Speaking as an economic illiterate: Is the massive bailout/takeoever program announced by the Fed/Bush gang good in the *short term*? I understand most economists agree that long term, this is a disaster in the making similar to the great depression, but even short term will it allow:
1. People to keep their jobs?
2. People to keep their homes?
The reason I ask this, is I think the gerneral impression is, yes it won't work long term, but right now, bailing out and co-opting the financial giants will benefit the poor as much as it helps the banks. This is the selling point. Is it correct that this even functions as a "temporary fix"?
It's certainly good for the people who owned bank stocks.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
Bosco: Speaking as an economic illiterate: Is the massive bailout/takeoever program announced by the Fed/Bush gang good in the *short term*? I understand most economists agree that long term, this is a disaster in the making similar to the great depression, but even short term will it allow: 1. People to keep their jobs? 2. People to keep their homes? The reason I ask this, is I think the gerneral impression is, yes it won't work long term, but right now, bailing out and co-opting the financial giants will benefit the poor as much as it helps the banks. This is the selling point. Is it correct that this even functions as a "temporary fix"?
No, because its a false sense of security, and we will come down the road to the same Fannie/Freddie problem in a few years, because the government will be the controlling authority in this case as well. I think looking at an issue short term is stupid, in the sense that there will be no rammifications in the short term, but its the long term that will devastate lives and economies for decades and centuries to come. Socialism does not and can not work, and this sort of socialism could be the worst, because of its magnitude.
Is the massive bailout/takeoever program announced by the Fed/Bush gang good in the *short term*?
People to keep their homes?
February 17 - 1600 - Giordano Bruno is burnt alive by the catholic church. Aquinas : "much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death."
I agree with the comments made here. Is there not, however, differing levels of culpability for the players involved? Granted, the state is the engine of this robbery and expropriation. Next up are the banks and other state protected financial institutions.
But then there are the mortgage and loan holders. I think Murray Rothbard wrote that they are put in a position similar to that of drivers on a road in which all the road signs have been switched or removed. The acted on what they percieved to be market conditions; they took the loans and had no way of knowing if their decisions would be sound by free market standards because massive government intervention had destroyed those indicators.
So, I agree that the government must now step back and allow the market to clean up the pile of s**t thay have created, but are not the individual borrowers and homebuyers far less culpable than their state-aligned manipulators?
IMHO - To make the medical analogy, this bailout is akin to going on a heart/lung machine. The patient would die without it, but it is only as successful as the surgery which follows. In other words, the bailout just keeps the financial system alive for a period. Without the proper reforms; ie: repeal the Community Reinvestment Act, repeal mark-to-market mandates, repeal Fan/Fred sponsorship, repeal...(you get the idea), the system will die anyway.
Somehow I don't think that drinking to "cure" a hangover actually works in the sense of curing; it merely staves off the effects until later, when they come back fiercely.
Same thing with the bailout; it's merely putting off the inevitable, and will cause an even worse crash. Granted, in the immediate-immediate short term it makes people happy. But that's just present-moment-bound thinking.
I hate questions in which the answer is so obviously and easily implied. There's no point in even asking the question.
Anyhoo, I actually do hope that this so-called temporary fix works, Obama comes in as president, and the collapse happens on his watch. I so hope this happens, because lately all the talk about deregulation being the cause of this problem is pissing me off. It's all the fault of Republicans with their free market, deregulation, laissez-faire ideology--or so I'm told. Please make the stupidity end! And please don't let this be akin to the 1930s, where the do-nothing, Republican free marketer is blamed for the Great Depression, and the pro-active, progressive Democrat sweeps in to save the day with wonderful programs that get the economy back on its feet. We are all well aware of where that type of misguided, mistaken thinking has gotten us in terms of smaller government and individual liberty.
If it happens on the Democrats' watch, the Republicans will still be blamed because the media favors the Democrats. But the problem there isn't that the Republicans will be blamed, because they well deserve it. The problem is that the Democrats won't share the blame as they likewise deserve.
Pro Christo et Libertate integre!
I agree with you Mac, both rotten parties deserve blame, and the Dems probably won't share the blame with most people or the media, but I don't agree that Republicans deserve blame because they favored "deregulation" and the "free market" as conventional wisdom suggests. They derserve blame because their policies and ideology stand so vehemently against those two ideals. If the masses, however, don't realize this, furthering the classical liberal cause will be that much harder.
Tuesday Great Fascist Bailout Updates
Check the first link on the blog post. And DIGG it please.