UPDATE:  Well, the House passed the Wall Street bill after all.  I’m very disappointed and a little angry.  Apparently, I’m in good company.  The world market isn’t reacting as many had hoped.  At the end of trading today (10/09/08), the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 8,579.19.  Iceland is a mess.  Which country is next?

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I’ll probably get in trouble for saying this, but part of me was glad to hear that the House of Representatives voted down the Wall Street bailout plan earlier this week.  The whole plan smelled bad from the start and I applaud both the Republican and Democrat Representatives that had the courage to vote against it.  There may be hope for this country yet (assuming their motives were for the good of the country and not their own re-election).

We would be wise as a nation to slow down and think this whole thing through – painful as it might become.   Simple common sense would seem to dictate that we cannot just throw (taxpayer) money at failed companies and expect the problem to just go away.  I liken it to putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound.  Yes, you cover it up for a time, but neither the wound nor the imminent death of the gunshot victim are going to go away without proper care.  

The question then becomes:  Is the bailout of these organizations our only option? Should we be giving this plan our support?  President Bush seems to be telling us we should.  McCain and Obama are too. Not that my opinion matters much, but I cannot agree with them.  I think that by doing so we are rushing headlong into socialism or worse. Anyone else concerned about that?

Thankfully, smarter people than I have weighed in on this topic with some great recent articles that present some interesting alternative views of the situation.  Their opinions are not what you’d normally find on the the big news outlets (which is refreshing), so I thought I’d share some with you.  Enjoy!

As always, feel free to sound off in our comments section or vote in the poll found above.

You Heard It Here First

by Dr. Richard A. Jones at American Vision

Bailout marks Karl Marx’s comeback 

by Jeff White at NationalPost.com

Now That the Bailout Is Dead, What Next?

by Gary North at Specific Answers

The Great Train Robbery of 2008 

by Robert P. Murphy at the Ludwig von Mises Institute

Bush and the Bubble Bungle

by Dr. Richard A. Jones at American Vision

Bankruptcy, not bailout, is the right answer 

by Jeffrey A. Mironat at CNN

The (Near) Death of the State

by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. at the Ludwig von Mises Institute

The Common Sense Fix

by Dave Ramsey

No More Help, Please

by Stephen Fairfax at LewRockwell.com

Tags: bailout, bush, crisis, economy, mccain, obama, paulson, senate, socialism