THE ROAR: Ryan from the vault

PREFACE: A big thanks goes out to George W. Bush and the Republicans for creating the "Recession 2000" and even greater thanks for sending out the first round of "aid" to Wall St.

These past five months have been rough for all of us; the stock market took a turn onto streets that can be found across America with holes and bumps end-to-end. The unemployment rate has hit a 16 year high, and best of all we all took witness to $700 billion being given to failing companies.


Companies that were paying their CEO's outlandish salaries, spending large sums of cash on advertising and as for the banks, they were handing out loans to any Joe Schmo who walked in. It amazes me that after The Great Depression we would repeat the same mistakes more than 70 years later. Going through all the mistakes, disappointments, responsibilities(or lack there of), and use of the money by companies afterwards would be a novel, so allow me to stick to my main complaint. The United States of America claims to be a capitalist nation, however; we sent life boats out for every company found with stocks on Wall St.

So I ask to the government of our nation to instead do what a true capitalist society does, and allow those companies to fail, and allow banks to close. With the security nets and with a competitive market, we can easily rise from the tough times. Never should we or should we ever again pass our money out to those who failed themselves. If a small business here in Biddeford, a business people depended on, had to close, the government wouldn't send a check to make sure they stayed opened. The auto industry got snubbed when they came off their private jets with tin cans, and it should have been the same case when the big companies made themselves out to be, dead or alive.

Instead, it would be to the benefit our country to invest money in the parts of it that are governmental bodies rather than flunked companies. A stimulus package that includes money for the state governments, to then trickle down to the city governments and then into public works projects, education and jobs would provide much more for people than money that never saw the light of day when it was sent to Wall St.

Failing companies need to point the finger at their chief executives, failing schools need to point the finger at their government. There is a huge difference here, one has absolutely nothing to do with government while the other depends entirely on the government and the taxes of their local people to fund and maintain a usable environment. Maybe if the government would have chosen one less company to save on Wall St., we could have seen a $39 million bailout for renovations to our school. Maybe if the government chose to not save three less companies, our unemployment rate wouldn't have sky rocketed and jobs could have been created for those folks now having no way to pay bills.

Rushing through a bailout package was the most unwise thing our government has done in the last 20 years. So the next time Wall St. sees a bad day make sure to get on the phone, and call your senator and make sure they vote to decline any rescue package, because it seems rather clear that first lift raft sank.