I see this thread is packed savvy financial specialists....
How about you geniuses do a bit of research before complaining for the sake of complaining.
Here, read
this.
In 2004, the United States is providing some form of foreign assistance to about
150 countries. Israel and Egypt continue, as they have since the late 1970s, as the
largest recipients, although Iraq, receiving over $20 billion for reconstruction
activities since mid-2003, is the biggest recipient in FY2004.
As for helping the domestic auto industry, you seem to be forgetting that they got into this mess on their own: they got help from the government by lobbying against a rise in the CAFE standards -- a short term solution that allowed them to avoid having to spend money on increasing their efficiency.
But don't worry, you complain about a billion here or there for Israel, while ignoring the auto industry's role in getting the USA into this dependence on Middle East oil. All that money flowing to Saudi Arabia will come to bite you in the ass, as they spend a whole lot on promoting their
ideology of hate; here's a snippet:
According to some estimates, Saudi Arabia has spent $75 billion in the last quarter century supporting this propaganda, roughly three times more a year than the Soviet Union did during the height of the Cold War.
Also, your suggestion for helping the auto industry brings to mind the help given to the air industry after 9/11: lots of money given, while I've read some people saying that the industry was losing money prior to 9/11 and was due for a shakeup and consolidations. Now, with all the semi-bankruptcies, the workers had to agree to slashing their benefits by half, while the managment will be hitting it big time when companies emerge out of bankruptcy. SItuation must have been the same in the auto industry -- managment was comfy when they were the top dog in selling cars, and didn't bother improving; they raked in a lot of money, and that's all that mattered to them. Now, if they go bankrupt, then their underfunded pension will fall on the taxpayer.
Link:
At UAL?s United Airlines, workers stand to lose more than $3 billion in promised benefits as the airline passes its pension obligations on to the government.
Unfunded pension obligations at Ford have risen to a whopping $12.3 billion, and General Motors is looking at shortfalls of $7.5 billion.
In the executive suites of these companies, however, there's no pain to be found. United Airlines chief executive Glenn Tilton collected $3.4 million in compensation in the year leading up to the airline?s 2002 bankruptcy. He received another $4.5 million of his pre-bankruptcy pay package in 2003-2005.
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