The House of Representatives just voted on, and failed to pass, the big financial market bailout bill.
Too bad that they are saying this is a “Wall Street” bailout bill. People forget that we own all those stocks. Our 401ks, our IRAs, our pension plans, our insurance companies, our church building funds. The market is not owned by just rich people. In saving “Wall Street,” we would be rescuing ourselves. But we’ve failed so far to do it because we have framed this as a rescue of Wall Street Fat Cats.
As I wrote over a decade ago, the vast middle class is where the money is. We’re the ones who own most of the wealth of this country (and pay the vast majority of the taxes). It is we who own most of the stocks and would be hurt most by a failure to “rescue” Wall Street.
Sure, some rich people will get saved right along with us but are we willing to cut off our collective nose to spite our collective face?
Opponents object that they don’t want to put $700 billion tax dollars in jeopardy. Understood. But those people apparently have no problem with putting much more of Americans’ money at risk — out stocks and bonds, IRAs, 401ks, our retirement nest eggs. Americans lost way more than $700 billion when the Dow Jones took a 777.68 point loss on the day the house voted down the rescue package.
It seems to me that we just nationalized mortgage lending when FedGov took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The damage is done. C’mon, congress, hold your noses and vote to approve the “bailout” loan to get credit working again.
By labeling this as a bill to save Wall Street, we may have doomed it to failure. And we’ll be the ones most hurt in the end.