Posted by
Duck Archer on Sunday, October 12, 2008 2:56:04 AM
Why, on God’s green Earth, is McCain’s campaign suffering from economic problems, while Obama’s is benefiting? By the logic of facts, it makes no sense! So why is he?
A. McCain: not guilty. Foolish, maybe. Not guilty.
McCain warned against this mortgage bubble. McCain tried to stop the mortgage bubble. But there were too many liberals for even the Maverick to stop: most Democrats, and too many ‘compassionate conservative’ Republicans.
(Anybody notice, McCain can confound conservative movements, but his hand, so often stretched across the aisle, has not stopped liberal movements?)
It was liberals who enabled – mandated – Fannie & Freddie & all the rest, to create this mess. Obama’s record and intentions are like his fellow liberals: more government to solve a problem created by too much government already. How can this crisis possibly be benefitting Obama??? Does nobody know the truth??? Possible. McCain sure isn't telling the real story. Broadcast media sure won't. Obama Campaign certainly has nothing to gain, everything to lose ... from truth.
Isn’t the definition of ‘insanity’: doing the same thing over & over again, and expecting to get a different result?
B. The Guilty Parties.
The way it seems to have played out:
1. Liberals mandated that Fannie, Freddie, and other banks must find ways to qualify folks with very low incomes and no significant savings, to give them mortgages they couldn’t possibly ever pay off – whether the former standard mortgage or the newfangled interest-only mortgage. Politicians, like Frank, Pelosi, and the rest, must have gone home with such a warm glow that night: they'd legislated wealth redistribution, and corporate America not only has to absorb the price, but also the effort of generation & oversight, and bear the ‘burden of proof of enough low-income mortgages’ to regulators!
2. Liberals mandated that Fannie, Freddie, and other banks be legally allowed to write mortgages for interest-only payments. Wow! American dream! And banks didn’t fuss too much either … Occupant gets a house much bigger & plusher than he can ever pay for, because his legal mortgage payments are now within his budget … even though he’ll never actually own the house since you never pay a dollar towards principal! Banks write mortgages for homes they never relinquish title to. Wow! Anybody heard of ‘rent’? Always wanted my landlord to be my bank … so I can pay for all the repairs myself …
3. Then the mortgage bubble starts growing. Ordinary folks seeking ordinary homes financed with ordinary mortgages find the prices getting sky-high for the value of home to be gotten. But all the national economic numbers were looking up, with more & more Americans became homeowners … of homes they’d never be able to pay for and truly own.
4. Then the mortgage bubble collapses. Ordinary folks cannot sell their homes if they still have a mortgage, since what they still owe is more than the newly depreciated home value. Some big banks get bailouts. Others simply go under or get absorbed. Then our ‘compassionate conservative’ president steps forward with a solution: government will buy & own the bad mortgages … and have considerable leverage over the entire mortgage economy. And taxes will pay for it. More government intervention, to fix too much government intervention.
C. Other solutions.
Why couldn’t we just free up money for credit without a government buy-up?
- We could indefinitely suspend corporate taxes, assuring executives they’d have at least a 3-month notice before a phase-back-in would commence.
- We could terminate all capital gains taxes. What good are capital gains taxes when the economy is tanked and there are no gains to generate taxes on anyway? Yet, free up the expectation of losing all that cash to tax, and you conversely increase incentive to invest, thus investors ‘find’ cash for loans and all that …
Oh, liberals want big government. Ah, liberals want to control, not to govern. Silly me.
And Iceland, one of two premier & advertised socialist cradle-to-grave worker's paradise, just went bankrupt. Do we really want to go there too? If promises go bankrupt, then the political system isn’t looking out for the people governed. That sounds like a working definition of an evil political system. We're going there. Insanity.
D. Why aren’t the liberal politicians who created the mess … paying for it?
Compassionate Conservatism has partnered with Liberalism. Conservatives caved; too many of the weak-willed ones, anyway. Now, Liberals have won.
Big problem. Governments cannot easily be forced to give power back. Oh, government can force corporations to give up power. Government can even send corporate executives to jail. But who can send a politician to jail for the very same abuse of power? Nobody external, short of revolution; but the hitch: nobody but fanatics want the blood & mayhem of revolution, until they have so little left that losing their life means little.
Only a maverick of high integrity can reform a government, and it has to be from within. But that maverick must obtain a position of power to have any effect.
E. How it *could* happen. But won’t.
It seems McCain & Palin would fight corruption in DC. Probably won't get the chance.
- But McCain won’t allow the campaign to raise their voices now, naming names.
- Why not? Traditional McCain politeness, it seems. Probably why McCain's never once stymied any liberal movement. McCain finds it impossible to call a spade a spade, a lie a lie.
McCain won’t even stymie the liberal steam roller dooming him to November 2008 defeat.
Conclusion: insanity.
Insanity: doing the same thing over & over again, and expecting a different result.
- Politicians want us to believe the government bailout will solve the problem of too much government involvement. Insanity.
- McCain wants to believe he can remain his old conservative-confounding, liberal-enabling self, and somehow win in November 2008. Insanity.
Politics in 2008. Insanity.
Truth can trump insanity.
"I have learned that Evil often triumphs over Good, unless Good is very, very careful."
- Doctor McCoy to Spock, from the science fiction series
Star Trek, episode "The Omega Glory"