The United States government plans to bail out the creaking financial system to the tune of $700billion (£379billion). President George W Bush has urged that the plan be accepted or their economy will go in a tailspin.
Why should hard-earned taxpayers cash be used to fund the financiers’ gambling spree? It would have been better to have allowed mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac go to the wall so the government can bring help to those homeowners genuinely affected by such an outcome. The news of the proposals will be keenly (!) watched in the UK too. Whatever the US does, we tend to follow. If the package is rejected, if they suffer, we suffer too.
Like Gordon Brown in the UK, Bush feels he needs to help the bankers rather than the ordinary people he is supposed to be serving. The problem now is that he has left such a terrible mess now, that whoever suceeds him in November will have very little room to manoeuvre. Would John McCain or Barack Obama want to become President on the back of all this?