I'm always sort of concerned when something that seems blindingly obvious to me doesn't meet with agreement from other people. Clearly, one of us is missing something -- but if it's them, how can they not see something so enormous? And if it's me, then what have I misinterpreted so badly?

Currently, I'm facing this issue with the bailout plan, which the Senate is voting on today. This is a new version, with irresponsible tax cuts added in and a few other bells and whistles, but basically it's the same plan as before: take seven hundred billion tax dollars and use them to buy bad securities.

I cannot see how anyone thinks this is a good plan. Unless I'm misinformed, the recent meteoric rise of house prices is a statistical anomaly, historically speaking. The bailout plan, as described by Bush in his panicmongering speech to the nation, is to wait until the markets "return to normal" and then sell the bad debt back at a profit. This would make sense, were it not for the overwhelming evidence that the recent high prices are the abnormality, and that a return to normal means a reduction in prices.

I know I've been over this before, but I'm rehashing it to try to spot anything I'm missing. There's got to be some reason that this bill is even being discussed seriously, let alone coming close to passing. So far, though, the only reason I can discern is that it'll put the problem off for a couple of years, long enough for the senators and congresspeople to get re-elected. By the time it becomes inescapably obvious that we're never getting that $700 billion back, everyone will be able to blame the last administration, and paint themselves as unfortunate dupes.

If the bailout plan doesn't pass, things are going to be painful in the short term. Houses will be repossessed, banks will fail, we'll have to listen to Peak Oil proselytizers being unbearably smug as they gain proof of how people react to the system beginning to fail. However, if the bailout plan does pass, we'll have the same pain in just a couple of years, only with another three-quarters of a trillion dollars of debt added to it. If I had a gangrenous foot, and my options were to get it cut off, or take some drugs to kill the pain while it spreads up my leg, I'd lose the foot. I don't want to have my foot cut off; I like my foot. I use it for many things. But I'm not willing to simply cover up the symptoms and pretend that solves the problem.

Mood of the Moment: confused
Auditory Hallucination: Protomen -- The Stand (Man or Machine)