Liberty Maven

I’m not surprised that it’s continuously being made clear to me that Ron Paul was right — government meddling in the financial industry in the form of bailouts is a really horrible idea.  It seems now that the first $250,000,000,000 of the bailout money will go to the “healthy” big banks (as reported by economicpolicyjournal.com):

Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase were told they would each get $25 billion; Bank of America and Wells Fargo, $20 billion each (plus an additional $5 billion for their recent acquisitions); Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, $10 billion each, with Bank of New York Mellon and State Street each receiving $2 to 3 billion. Wells Fargo will get $5 billion for its acquisition of Wachovia, and Bank of America the same for amount for its purchase of Merrill Lynch. So much for bailing out the mortgage market.

What a filthy scam.  And I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that Hank Paulson headed up Goldman Sachs prior to his current post.  (My eyes are rolling back into my head).  As Paul Craig Roberts says, the bailout doesn’t meet the Smell Test.

The explanation that has been given for the financial crisis does not match up with the solution that has been devised. Moreover, the windows into the crisis offered by the authorities are opaque rather than transparent.

The only clarity we have is that the crisis is resulting in financial concentration and that the bailout constitutes a massive raid by financial crooks on both taxpayers and central bank reserves in the US and Europe.

And naturally, instead of finally letting the market do its thing and correct itself, officials want to impose further regulation on the financial industry.  Austrian economists accurately predicted that this mess would occur as a result of such regulation.  So naturally they’re the first to explain that given the current scenario, more regulation is the cause, not the cure.

Instead of acting hastily and irrationally, why not take a step back and determine the true root cause of our troubles?  People are clamoring for the government to “do something”.  Indeed, as Jack Ward over at the Intellectual Conservative put it, “When was the last time you heard a politician tell a voter that a request is outside the scope and responsibility of the government?”  Of course the Constitution doesn’t give the Federal Government any power over the financial industry, the housing market, or any other private business…

To find the root cause we need to go back to our high school civics class. When I took civics in high school we studied the U.S. Constitution and learned the limited power of the federal government. Our founders knew that if left unchecked eventually government would replace private endeavors to the detriment of liberty and economic growth. Our Founders envisioned a government of strictly limited powers. These powers are clearly specified in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.

Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution does it state that the U.S. Government has a responsibility to provide homes for anyone. But you wouldn’t know it from the legislation proposed, passed, and signed into law. But we can’t place all the blame on the politicians. After all the most asked question a politician hears is, “What can you do for me?” This attitude from the public has corrupted our politicians. Politicians are programmed to please. When have you ever heard a politician tell a voter that a request is outside the scope and responsibility of the government?  So if politicians think the public wants something, even if it isn’t the government’s responsibility, the politicians will disregard their oath of office to get votes.

Yes, it seems that at the highest levels of our government, officials are mainly looking out for themselves.  Take, for instance the recent changes in the FDIC rules.  As Chris Martenson masterfully explained, the FDIC has been expanded to cover bank holding companies, not just Investment Banks.  So it’s quite interesting that back on September 21st, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley petitioned the Federal Reserve to change their status to bank holding companies, which made no rational sense at the time since it would impose tighter regulation on them and place them under closer scrutiny by government agencies.  Apparently these FDIC rule changes have been in the works for quite some time, these big banks has some inside knowledge of it, and were ready to make their move when the time was right.

The whole thing stinks, and frankly I’m frightened to see our nation spiraling toward socialism at such a steady clip.