What amazing times!
My spouse was watching the financial news last night and I admonished her: “You don’t want to watch this!” I was concerned that her fragile stomach wouldn’t be able to handle what is going on “out there” in Wall Street.
Ever the cynic, I listened to efforts of Morgan Stanley’s Chief Executive John Mack, who is lobbying for political rule changes and intervention. Of course, he would want that. Short sellers and the stock market are pummeling the values of financial stocks and that not only reduces the value of the stock that Mr. Mack is holding in his company, it also makes the possibility of purchasing his company at “fire sale” prices a very real possibility.
So now darn near every one is clamoring for “market intervention” from the federal government. Politicians, trade unions still opposed to NAFTA and other “free market” tools, and even staunch capitalists such as Mr. Mack. What an ironic situation.
I heard an economist quoted who had referred to this country as the “USSR of A” and Fed Chairman Bernake as “Comrade”. The new name of this country is apparently “The United Socialist States Republic of America” .
I find all of this to be beyond amazing.
If the US government and taxpayer is going to bail out these staunchly capitalistic firms and their shareholders, then I think that a takeover such as occurred with AIG is warranted. These people have profited tremendously from the financial turmoil that has overrun the world. They designed the financial instruments which permitted banks, mortgage companies and so on to sell “subprime” loans to people who knowingly could not pay the loans back. They profited mightily from all of this and frankly, if the US taxpayer has to step in to bail them out, then these “titans” of the financial world should lose their shirts and their jobs. That’s the way it is in “capitalism”. These companies took the risk and for many years got the rewards, or so the argument goes. So now we are to simply “roll over” and rescue them and alter the rules? I think not!
We have absolutely no idea of the financial burden our government is taking on to bail out these financial entities. For years, certain people and even some of the political candidates have been arguing that “deficits are bad”. So here we are, printing money and taking on the burden of assuming the debts of private and semi-private companies in government “bailouts”. How much are we taking on? Probably hundreds of billions of dollars.
I’m sure the “Bushwhackers” will be emailing me next week about how the deficit has risen. But no matter, we can bail out New York City’s financial district to keep that town rolling! That’s a good thing!
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Do you ever wonder what "people" they talking about when politicians proclaimed "for the people, by the people"? It took years (and lot of debates) to raise just a few dollars for minimum waged laborers. Clearly the country/the government was not for that kind of people. On the other hand, TV/radio talk shows (owned by the big, fat, crooked corporation) always chant the mantra of "conservative = responsibility". Obviously in this case, they are talking about us (whenever they trim our social safety net) because clearly it was not applied to themselves.
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