in which socialism is a conservative ideal…
by Shane Nicholson
Published: September 9, 2008
My how the mighty have fallen. Indeed Fannie and Freddie fell on their collective behinds in the US housing market, and now the burden falls to you, John and Jane Q. Taxpayer to resolve the world’s financial crises, and all the while trying to juggle your already hectic schedule of finding a new privatized health care plan, figuring out how exactly you’re going to fund that wild fantasy of retiring before the age of 75, and hoping that your oldest’s tuition didn’t go up another 18% this year.
Yes, it’s a topsy turvy world when the GOP’s best laid plans for solving the ever-worsening housing crisis is to absolve Ms. Mae and Mr. Mac of their role in this horrible mess, but then again it was their hands-off policies led us to this point in the first place. I suppose if your friends were in a bind - you know, the people who paid to help get you elected - you’d want to bail them out too.
So now you’re not only on the hook for your mortgage but also the future of the companies you entrusted to manage it in the first place. Sounds like a fair deal, yes? So when the bill collectors call this month you can say you already paid your bill: the check went in the mail sometime around April 15th. I can’t guarantee the success of such a strategy but hey, when you’re covering the salary of the person on the other end of the line I suppose it’s worth a shot.
So why is it OK for the government to bail out investment firm after investment firm, airline after airline, but not lend a helping hand to someone who’s company just laid off three hundred workers on the heals of the CEO taking his $15 million retirement package? Why is it so crazy to ask that your tax money should maybe pick up a chunk of the bill for the trip to the ER last month after little Timmy broke his ankle in his Pop Warner game? And why can’t the government pick up your mortgage too? It’s only another $200,000 to tack on to the $5 trillion-plus they’re about to pick up.
Listen, I’m not the Socialist out there banging down your door for every last dime. In fact, I still consider myself quite the fiscal conservative, at least until I see my tab at the bar on Friday night. But I think we could all afford to kick in a little more if it meant our basic needs were actually satisfied. And we could probably spend a little bit less on missile defense systems built upon ideals and framework laid during the Cold War. I’m for responsible government, in that a government is responsible to its people, especially when we’re the ones who supposedly call the shots.
But what contract with the government did we sign that said every multi-trillion dollar business that drops the ball is allowed to pull out of the treasury whatever it needs to keep itself afloat? Instead, why can’t we call in those multi-million dollar bonuses their executives got for padding the books? Why can’t we take away their palaces that were bought with money that apparently didn’t exist in the first place? Why can’t they actually face the music instead of walking away to regroup behind some other neon sign and figure out a new way to screw all of us all over again?
Forget that. You’re going to pay for it. All of you, and me too. Because that’s the only fair way, right? The buck stops here: in our wallets. Too bad it doesn’t work this way when you and I fall behind on our credit card bill, or have to take out another student loan to cover that $900 worth of text books for this semester.
No friends, that kind of help is only reserved for folks that can fund political campaigns single-handedly. Not the commoners counting nickels and dimes at the gas pump and grocery checkout like me and you.
Now, when do you think you can get that next payment in to them? And make sure to add the late fee from last month in there. They’re not giving away money these days you know.
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September 14th, 2008 at 9:27 am
Aawww quit ur wining… the GOP will bail out the financial market place…AND….the Dems will bail out the middle class folks and the financial markets.
I personally would not bail out anyone…Both parties have been taken over by elitist who have a common interest..MMMM let me look here….where is that common interest?…
I am gonna vote the Dems in just to put in place a new batch of bums….we need a Third party that is included and accepted by the news media…(like that will ever happen..right?)…who’s this guy RON PAUL anyway?…
September 15th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Dave’s right, I’m for not bailing anyone out. No banks, no homeowners, nobody. How do you prevent irresponsible financial behavior when as soon as the consequence shows up the government shews it away?
September 16th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
BOY U WERE SURE ON THE MONEY WITH THIS ARTICLE. We are now in a finical melt down the likes we have never seen before. Look here: there is absolutely no controls is place to stop the Fed Bankers from monetizing our debt or the politicians from spending U$ ( us as collectively ) into the poor house. For every $1.00 the FEDs print we gotta pay them a % fee,,,,hey where in hell does that extra money come from to pay that extra % fee?…. Our politicians have absolutely NO control, they relinquished there responsibilities to the collective world bankers. Ever since Nixon took U$ off the gold standard the politicians have had a free hand to spend U$ into the biggest financial hole is history. Now we add in the financial greed of wall street and here we are totally screwed. When the value of the dollar was pegged to so many oz of gold per dollar this would keep the politicians in check cause if you did not have the gold in Fort Knox they could not just print up the dollars to spent as required by our porker political leaders. Hey u gotta have the books balanced. We as individuals would never be allowed to have our personal financial order get this far out of whack. If we did we would be thrown in jail! No wonder the U$ has been sold out, our markets, our equity, our jobs, our constitution, all gone, all going gone! to the new world order,,,,lets organize, we need another political party, one that will honor the Constitution……RON PAUL…… time for everyone to do some home work about how our republic was founded…..the time is now,,,to reconsider everything we were taught in collage….what is real?…..what is BS?….Watch out, I bet a new currency well be printed up, one that will be used between the US, Canada and Mexico…NAFT Rules…. our sovereignty is gone…… going gone………..
sorry about the rant…I am mad as hell…….
September 17th, 2008 at 1:11 am
Before we ring our hands and decide that all is losts I’d like to know if it’s ever been worse. Of course nominally we’ve never had a larger debt burden, but that doesn’t take into account inflation. So Dave, taking into account inflation, are we any worse of today than we were during the Great Depression, when we were on the gold standard?
September 17th, 2008 at 6:33 am
Here follow this link:
“http://economics.about.com/cs/money/a/gold_standard.htm”
September 17th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Well here is is at the end of the day 9-17-2008….and gold made its biggest one day gain in history….you know that President Kennedy wanted to put U$ back on the gold standard….undoing what Richard Nixon did…he did not live long enough to do that.
Anyway to follow the link above copy everything between the quotes and paste into you search bar…..hey Slim do ur homework….