Everytime I read about the global markets and such over the past few weeks, a certain statement comes to mind:
"So you think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco d'Anconia. "Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?
"When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears not all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor--your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money, Is this what you consider evil? Atlas Shrugged.
But what has happened? We've given money to the ocean of tears an unheard of amount which will be pumped into the market system for which it holds no value at this point.
Upon the energy of the men who produce, we still know this to be true. America is the place where money can be made and we see the way forward in the form of energy development. Money, homes, credit cannot be given to those who are unproductive it devalues us all. The Rescue package will fail, it was bound to fail it cannot save a market(s) whose core does not meet the standard of production. Money was given to non-producers in the form of toxic paper bundled together with production.
When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion--when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing--when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors--when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you--when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice--you may know that your society is doomed.
What is the Paulson plan but a codification of getting "richer by graft and by pull than by work"??