What to Do When Your Banking System Melts Down
Nevada Pundit cuts through a lot of the nonsense out there:
This is an issue that the government has had for 50 years, the result of which has caused an incoherent patchwork of regulations that are either confusing, outdated, irrelevant, over restrictive, or any combination of these. The answer to the problem isn’t more regulations, the answer is to find the right regulations that reflect the economy as it is today and regulations that allow the fluidity to adapt to the economy of tomorrow.
John McCain was right when he stated the fundamentals of the economy are healthy. Unfortunately, the one part of the economy that is not healthy is the banking industry, especially those banks that had assets heavily backed by mortgages. This is the one part of the economy has the ability to heavily influence all the other parts of the economy and so is a threat that could ruin those fundamentals that are sound.
I think that McCain was right that a 9/11 style investigation is needed, not to ferret out the wrongdoers, but to find ways to prevent the underlying causes that create these kind of problems. Only then can the government put into effect effective regulations that don’t overburden the business’s trying to create a strong economy but also don’t allow them to overreach themselves causing these types of collapses. The U.S. economy is the backbone of America’s power and can no longer afford to be governed by a patchwork series of regulations that are created by over zealous politicians. Reform is needed and John McCain is the person to bring about this change.
It occurs to me that nations which go on for any period of time tend to revamp their legal codes - things do tend to get jumbled, much the same way those kitchen drawers you carefully organized last year are a complete mess this year. Its human nature to take on tasks with an ad-hoc attitude - we do what works most conveniently at the moment and only some times relate our current action to the comprehensive life situation we are in. When you’re done washing the potato peeler you can carefully put it back in the drawer you got it from, or just toss it into the nearest drawer…and it works ok if you do that, though at times you might find yourself hunting around for the peeler when you would have found it instantly had you put it away properly…but, even then, you still get your peeler and thus your potatoes peeled…though, of course, there might come that day when for some reason you tossed it in the tool box in the garage and instead of mashed potatoes you’re having baked and you then go buy another peeler and then, naturally, find the other one and now you’ve got two…neither of which is needed all the time ’cause who has potatoes every day? Eventually the Mrs is on your case about what a horrific mess you’ve made out of the kitchen and you spend a weekend reorganizing it to heck and gone, and for a moment you feel like you’ve finally got things under control…until you finish washing the cheese grater and its proper place is all the way across the kitchen as opposed to the cupboard right next to you…
See how it works?
So it is with government regulations - this or that thing happens and thus and such law or regulation is enacted to deal with it but its not like anyone really knows all of the laws and regulations so the one you just did may or may not fit neatly into the rest and this, in turn, makes it necessary to kinda twist things around so that all the regulations and laws at least sorta-work and, meanwhile, those who are really in the know have figured out how to drive a Mack truck through loopholes in the regulations and thus use the banks and government agencies as private piggy banks for all manner of nonsense until one day you wake up to find that 500 points are knocked off the DOW and Mr and Mrs Taxpayer are told they’ll have to pony up billions to rescue banks which once upon a time were worth billions but are now worth about as much as Monopoly money.
Here lies McCain’s very strong advantage over Obama - McCain has been out front on this issue and is known far and wide as a man with little sympathy or patience for the malefactors of great wealth (government and private) who cruise through the American economy, leeching of the productive sectors and who always manage to come out rich no matter how badly they put the ship of State up on the rocks. Obama, meanwhile, is hip deep in the politicians and business people who exploited the screwed up mass of laws and regulations - coupled with Democrat-led “oversight” which amounted to “do whatever you want, as long as we get juicy donations and other swag out of the deal” - which allowed our current financial crisis to occur. McCain can forcefully call for reforms and he’d be well served to call for a complete reworking of our financial system laws and regulations to ensure that they reflect current realities and protect the American people and the American economy from those business people and politicians who view America as a cow to be milked for all its worth.
We Republicans believe in free markets - but we must recognize that markets aren’t entirely free when well-connected people are allowed to game the system. Furthermore, it is required of us that we come up with the comprehensive fix for the problem in order to forestall a liberal attempt to merely inject more government into the system, thus just perpetuating the current confluence of money and power which created the problem to begin with. We do need change we can believe in - and its unbelievable to think that Obama can deliver in the face of the entrenched political and money interests who back his candidacy.
16 comments September 18th, 2008
