Once again our government is showing what little respect they have for our intelligence. The very people who created the housing collapse resulting in the recession and stock market bust are sitting in front of a group of scapegoats accusing them of all kinds of malfeasance. Clinton, Dodd, Frank, and Carl Levin are up to their eyeballs in the root cause of all of our economic problems. They forced banks to make questionable loans to people who never had the wherewithal to pay the monthly mortgage payments. They used Freddie and Fannie to guarantee the loans that never would have been made without Freddie, Fannie, and the FHA.
Now, the very people who should be on trial for criminal and civil crimes are the judges. Why? They know they can get away with this. They have been perfecting it for years.
Not that many years ago manufacturing was the big dog in the US GDP. Regulation, taxes, and unions continue to reduce manufacturing here. It was replaced by finance. Environmental laws, Sarbanes-Oxley, the highest corporate taxes in the developed world, and aggressive union activity keep chipping away at our domestic manufacturing base. Most of the problems originated in Washington.
Are you dumb enough to believe that every time the gasoline prices go up there is a conspiracy? Bill O’ Reilly is, but if he was smart he wouldn’t be a talking head. Plus, knowing his dad was a bean counter at an oil company who never got promoted might make Bill a little biased. So, next time demand for crude oil picks up and gasoline prices go up to $5 a gallon, there will be a congressional hearing just like the ones being conducted with Wall Street this week. We have virtually stopped all easy means of oil production in the US. Who did, Washington did. So, in a global market for oil, how does the US demand cheap oil when the world is willing to pay more. We can’t. Being in a mess created by Washington over the past 30 years, someone has to take the blame. Hence, another bogus hearing in Congress with Big Oil.
It can only work if we let it work. Since we are incapable of thinking for ourselves, we let the media and politicians do our thinking. Only when we stand up and say, enough, you guys caused the housing crash and the recession, now you must pay the price. Only then, will the circus stop. We give them the immunity.
What will the 1,300 page Dodd bill cost? There will be a huge new government bureaucracy. Hundreds of new government jobs. Why would we have a bill that doesn’t attack the root cause of the original problem? Nothing in the bill about Freddie and Fannie with their outstanding $500 billion inventory of bad mortgage guarantees. Nothing about the FHA, which is amassing a new portfolio of bad mortgages, even after the last debacle.
We choose to be hoodwinked and buy the baloney that comes out of Washington. We let them operate with impunity. We watch while they blame scapegoats for their mistakes. We let them pass a bill that will probably shrink finance the largest sector of our GDP for their political survival. There isn’t a person on that congressional panel who understands finance. There isn’t a Democrat in the Senate who has read the 1,300 page Dodd bill. If you hooked them all up to polygraphs, not a one could say it will solve anything and pass the polygraph.
It’s an old circus, the clowns are all long in the tooth. Levin has been a clown forever in a state that is broke. No elephants at this circus, just jackasses. Maybe when we were kids the circus was fun, but for me it’s wearing very thin. Only we can stop it, but we watch as the accused walk the high wire with no net for acts that the clowns committed.
If we keep buying it, sadly we will be shoveling up after the parade.
