What about the Bailouts?

Although a liberal in politics, in matters of personal finance, I am very conservative. I only use one form of credit in my life and that is the home mortgage. I am not in favor of people defaulting on credit or taking on more credit than their budget can handle.

However, over the last ten years, banks overstepped all bounds of prudence and reason, as is now obvious by a survey of today's headlines, where so many banks are now filing for bankruptcy or pleading for a government handout. Why are banks in trouble? Because their top management behaved in a foolish and irresponsible manner, the same trait that conservative Republicans associate with poor and needy people. According to Republicans, the poor remain poor because they are morally corrupt--lazy in some way. The rich are rich because they have some sort of virtue. As the facts now show, the wealthy are just as bad as the poor, only better connected to power and privilege.

Notice those credit offers you get in your mail? I have been receiving them on the order of two per week for the last decade. That is correct, I have received over 500 offers for such things as refinancing my mortgage, car loan, credit card, home improvement, education loan, and probably a few other things that escape my memory. While many of us, like myself, have never responded to such offers, some of us did succumb to temptation. I don't blame the victims and neither should the Republicans. The banks should never engage in aggressive marketing of loans, because loans are a bad idea. Where was the government to stop the banks from making pitches to people who otherwise wouldn't even think of using credit?

The most obscene excess in modern capitalism has been the way the government has stepped back from the fray and let businesses inflict all manner of scams upon the consumer. This is because government was run by conservative Republicans who believed in laissez-faire capitalism. Industry after industry was deregulated, because government interference was always bad, and "the free market" was holy and sacred. We now see the disastrous consequences of Republican economic policy. The solution is simple. Never again vote for a conservative Republican. Only vote for liberal Democrats with a strong sense of ethics.

Many of the corporations, such as AIG, now begging for a handout from the government, I am personally familiar with. I happen to know that AIG is among the worst offenders and that they aggressively market loans to people who do not need them. In addition, the insurance policies that they underwrite are not handled in a fair or equitable manner. Like many corporations today, they are beehives working upon the evil exploitation of the poor, machines of social Darwinism that seek to take advantage of unsuspecting people. My views upon economics have been altered by my experiences with businesses like AIG. Not because I had debt with them, but because one of their insurance customers destroyed my car, and they low-balled me on the compensation for weeks until I recruited my agent to negotiate with them. After that miserable experience, they had the gall to send me loan offers through the mail at the rate of one per month, as if we were best buddies. They even called me on the phone telemarketing their loans to me at dinnertime. As I explained to their telemarketer, I would not touch AIG with a ten-foot pole. They are as crooked as the day is long.

Instead of favoring laissez-faire capitalism, as I did in my unenlightened youth, I now understand that government is the only way to reign in the evil practices of selfish businessmen who care about nothing in this world save themselves and their personal bank accounts. Many CEO's are so devoid of a basic sense of ethics that they would sell their own country out if it meant that they could be richer than their neighbor. This is why so many companies have laid off American workers and moved overseas to exploit cheaper labor in countries lacking environmental protections. It is also the reason the economy is in the shape it is today. Without extensive and pervasive government regulation, unchecked selfishness eventually suffocates in its own poisons.

In my lifetime, I have exchanged about a hundred words with an actual CEO of a multi-billion dollar corporation, and in that brief conversation over lunch, I learned that he had cheated in college by paying another student to do his writing. What astounded me was not that he had cheated, but that he was willing to tell me, as though it were quite minor in comparison to all the thievery he had engaged in since then.

Too many people in the financial system are parasites leeching blood from the workers and contributing nothing at all to society. These people can be given an alternative career--farming potatoes. In that role, at least society would get something out of their activity. I suggest that many of these CEO's now begging for money from the taxpayer should be given, instead of money, pamphlets on potato-farming and a plot of land not to exceed one acre in which they can learn the art of subsistence farming. With the skill set they have demonstrated thus far, in all likelihood they would starve to death, but I would not let them starve. I'd be more than willing to share my potatoes with them--although not my money.

What about the bailouts and the economic stimulus? I'm not sure. I believe in Mr. Obama and suspect he is correct that the country needs a powerful stimulus. He has already provided one on a spiritual level and that may be the most important of all. As to the financial stimulus, I would prefer that it send resources to the people in the form of education, mass transit and health care. That would be fairer and help to resolve long-term problems in society. However, helping people is a left-wing concept, and the reality is that right-wingers can stop such a plan through a filibuster, if not an actual vote. Right-wingers hate it when the government does anything for anybody except the rich. Obama, the consummate politician, more than likely had to make compromises in order to win any bipartisan support at all and to carry the conservative Democrats. Therefore, a qualified "maybe."