If the bill is only to get us through to the next administration, then there's absolutely no reason for the amount to be as high as $700 billion. Cut it down to $150 billion or whatever's needed to tide us over until a better solution can be put in place under a new president and without the intense political game playing of the pre-election period.

These problems will be exacerbated if Democrats win the election and push through steep tax increases.

I think one of the unspoken realities here is not that there isn't enough money to make houses affordable and for people to prosper. Rather, the truth is that 20 percent of the population controls 84 percent of the wealth in the country; with the top 1 percent controlling about a third. This means that 80 percent of us are struggling for the remaining 16 percent. Or to put it another way when I explain things to students:

Imagine 100 dollars in a room with 100 people. We are all there to take our share of the 100 dollars. The first person gets up and takes 33 dollars. The next nineteen people people get up and split 53 dollars. The rest of us grab for the remaining
16 dollars.
Nothing will ever change until that changes; the rest is smoke and mirrors.

Sorry, should read: the next 19 people get up to take 51 dollars. my typing blows.

bokun59,

That's only a problem if one is only measuring a society by how egalitarian it is as a socialist or communist would.

Variables that you aren't considering is how mobile is our society? Can one improve his lot through his own efforts? Compared to other societies, are our poor hungry or doing without shelter and medical attention? Is that 16 dollars split between the rest of us better than 80 dollars in Algeria?

If everyone equally controlled the wealth, where would pooled capital come from? How would this affect the economy?

El,

I don't think society has to make it so we all get the same amount; all it has to do is limit the top. Let's suppose that we had a national ceiling of 1 million dollars in income per person. Can anyone seriously argue that s/he cannot live on 1 million dollars a year anywhere in the United States?
If one does, one is arguing for greed- not need. I am no economist, but I suspect that much money would be freed up to trickle down, as the Republicans like to say, to the rest of us. Comparing our society to another society misses the point. The fact that our lifestyle is better than others does not mean it is any fairer within its own borders. If one doesn't see the economic problem inherent in one person controlling a third of the populace's wealth while the rest struggle, then we can never change.

Anyone who argues "fairness" while depriving one class of it's earnings/holdings for the explicit intent to transfer to another class scares the hell out of me. While you now say 1 million, others may decide 200,000 or even less.

Welcome, Comrade.

Yeah, sharing is scary isn't it? It is certainly immoral to share and goes against every major religion's tenets. I mean, every major religion advocates greed as the number one priority in one's life. Don't we all remember the saying of Christ that it would be easier for a rich person to go to heaven than a poor person? I really don't know of a single person who could live on a million dollars a year. Heck, I am certain that it is way more important that Carly Fiorina get over 40 million to say good-bye than some teacher gets more money. What do teacher's do anyway. And Carly EARNED her money.

I guess you changed my mind- it is scarier that all people live well than one person living beyond any concept of well.

My bad.

El V wrote, If everyone equally controlled the wealth, where would pooled capital come from? How would this affect the economy?

Marriner S. Eccles, FDR’s Fed Chairman, wrote:
As mass production has to be accompanied by mass consumption, mass consumption, in turn, implies a distribution of wealth -- not of existing wealth, but of wealth as it is currently produced -- to provide men with buying power equal to the amount of goods and services offered by the nation's economic machinery.

Instead of achieving that kind of distribution, a giant suction pump had by 1929-30 drawn into a few hands an increasing portion of currently produced wealth. This served them as capital accumulations. But by taking purchasing power out of the hands of mass consumers, the savers denied to themselves the kind of effective demand for their products that would justify a reinvestment of their capital accumulations in new plants. In consequence, as in a poker game where the chips were concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the other fellows could stay in the game only by borrowing. When their credit ran out, the game stopped.

Our economy needs capital formations to provide the kind of investments that help fuel growth. What appears to be happening now is too much capital formation. Investors had access to so much cheap money, that excessive risk was not only tolerated, but sought out. Also, if capital formation was taken to the extreme and all workers labored for free, then 70% of our economy (consumerism) would disappear. That can't be good either. It is likely that the ideal case lies somewhere between “everyone equally controlling productive wealth” and slavery. I think we are free to have our own opinions about exactly where this point lies, but the lessons from the 30's and today seem to indicate that the current distribution of wealth is not good for the economy.

oops, I messed up the italics. MSE also wrote the paragraph starting with Instead of achieving as well.