Bail is simple a contract of guarantee that he will show up in court. The amount set is the perceived cost of apprehending him if he does not appear in court and flees the jurisdiction. If he does appear than everything is refunded.

He hasn't been convicted of any crime. He stands accused but not convicted. There is a very big difference. If convicted then his assets will most likely be liquidated to pay off claims from those defrauded. Legally he cannot be stripped of his assets before a trial in which he is found guilty of a crime.

--------------- Added 03 Jan 2009 at 07:53 ---------------

Welcome to a Federal Republic if you are in the United States. You elect Senators and State Representatives to present your case to the federal government and in your best interest. These representatives cast their votes in your favor so that something can be accomplished. If everything went to a public vote then nothing would ever get done.

If you live in the United States, you are first and foremost a citizen of your state which has all the rights and privileges of any other country in the world. The state in turn has become part of the Republic through majority vote of the members of that Republic. In return for providing the Republic with resources found in the state, the Republic promises to keep the state and its citizens safe from outside influences (military) and to negotiate better trade deals with other countries. Also the individual states have the right to elect the Chief of the Republic and the Commander in Chief. Of course this is the President and why we have the Electoral College.

You can change these things through amending the Constitution does require a 2/3rds vote of both houses of Congress and 2/3rds of the states to ratify it through the process outlined in the state's constitution. Individual states can put the ratification to a public vote or can approve it through their own elected officials.

In the case of banks here in the United States, you will find a lot of the CEOs and management out of jobs. When the FDIC seizes a bank, it becomes the property of the Federal Government. That property is then sold off to more financially sound institutions either whole or piecemeal. The management of those banks usually do not have jobs after the transition period. The majority of the Financial Bailout is going towards seizing these banks that are already failing, securing their assets to protect consumer's money and then reselling those assets to other firms under specific terms and loans. They aren't just writing checks to CEOs to do with as they wish. In the case of traditional loans to financial institutions, the receiving bank is often tasked with taking on underperforming assets at a loss as well. You see this in the case of the Bank of America merger with Countrywide Mortgage or the purchase of Washington Mutual by J.P. Chase Morgan. Both Bank of America and J.P. Chase Morgan received loans to help them deal with the underperforming assets and prevent their own collapses.

Letting these underperforming assets fail would be more detrimental to the economy. Not only would thousands of people lose their jobs causing a job loss domino as less money is in the economy but customers would lose 100s of billions of dollars.

The Auto Industry is a little different as technically they are not financial institutions. However GM does own one of the largest financing companies in the country providing everything from auto loans to bankruptcy loans. These loans are given not only to individuals but to corporations and countries around the world. In the scheme of a $1.5 Trillion bailout package, which includes $700-800 Billion in the Financial Aid Package and another $755 billion in a proposed consumer stimulus package plus associated costs, $20 Billion dollars to the Auto Industry is peanuts.

I do believe there should be higher constraints on how they spend the money. Higher fuel mileage, more US employees, regional economic stimulus amongst them but really preserving and enlarging the manufacturing base is key to preventing a global economic depression never before seen by this world. A country's GDP cannot rely solely on digital money transfers and selling lattes to Soccer/Hockey Moms who use products manufactured elsewhere. To misquote a former President - It is important that we make computer chips instead of potato chips.

Well said :up:

As much as it pains me to say, I have to agree with this comment. I watched a program on the History Channel last night comparing this mess to the one in 1929 and thats exactly what the Treasury Sec. did back then...nothing and let the system try and correct itself and we all know what happened then.

The question is ofcourse if you should save the car industry. If i am not mistaken then the US car manufactors are already for many years in problems. You should only save such an industry if it can, in normal circumstances, perform healthy. It might be better to invest the money in alternative new industries that will provide a stable economy in the long term.

Let?s make Wayne Luke our first President of vB.org!

p.s. it seems like he have the time to write all those things :p

<a href="http://mises.org/books/socialism.pdf" target="_blank">http://mises.org/books/socialism.pdf</a>