The English Guy’s Personal Blog

$700 billion almost seems like a fairytale figure, something like a child says as if its impossible that such a figure exists. But clearly it does. Unthinkable though it is, it apparently -has- to be done.

MSNBC though, has some great alternatives, or rather other things that can be achieved with the $700 billion:

• The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates our nation’s bridges need $180 billion in repairs, with our rail infrastructure in need of $185 billion in maintenance.
• Powering 70,000 homes using only the sun’s rays using the US’ largest solar power array in the desert near Gila Bend, Ariz — and create thousands of high-tech green energy jobs to boot. Construction costs will be about $1 billion.
• For $150 billion you could provide every American with private health insurance and create a universal automated health-information system.
• $150 billion per year to stabilize greenhouse gases by 2030
• Education – the U.S. currently spends some $500 billion annually on public education

So there’ some interesting options, and some of those would actually provide jobs, putting money back into the system (building works especially).

Now on to the main point of my post.

What happens if this $700 billion does nothing? What happens if those speculators and short sellers keep on going and drive the US economy into the dirt, more banks fail, wall st. crashes, and then the rest of the world goes in the same calamitous fashion? What then?

It worries me that the American government thinks that simply pumping money into the system, albeit by purchasing bad debt, toxic mortgages etc., will fix this. Isn’t this all a symptom of having too few controls on the financial system, the mortgage system and so on? If nothing is done about that, and these captains of industry causing this simply carry on, we’ll be back at square one in no time.

Tags: $700 billion