BOHICA - Updated
Naval acronym for Bend Over, Here It Comes Again.
I am, of course, referring to the current "financial crisis" surrounding our banks and financial institutions. The one that is resulting in taxpayers, ie you and I, to foot the bill for irresponsible practices by said institutions.
Where do I even begin? There are so many things about this that so piss me off. Let's start with the real cause of this mess. You all know what it is. Greed. The almighty dollar. Let's lend money to people that obviously can't afford it, whether it's mortgages or credit cards. Cause you can make a lot of money on interest. And people in big debt will spend all their time paying interest on principal that will never go down. Guarrenteed income, right? That is, until those people can't pay any more. And declare bankrupcy. But what do these bigwigs running these institutions care? Are any of them getting hurt by this mess? Of course not. They're getting huge payouts from these institutions the government need to rescue.
Who else is to blame? I'm going to drop this one squarely on Republicans. A central plank in every presidential platform since Reagan has been deregulation. McCain has even said it recently: we should trust businessmen to do the right thing to make our economy strong. We should remove impediments (like taxes and rules) from business so they can create jobs. Well, I might believe that if businessmen these days were motivated by something more than getting filthy rich and not giving a shit about anyone else. I think they've watched Pirates of the Carribean a few too many times: Take what you can, give nothing back.
Historically, you cannot rely on business to "do the right thing". Why did we need the anti-trust act in the 1800's? Because businessmen were crushing competition and then gouging the consumer for everything they could to make more money. Why did we need legislation protecting workers? Because businessmen exploited them for everything they could. Why do we have an SEC? So unscrupulous brokers don't cheat people out of everything.
So tell me how deregulation is going to help out? The point of government is to protect the governed. I don't trust "business" for a moment to look out for anyone's interest but their own. And why should they? Especially when they have the Grand Old Party to look after their interests for them.
Not that I trust Democrats to do a hugely better job if there's one in the White House, but perhaps the public will now wake up and demand some sort of action. Everyone should be pissed and fire a lot of the people in Washington. But then again, it's not really the voters in charge, is it.
Update: It appears our illustrious fearless leader of a President now is opposed to capping the compensation on exectives of the companies being bailed out. The excuse being the financial institutions may not accept the bailout if they do. Let me get this straight: the choice is get paid less or go out of business. Just who is doing the bailing out here? Who is asking to be saved? Since when should it be without conditions? Just another example of who really runs the Republican party. So much for them looking out for the little guy.
I am, of course, referring to the current "financial crisis" surrounding our banks and financial institutions. The one that is resulting in taxpayers, ie you and I, to foot the bill for irresponsible practices by said institutions.
Where do I even begin? There are so many things about this that so piss me off. Let's start with the real cause of this mess. You all know what it is. Greed. The almighty dollar. Let's lend money to people that obviously can't afford it, whether it's mortgages or credit cards. Cause you can make a lot of money on interest. And people in big debt will spend all their time paying interest on principal that will never go down. Guarrenteed income, right? That is, until those people can't pay any more. And declare bankrupcy. But what do these bigwigs running these institutions care? Are any of them getting hurt by this mess? Of course not. They're getting huge payouts from these institutions the government need to rescue.
Who else is to blame? I'm going to drop this one squarely on Republicans. A central plank in every presidential platform since Reagan has been deregulation. McCain has even said it recently: we should trust businessmen to do the right thing to make our economy strong. We should remove impediments (like taxes and rules) from business so they can create jobs. Well, I might believe that if businessmen these days were motivated by something more than getting filthy rich and not giving a shit about anyone else. I think they've watched Pirates of the Carribean a few too many times: Take what you can, give nothing back.
Historically, you cannot rely on business to "do the right thing". Why did we need the anti-trust act in the 1800's? Because businessmen were crushing competition and then gouging the consumer for everything they could to make more money. Why did we need legislation protecting workers? Because businessmen exploited them for everything they could. Why do we have an SEC? So unscrupulous brokers don't cheat people out of everything.
So tell me how deregulation is going to help out? The point of government is to protect the governed. I don't trust "business" for a moment to look out for anyone's interest but their own. And why should they? Especially when they have the Grand Old Party to look after their interests for them.
Not that I trust Democrats to do a hugely better job if there's one in the White House, but perhaps the public will now wake up and demand some sort of action. Everyone should be pissed and fire a lot of the people in Washington. But then again, it's not really the voters in charge, is it.
Update: It appears our illustrious fearless leader of a President now is opposed to capping the compensation on exectives of the companies being bailed out. The excuse being the financial institutions may not accept the bailout if they do. Let me get this straight: the choice is get paid less or go out of business. Just who is doing the bailing out here? Who is asking to be saved? Since when should it be without conditions? Just another example of who really runs the Republican party. So much for them looking out for the little guy.
Comments