Always shop around

In this season of holiday shopping many people shop around looking for bargains, trying to get the most bang for their buck.  Why didn't the government do that with this financial bailout?

Perhaps instead of the government injecting its (our) money into a number of troubled financial companies and auto companies it could have looked around for better things to do with that cash. After all, we're not the only country that is experiencing hard times. I wonder what Canada would charge for a province or maybe look to the south and do a price check in Mexico. They have 31 states in their federation---maybe they could spare one for a quick influx of money.

Everybody wins. We get to move our borders out a bit and give lots of jobs to sign makers and sign painters. They get much needed hard (well, as hard as the dollar is these days) currency. Baja California would probably be too expensive but maybe Baja California Sur... you might even be able to generate some cobranding synergy here. Maybe Taco Bell (owned by PepsiCo) would offer up some money to sponsor a buyout of the Mexican state of Chihuahua: "Yo quiero Taco Bell"

I'm not sure if these are practical ideas but I just hate the idea of spending so much money for the worst performing companies in the country. And on the political front, with Bush throwing so much money around, how in the world is President-elect Obama going to have a fighting chance? He's going to enter the Oval Office with lots of blank checks to fill out but no money in the coffer to back them up with. Scary times.

Comments

Omykiss said…
It wouldn't be so bad if it felt like they know what their doing ... the trouble is ... the ones who caused the trouble in the first place are the ones fixing it too. Doesn't make any sense ....
9:29 PM
kenju said…
You're both right. I got an email today that said Lee Iococca is on the warpath about all the carmakers; says they should all be thrown out! I think I agree with him!
11:24 PM
Anonymous said…
While I understand what you are trying to say, I don't think it's wise to send what little money we still have out of the country and take on more responsibility to boot! (I assume we have to keep the Mexicans and Canadians that are already in those provinces and states) or more likely just end up in debt to those countries.

These bailouts are frustrating to me. I don't know how the financial bailout should have been handled -- or even really how it IS supposed to work. But the auto bailouts should have been in the form of a one time buyout of the cars that weren't sold because of the financial problem. That way if they were trying to be responsible, they'd have what they expected to have at the end of the year and could sink or swim after adjusting to the new economy. Just like every other business must do.... And just dealing with all those cars would create new jobs... transporting them, storing them, maintaining them.
12:12 AM
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