Stewart was not satisfied. “Is it hard to talk to someone who doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about?” he said. “Because I’m watching you calculate, like, ‘Am I gonna go second grade on this guy? Do I have to go seventh grade on this guy? How do I do this?’ ” He asked Orszag why the government didn’t just bail out borrowers who have defaulted. “The problem is, if you just focussed on the people who defaulted you create this huge incentive to default,” Orszag replied. Stewart looked at Orszag with an astonished grin. Before Stewart could finish pointing out that the government is creating an equally huge incentive by bailing out the financial firms Orszag realized that he had been backed into a corner: “Yeah, none of this is perfect!”John Stewart has a point. If all that bailout money had been given to the citizens who were in danger of default, the default danger would have been averted. Yes, some morons would decide that default is a great idea if the government is going to be bailing folks out. But isn't bailing out a guy like me, for the astronomical sum of say, a couple hundred thousand dollars, better than bailing out a bank where folks expect to get paid that much each year?
It was a mistake to bail out the greedy bastards. It should have been us, citizens, who got bailed out, and Orszag pretty much admitted as much in the quote above.
