Macy's must be having a sale on man panties in New York.
Posted on 09/21/2008 12:08:33 PM PDT by littlehouse36
Of all the points raised by different analysts about the economy last week, surely the best was Representative Barney Frank’s reminder on “Charlie Rose” that Ronald Reagan’s favorite laugh line was telling audiences that: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’ ”
Are you still laughing? If it weren’t for the government bailing out Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and A.I.G., and rescuing people from Hurricane Ike and pumping tons of liquidity into the banking system, our economy would be a shambles. How would you like to hear the line today: “I’m from the government, and I can’t do a darn thing for you.”
<snip>
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
He relishes the role of government in market bailouts... yet does not acknowledge its very role in creating the problems.
He thinks McCain's party-enhancing pick of Palin was irresponsible, but says nothing of the extreme-left ticket of Obama/Biden. And unlike Pres. Clinton, who has acknowledged that Palin's puts her oath of office above her personal beliefs, Mr. Friedman leaves the reader to believe otherwise.
He thinks McCain's pick of Palin, whose strong suit is not economics, was irresponsible but says nothing of the economic girlie men on the left.
And he refuses to acknowledge that the Bush tax cuts were about rates and not revenue. By any measure, the Bush tax cuts increased revenue.
Thomas Friedman: you can do better than this.
If it wasn't for the Democrats turning Fannie and Freddie into their own personal patronage mill and turning it into a high-risk nightmare to buy votes with high-risk mortgages, we probably wouldn't need a bailout in the first place.
Thomas Friedman: you can do better than this.
No he can’t. He’s a Liberal.
Don’t question Tom, learn from him. He’s from the NY Times, ergo... he is wise.
With all the cutbacks at the Slimes, Friedman’s other job to help take up the slack is cleaning the toilets.
This is the same man who recently lamented that if we could have a dictatorship for just one day like China we would all be so much better off.
I am not sure he can do much better. I will throw in this little gem from him in 1992 while speaking of the governor of Arkansas who was at the time running for President:
“As a man who has spent his entire career in state government in Arkansas, Mr. Clinton has no foreign policy record to run on or be judged against. Therefore, critics say, he has had the luxury of defining himself purely through a series of speeches. None of his ideas have had to meet the test of the real world.”
--to my disgust, I wasted the time to read this far---
Reagan was right ... it was the government ‘here to help’ that created this mess, per Mr. Friedman’s own paper, c. 1999 (link below as previously posted at FR).
Hey, Tom, as you should know, actions have consequences and in matters financial, those consequences take some time to ‘come home to roost.’ How about you and Barney not casting stones?
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE7DB153EF933A0575AC0A96F958260
Clueless. The liberal chattering are utterly clueless.
Thomas Friedman, isn’t he the Rhodes Scholar who works for the New York Times? What? Oh - sorry, not him ...
Why not have a NYT free month for the country?
Take October off and we'll see if the country is still here and perhaps better off?
” George W. Bush never once — not one time — challenged Americans to do anything hard, let alone great. “
Friedman, you pig.
I can think of at least 4000 American families who would disagree with this.
For Friedman to hail the government for it’s coming to the rescue without at the same time appropriately blaming the government for causing the problem in the first place shows Friedman to be either a monumental ignoramus, a liar, or both.
From Carter to Clinton, US banks were forced under threat of great penalty to stop “redlining” and loan money to those who could not repay it. Couple this with thugs like Franklin Raines who robbed Fannie Mae of 100 million in salary and bonuses. Yet now we wonder why the Wall Street meltdown occured!
Good find! (Friedman on Clinton’s lack of foreign policy.)
“I’m from Alaska and I’m here to help”. These words have a more soothing sound. ;^)
Friedman says nothing about the role of government and “liberal” thinking in creating this crisis in the first place. The lesson is obvious and common sense: don’t make risky loans, don’t require financial institutions to make risky loans, and don’t consider risky loans to be “assets”.
(part of Tom's 'fantasy response' from Obama)
The joke actually IS on us. Some of us just don't see it yet.
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