"Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time, and I am convinced
that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of
the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when
you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the
deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand
families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let
you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin!
You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the
eternal God, I will rout you out."

Andrew Jackson
to a delegation of bankers - 1832

Apparently, times have not changed all that much.  I have been stewing about the "bail out" situation for quite some time, and after reading an article by Chuck Baldwin, I decided to blog so that the 2 people that actually read it could comment and commiserate with me.

I'm trying to understand why John McCain is not taking this opportunity to simultaneously knock Obama off his feet, separate himself from George Bush, and do the right thing by the American people all in one fell swoop.  I mean, what is going on here?  If there ever was an "original maverick", it would be Andrew Jackson, wouldn't it?  Why doesn't McCain call it as Jackson and all the regular Americans see it and take a position against "bail outs"?

All I can say is that we are currently and corporately being taken advantage of, and I for one am enraged by the politicians who are at fault.  As they do this, they have the nerve to get on TV and talk to us as if we are little babies who can't handle the reality of the nightmare our economy is in.  They have the audacity to think that we can't take care of ourselves, and that they must do it for us, even if we protest!  These politicians, by the way, come from both sides of the isle.  These "Republicrats" can't seem to agree on many things, but they sure can find a way to agree on pillaging the tax coffers of the American people.  Note - Kevin McCarthy doesn't belong in this category, take a look at his voting record and you'll see that he didn't go along with this.

What I didn't want was congress to use 700 billion of our tax dollars to buy a bunch of bad loans off of large companies that shouldn't have gotten involved in those loans in the first place.  Quite simply, it gives those companies a "get out of jail free" card, while simultaneously assuming a lot of risk for innocent tax payers.  While the congress said they didn't want to do this, they felt they had to in order to stop a domino effect of failing companies that would eventually reach companies and taxpayers that shouldn't be effected. The main problem cited over and over again was that normal companies and individuals would not be able to get needed credit to run day-to-day operations.

My proposal would be as follows.  If a possible "credit crunch" for honest companies and individuals is the major problem here, why don't we use the $700 billion to establish a temporary government lending organization to make sure that those who have good credit can get loans going forward as we get through all of this?  This would relieve the "credit crunch" without rewarding the organizations that got us into this mess in the first place.  It would also ensure that the tax payer's money is actually invested in something that has a much higher probability of being profitable.

But that is not all.  There is one other little thing that must be done to fix our economy.  Individuals, companies, and governments need to live within their means.  No one can create legislation that forces everyone to do that.  The only counter measure that ensures that everyone lives within their means is the fear that exists when they know that if they don't, they'll be ruined.  It appears that financial ruin has been taken off the table for large banks and corporations, and the next step is to take it off the table for everyone down to the individuals who knowingly took on more debt than they could reasonably handle.  For all of those people, you can reply with your thanks to my blog.  Apparently, I am one of the people who will be paying for it.  While you are at it, thank my children, too.