Read Hitchens on the shameful state of the nation.

But welcome to another aspect of banana-republicdom. In a banana republic, the members of the national legislature will be (a) largely for sale and (b) consulted only for ceremonial and rubber-stamp purposes some time after all the truly important decisions have already been made elsewhere.

I was very struck, as the liquefaction of a fantasy-based system proceeded, to read an observation by Professor Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld, of the Yale School of Management. Referring to those who had demanded—successfully—to be indemnified by the customers and clients whose trust they had betrayed, the professor phrased it like this:

These are people who want to be rewarded as if they were entrepreneurs. But they aren’t. They didn’t have anything at risk.

That’s almost exactly right, except that they did have something at risk. What they put at risk, though, was other people’s money and other people’s property. How very agreeable it must be to sit at a table in a casino where nobody seems to lose, and to play with a big stack of chips furnished to you by other people, and to have the further assurance that, if anything should ever chance to go wrong, you yourself are guaranteed by the tax dollars of those whose money you are throwing about in the first place! It’s enough to make a cat laugh.

If Obama wins this election, there is a turning point that I will highlight as being THE turning point in the race and that turning point came on September 15, 2008. This is the day that John McCain uttered the now infamous “the fundamentals of our economy are strong” line on the campaign trail while the campaign was collapsing around him. If Obama takes the oath of office, this is the turning point in my book.

McCain had smartly stole Obama’s thunder after Obama’s convention by choosing Sarah Palin as his VP and then having his Republican convention, thus deflating Barack Obama’s post-convention bounce and doubling his own post-convention bounce on the back of Palin’s nomination. It was an impressive political coup but the economy brought this to a screeching halt. Obama posted a 47.8% to 44.3% lead according to pollster.com, which is quite the switch considering Obama was running consistently behind McCain before this economic issue.

(more…)

I’m having trouble keeping the faith these days, what with the “free” (falling) market collapsing all around us.  I attempted an analysis of the credit-meltdown from a Paulistinian persepctive earlier today, looking at the reasons this may have occurred due to too much Government intervention, bad regulations and so forth.

I likened the current financial climate to an overgrown forest, long overdue for a burn, but so “unnatural” now as to make any conflagration utterly devestating.  I think this analysis was correct.

I would like to come to a new conclusion, however.  Indeed, such an American economy as envisioned by the free-market advocates, unburdened by pesky Government intervention, may have created the many small fires necessary to keep the economy stable, orderly, and natural.  The Social Darwinism may have worked to keep America’s most successful businesses alive, and let the most feeble die off.

But I’m beginning to doubt that this would have been the case.  Too often capitalism is ruined by greed, by monopolies, by corruption–all things that the free market does a bad job at regulating on its own, at least without devestating consequences.  Essentially, the economy is not like a forest, because a forest grows without the influence of greed or corruption.  It grows naturally based on environment, sunlight, and so forth.  Not so with our economy, which without regulation becomes rife with all sorts of odd self-serving games and scams–the very sort we see today causing its collapse.

It’s also true that the economy does not protect itself from monopoly, which is why we have anti-trust laws in place.  This to me seems like one indicator that a truly free market must be the stuff of myth.  If a free market relies solely on competition, and yet by its very nature stifles competition, and thus requires some form of moderation, then how can there even be such a thing as the free market?  There can be varying degrees of free markets, but the archetypal invisible hand variety is surely the stuff of the imagination.

Polecolaw, in his brilliant recap of the current bailout plan, writes:

With absolutely no proof that trickle down Reagan/Bush-onomics has ever worked, an exploding national debt, an exploding national deficit, and the impending baby boom retirement isn’t it time to stop talking about tax cuts for the investor class?

Two weeks ago I would have hesitated.  Now, like Lefthawk and Roland Dodds, I want some payback.  And not just that, but I want fairness where before I viewed fairness as an excuse the Government used to raise taxes.  Now that the Government is ready to spend more on this mess than they ever have on health care or education or other so-called “fairness” programs, I’m starting to believe that fairness may just actually be an issue here.

The investor class has shown itself to be greedy, reckless, and utterly dependent on the Government when the going gets tough.  And by the Government, I mean you and me.  The taxpayers who suddenly are supposed to reverse-trickle-down and start trickling up our hard-earned tax dollars to the rich, not-so-smart-after-all investment bankers, real-estate nincompoops, and greedy businessmen of all stripes.

I’m losing the faith.  I still believe that trade is the best way toward peace and I’m still an avid Globalist.   I still believe that capitalism is the best way for the most people to prosper–but perhaps a different variety than the kind we employ today.  As the rich grow ever richer, the one hope was that their intelligent investment of our money (and theirs) would be spent better than the Government could spend it.

With the Government poised to spend possibly trillions of our tax dollars on these selfsame businessmen and investors, the question of who spends money more wisely becomes infinitely more complex.

Only one thing is certain.  This whole thing stinks.  Something has to be done to protect Americans from a total financial meltdown.  As Polecolaw writes:

If this market freezes your credit card may not work, and the resulting panic could be devastating. Think how you would react if told you could not charge your groceries on your credit card because Citibank doesn’t have the money to lend you. In addition, companies could find it impossible to fund payrolls causing more panic. This is one of the reasons Treasury acted on its plan – justified fear.

Let’s just hope our Congressmen don’t write a blank check.  It’s time we started holding these people accountable.

If, indeed, we need to do something to fix this (as I believe we do) then let’s make sure we act with wisdom and caution, rather than rushing forward out of fear alone, however justified it may be.

Further Reading

Alms for the Rich? by the Omipotent Poobah

CNNMoney: Bailout Plan Under Fire

Naked Capitalism on consumerism and why the bail-out won’t work

Why the Antibailout Right is Wrong

The Antibailout Right

If anyone has more good reads on this subject, link to them in the comments section.  Thanks!

(more…)

By Andrew L. Jaffee, netwmd.com

U.S. financial assistance to Israel can be a contentious topic, even when discussing foreign policy issues using accurate information. Very often, opponents of Israel use wildly exaggerated, even fabricated “facts and figures” and extremely hyperbolic language to disparage the Jewish State — even claiming the U.S. has been pushed to the verge of bankruptcy by supporting Israel. The obfuscations about U.S. aid to Israel have been bothering me for a very long time, so I decided to research the numbers myself and compare my findings to the figures advanced by hysterical critics of Israel.

(more…)

By Julian Krasta

Now that the Democrats have, at long last, selected their nominee, “We” need to remind ourselves of long-standing facts concerning those persons we elected to public office. More importantly, the presidential candidates need to hear from us.

The United States is hovering closer to the thin edge of the wedge, because too large a percentage of the men and women we voted to represent our best interests – and those who will yet finagle to win our votes – are preoccupied in grudge matches for supremacy within their club quarters.

(more…)