My mom has crazy ideas about politics..but this one may be right

giving money to the people? isn't that like socialism

What's your mom's name? I'll write her in on the fourth...LOL Yes, this would make sense considering we all got the economic boost checks this year if we filed right? Well, I am sure the big wigs will never fall for this and others who might fear losing their jets and limo rides might get nervous. Or we could have used that 700 billion dollars towards our deficit considering we are the ones funding this bail out anyhow. I am sure your mother would have voted No on the bail out unlike our two candidates who voted Yes.

Where in the world did you get that 439 million number? The U.S.'s population is more like 305 million: http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html

I must disagree with the numbers, and the logic. Yes the economy is based on consumerism, yet giving out inflated dollars to anyone will just make everything you buy more expensive. Now if the return money was in the form of a massive tax cut, like doing away with the income tax then yes I am all for it, but I do not think that is what we are discussing.

O.K. this would be hard enough to pull off without negative repercussions in smaller amounts. You're assuming it'd just come out of the pile of money just lying around D.C. that we give to them every year -- but they overspend that by alot, especially during times of war... Someone already pointed out that the U.S. population is a little above 300b, so it's a numbers game if we're gonna consider how big a toll it'd take over all...because they'd just print and borrow this money to give it to us, which further devalues the dollar (which is hardly worth anything these days, despite the occasionally rises in competiation with the euro...which has been seeing bad days itself lately). The bail out bill itself, hardly any of that money won't equal inflation. And actually, more than 700 billion will be spent in this bail out...I heard some estimates that were in the trillions by some pretty smart economists...so. The PROBLEM, of course is, that regardless of whether the bail out money is spent or not -- banks failing also could result in enormous levels of inflation. The less your money is worth, the higher the prices for regular things (ALOT of food was not even grown or manufactured within the United States for example). So actually, it'd be like stabbing a monster hoping to kill only to be broken in half as its tail swings around at you. Now, if they decided..."OK. We'll just stop spending so much money ourselves and take much less from our taxpayers"...then this would help people alot, and wouldn't equal inflation. They can't do that while fighting a war, they're struggling to give soldiers proper equipment as it is...but with all the uncertainty around whether a new deal will be made so that our troops can continue to stay in Iraq and how if no deal goes through...all our activity there completely halts... *points up* This is ALSO technically a little crazy idea. But it's all abot how you organize your priorites. Obviously, without the people there can be no government, so the government must put itself aside a little for the people in this proposed scenario.