Another Approach to the Bailout

Intriguing:

So... if the goal is to stimulate production and/or consumption, why not cut out the unnecessary layers of exorbitant expense? I'm not sure I see the reason for bailing out car companies, but say that was the goal for some reason. In that case, the government could simply buy a $20K car for every single American, every single one, and spend less than the $7 trillion that's been committed so far. That's well over 30 times as many cars as GM made last year. Worldwide. You could bet the car companies would tool up for this, and it would employ a lot of people, and it would stimulate the economy. Additionally, we'd all have another car thrown in. Sure, it might be a GM vehicle, but its still something, which is more than the nothing we're gonna get from pumping it into the Goldman, Welfare, Queen & Sachs black hole. Heck, it doesn't have to be cars - the gubmint could simply commit to spending $20,000 on something, anything each of us picks. You could take your 20 G and spend it on a menu of American made options.

Preposterous, you say? Inflationary, you say? Jingoistic, you say? Sure, I say. Its a stupid idea and I don't like it all. But I think its a much better idea than the current bail-out approach, which I think is worse than taking (for now) $7 trillion and setting it on fire. Giving the money to the likes of Henry Paulson's former employer is simply rewarding bad behavior and sending the wrong message, not to mention preposterous, inflationary, and jingoistic.