A Bad Investment on Wall Street
Not many of us get to walk into our boss’s office and say “Sorry about running your company into the ground, but I’ll need immediate access to billions of dollars in cash with no strings attached in order to clean up the mess.” Executives at the Wall Street firms now expecting a massive government bailout from the US Treasury have lobbied for deregulation of their industry for decades. American taxpayers have every reason to now expect these high rollers to live according to the dictates of the free market which they love so dearly.
Bush Says “Trust Me” Again
Congress should reject President Bush’s irresponsible crony protection plan disguised as a necessary financial intervention. Mr. Bush has no credibility when it comes to the investment of taxpayer money. His fiscal record has been a disaster. He doesn’t believe in accountability. And his administration is dishonest about everything from torture to global warming.
At least a few Americans still believed President Bush and Senator McCain’s assurances about how the American economy is fundamentally strong… up until about a week ago. Now suddenly we’re on the brink of the next Great Depression? Fundamentally strong economies don’t need $700 billion dollar bailouts.
Deregulation Fails Again
If large lending institutions had all voluntarily agreed to a set of legitimate banking standards, along with an enforcement mechanism to keep everyone in line, government regulations would not be necessary. Instead these organizations ask for our trust, then recklessly gamble away our life savings.
Apparently the fat cats on Wall Street figured Uncle Sam would surely come to their rescue at the last minute. The Federal bailout of the Savings & Loan industry in the 1980’s set a terrible precedent.
Monopolies in Trouble
When privately owned companies claim that they are too big to go bankrupt, it indicates that the Securities and Exchange Commission has failed to prevent corporations from monopolizing industries. We now see the consequences of allowing giant conglomerates to swallow each other one by one until there’s a only a few fish left in the sea.
AIG should have never been allowed to grow into such a behemoth in the first place. Now that taxpayers own the company, we should split it up again and sell off the unprofitable sectors.
September 29th, 2008 at 7:00 am
[...] a philosophy of protecting his fat cat cronies at all cost. But Americans have gotten tired of footing the bill for these careless screw [...]
October 2nd, 2008 at 7:31 am
[...] fatal gash down one side of the big ship’s hull. Right now the US government is attempting to steer clear of a looming catastrophe which is still mostly hidden from view. We should allow the free market to [...]