The Bailout Plan: 'Hypocrisy Knows No Bounds'

Quoting from the article above:

"This is taking government control of the private capital markets to a level that many people—myself included—think it should not go, and we don't think it's necessary."

Notice that there is no standard by which to make a judgment in that statement. "Taking something beyond where it should not go because it is unnecessary" is the kind of language that will lose any argument. There was not a single principle uttered there. The net effect is that no one could know where one should go. It's all just a feeling.

A civilization cannot be maintained on a feeling. It requires specific principles which are applied consistently in the law.

This is why the free market advocates are losing and will continue to lose all arguments. If you don't think, "I think we should do X because the poor need houses too isn't more powerful than we shouldn't do X because it is too much, you are whistling Dixie in our culture at this time.

The only way to settle this is by reference to the moral realm, not the economic realm.

The reason the free market works is because it is a system that frees man's mind to solve problem and the better he does that, the more successful he becomes. A mind to work to create values must be motivated. Reason, man's mind, is his basic means of survival. Man must be free so he can use his mind to produce what he is motivated to create.

When anyone regulates you and keeps inserting their orders into the middle of things, you sever your life force from producing results. You end up calling a lawyer or looking up regulation rather than creating the vision you had.

Thus the correct answer insofar as government intrusion into the economy is concerned is "ZERO," "NADA", NO INTERFERENCE AT ALL. The proper statement to the government is "GET OUT OF THE WAY." That is what freedom is. That is what a free market is. That is what is required for human beings to be fully human. That is A.

All the rest of the gyrations, rationalizations, justifications and yes buts, are the non-A. Any of those lead people and society away from success, away from being motivated to create and succeed, away from prosperity and down the slippery slope to utter failure. In order to live as a man in society the requirement is political freedom. In this context this means one thing: the total separation of economy and state.

Principlex of GA @ Oct 07, 2008 22:26:57 PM

Uninformed voters

Politicians are aware that the average voter knows very little about what is going on in Washington. They are counting on that. It always cracks me up when they insist that voters are very smart which we all know they are not. The issues are complex and most voters feel their vote matters very little. Many voters did take the time to tell their representative to NOT vote for this bailout and yet the bailout passed anyway. That tells me that the people representing us believe they know better than the public which supports my opinion that politicians have a low opinion of voters. They gave us the finger folks and we are still tolerating it. This issue is about policies supported by both parties that are fundamentally flawed and yet consistently supported. NO bank should be required to make loans that are unsound and yet they are being mandated to do so. Where was the spine of the banks when the CRA was formed and thrust on the banking institution. We always hear about the NRA having clout and yet the banking sector was powerless? Could that be because many of those subprime loans were going to minorities and thus nobody wanted to appear racist and deny any group the right to own a home? ACORN prides itself that they have registered millions of Americans that have largely been ignored. Of course every American has the right to vote, but the problem being that an ill informed vote is as bad as no vote at all. So the real quest for an agency such as ACORN should be about directing their communities that are impoverished to educational opportunities that will improve their family income and thus help them become better informed voters. We shouldn't be asking government to "take care" of individuals that are in peril but aiding them in the direction of change. The key to all this misery is education and life experiences. I often marvel how elected officials can make sweeping legislative changes having never worked in the private sector either as an employee, or as an employer. I maintain that if all these life long politicians had practical experience as a business owner they would come away with a very different perspective. It is easy to have utopia in mind as so many of our politicians promise voters, but I for one would just like some commonsense applied to lawmaking which would never include printing money to pay for a 700 billion dollar bailout.

Susan of WI @ Oct 06, 2008 22:15:36 PM

Bail out - robbing taxpayers

There is plenty of blame for both the Democrats and the Republicans. Both parties have betrayed the public and the middle class in particular. Isn’t it interesting that neither party will admit any responsibility (except for a few fringe elected officials).

Here’s a thought; didn’t the boys at ENRON loose everything and go to jail. How is what they did different than what the boys at Fannie and Freddie did. Bet they don’t get prosecuted because they’ll roll-over on their political contacts.

All the suckers like me who paid their mortgage, paid their taxes, send their kids to public school; basically did the right thing and played by the rules are who is screwed. Time for a third party; time for a real change; tired of the usual suspects.

When will the sheep look up?

Sotiredofitall of TX @ Oct 04, 2008 23:20:52 PM

Bail out - robbing taxpayers

Barbarians inside the gate!

Remove Franks, Dobbs, Cox, and Paulson immediately.

Investigan all four.

Require all new mortgages have a minimum of 10% down with no second loans.

Investigae Freddie, Fannie, Bear Stearns, Lehman, AIG golden parachute packages for fraud!

Clean house in Congress for turning their back on the Mortgage MESS.

whs806 of TX @ Oct 04, 2008 11:09:00 AM

Bail out

Barbarians are inside the gate!

Investigate for fraud!

B. Franks (house)

C. Dodd (senate)

SEC - COX

Treasury Secretary - Paulson ($85 billion AIG bailout re Goldman's 20 billion stake in AIG - Paulson ex CEO of Goldman)

CEO's of Fannie and Freddie getting golden parachutes along with other executives in Lehman, Bear Stearns, and other financial institutions.

whs806 of @ Oct 04, 2008 11:04:17 AM

Subprime loans & Fannie Mae

Republican liars are now creating the mythology that this crisis was created by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac making loans to minorities, people on welfare, people in poor neighborhoods etc. Well, if that were true all the foreclosures would be in the ghettos, barrios and trailer parks.The truth is that most of these loans were made by private sector banks who were careless with their underwriting in order to collect huge commissions and fees. When I obtained my mortgage in 1999, I had to provide extensive documentation of my income, assets and ability to pay. In 2005, a private sector mortgage broker tried to sell me a interest only loan even though I flat out told him I did not have a job. This debacle should clearly be laid at the feet of the people who caused it: banks, mortgage brokers, and the idiots who twisted these bad loans into securities and sold them. There may be thousands of people who think they deserve to have a loan but it is only the bank who could actually give it to them. Next time do your underwriting.

L Porter of CA @ Oct 04, 2008 00:03:35 AM

The Government-Created Subprime Mortgage Meltdown

by Thomas J. DiLorenzo

The thousands of mortgage defaults and foreclosures in the "subprime" housing market (i.e., mortgage holders with poor credit ratings) is the direct result of thirty years of government policy that has forced banks to make bad loans to un-creditworthy borrowers. The policy in question is the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which compels banks to make loans to low-income borrowers and in what the supporters of the Act call "communities of color" that they might not otherwise make based on purely economic criteria.

The original lobbyists for the CRA were the hardcore leftists who supported the Carter administration and were often rewarded for their support with government grants and programs like the CRA that they benefited from. These included various "neighborhood organizations," as they like to call themselves, such as "ACORN" (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). These organizations claim that over $1 trillion in CRA loans have been made, although no one seems to know the magnitude with much certainty. A U.S. Senate Banking Committee staffer told me about ten years ago that at least $100 billion in such loans had been made in the first twenty years of the Act.

So-called "community groups" like ACORN benefit themselves from the CRA through a process that sounds like legalized extortion. The CRA is enforced by four federal government bureaucracies: the Fed, the Comptroller of the Currency, the Office of Thrift Supervision, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The law is set up so that any bank merger, branch expansion, or new branch creation can be postponed or prohibited by any of these four bureaucracies if a CRA "protest" is issued by a "community group." This can cost banks great sums of money, and the "community groups" understand this perfectly well. It is their leverage. They use this leverage to get the banks to give them millions of dollars as well as promising to make a certain amount of bad loans in their communities.

A man named Bruce Marks became quite notorious during the last decade for pressuring banks to earmark literally billions of dollars to his organization, the "Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America." He once boasted to the New York Times that he had "won" loan commitments totaling $3.8 billion from Bank of America, First Union Corporation, and the Fleet Financial Group. And that is just one "community group" operating in one city – Boston.

Banks have been placed in a Catch 22 situation by the CRA: If they comply, they know they will have to suffer from more loan defaults. If they don’t comply, they face financial penalties and, worse yet, their business plans for mergers, branch expansions, etc. can be blocked by CRA protesters, which can cost a large corporation like Bank of America billions of dollars. Like most businesses, they have largely buckled under and have s

Laker of MN @ Oct 03, 2008 23:01:35 PM

Never again

I am so flabbergasted at this monstrosity that has been thrust upon my family and I by the sellouts in Washington. We will never again be swayed by empty political promises.

Phil Lee of FL @ Oct 03, 2008 23:01:02 PM