As I do most days, I’m looking through the available syndicated columns for something for tomorrow’s paper, and I run across this in a Cal Thomas column:
… Inexplicably, McCain called for a reduction in federal spending as one way to begin fixing the spiraling economy, while he simultaneously proposed $300 billion in new spending to bail people out of mortgages they cannot afford. Do we need “real estate agent” added to the growing list of things government does not do well?
My reaction to that? Who do you think SHOULD do that job, since the private sector has screwed it up so royally?
Can’t we, at long last, call a moratorium on the obligatory "gummint is bad, private sector is good" garbage from the Right?
Seriously. people. I mean, do you really think there’s something unusual in the fact that AIG spent over 400 Gs on a spa retreat for executives AFTER the gummint bailed it out to the tune of $85 million? The only reason this is under scrutiny at all is BECAUSE it overlaps with the public sector. This sort of routine waste in the private sector normally goes undetected because it’s private. When government wastes, we hear about it, and are suitably outraged. But it is beyond idiotic to assume from that fact that ONLY the government is wasteful, and the private sector is efficient and thrifty and trustworthy.
To paraphrase Dan Akroyd in "Ghostbusters," I’ve worked in the private sector, for my entire adult life. So I know better.
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Two major FEDERAL GOVT housing programs, FNMA and FMAC, operating as if they were private companies without stockholders holding them accountable, committed massive FRAUD in the mortgage markets, bringing down banks and stock and bond firms.
It was a fascist relic of the New Deal that failed because of corrupt Democrats running it. That is a FAILURE of GOVERNMENT.
Submitted humbly for your discussion: Does the predictable fact that Lee disagrees vehemently with my premise HELP my argument, or hurt it?
Well, since I am a degreed, consulting economist who has worked as a consultant on Wall Street, and you are a socialistic newspaper editor who admits to knowing nothing about business, do you see why you are confused by the news events, much less by my explanations?
Wait… so being a consulting economist on Wall Street is still a positive qualification?!?
Of course I think it helps your argument. And “just saying” you are absolutely right. I don’t think that the government should take over everything, but I don’t have a problem with the government providing services. Of course, Brad, you need to check and see exactly who agrees with you so vehemently about Ayers.
Well, it certainly makes him more qualified put his two cents in the argument than you, just saying.
Brad, what does the government do well? What’s one government program that’s not rife with waste and inefficiency? About the only thing the government does well is the military, and you could make a strong argument that that’s because of private contractors rather than government prowess. Is there waste in the private sector? Sure, but even with the small amount of waste in a private company it is exponentially more efficient than government could ever hope to be. Just think about it. How could a company, whose existence relies on the ability to make and maximize profit (especially public companies), continually waste and stay in business? Government programs don’t have the same incentive or accountability and thus are more wasteful by nature. That’s why the right preaches this so called “gummint is bad, private sector is good.” It’s because government has no incentive to be good stewards of the tax dollars that we are forced to hand over.
But to answer your question, who SHOULD do the job are entrepreneurs who step in to fill the void when we SHOULD have allowed companies to fail instead of propping them up with taxpayer dollars.
Besides, I’d be curious to know where the Constitution allows the government to play real estate agent.
John McCain just told a real estate agent who stood up at his rally that he would prosecute Democrats who were “coconspirators” in this mortgate fraud, and began by naming Barney Frank and Chris Dodd.
Democrats in Congress are desperate to elect Obama and win a majority in order to protect themselves from hearings and grand juries.
“It’s because government has no incentive to be good stewards of the tax dollars that we are forced to hand over.”
Private profit mongers have no incentive to provide many needed services to those who aren’t wealthy – schools, roads, police, fire service, WIC, etc… As much as some of the right hates it the majority of the country is in favor of providing those services, and will continue to do so. So, why not push for those managing those programs to have a reward and accountability structure similar to private industry — one based on performance relative to their mission? (e.g. why not push for making it easier to fire the incompetent and pay the competent well?)
“Well, it certainly makes him more qualified put his two cents in the argument than you, just saying.”
Since you know nothing of my qualifications or credentialing, can I assume that’s only because you disagree with me?!
just saying, First, you give examples of local and state government programs, not federal government. Since we’re talking federal government here your examples really don’t hold water. In addition, I don’t know anyone from the right who has EVER said that we should get rid of ALL government services, just that excessively wasteful and inefficient services and programs should either become more efficient or be cut (which, amazingly enough, pretty much puts any federal program on the chopping block). To even insinuate that the right wants to get rid of essential services is just plain silly.
And I’m all for basing rewards on performance. If government could effectively administer such a program I may be inclined to support it. However, somehow I highly doubt that would ever happen in this life.
And please, share your qualifications and credentialing with us.
Private enterprise actually does have incentives to provide goods and services to all economic strata of society, including education, medical care, roads, insurance, fire protection and police security.
The proof is that, until recently, these private sector solutions were larger than those provided by government. Government legislates disincentives to the market to serve these customers.
Examples:
* Until just a few years ago, Andrew Carnegie had still built more public libraries in America than all the government entities combined.
* There are still more private security officers than government police and deputies.
* Until recently, volunteer and private fire companies outnumbered municipal fire departments.
* Thousands of private, free or very inexpensive medical clinics were closed down in the 1990s by government squabbling and rules which encouraged abusive use of hospital emergency rooms instead of clinics right across the street. An example here is the clinic that was across from Providence Hospital.
Brad,
I’ll follow on to previous comments. Please provide examples of government programs that you consider successful?
The largest government programs are models of inefficiency and waste. Medicare? Pays providers significantly below market rates and has zero accountability to the point where BILLIONS of dollars of fraud occur every week. Social Security? A Ponzi scheme that only remains solvent by government enforced tax increases. The U.S. Postal Service? Perhaps one of the worst examples of customer service and a business model that basically gave all the profitable business to Fedex and UPS because it couldn’t do it. How about the V.A. Hospitals? are those examples of government successes?
Show me an example of a government version of Microsoft? or Pepsi? Or Wal Mart?
The reason AIG was able to spend that $400K is because they already knew that enough government politicians had been bought off to ensure the money kept flowing out of the taxpayers pockets.
The fundamental flaw in your opinion is that it ignores the successes that exist in private industry. The fact that they exist in large numbers disproves your theory completely.
You’re right, “just saying”, we don’t even know your name, or what you do, or your so-called ‘credentials’, if you have any. You keep that to yourself.
All we can judge you on is your posts, which, so far, exhibit very little knowledge of how markets work, or why various forms of socialism are so inferior, morally and economically.
RE: State and Local vs. Federal –
Much of the rhetoric from anti-tax groups is indiscriminant in which level of government it targets (they are invariably against whatever group is trying to fund something at the time irregardless of its actual efficiency and need or lack thereof). It certainly changes my impression of your political views if it is primarily the federal programs, and not all levels of government that you think is unreformable.
RE: Anyone against ALL government services –
I’m sure I can google up some libertarian bloggers who have basically said we should get rid of virtually all government services except the military (if not one or two on this blog). There are certainly many in the anti-tax crowd who are against any increases in funding for programs irregardless of how efficient they are and how much the increase is needed to keep things running. And the (supposed) right that controls SC has consistently used across the board budget cuts instead of looking for inefficiencies. [I am also happy to rail against the big-government left, but we seem to get a lot of that here already.]
RE: Reward System –
I guess my question, seriously, is: what is it inherently about the government that stops them from effectively administering a program that allows for firing and rewarding employees? Wouldn’t all of the conservatives and moderates (and thus a majority) of the house and senate be for such a thing?
RE: Credentialing –
Doctorate in a quantitative field and being fairly successful at building a career with it
* There are still more private security officers than government police and deputies.
And how many provided that security to poor neighborhoods that couldn’t pay?
* Until recently, volunteer and private fire companies outnumbered municipal fire departments.
And I have an uncle (reliably Republican) who was happy to regale us cousins with how great it was that n*****s didn’t like moving into towns that had volunteer fire companies. (Or at least didn’t stay long if they did.)
As I get on a plane home from California this evening, I’ll think about how Brad believes the private sector is just as bad as the government.
First, I’ll thank the TSA employee who looks at my drivers license and my boarding pass and then draws a little squiggly line on it.
Then, I’ll thank the second TSA guy ten feet away who looks at my boarding pass to make sure it has the squiggly line on it.
Then I’ll take my little one quart ziploc baggie with my toiletries in it (nothing over three ounces or it will be tossed in the trash) and put it into one of the plastic bins that another TSA employee has dragged over to the end of the conveyor belt. Then I’ll take off my shoes (because one lunatic tried to light his shoe on fire several years ago) and put them in a plastic bin. Then I’ll take my laptop out of it’s bag and place it in another bin because apparently the technology does not exist to determine whether a laptop is explosive inside a briefcase.
Next, I’ll pass through the metal detector and show my boarding pass to another TSA employee who will once again make sure there is a squiggly line on it.
While I do that, another TSA employee will look at the x-ray of my bag and potentially call over another TSA employee to take a look at the image to see if my shoes are safe.
Once I reach the end of the conveyor belt, I’ll reassemble all my baggage, put on my shoes, and be thankful that my bag wasn’t selected to be examined by another TSA employee to be emptied on a table for review.
All of this because 20 terrorists brought some box cutters on planes eight years ago.
That’s government in a nutshell.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/p-j-gladnick/2008/10/09/will-msm-report-louis-farrakhan-declaration-obama-messiah
No, Brad, because government caused this failure in the private sector, like Lee said, and you and your liberal pick-up-a-paycheck-once-a-pay-period-is-all-we-know-about-the-economy buddies are apparently too stupid to understand it.
No wonder the newspaper business is going down the tubes.
So you’re incredibly gifted at math but not necessarily an expert on economic theory. So I’m not necessarily wrong in saying that Lee is more qualified to put his two cents worth in. However, I sense there was probably a bit of tongue-in-cheek in your original comment too.
And even as a conservative who is against massive government spending I think blanket statements that all government spending is bad is painting with an extremely broad brush. But until government shows that it can actually administer programs efficiently I’m reluctant to turn anything, especially something like real estate, over to the government. That’s why this right-winger subscribes to the “gummint is bad, private sector is good” philosophy. It’d be nice if it were the opposite. Wouldn’t it be such a nice feeling on April 15th to know that your hard earned tax dollars were going to be spent wisely? I would be more than happy to pay more in taxes if I knew that the government was going to actually use my money wisely. But anyone who is currently happy to hand over their dollars on tax day with today’s inefficiencies needs to be committed.
“However, I sense there was probably a bit of tongue-in-cheek in your original comment too.”
Just a bit. (But if you watch, Lee seems to be equally strident in his opinions on just about everything).
I used to be just a bit off of 50/50 in my voting (between Republicans and Democrats). Am I misremembering that we used to have a lot more candidates on the right who ran on “making government more efficient and work better” as opposed to “cutting taxes and cutting government”?
That’s why Romney was my man in the primaries. I’ve been tepidly supporting McCain (more of a vote against Obama than a vote for McCain), but with his suggestion of another $300 billion to bailout foreclosed homes he’s about alienated me. If come election day Obama is pretty far ahead in the polls I’ll probably vote third-party for the first time in my life. Makes me sad because I think we’re going to head further down the crapper with Obama in office (especially as a society). McCain would take us the same direction, just maybe not as fast.
I’d like an honest, balanced budget, mid-sized government, socially more liberal candidate… but since it doesn’t look like I’ll get the first three, the last one has been driving more of my votes lately.
I don’t know if socially liberal is the term… mixture of liberal and libertarian, so I guess “socially not conservative”.
Doug, you’re a good guy, but you know and I know how the game you propose to play with me goes. It’s as predictable as tic-tac-toe.
I mention the Post Office (which people LOVE to malign) as a rather remarkable example of an entity that does a surprisingly good job of COMING TO MY HOUSE, picking up a letter, and delivering it anywhere in the country in the next day or two, for less than 50 cents.
Then you go AHA! and tell me all about your experience as a consultant working with the Postal Service and all the horrible stuff you saw, yadda-yadda.
Or I can mention ANY governmental function we rely upon in our lives, and if you don’t have an anecdote at hand that “proves” I’m wrong, you can easily find one within seconds on the Web. And of course, my generalities that such complex systems work remarkably well most of the time will never stand up — in your mind, or the minds of those who agree with you — to your anecdotal exceptions.
And why are such anecdotes so plentiful? Because MY industry sees digging up such anecdotes and telling the world about them as a mission, and rightly so. The press has an obligation to call the government to account for every failing — an obligation that we don’t feel regarding the private sector (accordingly, we don’t produce such reams of stories about corporations, except when we stumble over them, and even then we’re 10 times as careful about telling YOU about them, because libel law works differently with the private sector than it does with public officials).
What gets me about you libertarians, and Cal Thomas provided an excellent example of it today, is your absolutism. You see things as “public sector bad, private sector good,” and you sneer at the entire portion of our society that chooses to work in public service.
But in my experience, in my moving through life with my eyes open, I have not seen the private sector being any better. Whenever the anti-government types complain of a decent new school building as being unnecessarily Taj Mahal-like, I look at the relatively spartan structure under consideration, and I remember all the obscenely over-furnished corporate boardrooms I’ve been in, things that were NOT built for the edification or improvement of the public at large, but merely to impress a few visitors with executives expensive (and often a bit gaudy) tastes.
And again, you’re RIGHT to want to hold the public sector accountable, and ignore the private sector waste if it doesn’t bother you. But don’t think one is intrinsically better than the other, because it isn’t. Both involve human beings, and both are fallible.
Sorry, Brad.. (and I think you’re a good guy, too).
But it’s not anecdotes I look at. It’s called evidence. You want me to follow the old line of “Who you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?”. A Medicare system that allows BILLIONS of dollars of fraud to occur is not an “anecdote” — it’s a broken system. $1.3 BILLION dollars in Miami Dade County alone identified this week. And you want to just wave your hand and say “don’t bore me with the details”. That’s crazy. That 1.3 billion dollars could have been spent on real healthcare needs. 1.3 billion, Brad. In one county… Digest that.
Your “Taj Mahal” comment on the schools is a perfect example. My kids go to an absolutely fabulous new high school in Blythewood. It’s got a football stadium that is better than most Division 3 colleges have. It’s got a SECOND football field that is better than most high schools in South Carolina have. But somebody had to pay for it. I chipped in my share.. others chipped in more… and even more chipped in less. And if I had the choice between giving that money to reward the best teachers instead of having the best football stadium, I’d vote for the teachers.
There are local government entities that I think are fine. The library system is excellent. Police and fire departments are excellent. The schools are for the most part very good (it’s the waste that comes from the state level that is the issue)…
I’m not opposed to all government. I want to see government run efficiently and honestly. Is that too much to ask?
AIG suffered for it’s stupidity. What happens when a government agency doesn’t perform? Nothing. Or worse – they ask for even more funding.
Not that long ago, poor neighborhoods, at least everywhere except the urban slums, were relatively safe. There wasn’t the culture of stealing we have today, in the slums of non-workers created by government.
Poor people didn’t need the massive police protection required today, thanks to lenient liberals turning thugs loose.
EXAMPLE of white liberalism at work:
Yesterday in Charlotte, a 28-year-old man with 30 arrests, many for sexual assault, raped a 12-year-old girl at a downtown bus stop. On Friday, it was reported that 400 repeat offenders commit 80% of all the crime in Charlotte.
Doug,
While Hank Greenburg and the officers of AIG are being indicted for malfeasance, the officers of FNMA and FMAC who fed false loan portfolio profiles to AIG and false financial statements to Congress, are happily cashing their bonus checks from Nancy Pelosi.
Harold Raines : $100,000,000
Jamie Gorelick: $50,000,000
Rahm Emmanuel, etc, etc, etc.
Correct, Lee. Brad somehow fails to make the connection between the government and the failed “private” entities that are embroiled in this crisis.
Every single one of these companies has donated tons of money to politicians? Why? Because the return on “investment” is so high.
The only way to remove corruption from government is to remove the money it controls.
And another point where Lee is right on — we can list name after name of private sector employees who ended up in jail over illegal activity. Can we start the list of politicians who are currently in jail?
Here’s a small bit of what Ron Paul wrote this week on the financial crisis. He’s been right all along about it… too bad only 5% of the people were smart enough to listen.
“Sometimes doing nothing is much better than thrashing about aimlessly. When one is caught in quicksand, for example, or when one doesn’t understand economics and finds oneself in the position Congress was in for the past two weeks, with decades of irresponsible monetary policy coming to a head. Why should we trust the same people who said just a few months ago that the economy was perfectly sound? The same people who just knew there were weapons of mass destruction? The same people that crammed the PATRIOT Act down our throats? Why not consult the people who had the foresight and understanding to see this coming? They would have recommended such logical actions as repealing the Community Reinvestment Act, which forces banks to make bad loans, or allowing the market to set interest rates instead of the Federal Reserve system. How about abolishing the Federal Reserve altogether? There are many things that could have been done, but don’t expect Congress take a course of action that comes from a place of understanding and competence when they could just spend money.
This bailout will be the legacy of the 110th “Do-Something” Congress, along with record low approval ratings. Here’s hoping the 111th Congress will be a “Do the Right Thing” Congress, and will focus on repealing and abolishing what is wrong with government instead of reinforcing it.”
Sorry Doug. Your argument completely falls apart with the 400k junket by the AIG cronies. They deserve a special place in Hell for that kind of malfeasance. Private enterprise is not only inefficient in many respects but it’s greedy. The health insurance industry has no interest in my good health, all they want to do is make a buck. And the health of Americans suffers. The auto industry wants to make a buck too. So we end up with these huge, polluting dynasours that kill and maim 10s of thousands a year. It was only because of the government action cars are safer and cleaner today than they were in the 60s. Heck, Ford built the Pinto with a design flaw so glaring that it would have been fixed with a $20 part. Yet their corporate bottom line showed they would spend less money by allowing folks to get incinerated and just pay off the law suits. Once the famous Iacooca memo came to light, through court action – an arm of the government – Ford cleaned up it’s greedy act and started to focus on safety a bit more. But market forces alone failed to protect the public. Shame on Ford.
I am a reformed libertarian who became disallusioned with the movement when it became clear that they have no pragmatic instincts. Heck, one of the libertarian lectures I attended years ago wanted to do away with the treasury and the Federal Reserve. One speaker even proposed doing away with government printed currency. Good heavens how completely idiotic would that be.
Corporate greed, not government inefficiency, is the primary culprit in today’s financial crisis. Without that all the deregulation mistakes in the world would not have given us the mess we’re in now. The worship of free enterprise has become somewhat of a cult religion in recent years. I’m not about to drink that koolaid again.
bud, you don’t know enough about economics, capitalism, ethics and morality to have ever been close to a libertarian.
Bud, the silly socialist tenet that wealth is evil permeates your precariously predictable pronouncements even moreso than your curious spelling.
However, I must admit, “disallusioned” and “Iacooca” are quite the Freudian slips.
> The health insurance industry has no
>interest in my good health, all they want to
>do is make a buck.
And you think Medicare has an interest in the health of senior citizens????
Bud,
I would encourage you and Brad to read this editorial from yesterday’s USA Today to see just how connected the private sector is to the government and the way the system is rigged to screw the taxpayer. There is no such thing as a truly private sector.
Here’s the link to USA Today.
Bud, I take it that you’re either very young and naive, work for the government, or are a peon at work with no real business acumen. I can only deduce this from the lack of knowledge you have of how business actually works. Does the private sector have problems? Sure, but it pales in comparison to the problems that big government creates. Besides, these “huge, polluting dynasours that kill and maim 10s of thousands a year” are a result of consumer demand, not the private sector foisting a particular product on us.
Government is far more “greedy” than any business.
Socialism is pure greed, envy of what others earned.
Those stupid socialists and their heroes (like that Jesus character and the early Christians). And the Europeans just don’t get it, I mean there are absolutely no rich people over there at all – and who wants everyone to have health care. Sheesh.
The few rich Europeans buy private medical insurance so they can actually get treatment, instead of waiting to die under socialized medicine.
20 to 25% of Europeans and Canadians purchase private medical insurance that enables them to be treated in America.
Socialism is atheist. They might use Jesus when it suits them, but socialism is too immoral to be Christian. Remember, “Thou Shalt Not Steal.”
The new testament was more “love your neighbor as yourself”, “render unto Ceasar”, and “take all that you have and give it to the poor”. Jesus’s main use for the ten commandments (at least as recorded in the bible) was generally to paraphrase them and then get onto his actual point.
The problem with that argument, just saying, is that neither Jesus or the early Christians relied on the government to take care of them. Sure, they were commanded to help the poor, but they were commanded to do so as individuals and as a church body, not with the assistance of the government. So equating Jesus or the early Christian church to socialism is a huge fallacy. The American church abdicated its responsibility to take care of the widows and poor around the time of FDR and further with The Great Society. In fact, as I’ve said before in a previous blog entry, Jesus isn’t going to mess with democracy, a respresentative republic, or socialism. Jesus’ government is going to be more of a monarchy. If you don’t believe me just go do some study on Revelation. He ain’t called the King of Kings and Lord of Lords for nothin’. So if you want to get down to brass tacks, we’ve all got it wrong.
“So if you want to get down to brass tacks, we’ve all got it wrong.”
That’s one of the three rules I use when evaluating religious thoughts 🙂 The other two being God isn’t stupid, and God isn’t a jerk).
“If you don’t believe me just go do some study on Revelation.”
I rather like the take of some of the church fathers, or much later Luther, when it comes to Revelation. “Wow. They actually think that goes in here?” As far as what Jesus would do, didn’t he command his followers to work within the system? (So, even if one thought a religious monarchy would be good, they should push for the ammendment to change the constitution to have one, and until it happens push for a government that would do what the monarchy did… which I guess would include a flat tax, wealth redistribution every X years, funds to help the poor.)
I could deal with a religious monarchy if Jesus were the monarch. Since none of us even approach the righteous judgement and perfection of Jesus I don’t think you’d even find many Christians who’d want to set up a religious monarchy. However, our government with its three distinct branches is based out of Isaiah 33:22, so our government is biblically based (much to the consternation of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State).
And yes, we are commanded to work within the system and honor and pray for our leaders (which was sadly lacking during the Clinton years), but that doesn’t mean we’re just supposed to blindly accept whatever the government spoon feeds us. I’d love to see the church take back its responsibility to take care of the widows and poor. It’d probably be done much more efficiently without taking the dignity of the poor along with it, plus we’d all benefit because our tax burden would be greatly reduced. Wouldn’t you much rather control where your tax dollars go to support social programs rather than handing it over to the government? But alas, it’s just a dream. I know it would never happen in reality.
“Wouldn’t you much rather control where your tax dollars go to support social programs rather than handing it over to the government?”
I wouldn’t mind my having control over mine… but I would certainly mind other people having such control though. I would distinctly not like social services only being distributed to those who belonged to a certain religion or those willing to put up with prostelyzation. (I realize many denominations do great work when emergency’s strike and all, and I don’t mean to paint all of them that way… but there are certainly regions of the country where the social services would be tied to the recipients faith). Hence, I’d rather have the government do it… just not as inefficiently as they do now.
“plus we’d all benefit because our tax burden would be greatly reduced.”
Of course, if there are all these competent managers of programs out there, we could have the government hire them with a good financial reward system… (but I repeat myself)
Actually, a lot of people would see there personal wealth rise a lot, because they would be greety expletives and not think it was worth feeding the poor or whatnot. I rather like a system where everyone is in it together to a reasonable extent. (Again, not defending the current way the government does it…)
Correct me if I am wrong but didn’t all of the bad stuff at Walter Reed after it was mostly privatized out to Bushies and Cheneyites? Like a lot of the private security firms in Iraq like Balckwater when you spread too much out to the private sector it seems like the corruption and waste is worse than the government which is hard to believe.
I do know that for every case of corruption we hear about there are many honorable people that did what they were supposed to do. Like so many things the answers are not in the absloutes and there should be the debate like is happening here and other places every day
You got that story all wrong.
Part of Walter Reed is indeed falling apart, because it is being torn down, under a contract which began under Clinton. They did temporarily use if for some patients because of the war and the new facilities not being opened.
So now the Democrat corruption which caused the collapse of mortgage markets is due to “honorable people”?!?!
Like who?
Barney Frank, Pelosi, Chris Dodd, John Spratt, Harry Reid, Charles Schumer and all those Democrats on the boards who issued false financial statements?
Certainly valid points and concerns, just saying. It’s really a moot point because it’ll never happen, but for arguments sake, you would have control over who got your money for social services because you would pick the social service that received your funds. If you didn’t like the Southern Baptists getting your money then just don’t give to them. But we both agree on the good financial reward system, so even though that may not be the most ideal in my mind, it’s certainly the most realistic.
Wow Lee, when I talked about honorable people I meant the people out there that are getting governement contracts and doing what they are supposed to do. Why in the world did you assume I was talking about Democrats?
I am an independent and will freely admit I think Bush/Cheney have run many things like a drunk corrupt monkey humping a football and this country will be much better off when they are gone. At the same time I am no big fan of the Democratic leaders in Congress. We need new blood at all levels in both parties.
Obama ain’t new blood.
Obama is packaging of old socialism, in a media-made celebrity with no record of achievement.
Bush and Cheney are liberals, who think they can make instant democracies out of backward, medieval countries.
Pelosi and the Democrats are elitist socialists, millionaires who became rich by selling favors and controlling honest businesses through the tax code and mandates like the one for banks to make junk loans to minorities.
So, given that the weakening in loan standards and the failure to add more oversight were contributors to our current debacle (among other causes http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/who_caused_the_economic_crisis.html ) – What policies _should_ the Clinton administration have pushed to counteract historical discrimination in home lending processes?
Clinton didn’t hand out all those junk loans to help blacks.
The purpose was to buy votes by deceiving poor blacks and Latinos.
The federal and state governments have no authority to hand out money to make winners out of losers.
The people receiving the mortgages were 6 generations removed from slavery.
It doesn’t help a poor person to sell them a house they cannot afford, and have them lose it. It only helps the builders, real estate salesmen, and loan officers get rich off a taxpayer-funded scam.
Millions of other blacks have worked their way into the middle class, have good credit, and own their own homes without government handouts.
The 5,000,000 homes sold to illegal Mexicans have no relationship to American slavery.
So, are you denying that the lenders had a long history of discriminatory practices that were still going on leading up to the Clinton administration? Or are you simply declining to say what should have been done to counteract those? Or are you saying the government has no right to work against discrimination?