I loathe Sen. Richard Shelby’s pork barrelling ways, but I applaud him for having the courage to stand in the way of the $700 billion taxpayer fleecing.  We’ll see how long and fervently he holds his ground.

The proposed bailout is not the solution we should pursue.  George Bush, who I’ve long contended is no conservative, is reverting to unabashed socialism to solve a problem.  It is shameful.

I’ll throw something out there and see how it sticks.

Bush’s decision to socialize the loses of financial institutions was one of fear.  Fear that can be wrapped in one word: 401k. (Is that even a word?)

For far too long the government has altruistically manipulated the populace of this country.  One of the most notable relative to the current situation was creating tax exempt status for investing in mutual funds through 401k’s and similar programs.  Really it was a fantastic coup by Wall Street since their “product” is little more than legalized gambling.  Somehow they convinced the ruling class to guarantee them a huge customer base.  The people reacted accordingly to tax incentives and now there is about $2.4 trillion “invested” in 401k plans.

Bush is hearing, from Wall Street, about the possibility of the credit markets seizing up and a subsequent huge drop in equity values.  That would wipe out a huge swath of paper wealth held by regular folks.  Pretty scary stuff.  But the only reason so much money is held in such plans is because of the well intentioned governmental social engineering.  The similarly altruistic push to increase home ownership - even if it necessitated reduced lending standards - is causing similar negative consequences.  And now Bush, the so-called conservative, is so fearful of the consequences of what decades of government social engineering hath wrought that he is willing to essentially nationalize the financial sector to stave off losses.  The answer is not more government intrusion, but less.

The companies that are struggling need to be allowed to fail.  That is the nature and the beauty of capitalism.  The weak will fail and the strong will not only survive, but will learn from the mistakes of others.  Negative consequences are essential to preventing undesired behavior. The pain will be acute among many, no doubt, and may be felt somewhat by all.  But the solution he is proposing will not only tear asunder the principled underpinnings of our economy, but it will spread the misery among us all through inflationary pressures.  The nasty side of that is that those of us who don’t have golden parachute deals or weekend homes on Cape Cod will feel that pain the most acutely.  This isn’t meant to sound populist; I admire those who work hard enough or are valued enough to succeed (from a materialistic view).  But they were those who engaged in risky or too-complex financial transactions should be the ones who reap what they have sown.  That goes for regular homeowners and Wall Street tycoons alike.

No bailouts with taxpayer money.

I don’t even want to hear another self proclaimed conservative praise Bush.  I’m sick of it.  If you want to praise him as a party loyalist, fine.  Just don’t call him a conservative while you’re doing it.

I’m going to breathe now.

Reactionary Update:

It’s the new Bush Doctrine: Preemptive Bailout.

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This entry was posted by Brian on Thursday, September 25th, 2008 at 10:58 pm and is filed under Economy, Rants, Sen. Shelby. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.