Note the "GO" square that says "COLLECT $200 STIMULUS CHECK."
Posted on 09/25/2008 7:36:15 AM PDT by Notary Sojac
The conventional wisdom is settling in: It's awful, and terribly un-conservative, to nationalize a big lump of the financial industry, but the alternative is too awful to contemplate.
Baloney. It may be politically too awful to contemplate, i.e. hazardous to the well-being of our political class, but that's the kind of short-termism that got us here. Once this thing is done, it's done, and the dollar is a few inches closer to being a Soviet rouble. The conviction that government will always bail out a financial catastrophe will be factored into all future trading and financing decisions. Down the road — in the time of our children and grandchildren — this will have consequences far worse than a 5-year deep recession.
Sure, I have money in the markets — way less than I had this time last year. I have kids, too, though. Let's think this through.
Fiat justitia ruat caelum. Or as the immortal Calvin Coolidge said (when asked about forgiveness of the WW1 debts racked up by European nations): "They hired the money, didn't they?"
On the slippery slope to socializim.
Actually, I think this was already done.
And my former colleague and I used to discuss whether we were stupid for being responsible, as American culture now favors the irresponsible--if enough people do a stupid thing (e.g., build in a flood-prone area, overinvest, etc.), they get bailed out. And we realized that it would be difficult to live with ourselves being part of the problem.
So we remained with irrational, yet honorable, behavior.
"There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as a result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved."
---Ludwig Von Mises
“We will be told that the Federal Reserve and the Treasury have finally gotten it right. The scope and size of the proposed program will arrest the decline in home prices, restore stability to the financial markets, enable banks to get back to the business of lending, and restore the confidence of the American consumer.
While the program certainly has each of these points as a goal, the amount of time to achieve each goal is unknowable, but an important factor. Moses was told he would lead the Jews to the Promised Land. He didn’t know it would take 40 years. And, in all due respect to Bernanke and Paulsen, Moses was working with God. They are working with Congress.”
-Jim Welsh, Welsh Money Management
You express what I've often felt myself. I guess I'm so old-fashioned that, like you and your friend, the concept of "honor" still has a very clear meaning to me. That's not so with many of my fellow Americans, who seem to have lost the capacity for ethical behavior.
I guess the old Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times," fits current conditions.
Frankly I don’t have a clue the best course of action so I entrust the conservative leadership to work it out.
This one time buyout must be about more than just the dollar amount, tho, since we spend the same amount—$700 billion—every single year on foreign oil for energy without even batting an eye.
The only “conservative leadership” I can see in Washington are the conservative Republicans (DeMint, Shelby, Bunning) who have been totally opposed to the Paulson plan. But it looks like they will not be enough.
700 billion will not nearly be enough, you know this as well as I do. This is a pig in a poke, a very big pig! Three months from now we will be in the same place, with another 700 billion gone.
Jim Chase, cfo Chase Family Trust
Note the "GO" square that says "COLLECT $200 STIMULUS CHECK."
Love your tag line!!!!!!!!
>>Three months from now we will be in the same place, with another 700 billion gone.<<
I sort of disagree. I think that three months from now another 700 billion will be gone, but we will be in a worse place.
Your right. In order for a bailout to work it would have to be about 3 to 4 times this much. ( we know that will not happen) That can’t be sustained. So do we let it go, or only purchase bad morgage paper? Should we continue down this path? Or suck it up and let it go 4 or 5 years and live through the times of real trial. I feel it is best for the nation to let it go, 5 years from now we be able to recover and start to grow again. Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.
I can sum up my beliefs about this whole thing with one simple statement: The government, if it does this thing, becomes an “enabler”.
I must add, however, that sometimes an adult child can get himself in so much fincancial trouble that his rich parents can still end up bankrupting themselves trying to “help”. In the long run their help hurts everyone.
Amen, this bailout is just like posting bail. The kids get bailed out of jail right away, and the adults wonder why they do not learn. Buy a kid a nice car and see what happens. Make the kid pay for his own car, he or she will take care of it, because they now know what it takes to get it.
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