That is of course the £500 billion question.
I suppose the answer depends on what you mean by "work".
Will it bring on days of endless economic sunshine?
No. Emphatically no.
What it may do, and by goodness I hope it does, is stave off a depression. It will not stave off a recession, I am afraid for reasons I will state below.
You have to start by asking where we are. We are a debt ridden country with a debt ridden government. Money supply has been out of control. We may as well have been printing the stuff, but we haven't, we have been borrowing it from the Chinese and the OPEC countries to buy their exports. This is the fundamental root of the problem.
We have hideous amounts of private debt, something like £500 billion on credit cards and unsecured loans, let alone what we have in mortgages at horrific income multiples and/or self certified housing debt quite a lot of which was based on what now seems very optimistic valuations.
The bottom line is that we have to pay back at least £500 billion in foreign debt. We also need to encourage local savings. That will hit the economy hard for many years to come.
Still, at least we can bank on our banks, but with a bit of luck we can reduce the number of regulations they have to comply with whilst making them more effective. Less can definitely be more here.
The irritating thing about all of this is that both the Conservative party and the Liberal Democrats have been pointing out this car crash for years, though none expected it to be either this bad or this costly.
The BBC has this.
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I, like many Americans believe that character, honesty, and integrity really do go to the foundation of who the next president should be.Obama is ahead in the polls because Obama is dramatically outspending McCain with television advertising ... he has a biased media in the tank, who provides him with more and better exposure, and editorial endorsement ... Obama has 96% of the black vote ... he enjoys the relentless support of a completely biased entertainment industry, plus the left wing educational community, plus massive illegal, or unethical fund raising, and voter registration drives, by groups like Acorn ... not to mention the fact that thanks to democratic propaganda, McCain has to carry Bush's weight. At this point in time, many Americans are also beginning to question the validity of the POLLS. Are they skewed, like the biased media? Do they truly reflect reality? Are the sample groups mostly black voters? If the Democrats are so sure they've already won, how come the keep trying so hard to make the rest of us believe it? Just like they did against Hillary! There is a good chance that if we can keep voter fraud out of this election, that on November 4th, the actual voters, in the privacy of their booths, will elect McCain/Palin, by a comfortable margin.
Will the bailout work? I guess it depends who is asking. If it is the high rollers, executives who abused their position and knowledge to fleece the American Citizens, i think it will. As i write this, there is discussion of how much will go for dividends, and bonuses and where else to use the $250 billion dollar xmas present for big business.
For the suckers called the american citizens, well,that's our problem for not being among the rich and famous, after all our republic/democracy is a thinly veiled updated version of the feudal system from Europe. The Big Biz guys are the Barons and landowners, and we the american citizens are simply the serfs, here to serve and sacrifice at the whim of the lords.
Our congress, our president, and our judicial system have consistently betrayed our country. Maybe we should think about having another tea party.
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