$700,000,000,000

[monk222]

The New Deal never acted so precipitously on such a scale. Treasury Secretary Paulson, asked about conservative complaints that his rescue program amounts to socialism, said, essentially: This is not socialism, this is necessary. That non sequitur might be politically necessary, but remember that government control of capital is government control of capitalism.

-- George F. Will for The Washington Post

Congressional hearings are in earnest for a more comprehensive $700 billion dollar bailout of Wall Street. As if that weren't bad enough, I'm afraid that they will be back next spring crying that they need another trillion and a half that would really solve the problem, but then China won't give us the money and we will just start printing worthless dollars.

For debate: This administration has fucked us deeper and harder in the ass than any administration in American history, taking us down from being the world's only superpower to being a second-rate country.

Heck of a job, Dubya!

Comments

[neowiccan.livejournal.com]

doesn't it seem just completely and utterly insane to you that an administration that has done to us what this one has is still functioning, and not under indictment en masse?
or that, impossibly, their utter policy of fail may actually win another election?
my great grandkids won't see the payoff of this debt.
khairete
suz

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

The FBI has started investigating some of these firms, and I wouldn't be surprised to see some heads roll. It's just a shame that Dubya and Cheney won't feel the pain like that, but the American people chose them and reelected them, and as you point out, may very well give McCain their blessing. Maybe we deserve what we get? It looks like we're in for a hard chapter in American history.

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

You really are deeply informed. I can't claim to be versed in this CRA stuff. But I cannot help but think it funny that the shit should be hitting the fan undder Dubya, and it certainly strikes me as being oddly coincidental that this should be happening with all the ideological deregulatory fervor that this administration has brought to governance, against which the Dems have been screaming about.

I understand that this runs counter to your purist Libertarian philosophy, but the application of this deregulatory abandon seems more at the heart of it. As far as I can go is to say that these economic problems are not just about Dubya, but about the whole culture's fall to a spend and borrow mentality - consuming beyond our means. And that Dubya just facilitated these bad habits and unloosed the horses - like Apollo letting his one Phaethon drive the sun, only to crash and burn. Business men still need regulations, for greed runs too hot. Maybe people aren't ready for true libertarianism yet.

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

I just want to mention one column by Brooks. I gather you read the Times sometimes, but are not a fan and might have missed this one: "The Establishment Lives!" (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/23/opinion/23brooks.html)

I mention it because he has an interesting take on the ideological implications of this crisis, speaking of a new regime that is neither liberal nor truly libertarian:

So we have arrived at one of those moments. The global financial turmoil has pulled nearly everybody out of their normal ideological categories. The pressure of reality has compelled new thinking about the relationship between government and the economy. And lo and behold, a new center and a new establishment is emerging.

...

The government will be much more active in economic management (pleasing a certain sort of establishment Democrat). Government activism will provide support to corporations, banks and business and will be used to shore up the stable conditions they need to thrive (pleasing a certain sort of establishment Republican). Tax revenues from business activities will pay for progressive but business-friendly causes — investments in green technology, health care reform, infrastructure spending, education reform and scientific research.

If you wanted to devise a name for this approach, you might pick the phrase economist Arnold Kling has used: Progressive Corporatism. We’re not entering a phase in which government stands back and lets the chips fall. We’re not entering an era when the government pounds the powerful on behalf of the people. We’re entering an era of the educated establishment, in which government acts to create a stable — and often oligarchic — framework for capitalist endeavor.

After a liberal era and then a conservative era, we’re getting a glimpse of what comes next.

I don't think that's a happy picture for either of us, but it seems to be where we are at - beyond individualism, but certainly not communistic.