U.S. should bail out the American people

I’m so sick of all this doom and gloom. What do you have to look forward to? All I have heard is that the American people are at fault for this economic mess we are in, because we lived above our means.

I firmly believe that the big oil companies and these big corporations that President Bush has let run this country and that get all these tax breaks have gotten us into this mess.

Americans need to write their senators and congressmen and tell them: Don’t bail these big companies out. Bail us out. Give us the money. Let us stimulate the economy.

Sherry Galster
Nevada, Mo.

Comments

[Engineer]

People
This is a very biased presentation. Do you have a copy of the enabling document to see just exactly what is being allowed?

[Engineer]

Jim
"nowadays tax cuts are called "socialism" and "welfare." Only when you call it a tax cut when you send checks to non-FIT payers.

[NoMoreMrNiceGuy]

Sherry, you obviously are uneducated. These "greedy" oil companies employ a vast quantity of people with good paing jobs not to mention the long line of skilled trades (many of them unionized) continual work keeping their infrastructure up to snuff. As a consumer if you do not want to support oil, then stop buying ANY product that requires a petroleum base. I doubt you are willing to do that. People not paying their mortgages (93% of us pay our mortgages) caused much of the financial "crisis" no every damn industry is jumping on board for a welfare hand out. BTW Sherry, where do you plan on spending our money? At corporations? I say bail no one out, let the card fall where they fall.

[People are Dumb]

Here is another great example of corporate representation over poeple representation by Bush.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/02/AR2008120203055.html

[Jim]

"Actually, in the old days, the type of bailout Sherry wants was called a tax cut."

And, as we learned during the campaign, nowadays tax cuts are called "socialism" and "welfare."

[People are Dumb]

Engineer, its a little more complicated than that. There is the American Poeple as you say....but those people are legally bound to give tax money to a govt in Washington DC that does not listen or represent us. Washington makes decisions illogically and completely disconnected from the American poeple.

[Sammy]

Engineer - Good post. I'll give you 3 grand if you give me 3 grand.

Actually, in the old days, the type of bailout Sherry wants was called a tax cut.

[Engineer]

Just who or what is the US? Isn't it the American People? If any "bailouts" are done they must, in essence, be done by the American People, or by the productive sector of the American People. There is no separate entity out there that can take care of us. There is no benevolent benefactor with unlimited resources as some seem to think. In the final analysis there is only us, the American People.

[People are Dumb]

If you could fly to Washington in a luxurious private jet, take a limo to the Capital building and eat lobster for lunch.....you might be able to justify a bailout for the people.....but only in Washington. Nowhere else could you justify that.

[Casady]

I am not against drilling ANWR or OCS and yes, I do believe it would have a stabilizing effect on prices (i.e. the increased demand would reduce the tightness that is resulting in the high price elasticity). However, Kee's argument is that it is a gateway to cheap oil which I think you will agree, would not be the case. Like you said Sammy, it will be essential to keep pace with growing demand that will no doubt follow the economic recovery. I would just like to see some benchmarks put in place that will incent alternative energy development in exchange for access to ANWR and OC reserves.

[Sammy]

Casady - Re: your PS, even in the $60 - $80 range, price is still more sensitive with demand pressure on tight supply, so small changes in marginal supply can have big impact on price.

[Sammy]

Casady - You've made a great argument to drill ANWR and offshore. If your guess is right about demand, then any economical production capacity (i.e. where cost to extract < market price) will result in lower price than if that capacity wasn't avaialable.

[Casady]

PS. Sammy, when I say price equilibrium, I am thinking the $60 - $80 range. Not sure about you but I put the $147 price up there with NASDAQ at 5,000 and $1,000,000 3BR/2BA split levels in suburban DC. It was 75% speculation, 25% weak dollar.

[Casady]

Hey Sammy:

I am familiar with that EIA report, thanks. In fact, it was after reading that report that I concluded that ANWR is not the answer. Figure a 1M bbl increase from ANWR and another 1M bbl/day increase from off shore sources (and that assumes peak production per EIA reports) and we will at best, reduce our foreign oil dependency by 10% (and that assumes that we . And while I agree with your premise that tight demand leads to greater price elasticities; we have been seeing that effect again and again since 2005, global demand over the next 3 to 5 years will hopefully increase by at least as much as the increased output resulting from ANWR and offshore sources (I say hopefully since the increase in demand would signal renewed economic growth). So I'm thinking we would be see todays price equilibrium being reached at the higher output rates that would result from ANWR and offshore sources. In other words, no impact on price. Thoughts?

[Sammy]

Forgot to post link to report in my previous post.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/analysis_publications/arctic_national_wildlife_refuge/html/execsummary.html

[Sammy]

Casady - How much oil can ANWR produce? This report suggests ANWR could produce at least half of your estimate needed to move prices. That's a significant chunk of it.

But, I take issue with your price analysis. Price elasticity is especially high when supply is tight and demand is high, so it doesn't take much extra supply to move prices.

[Casady]

"The boogie man is inot Exxon, it is Fannie/Freddie. Along with those who prevent us from developing our own resxources."

I'll agree with the first part of this statement Kee. While I agree that ANWR and off shore reserves should be gradually made available, my suggestion would be to increase the availability of these reserves when certain milestones associated with alternative sources and fossil fuel demand reductions are reached. With that said, I was wondering what your thoughts were on the global demand model. We have a global demand of roughly 85M bbls a day (US is about 20M bbls a day). There seems to be this big fallacy that drilling ANWR and offshore will drastically reduce the price of oil. While domestic oil will reduce our foreign oil dependency which is a good thing, the market price would still be pegged to the COMEX price. As a result we would need to increase domestic production by at least 2M bbls a day to have a significant impact on price. Bottom line is drilling ANWR and off shore is good for reducing foreign dependency, it will have little impact at the pump since the price is pegged to the COMEX and global demand in general.

[Jim]

Keep trying to sell us those talk radio talking points, Kee. Someone's bound to believe your Fannie/Freddy garbage if you keep repeating it, right?

[Kee]

Economic conditions are no more due to big oil companies than any other business, excepting of course, the subprime mortgages that crippled the financial markets with the aid of Fannie and Freddie.

The boogie man is inot Exxon, it is Fannie/Freddie. Along with those who prevent us from developing our own resxources.

[Pub 17]

Fun, innit? I'm taking the opportunity to become a more deeply spiritual person and to relearn the college pleasures of ramen and ketchup soup for dinner.

[JayhawkinMO]

Which mess, Sherry? There are so many to choose from. Being a retired guy whose IRA and other investments have lost about 40% during the last year, I would love a bailout! Just show me the money!!

[T. Hanson]

When I was 6 I asked my parents why doesn't the government just print out more money for all of us. Their answer, simply put was that inflation would occur (in language a 6 yr old could understand, and it made sense).

It is funny that there are people that still don't get why there has to be some type of restraint. Too bad most of the people that don't get it are in the beltway.

[kcstar_is_one_sided]

I don't see where we are being to asked to bailout big oil.

[JUNGLE JACK]

"I firmly believe that the big oil companies...have gotten us into this mess."

...well, if YOU believe it, it must be true.