Thanks for the discussion. You are persuasive. That does not mean that I am persuaded.
This kind of brings up the topic of George W. Bush. He described himself as a “compassionate conservative.” On education, GW, tried the “No Child Left Behind” Act. Bless his heart, he tried to make socialism work with an added dose of socialism. The latest shoe to drop on that evolving story is race-based standards.
So, on to the topic at hand. The government pushes banks to make risky loans. It all blows up and the government (taxpayer) rushes in to save the banks. Cheney and others pressure (bamboozle, bushwhack) GW telling him that he must act NOW or he will be responsible for a new Great Depression. Bush then announced that the Government must act to save capitalism; the banks are too big to fail.
Bush thought it necessary that he act. William Pitt said, “Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.”
Was Bush right to act? If so, why? I’m not convinced that the banks were too big to fail. His stimulus was a mistake and just paved the way for more rounds of stimulus under Obama. I think the only valid reason for the government to save the banks was the moral reason that it was government mistakes, not bank mistakes, that messed things up. The problem was not de-regulation; the problem was the regulations that pushed banks to provide more mortgages than banks wanted to provide.
I’ve become largely immune to arguments that we need more socialism to solve the mistakes of socialism. Let’s not have more regulation to “solve” the problems created by government regulation. Let’s deregulate instead.
I agree with you in that Bush went way overboard (and generally in the wrong direction) in “abandoning free market principles in order to save the free market”.
He was IMO a typical president’s son. Since he saw his dad “do it” (however mediocre dad’s single term), he thought he could do it. And as in anything, confidence and connections get you a long way. Despite his being a Harvard MBA, however, he wasn’t sharp enough in managing people outside his expertise to handle Treasury and the economy. His initial impulse not to simply trust the guy being sent from Goldman to run the economy, after some poor hiring, he settled for exactly that. And got fleeced.
And don’t get me started on his handing Obama what he wanted re: the auto manufacturers.
Yeah, he was interested in ‘protecting the country’, but from engaging in a land war in Afghanistan and toppling Saddam Hussein to, yes, education, and the economy he was completely in over his head.