Bottoms up

Most of the time we think of this as a drinking term. Get to the bottom of the glass, fast. But isn't there we almost are economically right now. Increasingly, I see it just driving, on the local roads, on the highways, coming in and out of NYC, less and less traffic, almost shocking the difference now versus a few years ago when the economy was humming and we were all rushing to go places, get to work, spend our money before we even earned it.

Bottoms up - also maybe the way we should have fixed the economy. What if, instead of bailing out the banks and financial institutions, who add nothing to our productivity, who produce nothing, who manufacture nothing, just take from all of us, what if we bailed out us little people who pay our taxes who work and struggle to survive? I kept thinking this last summer when the economy began to tank and we began bailing out the AIGs of the world, rewarding failure. It made little sense to me, despite the pleas of Krugman and other economists who explained this had to be done. I kept wondering, why not give the money to us - requiring us to pay our mortgages with it, our credit card bills, our car loans. Wouldn't then the banks be instantly solvent without toxic assets on the books? Wouldn't then our houses would have kept value and we would still be in them? Wouldn't then we would have more money to spend on stuff to keep the economy humming? We could all then afford to pay our taxes? But maybe this is just too simple an idea.

Keep it simple stupid.