Start-ups Not Bail-outs

As I was reading the papers this morning I found myself looking almost desperately for some hint of even some mediocre good news, but finally decided that I had to agree with Thomas Friedman, Op-Ed Columnist for the New York Times, who said in his column today, that reading the news that GM and Chrysler are now lining up for another $20 billion or so in government aid – on top of the billions they’ve already received or requested, left him with the sick feeling that we are subsidizing the losers and for only one reason: because they claim that their funerals would cost more than keeping them on life support. But, as he says, this is not the American way. Bailing out the losers is not how we got rich as a country in the first place and it is definitely not how we’ll get out of this crisis now.

We don’t need anymore any more wealth-destruction machines and it is time both GM and Chrysler were put into bankruptcy so they can truly start over under new management with new labor agreements and new visions. When it comes to helping companies, precious public money should focus on start-ups, not bailouts.

Try spending tax payer money creating jobs! Call up the top 20 venture capital firms in America, which are short of cash today because their partners, university endowments and pension funds are tapped out, and make them this offer: The U.S. Treasury will give you each up to $1 billion to fund the best venture capital ideas that have come your way. If they go bust, we all lose. If any of them turns out to be the next Microsoft or Intel, taxpayers will give you 20 percent of the investors’ upside and keep 80 percent for themselves.

We can’t be spending billions of taxpayer dollars on office-decorating bankers,over-leveraged home speculators and auto executives who year after year have spent more energy resisting changes and lobbying Washington than leading change and beating Toyota.

Our country is bursting with innovators looking for capital. Please, let’s not let all the whining losers clamoring for help drown out the potential winners who could lift us out of this mess. Some of this country’s best companies, such as Intel, were started in recessions, when necessity makes innovators even more inventive and risk-takers even more daring.

We’re down, but we’re not out. If we’re going to invest taxpayer money, then let’s do it with an eye to starting a new generation of biotech, info-tech, clean-tech companies with real innovators, real 21st century jobs and potentially real profits for taxpayers.

I couldn’t agree with Friedman more when he says that our motto now should be “Start-ups, not bailouts: nurture the next Google, don’t nurse the old G.M.’s.”

The stimulus package that the Obama team and the Democrats in Congress recently passed – with no real help from Republicans – goes some way toward doing just that. And my hat’s off to them for that, but we need to do more. We desperately need to look forward, not backward to the same old crap.

The wind and solar industries in America have a chance to go ahead now with thousands of jobs – finally, with this new legislation, we finally have gotten something right according to John Woolard, chief executive of Bright Source Energy.

And this is how taxpayer money should be used to stimulate: limited financing, for a limited time, targeted on an industry bristling with new technology start-ups that, with a little push from Uncle Sam, won’t just survive this crisis, but help us thrive when it is over. We need, according to Friedman, an America that is thriving not just surviving.

Amen to that!

Help with Understanding the Bail Out

To help you understand the government bailout plan, here are some photos that will explain better than I can!



Greener Grass...



Its important in life to reach out, to strive for greater achievements, to go for that greener grass that is on the other side of the fence..
But one must also be careful

Sometimes you can reach too far !

But when you find yourself over-extended and you're stuck in a situation that you can't get out of,
There is one thing you should always remember.......

Your Government.....
Is there to help you!!!!

Our Financial Nightmare!

How could this have happened and why! Those are two questions I’ve been asking myself a lot lately regarding the economic disaster this country finds itself drowning in. And not just this country -- it has had major repercussions all over the world. I’m not the most savvy person where big money is concerned; I’m not sure exactly how it all functions even when things are going well – it’s pretty much a foreign language to me. But I do try to grasp the basics and lately even that is all but impossible because it’s hard to believe so many “intelligent, knowledgeable” people could have so totally screwed up! And from what I’ve read over the past several months, I’m not the only one that is totally disgusted.

Thomas Friedman, Op-Ed columnist with the NYT apparently feels exactly the same way and has a great piece today on the latest meltdown, Citigroup. I would urge you to read the entire piece, but I will quote a few of the things he had to say. The NYT piece that he quotes is one from the front page of the Sunday NYT by Eric Dash and Julie Creswell about Citigroup, entitled “Citigroup Pays for a Rush to Risk”

“That article exposes in searing detail – using Citigroup as Exhibit A – how some of our country’s best paid bankers were overrated dopes who had no idea what they were selling, or greedy cynics who did know and turned a blind eye. But it wasn’t only the bankers. This financial meltdown involved a broad national breakdown in personal responsibility, government regulation and financial ethics.”

The thing I guess that amazes me is that there were so many people in on all of this, people who had no business buying a home, with nothing down and nothing to pay for two years! People who had no business pushing such mortgages, but made a fortune doing so; people who had no business bundling those loans into securities and selling them to third parties as if they were AAA bonds, but made a fortune doing so; people who had no business buying those bonds and putting them on their balance sheets so they could earn a little better yield, but made fortunes doing so.

That’s just some of how we got where we are today – almost a total breakdown of responsibility at every link in our financial chain, and now we either bail out the people who brought us here or risk a total systemic crash. These are the wages of our sins. Friedman says he used to say our kids will pay dearly for this. But actually, it’s our problem. For the next few years we’re all going to be working harder for less money and fewer government services – if we’re lucky!

So, with those cheerful thoughts, let me again wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving!