National Politics: September 2008 Archives

I don't understand Jarvis's statement:

"I believe in the market but I also believe that the government must decide when to regulate it just enough. (That is the essence of why I am a Democrat.)" (The moral imbalance of bailouts)

My personal understanding of a general Democrats' opinion is that there is rarely a reason not to involve the government in our lives as long as it passes the litmus test of "helping" a given segment of the population. And this is exactly what makes me not a Democrat (and these days, less and less of a Republican).

The past few days have been so depressing for me. Every time I opened a browser to peruse the news, my heart sank deeper and deeper. Article after article has been written about the current financial turmoil and a very, very small minority have shown the author to have any understanding of basic economics and the interaction between markets and government regulations. I haven't been over to the Wall Street Journal for some time. No reason in particular... I sometimes lose interest in writing in the WSJ because it has slowly degraded in quality over the past two decades. (I started reading the WSJ and Economist when I was twelve. Soon after, I added a number of university review magazines that I found at Barnes and Noble and other financial mags that I was able to get my hands on. I have continued to read many of these over the years and the only publication that seems to have kept up the quality of writing and reporting - i.e. how good the writing itself is and how thorough the reporting is - is the Economist. I guess I should add that I started reading Reason Magazine 10 years ago and [thankfully] haven't seen a decline there, either.)

A coworker came into my office yesterday afternoon and asked what I knew and/or thought of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae being taken over by the government. Oh god... here we go again, and I was gonna' get mad. I hate - as much as anyone can hate anything - when the government steps into a situation and cleans up a mess of someone else's making. Except in the case of Freddie and Fannie, the idea that the government was "stepping in" wasn't so clear. So, I took a deep breath, tried to tell him what I knew of the history of both organizations (i.e. that they were created to give out and/or support people who would have trouble getting loans for homes from private institutions) and what seems to have been the reason why the Treasury Department decided to step in and "seize" their business operations. (I was and am angry because yet again, the average taxpayer is going to be financially responsible for devastatingly inept fiscal management and no one will be truly held accountable for making poor choices - i.e. let financial ruin of many of those involved ensue.)

This morning, I open up my news reader (these days, Google Reader) and see a blog entry over at Cafe Hayek from Russell Roberts on this very issue. Here is a taste:

"Once upon a time, Fannie and Freddie were partners in a business. Well, it wasn’t exactly a business. It was almost a charity. Not quite. It was sort of a government agency. Or maybe it was all three together. When Fannie and Freddie talked to investors, they acted like a business. When they talked to the government regulators, they acted like a government agency." (Who is to blame? by Russell Roberts)

Russell nails it better than I could have. Thanks to him to not only explaining a few details of the Freddie/Fannie debacle, but also for making the topic entertaining.

I'm trying to learn to blog "shortly," I'll call it. Even though, that's not the right word, nor is it used correctly in any way here.

My head is about to friggin' explode.

Just because you want a poor family to receive health insurance such that your next visit to the doctor does not drive them further into the poor house, it does not follow necessarily that handing said responsibility to the government will solve the problem.

You state that you wish to help people in need, that we all need to sacrifice. We all need to be willing to give of our excesses. And I agree. That is a motto to live by. Whether or not it is because you believe in Jesus or Karma, giving is good. It does not follow, however, that it is the job of government to manage said transfers of money.

You wish for adequate this, fair that, and equitable practices and yet you deem a system whereby coercion is used to subjugate everyone to a planned order of life that follows your every whim is the manner in which to wish to achieve your goals is adequate, fair, and equitable.

You condemn one side for their voracious taking of civil liberties in the name of protecting our borders, yet you rot our internal system that has created the wealth you depend on with ideology that says fair is not fair and just means doing what you think is right.

You're an idiot.

A Tale of Two Conventions (Tim Cavanaugh - Reason Magazine)

But the rules have changed. Who could have guessed that the first black man running as a major-party presidential candidate would be battling accusations that he's an elitist who's had life too easy? It's almost as weird as the second woman running for vice president getting flak for being insensitive about women's issues.