Are You a Taxpayer or a Shareholder?

Yes, this is a trick question.  Millions of Americans, of course, are both, whether we like it or not.  And we have our dismal 401k balances to prove it.

If you don’t have a 401k,  come out of the cave and get one.  If you ever want to retire, you have no choice.  And if you’re not paying taxes, e-mail me the details on how you’re managing that.

So here I am, taxpayer and shareholder, $847 billion dollars later, again - because didn’t we just do this? - scratching my head, wondering why all of these supposedly really smart economists think it’s right to keep pouring non-existent tax money into the pockets of those same financial wizards that tanked all the banks in the first place.

We should be firing them, and prosecuting them, but here we are giving them another carte blanche.  I wish my boss was that stupid.

NPR’s interview with Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz today discusses the merits of banks being nationally rather than privately run. He says that Americans are handing over the money to pay the bills, but we have no control over which bills - if any - are getting paid.

It’s like giving your teenager lunch money.  Who knows where it will end up.  But if you kept the money and packed his lunch, you’d have a better chance of him eating it.

I agree with Stiglitz - in that it would give the government control of where their money is going.  But will that make things better? There’s graft and corruption in government run as while as privately run businesses.

Stiglitz is missing the boat on the true problem here:  that there’s no business ethics, or values, or integrity to be had out there.  And that without heavy regulation, and control, this will keep happening.

Shysters will always be shysters.  And without protection, the smart honest people will have to play the shyster’s game, or they’ll sink.

Do you think the USA government should take over the banks?

photo credit:  PicApp

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