No paranoid conspiracy types here:Over at Townhall.com, Michael Medved
defends Obama from charges that he wants to destroy the U.S. economy:
If President Obama really means to wreck the U.S. economy (as many influential conservatives stridently insist) then why didn’t he finish the job when he had the chance—in September, 2008? (...)
If Barack Obama yearned for a financial catastrophe he could have gotten his wish with ease and with no risk of blame had he responded differently to the Wall Street crisis of the Fall of 2008. (...)
With ... President Bush struggling mightily to win Congressional approval for his $700 billion TARP bailout package, candidate Obama provided decisive support. (...)
... those who believe that Obama intends to wreck capitalism must somehow explain the inconvenient fact that he passed up a golden opportunity to do just that two months before his election. (...)
No economic analyst doubts that a final defeat of the Bush bailout would have produced a devastating wave of major failures in the financial world and a near total freeze of the banking system.
What's best are the comments. Here's one: (emp add)
You ... cannot come to grips with the reality of how radical Obama is. All one must do is listen to what he says. He wants to remake this country in his image and to do that he must first destroy the old country we have known for 200+ years. In response to your question why didn't he destroy the economy during the campaing when he had the chance, the answer is obvious. He was a candidate who could not openly reveal his true intent.
In fact, Obama still hasn't revealed his true intent. That will come later duringhis third term as president.
posted by Quiddity at 3/18/2010 01:10:00 PM
The key to understanding the Obama administration is that the only thing they are really interested in is stealing and looting. If the economy completely collapses, it will impair their ability to steal and loot.
"The key to understanding the Obama [and Bush] administration[s] is that the only thing they are really interested in is stealing and looting. If the economy completely collapses, it will impair their ability to steal and loot." This assumption that baling out the financiers saved the economy is being proven wrong -it merely postponed the reckoning, something else both parties share in common. If you want capitalism you have to let it weed out non-competitive players. Right now the government is keeping the corruption bubble of nonproductive but cannibalistic activity going.
Well, one thing that they did was allow the banks to borrow unlimited money from the Fed at 0% interest. Then they let them use that money to buy treasury bonds at 3-4% interest. The banks get a windfall of free money from lending the government's money to itself, and the government gets to sell more treasury bonds to fuel the spending inferno. In effect, they are monitizing the debt, allowing the big banks to stand in as the highly profitable zero-risk middleman.
The corruption bubble is the real story of this administration. Corruption can be defined as the government allocation of wealth and opportunity by political criteria. From the bank bailouts to the GM/Chrysler bondholder ripoff to the health care bill, the primary activity of this administration has been setting up special deals to help its political friends and punish political opponents.
In other words, the primary activity of this administration has been the implementation of political corruption.
