I need to point out that it's pretty tough to have a consistent baseline (metric) of how well you're performing when your point of reference is constantly shifting. At one time in my life, I wished for teachers who would teach the way the Obama administration is administering.
But apparent present-day failures, massive historical lessons showing the same kinds of failures, shifting baselines, constant criticism and an otherwise lack of economic response (unemployment was up again in June) haven't changed the minds of the politicians who can't seem to see what's blatantly obvious to the rest of us. The bleeding hasn't stopped.
But let it not be said that politicians can't take advantage of a perfectly good tragedy. What would you and I do if confronted by massive debt, an uncertain job future and the threat of inflation? Well, we would spend twice as much – clearly. In what sounds like the next step in the performance of The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Vice President Joe Biden, who's lately become somewhat of a motormouth, stated that the administration “misread” the economy, leading to new and widespread speculation about the idea of a “...Reinvestment Act” part deux.
If part one has cost us 787 billion official dollars, trillions in printed reserves, a government controlling interest in the automotive and financial sectors and a plunging value for the dollar worldwide, among other things, we can only speculate how much the next installment in this program will distort the American economy. My guess is a new belief in something that I've resisted for several years now – hyper-inflation. I'm remembering my post “Mark's Top 30 Watch List For Economic Armageddon.” Unfortunately, there are only two steps left to take on that list, and Murphy's Law dictates that they're well on their way.
We can only hope and pray that I'm wrong. Even I hope I'm wrong. But one thing is certain, the stimulus package has become the 800 pound gorilla in the room. It's massive, and impossible to ignore or avoid, no matter where you're standing.
So the news over the last several days has been interesting. Our leadership is providing us with little glimpses of insight into how they feel about the status of their economic policies, and where those policies might be headed. Unfortunately, it appears as though the worst of the storm is still directly ahead of us.
True genius never dies. Nor does it ever fade away. Those who inspire us and change the world for the better, even if it's just through simple works of art, always leave us with something to contemplate for centuries. Leonardo DaVinci, Michael Angelo, Goethe - to this day their works strike awe into our hearts and minds. They make us stop and think, and reflect not only on their bodies of work, but also on the nature of intelligence and what immense things a single human being is capable of.Today US bankruptcy judge Robert Gerber gave the green light to allow GM to declare bankruptcy, leaving bondholders, consumers, consumer groups and unions in the financial dust. The move was seen months ago by anyone who isn't a statist-minded Obama maniac, or by anyone who still has more than half a brain.
Luckily for the taxpayer, the automotive industry bailout is only costing every man, woman and child in America a measly $874.00. But unfortunately for the American taxpayer, the Obamas and their crew have bigger plans in store. The insurance industry is still struggling. Healthcare “reform” should only cost about 1.7 trillion dollars. Municipalities are coming up short all across America. And the “stimulus package,” which clearly is nothing of the sort, is in what appears to be just its first installment.
Now is when we should all be afraid. Very, very afraid. They're coming for your paychecks, people. And there's nothing you can do about it.
The Dow and S&P were up Thursday, turning around a three-day decline.
Positive new information on the job market and manufacturing fueled the bounce.
After recovering from a 12-year low in March, the S&P 500 has slowed, as private investors and institutions reassess economic data. The turn offers a flicker of hope and optimism for recovery, but analysts remain cautious, saying significant improvement is still needed before projections change.
Financials supported the small rally.
Discover Financial Services rose 4 percent. Lincoln National gained 6.9 percent. And the S&P Financial Index gained 2.5 percent.
"The data supports the case of those looking for the bottom of the economy in this quarter," said Jim Awad, managing director at Zephyr Management in New York.
On the positive side, government data shows that the number of workers filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose last week, but the number of people actually collecting benefits had its biggest decline since November 2001.
Trading volume remained light on the NYSE, with about 1 billion shares exchanging hands, while the Nasdaq also stayed below last year's daily average.
The current rate of decline in world economies is actually worse than the great depression, according to professors of economics Berry Eichengreen, of U.C. Berkley, and Kevin H. O'Rourke, of Trinity College, Dublin.
In a series of charts and descriptions posted online by voxeu.org, the two economists take stock of all the major economies in the world, rather than isolating the troubled U.S. economy, since the last great depression was also an international phenomenon, not just a problem specific to the United States.
They're calling the large market corrections presently taking place around the world a “depression event” that is just beginning its earliest stages.
Their charts largely show more dramatic stages of decline than in 1929 by plotting large categories such as world output, world trade, world stock markets and industrial output.
All charts but three, including those for Poland, the United States and world money supply, show that economic conditions today are actually worse than the 1929 depression.
“Judge rules family can't refuse chemo for boy” - AP
“U.S. CPI, production data point to easing recession” - Reuters
“GM eliminating about 1,100 dealer franchises” - AP
“Guantanamo Detainee Released to Join Relatives in France” - The Washington Post
“Scared Somalis running out of food as battles rage” - AP
“Consumer prices flat, industrial production dips” - AP
“Stocks fluctuate in cautious trading after rally” - AP
“Consumers' confidence at highest levels since Sept.” - Reuters
“U.S. consumers' mood rises in early May: survey” - Reuters
“22B Bailout for Life Insurers” - Yahoo Finance
“Mexico swine flu deaths ebb – but caution urged” - AP
“New swine flu cases in Europe, US, Latin America” - AP
"Insurance Companies Approved for TARP Money" - The Washington Post
This is just one week. It makes my head spin just reading the headlines and trying to intellectualize all of the consequences. What a crazy world. But it's good for people like me who like to write about it. We never suffer from a lack of ammunition.
Have a great weekend.
Hard work is no longer its own reward, because your work increasingly goes to others who work less. Achievement isn't always recognized in our newly born entitlement society, because it's as if everyone now believes that roads, bridges and iPods are a given, and that they will always be, and should always be, available upon demand. And innovation, though it is still protected through a great legal system, oftentimes doesn't make up for the other problems encountered when we're not recognized for our hard work, and when our real achievements get little more than a tip of the hat, and a pat on the back. The entitled say: “Attaboy. We knew you could do it. Now where's my iPod?”
The case I want to make in this post is in regard to a recent statement from the President about closing tax loopholes, or tax havens, in offshore places like The Cayman Islands. This is a horrible idea, and if this mindset gains traction, which I think it already has, it will be yet another economic travesty pursued by the new President and his Cabinet, and by many other Presidents and Cabinets that came before.
And I would especially like to throw in China with The Cayman Islands as another great example of why closing loopholes and tax havens is a bad idea.
For at least the last fifty years, our government has played a heavy-handed role in our economy. I know it's much longer than that, but I've stopped keeping track of the years, because I'm more focused on the fact that it happens at all. And this heavy-handed role has enormous costs. It negatively distorts the economy. It makes businesses less competitive; individuals less solvent; it costs us jobs, tax dollars, even whole industries – the most labor intensive of which have almost all been shipped overseas. The world gets smaller every day. And one of the ways we can judge just how small the world is becoming is through tax competition. Never heard of it? Good. Keep reading.
The idea is simple. It's no different than price competition between similar companies – say hardware stores on opposite sides of the street. If you are the owner of a small business, and your taxes go up in one state, or county, you have the opportunity to become more competitive, with other similar businesses, if you move to another state or county with lower taxes. And there's no difference whatsoever for multi-national companies. If one country offers a competitive advantage to your company, you move there. The specific competitive advantage we're talking about is the tax rate. Put simply, if you are the owner of a massive multinational company, and your taxes go up in the United States, other countries with lower tax rates begin to look more attractive. In order to remain competitive, with other companies, that may already be located in those more attractive tax havens, what do you do? You move.
Either you move your corporate headquarters to an off American shores location, so the overall rate of taxation paid by your entire company is lower; or you move the most heavily taxed portions of your business off American shores, so you can lower the amount you pay on just one portion of your business. Or you do both. Either way, American jobs and taxable income are lost when government decides to raise taxes, regulate more, or punish more in some other, closely related arena. But lowering the costs of doing business promotes job growth, promotes innovation, promotes private investment and increases the overall tax base.
Lowering taxes increases tax revenues? Yep. It sure does.
The United States has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. So not too long ago The Cato Institute decided to do a study on this very subject. Their findings were impressive. Every few years, they publish a “Handbook for Policymakers.” In one of their last publications, they included their findings, and they had some very interesting things to say about tax competition. Here's, pardon me, a lengthy quote from their book. (If you don't want to read it, just skip to my summary below.)
There would be two key advantages of the United States’ switching from a worldwide to a territorial system of business taxation. First, it would end the current tax barrier to the repatriation of foreign earnings. Currently, repatriated foreign earnings are subject to the 35 percent federal corporate tax, which suppresses profit repatriation and thus investment in the United States. Under a territorial system, business profits earned abroad would be repatriated free of a U.S. tax burden. Second, it would help make the United States a good home for the headquarters of multinational corporations. Currently, a high tax rate and the worldwide tax system make the United States a poor choice for locating corporate headquarters. If the United States switched to a territorial system, companies could earn profits abroad without a U.S. tax burden placed on top of the foreign taxes paid. That would make it easier for firms to expand their foreign sales, which in turn would lead to expansion in firms’ U.S. headquarters activities, such as management, finance, and research. Reducing the U.S. corporate tax rate is also a crucial reform because of the mobile nature of the corporate tax base in the globalized economy. Because of the high U.S. tax rate, companies put large efforts into moving their investments and reported profits abroad to low-tax nations, such as Ireland. America’s high corporate tax rate is a loser for the U.S. economy, and it is also a loser for the government because it causes the tax base to shrink dramatically. Recent experience shows that governments lose little, if any, revenue when they cut their corporate tax rates. Corporate tax cuts create strong dynamic responses that offset reductions in revenues. In our book Global Tax Revolution, we calculated the average corporate tax rate and averag corporate tax revenues as a share of gross domestic product for 19 industrial nations. The average corporate tax rate across countries was 40 percent or more until the mid-1980s. But then tax rates plunged, with the average rate falling from 45 percent in 1985 to 29 percent by 2005. Interestingly, corporate tax revenues did not decline as rates fell. In fact, tax revenues soared from 2.6 percent of GDP in 1985 to 3.7 percent in 2005, which is a 42 percent increase. Corporate tax revenues have surged in most countries that have cut tax rates. Lower rates generate more real investment and higher incomes in subsequent years. In addition, tax rate cuts result in increases in reported profits as companies reduce their tax avoidance and tax evasion activities. The bottom line is that a corporate tax rate cut is a winner for the economy, for workers, and potentially for the government as well as the tax base expands over time.
What their study found is that a very modest reduction in corporate taxation resulted in a massive gain in tax revenues for the government, since a more reasonable tax rate resulted in less corporate tax evasion. In other words, the harder you tax them, the less you get back. It's what economists call “diminishing returns.” And they studied 19 developed nations to get their figures.
But we don't have to look at anyone's figures in order to prove that their numbers are correct. There are other, very visible examples. Our companies have been going to The Cayman Islands and, owch, China for years. The reason this is happening is because the business environments offered by those countries are more appealing than the business environments offered here in the United States.
Now here is where our shame comes in. We lost over 48,000 men fighting communism in Vietnam. We fought a cold war, using trillions of U.S. taxpayer dollars, to force the Soviet Union to implode. We've isolated Cuba since the fifties. We fought communists once again in Korea, and once again, lost tens of thousands of men.
(As a quick sidebar, there's no better example of the rewards of economic freedom than the stark contrast between North Korea and South Korea at night. Simply stand on the border and look to the free south. You see motion, activity, lights and life. Now turn around and look to the communist north. You see nothing. Blackness. Less regulation, more life. More regulation, less life.)
But American companies have been going to China, a country that is politically the very antithesis of everything the United States is supposed to stand for. In other words, a communist country is a more inviting business environment for American companies than the United States itself. It means that the biggest communist country on earth regulates less and taxes companies less than the American government. This should be a major slap in the face of our leadership. But apparently not. They seem to feel no shame.
Our leadership appears to be going ahead with vigor in growing government, regulating more, nationalizing more, taxing more, and closing “loopholes” and “havens” that have gone offshore. The problem, for now and the foreseeable future, exists not in pursuing those companies that the current statist administration and their goons see as derelict, but rather asking ourselves why those companies have elected to move offshore in the first place. The biggest reason: taxes. The second biggest reason: regulation.
After losing so many thousands of fighting men and women in opposing everything communism stands for, the last things we should want to lose to those countries are our jobs, our companies and our economy. We fought hard to destroy communism. But now we're propping them up through our own ill-conceived tax policies that are focused on “greedy” companies, “tax havens” and “loopholes,” companies paying their “fair share,” and an overall tax rate that's already ridiculously high in comparison to other developed nations.
We are voluntarily shipping our jobs to countries that we once treated as enemies of the United States. We are giving our jobs to the enemy. And our government wants to do it faster, and on a larger scale, by, in essence, forcing our companies to become less competitive. We're losing the international tax competition – to the communists, and to the little islands whose leadership is smart enough to understand that most islands can't produce much.
As Americans, we should all be ashamed and embarrassed of our leadership. They're destroying our economy. They're losing an extraordinarily large economic battle. I believe, in the very near future, if we don't dramatically change our perceptions of the value of businesses and the harm in taxation, that the United States will be seen by others as a once bountiful oasis. That it once was an island, an economic powerhouse, a country built upon the good, strong shoulders of capitalism, individualism and the deeply-rooted desires for hard work, innovation and their concomitant rewards.
If what we really want is for our economy to take off now, what we need to do is reduce taxes, regulate less, allow more tax loopholes and tax havens, and reward American companies for doing what we believe to be right, rather than punish them for doing what we believe is wrong. We need to reward innovation, reward hard work, and in so doing, recover our economy from the communists, and from the little islands that understand that you attract more businesses through reward than forcibly retain more businesses through punishment.
On sleepless nights, I find myself playing a cute game called “World Of Goo.” I have several other computer games, mainly because I've stopped watching television, and I don't always want to crack open yet another book. And also because so many games are now so creative and so involved they're more like taking an active part in a really great book. The games being played today are not all just shoot-em-up, nor are they the children-oriented video games we remember from years ago.
Rather, the pastime of video gaming, while arguably still in its infancy, has become one of the most creative and rewarding activities a person can get involved in – other than, maybe, programming your own game, or writing your own book.
“World Of Goo” is by no means like a vibrant book come to your computer screen. The storyline is simple and obvious. There's no dialog. And it's two dimensional, and cartoon like. But it's also fantastically creative, and it's won so many awards that I had to pass it on.
You can read reviews and down load a demo for free here.
And you can find a step-by-step helper's video blog here
we have just been attacked once again by terrorists. Are we really that afraid of catching the flu? Or is there some other underlying fear that bothers us more?
I think this flu-induced panic is a reflection of something greater that now lies under the increasingly thin skin of American society – and obviously the societies of the rest of the world that have responded similarly. I know that a nation, or nations, of hypochondriacs isn't normal. It's strange. Eerie. Something akin to a green sky before the tornado touches down, or the waves on the beach that have suddenly stopped – and then pulled away. I feel a rumble somewhere. The world is changing. And I'm grasping, even as I sit here and write these words, that our collective consciousness must know that a big event is about to happen. I doubt totally that it's going to be the damn swine flu. But we can all feel something changing. It's as if we're all mentally preparing for – something. But what is it that we're afraid of?
I'll leave that question out there for you to answer. I think everyone is, of course, afraid of death. But that pat explanation is only a partial answer. I think the answer I'm really looking for is bigger still.
But let it not be said that impending doom can't have its opportunists. This web page reports that President Barack Obama is asking for “...$1.5 Billion to Fight Swine Flu.” As of this writing, the swine flu has killed one person in the United States. If we extrapolate, that's 1.5 billion dollars per person – just to alleviate our fears. We could bankrupt the country in a hurry by following such a path. But “...Fight Swine Flu” does make for a great headline. And, of course, it also allows our pro-government President to do what he does best – grow government.
So good, honest voices of reason are sometimes the most difficult to take seriously when your worries seem so large and looming. But perspective is what's needed now. Heeding the words of Doctor and Congressman Ron Paul might help. And I can help. I can offer you a little more.
Perspective:
This “outbreak” has been going on for about a week now. Just seven days.
In that time:
686 people have died from other flu variants – in just the United States.
714 people have died in car accidents – in just the United States.
9,538 people have died from smoking-related illnesses – in just the United States.
38,353 people have died from malaria – worldwide.
Oh, and 1 person has died from a falling coconut – in just Mexico.
Where has the media been hiding all of these extra stories? They sure have missed a lot of “If it bleeds, it leads” opportunities. Where is their perspective?
Evidence of how panicked people are, and in part why, can be found on this page.
Enter stage right, little Hollie Steel. This young lady is impressive beyond my comprehension. I was stunned and staggered. My jaw literally dropped. If there is anyone I've seen, in any show, between the two dueling talent shows on opposite sides of the pond, it's this little girl who appears to have the brightest future of all. She is awe-inspiring.
Congratulations to both Susan Boyle and Hollie Steel.
I just love to see peoples' dreams come true.
By comparison, about 52 people per year are killed in Mexico from falling coconuts – about one per week. The total known bird flu fatalities in the world were last reported at 222. This was widely reported as a “pandemic.”
According to a MedicineNet.com definition, a pandemic is:
Pandemic: An epidemic (a sudden outbreak) that becomes very widespread and affects a whole region, a continent, or the world.
So I have to ask a thoughtful, and (what I think is a) most insightful, question. Using the information in the above definition, does eighty deaths in Mexico sound to you like a “pandemic”?
Before you answer, let me point out that more than one hundred people per day die in car accidents in the United States. That's per day. Not per pandemic, or per month, or per year. That's per day.
Thirty-six thousand influenza deaths of a non-swine-type occur every year in the United States. That's a little over 98 influenza deaths per day – in just the United States. Nearly half a million people die every year from smoking-related illnesses – in just the United States.So I watched in amazement as the “bird flu” (not people flu), made headlines last year. And I'm amazed once again as the “swine flu” makes its way around the world as “World govts race to contain swine flu outbreak.” Eighty people die, and “world governments” respond. If we really want to help the population of planet earth, should we not get “world governments” to respond, and ban automobiles first?
How comfortable we have become.
We'll find out if the bailout worked on June 1st, when the company faces its deadline for restructuring, or bankruptcy. If I were forced to place a bet, bankruptcy would get my dollars – and then another “loan,” um, bailout, will most likely follow.
Drugs are more available today in quantity and variety than ever before.
Drugs are more expensive today than they have ever been.
There is more drug-related violence in Mexico and the US than there has ever been.
Drugs are now more potent than ever.
We spend billions of taxpayer dollars, with so little success in stemming the drug flow.
And the US makes up less than 5% of the world's population, but has 25% of the world's prisoners.
then you might be interested in this podcast. It takes about eleven minutes.
I suppose anyone who has read my blog once or twice probably wonders why I yammer on so often about free markets, the individual, and Austrian economics. Well, it's because I'm a libertarian. All that really means is I believe that the responsibilities of government are few and far between – specifically, that they should only do for individuals that which individuals cannot possibly do for themselves. Things like, make and enforce laws that protect people from the use of force and coercion regarding their life, liberty and property; make and maintain infrastructure; provide all voluntary military and intelligence services that are used only in self-defence; and help to maintain peace and rebuild a given area when there's a natural disaster.Books For Libertarian Beginners:
“The Austrian Theory Of The Trade Cycle,” by Richard M. Ebeling – 125pp.
“The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality,” by Ludwig Von Mises – 95 pp.
“Economics For Real People,” by Gene Callahan – 352 pp.
“The Austrian Theory of Money” – by Murray Rothbard – 24 pp.
Advanced Reading:
“Man, Economy & State,” by Murray Rothbard – 1,400 pp.
“Bureaucracy,” by Ludwig Von Mises – 135 pp.
“Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles,” by Jesus Huerta De Soto – 906 pp.
Against Keynesian Economics Reading:
“The Failure of the New Economics,” by one of my favorite authors, Henry Hazlitt – 440 pp. This book refutes, line by line, Keynesian economics, the very same brand of economics being used in Washington today to promote the multi-trillion-dollar “stimulus program.”
The Classics That Helped To Make Libertarianism What It Is Today:
“The God of the Machine,” by Isabel Patterson – 298 pp.
“Human Action,” by Ludwig Von Mises – 930 pp.
“Capitalism, The Unknown Ideal,” (Personally one of my all time favorite books. I consider it to be one that has changed my life.), “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead,” all by Ayn Rand
A Comprehensive List Of Mises.org Reading By Subject:
A List Of Almost All Of The Books That Mises.org Offers For Free In .pdf Format:
I finished reading Micheal Panzer's book Financial Armageddon a few months ago. I was stunned. He first had the book published in 2006, which means he probably wrote it over the course of '04 & '05. I felt like I was reading a newspaper from this morning. Every page of it has come true. A coming depression, check; bank failures, check; insurance company failures, check; big bailouts and other government guarantees that don't work, check; on and on and on. At one point, I put the book down in front of Gaby, and I said “this man is a genius and a prophet.”
If The Creature From Jekyll Island, A Second Look at the Federal Reserve, sounds like slightly dry reading, it's not. It's written like a who-dunnit. Just reading the first sixty-six pages should get you hooked (the first three chapters). I'm in the middle of it right now, and I can't believe what our Federal Reserve system is founded upon. Nothing. Nothing. It's all a house of cards. And it was put in place intentionally to prevent the kinds of economic problems that it's now creating. Now I'm kind of mad at myself for getting so into it, since it's nearly six hundred pages long. Honestly, though, it's not boring reading.
Anyway, here's a great video about the economy and all of its problems from a comedy pair called “The Long Johns.” It takes about eight minutes.
This Just In
Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner believes that only government can get us out of this economic mess, because you, dear reader, are too weak to turn the economy around on your (our) own. We got ourselves into this mess; but somehow we are just too weak, dumb and irresponsible to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and kick the ass end of our economy back into business. This is total bunk; and I can explain why. But first, I would like to give you the job description of the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, straight from the Department of the Treasury website.
The job description:
The Secretary of the Treasury is the principal economic advisor to the President and plays a critical role in policy-making by bringing an economic and government financial policy perspective to issues facing the government. The Secretary is responsible for formulating and recommending domestic and international financial, economic, and tax policy, participating in the formulation of broad fiscal policies that have general significance for the economy, and managing the public debt. The Secretary oversees the activities of the Department in carrying out its major law enforcement responsibilities; in serving as the financial agent for the United States Government; and in manufacturing coins and currency.
The Chief Financial Officer of the government, the Secretary serves as Chairman Pro Tempore of the President's Economic Policy Council, Chairman of the Boards and Managing Trustee of the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds, and as U.S. Governor of the International Monetary Fund, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
With a job description like that, it's very disturbing to hear Geithner's anti-free market statements that came from several appearances over the weekend. On politically-oriented talk shows, he stated that “...only Washington...” can solve our economic mess. He also stated: “the market will not solve this.” But we need to ask, if the market created this, why can it not solve it?
There has been no clear explanation from any economist, politician or banker who can explain why, even if these bad debts are taken off of the banks' books, that people, being as fear-filled as they are right now, will suddenly think everything has gone back to normal, and resume their pursuit of credit cards and loans, and resume living their lives in debt. There has also been no reason-oriented explanation, from any economist, as to why propping up insolvent, irresponsible companies with taxpayer dollars will get us anything less than more of the same economic malaise that we have right now. In fact, the economic policies being pursued by the President and his Cabinet, are right out of the teachings of John Maynard Keynes.
Keynes believed that a government can go into temporary debt in order to “prime the pump,” as he put it, of the economy, to get it rolling again. And once the recession was over, the temporary debt could be paid off – and government size reduced in lock step. (When have you ever known that to happen?) But first, and most importantly, Keynes's treatise on economics has been largely disproven. And second, is in fact, listed in modern economics textbooks as what not to do during an economic downturn. In other words, just like in science, it's an old model of thought that has been disproven with new information. It was a mistake then; and it's a mistake now.
But not only has the Obama administration adopted this outmoded thinking, it has also gone further into debt than Keynes himself prescribed. In short, we have politicos in Washington right now who are like Keynesians on steroids. And they're actually proud of the size and pursuit of their mistake. I've heard many times that trying to do the same activity, the same way, over and over, while expecting different outcomes is the definition of insanity. If that's true, then the most insane people on planet earth right now are the New Keynesians in Washington, D.C.
But let us not stop there. On another show, Geithner said "We came through a period where people borrowed too much and we let our financial system take on much too much risk."
Here I have to ask what I think are some very pertinent questions. What does he mean by “our financial system”? Does it belong to Washington? Or does it belong to the people? Is it Washington's responsibility to fix it, if it does belong to them? Or is it the peoples' responsibility to fix it, because it belongs to us?
I have always maintained that the government should play no role whatsoever in the economic comings and goings of any economy, because it's not the role of government to preside over the financial well being of individuals. That's simply not in their job description. Private well being, rather, is the responsibility of the individual. But collectivists will tell you this is nonsense. “It takes a village,” is one quote that comes to mind. “Sacrifice for the greater good,” is another (coined by the communists).
The true responsibility of government, in my humble opinion, is to provide the safest environment for individuals to interact with one another, not to make sure that everyone either suffers or succeeds equally. I'm sure there are millions, maybe billions, of people who disagree with my view. But in this case, “sacrifice for the greater good,” is just a euphemism for economic slavery. And I've expanded on that view in another post called “Iceland's Government Commits Economic Atrocity.”
I'm frustrated, horribly frustrated, to see my country being torn to pieces by collectivists, who are using ideas that are no longer accepted by any reasonable mind. Geithner has stated publicly that he clearly doesn't believe in individualism. So has basically all of Congress and The Senate. If this is the “change” that Obama promised, then what he really meant to say was “We'll bring more of the same, only much, much more.”
