Here Comes the Christmas Bailout?

By Si Dunn

It's beginning to look a bit like Christmas bailout time for U.S. consumers.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has told Congress that it should look at passing a new stimulus package to try to jump-start the economy.

Stimulus already has been given to Wall Street and the nation's banking system. If this proposed new bailout package is not directed straight toward Main Street and America's middle-class and lower-income consumers, there will be hell to pay in Washington.

Trickle-down economics should be relegated to the ash heap of economic history. It's time for trickle-up.

For Christmas, most Americans in the middle class and lower-income brackets just want--and anxiously need--a nice little bailout of their own.

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Help Save Main Street! Spend Money Now!

By Si Dunn

None of us can stop the current worldwide economic disaster. But just by repeatedly spending a few dollars each, we can at least help keep our local businesses afloat, save a few jobs, and maybe keep a few friends and neighbors in their homes.

Go out this weekend and buy a meal at a family-owned restaurant. Or, get a haircut at a locally owned barbershop or hair salon. Or, hire a lawn service to trim the scraggly hedges that have been on your to-do list for weeks. Or, buy something from a neighborhood bookstore or thrift shop or plant nursery. Pick one or two things to do and make a deliberate effort to follow through with some focused spending.

Next week, take a pair of shoes to be fixed at a local shoe-repair shop. Or have a garage attendant change out your car's overdue air filter. Or, get a few donuts or a couple of ice-cream cones. Or get a suit cleaned and pressed.

Don't sit on all of your money. Protect most of it, yes. But part with a little bit of it, too, in a steady and controlled manner.

Encourage friends and neighbors and fellow church parishioners to do the same. Don't panic; just spend a few spare bucks each week in considered ways that benefit your own neighborhood and community.

We all have friends and acquaintences who manage or own small businesses that provide their family income. They need our help now.

So do churches, especially small ones, and the local agencies that help the poor and the afflicted in our communities.

A dollar here, ten dollars there. It won't break us, but it can all add up in this crisis, especially if a lot of us truly will remember to "Help thy neighbor."

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Time to Hunker Down and Focus on What Really Matters

By Si Dunn

Many Americans are about to get back to basics, because of the economy's massive and continuing meltdown.

Suddenly, we don't have nearly as much money as we used to have. Suddenly, we can't get credit. And suddenly, we're terrified, after being reassured just a couple of weeks ago that our economy was fundamentally sound and strong.

Oops. The global marketplace has turned out to be a massive house of cards.

After 9-11, many Americans were ready to sacrifice for a war effort and help fight terrorists. President Bush told us go shopping, instead.

Well, the time to go shopping is here again, only this time, it really is the time to go shopping.

All across our nation, thousands of small businesses suddenly are hurting and teetering on the brink of extinction. Millions of jobs and countless dreams are hanging in the balance in tiny shops, small stores, family-owned restaurants, and moderate-sized warehouses, car dealerships and strip shopping malls, as well as in big companies, factories and corporate headquarters.

Whether you need goods or services, now is the time to buy something from the businesses in your neighborhood, the ones that, even in good times, have provided just modest livings for their owners and employees. They are the real heart and soul of the American economy. They are Main Street.

Just a few bucks spent here and there can make a huge difference, if a lot of us are willing to get off our wallets and make the effort.

Neighbor helping neighbor; family member helping family member; friend helping friend; everyone helping those in need. And all taking care of the basics and focusing on what really matters.

This is how we can ride out the massive financial storms now savaging Wall Street and our own meager savings.

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Robbing Peter to Pay Paul(son) and Golden Parachutes

By Si Dunn

In just one week, America's Republican-dominated economy has gone from "robust" and "fundamentally sound" to "in imminent danger of collapse" if $700 billion of taxpayer money isn't delivered immediately to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, so he can dole it out to Wall Street, banks, and other financial entitites.

This naked grabbing of money from average Americans' pockets supposedly will help keep the "robust" economy from going bust. But it also will help finance plenty of golden parachutes for the financial executives and leaders who got us into this mess and have been trying to conceal it until just after the end of the Bush Administration.

John McCain is no fan of this proposed bailout. But he can pretty well kiss his election to the White House goodbye. He's Republican, after all, and the Republican Party in general will suffer a very large, and very well-deserved, thumping at the ballot box Nov. 4, in the fallout from this fiasco.

Runaway deregulation plus rampant greed adds up to: (1) financial cycles that swing out of control; and (2) financial bubbles that explode.

The "trickle-down" economics famously championed by the Republicans has never worked. The upper class keeps getting more "upper," while spilling precious few drops of the money that is supposed to dribble down to the middle and lower classes.

Maybe it's time for some "trickle-up" economics, for a change.

To hell with the big financial institutions that lost sight of fiscal reality and got hooked on gambling with their--and our--money. Let them consolidate, downsize or die. Don't give them another dime.

Give most of the $700 billion, instead, to Main Street and small business, the real heart, soul and drivers of the national economy. And set aside some of it to help the thousands of lower-echelon employees in the financial industry who will lose their jobs, pensions and homes as a result of the avarice and selfishness of their corporate executives and the Republican political leaders.

Remind your Senators and Representatives in no uncertain terms: The buck starts here...well away from Wall Street and the Washington Beltway.

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