Crises allow government to expand their influence under the pretense of solving problems.  Now Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson wants the authority to dole out $700 billion dollars as he pleases - an authority which is being called unconstitutional.

I say, rather than that, bring on the crisis.

Recall that we’ve been bailing out people already.  As tends to be with these kinds of problems, the “solutions” have only lead to the need for more, bigger “solutions.”  We bailed out Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and now we need an extra $700 billion dollars?

If that’s the case, why do we call these things bailouts?  They don’t seem to be bailing us out.  And bail ourselves out of what?  Maybe we shouldn’t try to avoid a recession or a bursting of the bubble.  Says OpenMarket.org:

If there is no bailout, the economy may go into a recession, but then it will begin expanding again, and the reckless financial institutions that caused the recession will be punished with losses or bankruptcy.  That’s more or less what happened in the sharp recession of 1920-21, which started out as nasty as the Great Depression, but quickly ended, unlike the Depression, and then gave way to an economic boom, because the government didn’t meddle in the economy, and didn’t bail anyone out.

There’s been talk about the “greed” of Wall Street and, perhaps, many are assuming that de-regulation was the problem in the first place.

But what’s so free market about a mortgage bubble that included artificial government variables - like the pressure to loan to low-income families who couldn’t afford to pay the loan back?  Both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were going after high ownership rates that turned out to be artificially inflated.

Then, when the people making the loans start to go under, the same government is protecting them from failure.  Does that sound particularly free market to you?

Visit the BPN Political Discussion Boards

Did you like this post? Subscribe to the BipolarNation feed.

You can also receive the latest BipolarNation.com posts delivered to your e-mail inbox! Subscribe here.