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Carter/Clinton-era social engineering should share most blame for current turmoil in credit markets

Liberals.  They throw wrenches in the free market, then blame the free market for failing.  And their answer is always… whadoyaknow: More government regulation.  More rules.  Raise taxes and create new ones.  “Provide” more taxpayer cash and “programs” for folks to become totally reliant on.  And I love this one the best:  government “investment” in order to save the day (literally—a day). 

In a word:  socialism

To quote Rush Limbaugh, which I know liberals love because they love it when citizens speak truth to power:

“Liberals create economic circumstances that force businesses to lay people off, and then liberals blame capitalism for failing. When the economy is strong, liberals want to grow government. When the economy is weak, they want to grow government. There is no business cycle in government. There is just growth.”

To quote The Great Obama, which I know liberals love because they love it when liberals speak:

I certainly don’t fault Sen. McCain for these problems, but I do fault the economic philosophy he subscribes to.

(…The economic philosophy being “capitalism”.)

But aside from the fact that the US Congress—both Democrats and Republicans—are in the pocket of mortgage and other financial companies and refuse to offer Americans the oversight they deserve, all liberals should stand up take it on the chin for this latest financial crisis.  Like so many other crimes against freedom and democracy, liberals’ social engineering caused this mess. 

(Hat tip to David Nally for this article)

The Real Culprits In This Meltdown

By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, September 15, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Big Government: Barack Obama and Democrats blame the historic financial turmoil on the market. But if it’s dysfunctional, Democrats during the Clinton years are a prime reason for it.

Obama in a statement yesterday blamed the shocking new round of subprime-related bankruptcies on the free-market system, and specifically the “trickle-down” economics of the Bush administration, which he tried to gig opponent John McCain for wanting to extend.

But it was the Clinton administration, obsessed with multiculturalism, that dictated where mortgage lenders could lend, and originally helped create the market for the high-risk subprime loans now infecting like a retrovirus the balance sheets of many of Wall Street’s most revered institutions.

Tough new regulations forced lenders into high-risk areas where they had no choice but to lower lending standards to make the loans that sound business practices had previously guarded against making. It was either that or face stiff government penalties.

The untold story in this whole national crisis is that President Clinton put on steroids the Community Redevelopment Act, a well-intended Carter-era law designed to encourage minority homeownership. And in so doing, he helped create the market for the risky subprime loans that he and Democrats now decry as not only greedy but “predatory.”

Yes, the market was fueled by greed and overleveraging in the secondary market for subprimes, vis-a-vis mortgaged-backed securities traded on Wall Street. But the seed was planted in the ‘90s by Clinton and his social engineers. They were the political catalyst behind this slow-motion financial train wreck.

And it was the Clinton administration that mismanaged the quasi-governmental agencies that over the decades have come to manage the real estate market in America.

[…Read the rest.  …]

John McCain made a speech this morning addressing this financial crisis, which had some truthy notes, which I’ll transcribe and post later.  Stand by. 

OK:

1.  He panders to liberals.  Blames Wall Street for the trouble.  Disses top executive pay scales and severance packages and their cheatin’ ways.  Promises to hold Wall Street responsible.  Promises his admin won’t let them get away with it—this “wrecklessness”— anymore. 

2.  Says this could have been avoided if those bad companies were simply exposed before this happened.  (Unlike how Congress knew about this for years, presumably). 

3.  Finally hits some sensible notes toward the end of this passage:

Too many firms on Wall Street have been able to count on casual oversight by regulatory agencies in government, and there’s so many of these regulators that the responsibility for oversight is scatted, unfocused, and ineffective.  Among others, we’ve got the SEC the CFTC the FDIC and the SDIC and the OCC—the alphabet soup—is there, but for all their big and impressive-sounding names, they haven’t been doing their job right, or else we wouldn’t have these massive problems on Wall Strreeet and that’s a fact.

[APPLAUSE—because he’s right—although he misses the point:  government is useless at just about everything, as this ably proves.]

At their worst they’ve been caught up in Washington turf wars instead of working together to protect investors in the public interest.  And we don’t need a dozen federal agencies doing the job BADLY,  We need the best federal agencies to do the job RIGHT.

[APPLAUSE—same as above]

…And then here comes the liberals’ favorite words:  “regulation”… and uh-ohh, here comes that famous McCain word “comprehensive” (think immigration reform!) … and rules… and laws…  YUMMY! 

Under my reforms, the American people will be protected by comprehensive regulation that will apply the rules and enforce them to the full.  There will be constant access to the accounts of the banks…. by law…. it will reduce the debt and risk that any bank can take on.  And above all, I promise reforms to prevent the kind of wild speculation that could put our markets at risk, and has already inflicted such enormous damage across our economy.

[NO APPLAUSE, for good reason—he’s talking to sensible people]

.  …

…And then finally he says SOME of what should be said…

image … [Congress] waited too long … as for the Congress, members in both parties must accept a share of the responsibilities—some members seem to measure the financial health of banks and lenders by the size of their political contributions, instead of the extent of their debt.  They listened to the lobbyists instead of the accountants.  I can promise you, the days of dealing of dealings and special favors will soon be over in a McCain-Palin administration… The public interest will always come first. 

Honest people on Wall Street, and there are many, will always have a friend in the White House when I’m President…  and I will seek reforms…

Reforms should start at reducing all the myriad regulations and regulatory bodies he rightly referred to; stop with the social engineering; and jailing Congressmen and Senators who are being bought.  And letting bad corporations that make bad decisions die, instead of bailing them all out. 

 

Joel Johannesen
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