Hope Bonds

Great Debates
1

This is an idea I heard recently, maybe on one of the Sunday morning talk shows, akin to War Bonds of the 40s. I googled and really only found this from the CONSTITUTION CLUB: Hope Bonds – The Conservative Citizen

The bonds would be cheap enough that families could invest at several income levels without disproportionately favoring the wealthy, so Democrats would like it. It would take debt and ownership of private enterprises out of the federal government’s hands pretty early on. But it would still provide some measure of stability and insurance in a way that ordinary stock market investments would not. If we have to do this, why not do it right and let Americans help pay for money that we don’t have to borrow from China? Money that they could actually see returns on!

On the surface it sounds like a good idea, but I am not knowledgable enough to have a meaningful opinion. We have a number of pretty sharp economic minds on this board, what’s your take?

On a side note, does anyone know whether this is an idea the administration is already considering?

Thanks.

2

We already sell government bonds to private investors. It sounds like these would be more like equity stake in the potential profit on the government purchases of banks and bad assets? If so, I don’t understand where the support for this is supposed to come from. It’s already possible to invest in that outcome by investing in the stock of the banks, right? But no one with money is willing to do so, which is why the government needs to give them all this money to begin with.