Letters
TEXT OF STORY
Kai Ryssdal: Nothing like a $700 billion rescue package to get those cards and letters coming. And we weren’t the only ones getting them either. As we mentioned yesterday on the program, congressional offices were swamped with angry calls from their constituents about the bailout. That public outrage helped topple the bill yesterday. And a lot of people wrote to us to say there’s gotta be better way.
Eric Carlson’s from Portland, Oregon.
Eric Carlson: I think we need to stimulate the economy through multiple channels, easing credit flow on the banks’ side and debt relief on the consumer side. … On the consumer side, we give directly back to the taxpayer and the other half goes to establishing a “green” power industry creating hundreds of new jobs.
What’s happening now in the financial markets is often compared to the lead-up to the Great Depression. There are a whole lot of reasons that might not be a good comparison, but Peter Haweyluk from Parma, Ohio, said one lesson from history could us some good right about now.
Peter Haweyluk: I believe that the only way the government can ensure the creation of new jobs is for the government itself to create those jobs. The last time the United States experienced an economic catastrophe of this magnitude (in the 1930s), that is exactly what the government did.
At the moment, House and Senate leaders are talking about bringing some kind of package up for a vote in the next day or two. David Franklin from New Orleans said it would be great if the new plan would concentrate on how we got into this jam in the first place.
David Franklin: While the bailout may loosen up finances and markets to restimulate the economy, I am concerned that none of the plan addresses the cause that started the whole crisis. We still have millions on the brink of foreclosure, rates are not low to help these individuals out and home values are still falling in important regions of the nation.
Larry Brown from Romney, West Virginia, had debt on the brain and how a lot of it, like we have here, can be a bit problem.
Larry Brown: When I was a kid, there was a little country called Japan that tried like the dickens to be like us. They more than succeeded riding high until the bubble burst, throwing their economy into a complete meltdown. But for the past 20 years, they’ve been digging out of financial ruin and now have one of the highest per capita savings rates in the world.
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