The 5 Most Regrettable Bailouts

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I am trying to start a grass roots bocott of the big guys (banks) who are taking millions in bonuses yet only paying ~1.5% on CD's, and less on savings and other accounts. As a stock holder I'm also getting ripped off. They have cut their dividends to sometimes 0%, and they are still getting bonuses?!?!! Go figure that one out. You get the idea. They are all take, take take, and no give. I'd boycott AIG, but I don't do business with them anyway. Somehow people don't seem to understand that every dollar those guys put in their pocket, is a dollar they cheated some poor sap (me, us) out of. They are laying people off and cutting pay to cut costs and boost profits. Hey I know how they can cut cost and boost profits - forgo the bonuses. They say they have to keep talent and must pay to do that. HA! What talent? Besides that's just a way to keep the rich rich and the poor poor. They are slowly but surely siphoning all the money from the middle class to themselves. Shame on them, and shame on me for letting them do it. BOYCOTT, BOYCOTT, BOYCOTT!!!

Bo of TX 4:23PM September 09, 2009

"The global economy is mysterious, even scary. Chief Business Correspondent Rick Newman connects the dots." Does he? The story above suggests Rick was sick the day they taught business in business school. I don't doubt he finds the global economy mysterious and scary.

Kevin of NY 3:35PM September 09, 2009

Rick Newman obviously has no concept of moral hazard, capitalism, and systemic risk, among other things. There should not be any bailouts, unless the failure of the company posed a systemic risk to the financial system (to be sure, we need financial reforms to ensure that no company can pose systmic risk in the future.) I'm not going to try to determine which bank bailouts were appropriate. But one thing is 100% certain: the government should have never ever bailed out GM or Chrysler. The country would have been just fine without them. So we saved a few thousand jobs, at least temporarily... but make no mistake about it, it came at a huge cost to the taxpayers. And worse yet, GM ended up filing for bankrupcy anyway. And Chrysler will either file bankrupcy or maybe get another bailout. So if anything, we have just postponed the day of reckoning for these companies-- at a huge cost to taxpayers. People should listen to Bernanke: We should reform the system so that never again will it be necessary to bailout a company for being "too big to fail."

Justin of LA 2:48PM September 09, 2009

All about money. the source of all evil. Anyway, poor taxpayer like us and down to the rest of our great grand children will shoulder the burden of paying back these wrong decisions made by the government. Anyway, life is but a circle. If these wrong doing and bad decision won't stop, United States will come down and will not stay as the number one leader in the world. History repeat itself like what happened in Europe.

Lee of CA 6:58AM September 07, 2009

Obama and the citizens who voted for him are now getting a barrage of criticism for all of this----from the smart-aleck and very ungrateful stockholder crowd who got the recent stock market "rebound" as a direct result of government intervention, and from the clueless church stooges who still have no idea what happened but will believe any "Hitler" stuff they are fed.

Muser of NM 3:10PM September 04, 2009

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Rick Newman

Rick Newman

The global economy is mysterious, even scary. Chief Business Correspondent Rick Newman connects the dots. In addition to his writing for U.S. News, Rick is the co-author of two books: Firefight: Inside the Battle to Save the Pentagon on 9/11, and Bury Us Upside Down: The Misty Pilots and the Secret Battle for the Ho Chi Minh Trail.


Read Rick's latest blog entries here.

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