Is it a 'bailout'? Is it a 'rescue'? The White House says ...

BAIL·out? RES·cue?

Are President Bush and supporters of his $700 billion plan to deal with the causes of the nation's economic turmoil promoting...

a.) A bailout?

b.) A rescue?

There may be no legal or legislative difference. And for those seeking help -- from individual homeowners trying to make their mortgage payments to Wall Street CEOs -- the description may be irrelevant.

But it is more than a semantic question. And the White House took issue today with the word BAILOUT -- especially when written in headlines and cable TV screen "crawls" in SCREAMING CAPITAL LETTERS.

The concern: It inherently suggests government help for investors whose risky gambles have left them deep in the red.

"It's really unfortunate shorthand for a very complicated issue," said Deputy White House Press Secretary Tony Fratto.

"Our critics took the language of a 'bailout for Wall Street,'" he said, and the news media adopted it as the shorthand to describe the administration's aid package.

He insisted, at the daily White House news briefing: "It is not a bailout for Wall Street. It is not a bailout for CEOs."

The word the White House prefers is "rescue."

Certainly, it carries less emotional weight.

As for definitions, here's some help from dictionary.com:

According to dictionary.com:

Bailout: An instance of coming to the rescue, esp. financially: a government bailout of a large company.

Rescue: to free or deliver from confinement, violence, danger, or evil.

So, which is it? A bailout? A rescue? Does it matter?

-- James Gerstenzang

Comments

[anonymous]

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck....

It is indeed, "government help (read BAILOUT) for investors whose risky gambles have left them deep in the red."

Did you notice the bill provides for all the existing golden parachutes to be left intact? Disgusting.

[George]

They already have the money, they just need to find where they put it. On 9/10/2001 Rumsfeld announced the Pentagon "misplaced" $2.3 trillion, then it was all but forgotten on 9/11/2001. So tired of being fleeced by these corksoakers.

[AspenFreePress]

What the bailout is is crony capitalism! Why doesn't the FED come up with a plan to just loan these ailing banks money so they could service their own bad debts as they see fit? It sounds better than buying outright bad debts from the banks. By loaning the banks money, the banks themselves would be on the hook for payback instead of taxpayers. Plus, it might be an easier concept to sell to the U.S. electorate.
Sterling Greenwood
Aspen Free Press

[Carla]

Obviously the market is adjusting itself. Look at today's numbers. We don't need a bailout, we just need to understand that these are the expected and necessary losses imposed by the unregulated risks perpetuated by Wall Street. So the market is being readjusted. What else is new? Why does that necessitate an influx of 700 billion taxpayer dollars? It doesn't. What is necessary is a readjustment in the rules and regulations of how Wall Street has been given the right to risk their speculations to an unsupportable extreme.

[JS]

Thank god the bailout failed, but it is horrifying they are still trying to revive it.
The absolute arrogance of some of these media types & congressman who are suggesting the public doesn't support it because we don't understand the complications of the financial sector!
It's seems pretty simple to me - it's like if a leach could talk they would try to convince us not to pull them off because it would hurt!
Sure a stock market crash hurts us a little. But it's going to hurt the fat cats who caused all these problems gambling with our money a lot more.
How can we even suggest bailing out criminals & scam artists who should be in jail!!! Oh yeah, at least 200 of our congressmen are just as bad. I hope other people are tired of these crooks wasting our money and taking credit for every little good thing that happens in this country while pointing the finger of blame at anyone else when something goes wrong.

Have you ever ONCE heard a politician admitting they made a mistake? These are the absolute worst - greediest, most dishonest of us and they are somehow in charge of everything!
We get to choose between two lying crooks in every election and that's supposed to make us feel empowered.

[William S]

The core provision of this bill is that the U.S. government purchase bad investments from Wall Street firms for a price far above the market price, so how can anyone claim that this isn't a bailout, a giveaway, a mass transfer of wealth from the average taxpayer to those who are already filthy rich?

Those bankers squirreled away gigantic bonuses during the bubble years, using sham securities to bleed their victims dry and now that the bubble has burst, they want to dump the leftover rotting corpses on the taxpayers. No Thanks!

How could anyone trust that Paulson has any interest at heart other than the interest of his Wall Street buddies?

[madame M]

I'm not sure it matters in the long run if we pass this thing or not. The reality is that the culture of the US is not sustainable and how we do economics is a big piece of that. Did we really think we could consume forever without a stopping point? I think there were MANY people who participated in the lead up to this. Consumers, banks, regulators, congress, the white house and wall street all played a role, and none of those roles were being looked to too strongly in a culture of over-consumption. All of this happened in a culture of hubris (the same one that has a lot of the world not very happy with us right now).

A bailout only staves off the inevitable. Our economy isn't viable long term. The sooner we can get honest about that, the less our grandchildren will shake their heads at us.

Can we stop the knee jerk reaction to "socialism" and actually look at the standard of living in countries with socialized programs? What are we so afraid of? Taking care of our brothers and sisters? We are afraid of a word and it makes it hard to have real dialogue.

Meanwhile if we do the bailout, what can we contribute to the bigger "bailout" needs: global warming is indeed rearing its ugly head. We'd be wiser to look toward sustainability at this point and start putting money into educating people about the natural limits we are butting up against rather than expending more energy on trying to isolate little lines of “blame”. You think Wall Street is out of control, try more hurricanes and flooding with our hands tied financially...