Nor is government, least of all federal, intervention in the economy merited.

Having said that, I'm almost at the point where I'd accept or at least note aloud the superiority of the “bottom-up” general-population approach to any federal bailout. Rather than engage in favoritism, incompetence, or a combination of the two by the Wall Street insider-oriented Treasury Department, I'd say it's less harmful to have a “citizen dividend” (stupid name, but illustrative nevertheless) issued to all taxpayers. (It's morally wrong to favor the deadbeat borrowers at the expense of those who didn't borrow more than they could afford.)

It's much more generous of a concession by me than the case of honest environmentalists' concession about the relative substantial environmental superiority of nuclear power over alternatives, but perhaps equally if almost as begrudging. We shouldn't do it, in theory, but giving equal chunks of bailout money to all taxpayers is better than the games we're seeing with favoritism toward some financial firms and their newsworthy misuse of the money. (It has nothing to do with their reluctance to resume lending; that is fully sane behavior. Giving money to individuals does not imply they will spend it or resume borrowing, necessarily, either.)

If we're roughly at 300 million (USA), population approximately at replacement level fertility, that's 150 million adults (taxpayers). Divide whatever has not only only been spent but what is contemplated on being spent by this 150 million divisor (or choose a better one if you have a better one), and ask yourselves if that would be better, or not as bad, as what we see now. Or which benefiaries are more, or less-less, deserving, at the very least.

[scowl]

“his company was sold to Dean Foods, Inc. in a highly publicized $295 million transaction. At that time White Wave had about 150 employees, of which 100 had worked for the company for 2 years or more. In an unprecedented move for a packaged foods business, Steve and his managers refused to sell unless every employee who had been with the company for 2 years or more received something from the sale. The lawyers were astounded by Steve's request—it took them three months to work out the legal mechanics, which could have jeopardized the sale of the company. In the end, $15 million of the sale price was handed out to about 100 people, many of whom didn't speak English. One, a truck driver named Pete, received almost $400,000. There was no legal obligation to do this, and Steve lights up when he speaks about handing them the checks and sometimes having to explain through a translator why they were getting this money.”

http://thewellnessrevolution.paulzanepilzer.com...