CRAIGforCONGRESS

Missouri's 7th District, U.S. House of Representatives

  
 

 

 

Congressional Issues 2012
ECONOMY
The 2008 Bailout Rescue Plan



Congress should:
  • Never have voted for the Wall Street Bailout Plan
  • Repeal it.

Looking Back, 2013:
The US Corporate State - Lew Rockwell's review of David Stockman's The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America.

Reagan Budget Director David Stockman exposes the fascism of the 2008 Bush Bailouts.
Stockman also analyzes the same corporate cronyism in FDR and the New Deal, and even in the Reagan Administration's claim that the Soviet Union was in good financial shape, and had it been American, would have deserved a bailout, but since it was "the Evil Empire" armed with nuclear weapons, the U.S. needed to build trillions of dollars of conventional ships, planes, and tanks. "Wall Street" should be called "War Street."

Congress recently passed legislation which will take more than $2,000 from every man, woman and child in America and give it to Wall Street investors who made bad investments. The plan might be called "The Paulson Plan," after Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, former CEO of a major Wall Street investment firm, who will undoubtedly return to Wall Street in January, 2009, to great fanfare and gratitude.

Should America be as grateful to Secretary Paulson as his Wall Street friends are?

We are told we should be. We are not supposed to speak of the plan as a "bailout" plan, but rather a "rescue" plan, not for "Wall Street," but for "Main Street."

The bailout plan is fraudulent, unethical, unconstitutional and will bring judgment on America from "the Supreme Judge of the World."

  • Unconstitutional:
    The President has forgotten the limits placed on his authority by the Constitution. He does not have the Constitutional authority to spend a trillion dollars bailing out irresponsible investors.
    The Legislature has forgotten that all spending bills are to originate in the House of Representatives, not the Senate, and not the President's Cabinet.
    Is it Constitutional? No: Cato Institute
  • Abomination:
    The central problem in this "crisis" is a system of "false weights and measures." Mortgage loans do not originate in the deposits of savers. Americans aren't saving any more, they're spending everything they earn. Mortgage loans consist of money which is created out of thin air. Banks create "counterfeit" money to lend. This is called  "fiat money." The Bible calls it an "abomination."
  • Fraudulent:
    If the government were not fraudulently debasing the currency, creating new money to be loaned out at interest, the debt-pyramid would never have been created in the first place. There would have been no sale of mortgage-backed securities. There would have been no "crisis." There would have been no need for a "bailout." We should abolish the Federal Reserve.
  • Judgment:
    Although the government claims to be on the side of the poor, earnestly desiring the poor to have "the benefits of home ownership," in reality the government is on the side of the banks. If the government really wanted to be Mother Teresa, it could have printed up the money and given it directly to the poor. Instead, it gives the counterfeit money to banks, who lend the money to the poor at interest. Loaning money to the poor at interest has always been considered morally repugnant in Western (Christian) Civilization. (More on "usury.") A bank can suck a quarter of a million dollars in interest out of your family's estate for a $100,000 mortgage.

Government Regulation Caused This Crisis
Not an "Unregulated" Free Market
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
Community Reinvestment Act

The Housing Bubble

Who Predicted This?

The "crisis" began when the federal government began requiring lenders to make loans to people who were bad credit risks, but were also members of politically-favored demographic groups: "minorities," the "poor"; the "disenfranchised," etc. Banks don't like making loans to people who are statistically at risk of not paying the loan back. So politicians, to gain the votes of the "disadvantaged," put regulatory pressure on lenders to lend to uncreditworthy borrowers.

This was an environment of regulation, not de-regulation. It was more socialist than "laissez-faire." (see links in box at right)

Government is supposed to operate only for the benefit of the "general welfare." This is clearly an example of the government acting to benefit special interests. First for "the poor," and now, with the bailout, for Wall Street.

We are told that if this special interest group (Wall Street bankers) are not bailed out, that "credit will seize up" and nobody will be able to continue living in debt.

This would be a bad thing?

Government, operating as a benefactor of lenders, rather than for the "general welfare," has been stacking the deck for decades against Main Street and in favor of Wall Street. The government encourages living in debt, to the benefit of the bankers. Example: the government makes mortgage debt interest (Wall Street profit) tax-deductible. Don't you wish the goods and services you sell were likewise deductible? Would that make your business more profitable?

Not all of Wall Street was involved in the mortgage pyramid. Those firms that were should go out of business, and those that weren't will be only too happy to pick up the legitimate banking services that were provided by the now-bankrupt firms.

Actually,


Below are resources related to the bailout from the following sources:


 


Kevin Craig's Platform


From the Mises.org "Bailout Reader"

Short Selling

The Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle

Updates from the Blog

It would probably be depressing to compare the average university economics curriculum (and the understanding the average university economics student has of the current "bailout" crisis) with the following worthwhile links:

  • The Bailout Reader - A Collection of papers from the Mises Institute.
  • Notablog: A Crisis of Political Economy - Another "reader" by Chris Sciabarra, a Visiting Scholar at New York University - a complete course in economics relating to the current "crisis," if you follow the links.
  • Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending - New York Times, September 30, 1999, describing efforts by Democrats in the Clinton Administration to create the current crisis.
  • Barney Frank's fingerprints are all over the financial fiasco - Jeff Jacoby, The Boston Globe
  • Media Mum on Barney Frank's Fannie Mae Love Connection
    Barney Frank is a homosexual. One of his "lovers" was a Fannie Mae executive. (Could this be an argument for homosexual "marriage?" After all, if they were officially, legally "married," there might have been some "conflict of interest" issues. But there are undoubtedly a large number of similar conflicts with heterosexuals in and out of Congress who are not "married" to each other.)
  • The Corporate State Fails
    "According to popular myth, the current financial turmoil is the result of Bush administration deregulation. One problem with that theory: there was no deregulation. The last banking deregulation, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley bill, was signed by President Bill Clinton in 1999. Oops."
    "Let’s hear no more about Republicans’ loving limited government."
  • Government Failure
    To hear the media pundits and presidential candidates tell it, you’d think Adam Smith has been president for the last eight years and, with a Congress full of free-market advocates, had enacted an agenda of full-blown laissez-faire.
    But believe it or not, the problems in the financial and housing industries are not a market failure. They are a government failure.
  • Photo of House Bailout Leader.

"Liberty Under God"

Inflationary Finance

Books to Distribute

What To Do

Ozarks Virtual Town Hall

  • Click here - October 18th, 2008 - "The Bailout is not Fascism. Trust me."
  • Click here - October 4th, 2008 - Bailing out Foolish Investors
  • Click here - September 27th, 2008 - The Bailout: Rescue Plan or Enslavement Plan?
  • Click here - September 20th, 2008 - Free Enterprise or Fascist Bailouts?
  • Click here - July 19th, 2008 - Energy and Housing
  • Click here - May 3rd, 2008 - "Economic Slowdown"
  • Click here - April 26th, 2008 - Student Loans
  • Click here - March 29th, 2008 - Tax Rebates and the Housing Market
  • Click here - March 15th, 2008 - Stimulating the Economy, Preventing Recession
  • Click here - January 19, 2008 - Economic Stimulus Package
  • Click here - December 8, 2007 - Help for Homeowners:- The Alternative Minimum Tax and the Mortgage Mess
  • Click here - September 1, 2007 - The Subprime Mortgage Mess
  • Click here - July 7, 2007 - Government Spending and the Economy

The links above were compiled during the week of October 5. Here are some new updates:


next: Campaign Finance, Corruption and the Oath of Office