numbers
The 2000 census established the average household at 3.14 (mmm pie) since it accounts for households without children. However, there has been a solid growth trend in that number in the last decade, and the 2010 census numbers are anticipated to show a higher number than 3.14. Let's split the difference and call it 3.77/average household.
bailouts since 2008: 4.892T (as of 7/7/2010, the actual number is probably closer to 6 trillion+, since it is falling very rapidly as the bailout funds are used up)
US citizens: 309M
bailout for each and every citizen (man, woman and child) in the US if they were a real democracy?: 15,798.62.
Average household = 3.77 (poor?) estimate
3.77*15,798.62=
$59560.80
Total government payments to the average US household, 2008-2010. If that money came with a caveat that it had to be used to reduce consumer debt load, the economy would have been jumpstarted like you hooked an AED up to it. But I think the decision to bailout corporations may actually have been a more logical (if less compassionate) choice; corporations have a vested self-interest and at least some level of watchdog to try to keep their books balanced, whereas the individual consumer would take that 60K and in a great many cases find ways to squander it, even with the caveat that it be used to reduce debt. For example, paying off a mortgage and then borrowing against the newly paid off mortgage to buy a new sports car.
That being said, they'd have to squander it somewhere---assets, like energy, do not vanish, unless the stock market is involved, and even then, they don't really vanish as much as they transform in a metaphysical fashion to "unrealized" assets. Even if people are buying a 60K car they can't afford, that money goes to the car manufacturer, to the dealership, etc, and it helps out.
I don't know. I wonder if we would have been better off bailing out the citizens anyway.
PS. If the bailout before it started being used came to an absolute value of 6T (again an estimate), the numbers change to 19374.91/citizen and $73043.39/average household
That's just under 25K a year in additional income. What household couldn't use an additional bread-winner? How many households would be saved from foreclosure? How much would that affect the depression? Remember each foreclosed house, each re-possessed item is sold at next to nothing in a desperate attempt to liquidate SOMETHING out of what otherwise would be a complete write-off for the lender. The banks wouldn't have to realize those losses (not as much, anyway) and thus would be in nearly as good shape as if the bailout had come to them in the first place, which it did. Only we didn't save people untold suffering from financial stress on the way.
I don't know, am I crazy to think this?
bailouts since 2008: 4.892T (as of 7/7/2010, the actual number is probably closer to 6 trillion+, since it is falling very rapidly as the bailout funds are used up)
US citizens: 309M
bailout for each and every citizen (man, woman and child) in the US if they were a real democracy?: 15,798.62.
Average household = 3.77 (poor?) estimate
3.77*15,798.62=
$59560.80
Total government payments to the average US household, 2008-2010. If that money came with a caveat that it had to be used to reduce consumer debt load, the economy would have been jumpstarted like you hooked an AED up to it. But I think the decision to bailout corporations may actually have been a more logical (if less compassionate) choice; corporations have a vested self-interest and at least some level of watchdog to try to keep their books balanced, whereas the individual consumer would take that 60K and in a great many cases find ways to squander it, even with the caveat that it be used to reduce debt. For example, paying off a mortgage and then borrowing against the newly paid off mortgage to buy a new sports car.
That being said, they'd have to squander it somewhere---assets, like energy, do not vanish, unless the stock market is involved, and even then, they don't really vanish as much as they transform in a metaphysical fashion to "unrealized" assets. Even if people are buying a 60K car they can't afford, that money goes to the car manufacturer, to the dealership, etc, and it helps out.
I don't know. I wonder if we would have been better off bailing out the citizens anyway.
PS. If the bailout before it started being used came to an absolute value of 6T (again an estimate), the numbers change to 19374.91/citizen and $73043.39/average household
That's just under 25K a year in additional income. What household couldn't use an additional bread-winner? How many households would be saved from foreclosure? How much would that affect the depression? Remember each foreclosed house, each re-possessed item is sold at next to nothing in a desperate attempt to liquidate SOMETHING out of what otherwise would be a complete write-off for the lender. The banks wouldn't have to realize those losses (not as much, anyway) and thus would be in nearly as good shape as if the bailout had come to them in the first place, which it did. Only we didn't save people untold suffering from financial stress on the way.
I don't know, am I crazy to think this?