Scandalous Finance

America’s financial crisis was unnecessary. And the scandalous remedy the Bush Administration is pushing through is going to weaken America for the very long term.

But okay, the stock market is up, isn’t it?

Honestly, this unprincipled government does not have a clue about the proper role of government in our affairs. After years of holy “deregulation”- of

- ignoring unethical lending to people who couldn’t afford to pay back,
- letting financial institutions repackage, sell and ingest highly risky “toxic paper” from those loans,
- after years of letting Wall Street walk away with billions in under-taxed bonuses and profits (and asking for still MORE tax reductions for the rich),

the Bush Administration in its wisdom has decided to save the world by once again looting the treasury, this time for the benefit of its comrades on Wall Street.

Scandalous. And we will pay for this for a generation, and will be weakened for longer.

The plan – to borrow $750 billion (probably double that, in fact – nobody knows) from whom? - the Chinese who finance America’s debt – to rush to buy worthless paper from merchant bankers whose greed knew no bounds.

This throws the basic rule of capitalism out the window: those who succeed should profit, and those who fail must take the consequences. Not so in the new Republican world of George Bush. And “deregulation” really applies only when it benefits the friends of the Bush administration.

Juan Peron is the closest historical figure to George Bush that I can think of – a man who ruined Argentina (formerly prosperous) in a decade of jingoism, reckless printing of money, and military chest-pounding. Sound familiar? It should.

The consequences are predictable.

Bob