Obama to the Financial Rescue

How did we get into this situation?  We are once again in the midst of impending doom.  Without immediate financial reform, we face another near-collapse of the economy.  Who will save us from this  horrible fate?

Look!  Up in the sky!  The Campaigner-in-Chief is here to save us from ourselves, this time in a headlong push for government "reform" of the private financial sector.  Obama tells us that these greedy bastards were busy raking in huge profits from the financial ruin of average, hard-working Americans, and we cannot allow this to happen ever again.

Thank you, Obama.  Of course, in order to discover how to prevent this from ever reoccurring, we need an understanding of how it happened.  Obama would have everyone believe that it was fat cat Wall Street execs who went all-in with our life savings.  Call me crazy, but I tend to disagree with this convenient assessment.

What Obama refuses to address is that, at the core of the entire financial meltdown, was our government, hard at work interfering in things as usual.  Perhaps I speak too harshly, for perhaps they actually think their constant intervention is helping people.  It would be a relief if this were the case, for then we would understand the federal government as merely incompetent, rather than corrupt.  Unfortunately, recent polls show that only one in four people trust the federal government.

So who is to blame for inflating the sub-prime bubble?  Where did all those regulations come from to issue more and riskier loans?  Where were the regulators who were supposed to keep an eye on our most prolific mortgage lenders, Fannie and Freddie?

There were investigations into rumors of impropriety and excessive risk by Fannie and Freddie, but congressional Dems defended the lending agencies tooth and nail.  "Nothing wrong here," shouted Barney Frank, or "Countrywide" Chris Dodd, or the champion of hedge funds, Chuck Schumer.  Of course, we found out the hard way that there was very much wrong.

I wonder why Obama won't support a deeper look into this, or comply with the Freedom of Information Act to open the records to the public?  I hope it doesn't have anything to do with the amount of campaign contributions Obama accepted from these two lending giants.

I cannot understand why any true "financial reform" legislation would fail to address the root cause of our financial meltdown.  The proposed bill is completely devoid of  any mention of Fannie and Freddie.

The idea of establishing an agency inside the Fed, which basically answers to no one and having the power of life or death over financial firms as is deems appropriate, does not seem like the type of "reform" we need.  It sounds more like the fox guarding the hen house to me.

There are obviously some points in the proposed legislation that seem to need debate and discussion.  But with claims of a second financial meltdown hanging over our heads, Obama assures us that, although not perfect, we need to something, and we need to do it now.  Right now, immediately, before the anti-Wall Street sentiment he stirs up has any chance to fade.

This is becoming a predictable pattern with the Obama administration.  Every situation is massaged into some dire situation.  It is always "the worst (insert theme here) crisis in history!"  We are made to believe that, without some type of massive and immediate government intervention, our world will surely come crashing down upon us.

We should all remember his first crisis, a crisis of such magnitude that, if action wasn't taken immediately, we would see unemployment rise to 8% and a total collapse of our economy.  Yes, the $800B Obama Stimulus bill was designed to curtail the "worst economic situation since the Great Depression."

Most suspected his claims were less than truthful, yet that bill was quickly passed, nearly a year and a half ago.  Is anyone really surprised that we have seen none of the 4 million jobs Obama swore this bill would create?

Meanwhile, unemployment rate has steadily risen to nearly 10%, expected by most to remain high for "an extended period", and there are talks of a second, even bigger "stimulus bill".  This is the way Washington's feeble mind works.  They don't see the concept of massive spending as wrong, they just see it as not massive enough.  Most economists now admit that FDR's spending did not end the Great Depression, but actually extended it by several years.  Most politicians, however, will not.


We have seen the results of Obama's "hurry up and reform something" strategy.  All the lies about Obamacare are now coming to light as we are finding out what most already knew concerning Obama's hasty, ill-conceived, unpopular legislation forced down the throats.

We cannot allow this charlatan to force yet another bad bill through Congress simply on his word of immediate crisis and claim of impending financial doom.  We are told one day that the recovery is in full swing, yet made to believe the sky is falling the next.  What are we supposed to believe?

As with Obamacare, this administration knows full well that the proposed legislation will never pass if the time is taken to examine its language and comprehend its future implications.  Although there is no doubt that regulation and oversight are sorely lacking in the derivatives market, why must we be constantly goaded into rushing headlong into doing something stupid?