Senate Banking Committee Republicans Stink

The Senate Banking committee voted to bring the financial regulation bill to the floor for debate. This was a necessary step toward becoming law. They held out for a lousy three days. Now the president says that he wants the bill passed as soon as possible, just as he has wanted every other major restructuring of our country done. Conservatives do not want it done at all, if we can stop it. If we can't stop it, then why not delay as much as possible?

"It is time for this debate to begin," said Democrat chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Senator Chris J. Dodd of Connecticut. “And it must be a serious, vigorous debate."

“Now that those bipartisan negotiations have ended, it is my hope that the majority’s avowed interest in improving this legislation on the Senate floor is genuine and the partisan gamesmanship is over," said Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell.

And if it is't over, just exactly what will you do about it, Senator McConnell? So we will have a debate like we had for global warming that was over before it began. The Democrats and the media will call the Republicans a few names and make some threats. They will find a few Republicans to cave in and end debate. They will insert pay-offs to reluctant Democrats and deem it finished. If need be, they will find a procedural means of passing the bill over a threatened filibuster. The bottom line is that BHO and the Democrats have managed to have their way with everything so far, by hook or by crook. The Republicans may demand a few meaningless minor amendments and probably not even get those. They will cave as usual. They won't even save face. They are chickenshits.

With the possible exception of Cap-and-Trade, as has been said here before, this proposed bill purporting to be "common sense" rules of fair play, is the most destructive of our freedom of any of their schemes so far.

Will the bill have 4,000 pages or 10,000? Whether it is called a consumer protection law or a preventive measure to avoid bailouts, what it will be is a take-over of financial institutions by the federal government. Yes, this is fascism by definition. Yes it is corruption. Bureaucrats answering to the president will be able to control and channel money for their progressive and political ends. Some will also go to building their dachas of course.

Full Court Press against Wall Street

I wrote the following letter to the editor of the Seattle Times today. Of course they won't publish it or any in a similar vein, even if more eloquently stated. They want government to have more say in where the funds of investors go (maybe to them).

"Today's editorial regarding Madoff and Wall Street reform avoids the question of what form regulation should take. Based on the track record of the current administration, it appears that the Madoff Affair is the cause celebre that is being used to usher in regulation that will give government control over important business decisions of financial companies. This is de facto socialism and is the goal of the executive branch and many in the legislative branch. Allocation of capital for its best use is the primary function of financial markets and only further disasters could come from government trying to play that role. Conflicts of interest, government corruption of business and visa versa, and outright fraud are enforcement problems that deserve more attention. We cannot allow these problems to be used as excuses for a power grab by the political operatives and technocrats who allowed and created those problems in the first place."

I think there is a real danger that the BHO gangsters are attempting to control finance so that they can better direct the flow of capital to their political allies and to themselves. Doing it through congress has its limitations. There seems to be a heightened attack right now against banks and investment companies. This also enhances the suffering public image of the Democrats and the BHO White House. Bankers are an easy target and we are seeing and hearing the most blatant populist styled propaganda being directed against them. Little matter that it is nonspecific in its calls for reform. The important thing to the left right now is to bloody the noses of bankers and Wall Street.

The current edition of Mother Jones is a prime example. The cover story: "Too Big to Jail" shows a monopoly style cartoon banker using his get out of jail free card. Two of the Mother Jones writers appeared on Bill Moyers tonight to deliver orchestrated one-two punches against capitalism. "Oh no, not against capitalism. We're for capitalism, we want to fix it. We're against them, the big bankers, who do those things..." they would claim while they employ every Marxist trick in Rules for Radicals. What bothers me is that they were so slick that 99% of the audience will be taken in. Of course, I am taking into account that since they're watching public TV, most of the audience is taken in to begin with.

This is very worrisome because finance and economics seems to be the biggest weak spot in the American public's collective understanding. The 'public' will go along with a bad idea wrapped in a populous cloak every time. With this administration, we can expect maximum exploitation of this weakness. With our defenses spread thin by global warming and health care, they will make enormous gains against liberty and democracy. With control of finances, they will be difficult to dislodge.

The American Banking Association chairman, Art Johnson, apparently was mildly successfully in holding back the congressional hoards while compromising on some regulatory changes. He was attacked on Bill Moyers. The bankers and Wall Street should make some sensible proposals for oversight aimed at preventing fraud and sharp practices. More importantly, they need to go on the offensive with public promotion of their ideas. American financial markets have worked because American securities are more secure. The industry needs a public image make over that will show that they are not avoiding regulations that will actually further that goal.

See my regulatory ideas in following posts.

Obama Wall Street Prescription: Virtual Ownership

The current economic recession/depression was clearly the result of multifaceted government intervention in and regulation of business. However, BHO is blaming Wall Street, which is always an acceptable scapegoat. Hitler used it, only he called them the Jew bankers. Wall Street of course doesn't seem to have a clue either that they are in a public relations propaganda fight. The bottom line is that BHO will use the concept of 'Wall Street' as an excuse for his next big government coup. Any proposal from the current administration and congress will not be 'consumer protection' as they claim. It will be government control of what is currently private finance. But the country and congress is dumb and numb. We have lost or are on the verge of losing the auto industry, healthcare, mortgage lending, energy, and pretty much all unionized trades (which were mostly gone already) to the control of the all-powerful state. The rest should be easy for the totalitarians.

We are witnessing the fall of capitalism. From there, our rights as a free people will dissolve with hardly a murmur from the serfs. After the first death, there is no other.

Can We Realy Share the Wealth?

My answer is: No, not without destroying the wealth. Every redistribution plan ultimately does not work. Not in the long run, not in the medium run, or even much beyond today. Analysis of the outcome of plans to redirect economic activity from the free market shows that eventual collapse of any such plan is inevitable. It may not be obvious because a dozen other plans will usually be adopted to correct the outcome of the initial plan but they always result in the same thing: less wealth or impoverishment for everyone and back to the drawing board.

This weekend Les Leopold was on the Coast to Coast radio program. He is the author of "The Looting of America." He is a good spokesman for socialism of the disguised form, as is president Obama and a large segment of his administration. He has all the arguments and is able rhetorically to avoid the tough questions. Ian Pundant, the shows host, did a good job of allowing him enough rope to hang himself. He allowed Mr. Leopold to explain his ideas without the least hint of criticism.

Mr. Leopold's ideas all stem from the notion the there is an unequal distribution of wealth. This is especially true of Wall Street and that inequality is somehow the cause of the last and probably all other market collapses. He says that great wealth leads to a "casino atmosphere." This certainly is in keeping with popular sentiment and may be exactly the kind of argument that leads to the BHO takeover of the financial system. That is essentially what he proposed although in the most veiled terms. He states that Milton Friedman is the most to blame for our current economic troubles because his philosophy led to all of "this deregulation." Again, I ask what deregulation? Also again I ask, how could regulators have helped when it was government policy itself that they would have to regulate? Callers to the talk show program and later the host disputed Mr. Leopold's thesis. His responses revealed him for the well rehearsed snake oil salesman that he is. He asked one caller if he would agree with his various schemes if he could convince him that the great inequality of wealth on Wall Street was what causes collapses in the financial system. He said that his book contained definitive arguments. The caller said that he could never convince him of that and he couldn't convince me either.

(some of Mr. Leopold and friends: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/les-leopold/fear-and-looting-in-ameri_b_208153.htmlhttp://www.expressmilwaukee.com/blog-3834-qa-with-les-leopold-author-of-the-looting-of-ameri.html)

I, like Thomas Jefferson, "have sworn hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." I cannot be convinced that socialism is in some way just or can be beneficial to either the immediate recipient of government largess or to the ones that must be robbed to enable that largess. I agree with the dictums of Frank Chodorov, of the old right. It was written of him in 1952:

"Listening to Mr. Chodorov, you won't
get any meaningless gabble about "Right" and "Left," or "progressive'" and
"reactionary," or liberalism as a philosophy of the "middle of the road." Mr. Chodorov deals in far more fundamental
distinctions. There is, for example, the Chodorovian distinction between social
power and political power. Social power develops from the creation of wealth by
individuals working alone or in voluntary concert. Political power, on the other
hand, grows by the forcible appropriation of the individual's social power."

"People on Our Side: Frank Chodorov"
Mises Daily by John Chamberlain
Posted on 10/5/2009 12:00:00

http://mises.org/story/3741