…that I've been posting quite a bit about college football lately and almost nothing about the follies going on in Washington. I know little about economics and have no idea how this "bailout" thing will work.
From what I've been reading, however, it seems that government intervention in the credit market—telling the banks they had to lend money to folks who were very likely not able to repay it—caused both the housing bubble and then it's inevitable collapse. It also seems that those easy credit demands came from the democratic side of the aisle. Further, when trouble was seen to be appearing on the horizon, the Republican President and some Senators made attempts to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac only to be thwarted by the Democrats. Perhaps the Republicans should have pushed harder while they had control of Congress, but it was primarily Democrats stepping forward to tut-tut any need for reining in the loose credit.
Finally, when a "bailout" plan has been hammered out by a bipartisan group and touted by one and all as a "crap sandwich", it behooves the leaders on both sides of the aisle to keep a poker face until the damn thing is passed if they feel it is really and truly necessary. That Speaker Nancy Pelosi should make such an outrageous, confrontational speech on the floor prior to the vote when she needs all the votes she can get to have the bastard of a bailout passed while the financial markets are waiting on the window ledges …. To learn afterward that she could not move herself to ensure there were 12-13 more "yeas" from her own party when 15 of the 34 Democratic congressmen from California voted "no" and many in the Black Caucus from very safe democratic districts voted "no" …. And that she had basically given permission to members of her party to vote "no"…. And afterward to blame the Republicans when 95 Democrats voted "no"…. It simply boggles the mind.
(By the way, that was a terrible phrase to hang on the plan if they wanted to sell it to the public. Something like "Rescue" would have been much more appropriate. And that $700 Billion figure they pulled out of their asses? Oh, it got people's attention all right. But I don't think it got the kind of attention they (Pres. Bush and Paulson) wanted.)
1 comment:
Succinctly summed up, my friend. The entire affair stinks, and I sometimes despair of the electorate ever awakening in time to stop the slide into socialism.
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