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The United States is in the midst of a financial crises. Congress is discussing the President’s proposal for a 700 billion to 1 trillion dollar “bailout” of the financial sector of the country. During the news coverage I heard several politicians state that although we may be forced to provide the funds for the companies, it would be unwise to give handouts to the everyday citizens who lost their homes.

Why the position in favor of helping the businesses in trouble? It is claimed that if we do not, the US and maybe the world will have another great depression. Accordingly the bailout is in our own selfish interest. Although I do not really understand the bailout assertion, if enough “experts” agree on the nature of the situation, I may reluctantly agree to not fight them.

The other part of the equation, refusing to help individual homeowners out of their foreclosure situation, I do not understand at all. The assertion is that the morally and logically good action is to make everyday citizens help themselves so that they will learn not to make such mistakes. Given that claim, why does it fail to apply to the leaders of the financial corporations?

The corporate CEOs and CFOs are very rich people with a lot of sophisticated training in financial matters. How could they have not seen the problem. Many experts, including John McCain and George Bush, agree that it is their greed that led us into the mess. Don’t they also need to learn lessons? We trusted these people with our financial well being. Do we allow them to remain in place without learning the lesson? Do we allow them to receive a financial settlement instead of a stiff penalty if they resign their position or retire?

Seems to me that if helping the corporations is logically valid then so is helping the citizens. If we bail out the corporations we should bail out the people, and protect the people from such predators. Isn’t protecting citizens the job of government?