also want them to have to pay the same taxes, have to obey the same labor and employment laws, and basically do everything else the rest of us have to do.

It’s simple: if you want to have the rights, you have to have the responsibilities. Minus those, you don’t get the same rights as everyone else. They may not like it, but they probably also would like even less to have their mansions, cars and private jets taxed, not to mention having to pay taxes on church property and the like.

So there you go. I think religious groups need to be treated the same as any other group, and the trade-off to that is that they need to be treated exactly the same as any other group. Re