Reply #10: All Pain Is Personal...

[KharmaTrain]

Seeing the market rise or reading of the billions spent to bail out the economy means nothing to someone whose without a job or has lost one in the past year. It's not something they can see/feel and contempt festers toward those who they perceive as getting special treatment.

It's been pointed out before that our banks were on the edge of total collapse that would have driven millions more out of work and made any chance of a recovery longer and more painful. It's shameful that the same people who created the messes were expected to clean it up or that real financial reform is going so slowly. However, for those with investment funds and retirement accounts, they're seeing some of the TARP money coming back into private hands that has stabilized the economy...for now...and is creating some base for future economic investment and growth. It's money that will go into building small busineses or funding new technology and the jobs that go with it. There's still a long way to go...as credit still remains tight and there are still some companies teetering on the edge that will fall over (especially if there's a bad fourth quarter).

As you note, there were also millions of state and local jobs that were spared through the stimulus...again invisible as these weren't new jobs. There still needs to be more assistance on this front as the revenues these entities lost through a combination of booooshie's disastrous tax cuts to the rich, plummeting real estates taxes and retail taxes have turned state budgets into disasters...and the reason a second stimulus will surely be needed next year.

Cheers...