Send Not a Note For Whom The Dick Swings; It Swings For Thee

A while ago, Robert Reich had a blog post up regarding the upcoming (now hopefully in progress) swing from liaise faire capitalism - where things have been for the last 30 years or so - back towards another era of more regulation. He ends his post with a typical centrist sentiment

Now the pendulum of outrage is swinging back against large corporations. America is heading toward another era of regulation. The real question is how smartly we go about it, and whether we can keep the pendulum from swinging too far.

Again, Reich wrote this before the great (and still far from over) disaster of the last 2 weeks. In any kind of sane world, where we have just experienced the entire meltdown of the entire global economy, there would expected to be a back lash. And "boo hoo" to those who are concerned that the reaction "swings too far".

But clearly Reich didn't have much to be concerned about, given the way things seem to be shaking out.

The Bush administration on Saturday formally proposed to Congress what could become the largest financial bailout in United States history, requesting unfettered authority for the Treasury Department to buy up to $700 billion in mortgage-related assets.

The proposal, not quite three pages long, was stunning for its stark simplicity. It would raise the national debt ceiling to $11.3 trillion. And it would place no restrictions on the administration other than requiring semiannual reports to Congress, granting the Treasury secretary unprecedented power to buy and resell mortgage debt.

Please read these two paragraphs again. I'll wait. Done? Pick your jaw off the floor? I mean, the 700 billion dollars is a figure almost unimaginable, for one. The 11.3 trillion dollars of debt we're going to have after this (almost 10% of this was added just by this fiasco, I'll note) is truly a number that defies imagination. But that really isn't the stunning part. The stunning party is

requesting unfettered authority for the Treasury Department

Yes. Unfettered authority. For the Bush administration. Apparently, having the unfettered authority that they (read Cheney) claimed because of 9/11 wasn't quite unfettered enough. Now they simply want the authority to spend almost a trillion dollars (and god knows, I'm sure that the amount they currently want isn't going to be enough - it never is).

Got to admit they have some pretty big brass balls.

Your Typical Financial Disaster Apologist

But really, the pair that Hank Paulsen is strapping on simply doesn't compare to the planetary sized balls that the collective financial wizards are in the process of strapping on (after all, such balls will greatly affect your gait and require a new wardrobe to accommodate them).

What seems to be shaping up as the explanation for this multi-trillion dollar meltdown in our economy and the subsequent multi-trillion dollar bailout (again, I need only point out that $700 billion is simply the first installment Paulsen will be asking for - and this is only what the USA, itself, is shoveling into this gaping maw) is that the reason why things are so fucked up, the reason why everything went south is.... Wait for it:

Government regulation.

Yes, that's right folks. The reason why we're having a melt down on a global scale, the reason why we're pouring sums of money that boggle the imagination down the toilet in a desperate attempt to plug the hole these wizards of Wall Street have blasted through our global financial system is simply because they were regulated too much.

See, what happened is that the poor fellows in the financial community were forced - forced I say - to create almost unbelievably complicated financial pretzels based on obviously worthless loans that would never, ever be repaid is because the government regulations forced them to.

Forced.

I mean, geebus. Paulsen has nothing on these jokers who are going to start pushing this pile of bullshit.

Back in the old days, it used to be that when someone offered you a deal that was obviously bogus, we'd reply "yes, and I have a bridge I'd like to sell you in Brooklyn". Now a days, selling someone (repeatedly, mind you) the Brooklyn Bridge is simply a consequence of over burdensome government regulations.

I guess we've reached the point in our evolution where The Great Filter is about to be invoked. I mean, seriously. If we let these bozos get away with this, then we simply cannot believe that we're fit for extraterrestrial expansion. I have a feeling that the aliens watching this hilarious sit com we've been putting on for them must feel the same way.

I think the absolute last thing they want running around the galaxy is a bunch of dufuses who are too stupid to responsibly regulate their own economy and a species that always ends up holding the bag for a tiny fraction of their own which ends up fleecing the rest.