If you are discerning, you could read the handwriting on the wall in my entries of the past few days.
Nope. I do not like the way this bailout went down ("news" now is that "deal" is supposedly done).
The original bailout plan indicated a preference for the central planning, Democrat approach to "solving" problems--after central planning (everyone gets a house) got us into this, and after failure by Bernanke, Paulson, Congress and the Administration to create a "solution" to the financial system problems that were in their beginning states two years ago (the whole "crisis" developing over the terms of Bernanke and Paulson in their present jobs, as they failed to take effective action.
McCain has not come at this problem from a free market perspective. He, and Palin (under McCain's guidance), have come at this in terms of punishing Wall Street villains. If you read this blog, you know I am second to no one in my contempt for the way Wall Street, and the financial markets, have been operating. I was certainly open to free market solutions, including restrictions on mergers, that would have put Wall Street in its place.
However, the approach to this bailout has not been a free market approach. The whole concept is for the Federal Government to take over. If this bill (with its bells and whistles making failure likely) fails to work. the "solution" will be ever more Federal control. See my entry early this week on Mark Twain and "Cooper Indians". I say this even though this bailout is making me money in the stock market, at least in the short term.
The Idea is becoming accepted, and even advocated by McCain, that the government determine compensation (presumably for everyone but Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Albert Puljous, Kobe Bryant, Bono, and the like). We now have the beginnings of the directly socialist concept that the Federal government needs to own and control important private businesses--especially if they have any problems. In short, the idea is close to full acceptance that the Federal Government--central planning--is the solution to all of our problems. I might have barely accepted a "clean" bailout (with maybe an "oversight" board and the inevitable homeowner bailout), eventhough I ended up opposing it.
We are not getting a "clean" bailout We are not getting one "oversight" board, but two. The Federal Government will set compensation of executives as a condition of..... well, what? Is it going to be a condition of even operating as part of the Fed system? It is headed that way. It is mandated that the taxpayers get warrants of ownership in exchange for purchasing assets. The taxpayers will get some sort of super lien (to be expected, really, but still driving out private investment). The Federal Government (according, again, to these "news conferences") will get paid back first. Why, then should private lenders lend money to these companies, when they might end up out in the cold? Why should private stock market investors invest in these companies?
Nope. Too many Deomcratic/leftist bells and whistles. I suggested that Democrats were going to put the entire bailout at risk with these bells and whistles, and they have. As will almost all Federal laws, this one is too complex and designed to fail--which will merely mean, Cooper Indian style, that leftists will want yet more government control.
Nope. I can't stand it. Unless a miracle happens, and this "deal" fall apart, I have had it. I hereby withdraw my (always lukewarm) endorsement of John McCain. Palin is no longer enough. I renew my pledge disowning the Republican Party. Conservatives deserve their own party. I will vote for Bob Barr for President.
Of course Obama will be worse. But I am back to not caring who wins, because at least an Obama victory will set the central planners up for total failure, with no question who is responsible. If McCain wins, I will have the satisfaction of seeing the mainstream media, and leftists in general, implode. If Obama wins, I will have the expectation that the whole country will implode, and that conservatives will have the chance of being the saviors. McCain will, as I have said, destroy the conservative movement. Bad for the country if Obama wins, but only slightly better if McCain wins, if better at all (no Republican "opposition").
So I am again on the outside (barring a miracle on this legislation).
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