Rumour-mongering and the culture of fear knows no bounds, especially in the Den of Thieves (a.k.a. the US Congress)

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA27) has this to say:

… the abject, stomach-turning, vomit-inducing rage I have at the utter and complete cowardice of the feckless members of Congress who both supported that first attempted financial rape of the American Taxpayer on Monday, and even more so for those who betrayed our trust by changing their vote on the second bailout bill yesterday. And I am apparently not the only one who feels this way, as the markets tumbled below Monday’s close (the -777 point drop following the failure of the first pork-rescue bill) :

Reaction on Wall Street turned increasingly negative after the vote. The S&P 500 – which rose as much as 3.6 per cent ahead of the decision – fell 1.4 per cent, closing below its level on Monday after the House voted against the bill. It was the worst week for US stocks since markets re-opened after the September 11 2001 terrorists attacks.

Source: Daniel Dombey, James Politi, Krishna Guha, et al. for the Financial Times, 3 October 2008

 

The sun has truly set on the American Republic, and nightfall shall come to the American Empire as well.

We had a good run for 230+ years, may history remember the Republic and not repeat her mistakes at the fourth quarter of her existence.

May a pox be on the Representatives in the House that voted to pass this bill, and a rash of itchy, festering boils be on the bottoms of those Senators who pushed this unconscionable, $700,000,000,000+ tanker-ship load pork upon the taxpayers.

May they pass from this earth in due course marked with the infamy and ignominy of their treasonous votes.

Update: The list of filthy rats and those who stood up to them … (more…)

John Hall adds his name to the list of Democratic Congressmembers who wanted to provide for socialist bailouts to failed banks.

Of course, the story goes deeper than that as well: the blame rests squarely on the shoulders of those Democrats who permitted the CRA and took a slice of the fat pie that Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac had to offer up.

Men like Barney Frank and Chris Dodd who helped themselves to that fat pie on the backs of unqualified borrowers and ultimately taxpayers.

Shame on you, Mr. Hall… and for your failure to look after the best interests of the taxpayers and citizens of New York’s 19th Congressional District, you have ensured that I will support your opponent, Mr. Kieran Michael Lalor, with my time, financial resources, and most certainly my vote.

By the grace of God, Mr. Hall, and with the blessing and votes of my fellow citizens in NY-19th… come November 4th, you just might find that your services are no longer required.

Mr Lalor offers his view and his support for the hardworking taxpayers and business owners of New York’s Hudson Valley here:

http://kieran2008.blogspot.com/2008/09/lalor-commends-bipartisan-defeat-of.html

Clearly Mr. Lalor *is* a maverick - the right kind of maverick who will take us away from the failed policies of the 110th Democratic-lead Congresss, and away from some of the more questionable economic policies supported by President Bush.

Axiom: The Government that governs best, governs least.

Corollary: An absence of law most often results in the presence of chaos.

Biblical Principal:

A false balance is abomination to the LORD: but a just weight is his delight. (Proverbs 11:1, KJV)

Taking into consideration the recent “Perfect Storm” of fear, distress, and simply put, very bad economic planning (or extremely wicked, deliberately planned devastation to our economy, choose your poison), one can clearly see that some things were (and still are) completely out of balance.

And, as another Bible verse states:

“When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.” (Proverbs 29:2 , KJV).

And groan we shall, for wicked men - supposedly “conservatives” have been at rule, through our collective electoral apathy: with the Federal Reserve Bank (money suppliers) and the Treasury (money printers) conspire along with our politicians (mostly the Democrats) to allow, or even force banks to extend credit to people very well ill-suited and ill-prepared to handle it - the system falls apart when the Piper comes to collect his due.

That Piper, is accompanied by twin goons known by the names “Inflation” and “Unsustainable Consumer Debt” who also must collect their skim of the taxpayer’s earnings - for we are become surety for strangers (breaking yet another Biblical principle) by our (as in We, the People) malfeasance in holding Congress to a short account.

The break in responsibility and accountability becomes quite tenuous after Congress, for they do not have direct control over the doings of the Federal Reserve (hereinafter, the “Fed”), which is in actuality a private corporation. Much like Federal Express is also a non-governmental entity.

This is a direct result of the de-regulation of the banking system during the Reagan years, and while this would be something that would ordinarily be greeted with great big open arms by conservatives, this has turned into a tragedy.

Government is constituted primarily to provide services that one man or a group of men cannot ordinarily provide for themselves on a larger scale in the community interest. There are police who (are supposed to) protect the public peace; firemen who prevent and put out fires; post offices which ensure that letters make it from point A to point B; the military to repel invasions and suppress unlawful* insurrections; and interstate commerce regulation to insure that the transit of goods between states is not inhibited… and so on, and so forth.

Conservatives do believe that a government should be limited to a specific public mandate, that it should be held to a short and frequent accounting, and that the scope of its power be quickly reigned in and prevented from creeping beyond that public mandate which called it to duty. Each and every time a new power is sought, or some expansion of taxation, or some other mission sought, the public should look upon it with extreme suspicion and seek to impede such expansion, unless the costs and inconvenience to the public be demonstrably be such that the result of not impeding the expansion of governmental powers be gravely injurious to the public good: and that or those new powers should be limited to a time only necessary to resolve the problem at hand, unless it is clear that such an external threat of injury to the Republic is not likely to be undone or removed.

Herein is our dilemma: should we get past this current economic crisis - one very much of our own doing, whether by ignorance, or by greed, or by unwillingness to hold ourselves and our government to such an account… will we have the courage to admit that at least in the arena of banking deregulation, that we were wrong?

This is not to say that we should embrace the “liberal” view that all government interference is good or even desirable; an overabundance of regulation would only serve to squelch growth, and given the liberal’s love of taxation and “wealth redistribution” (which, in the socialist code they like to deal in, means taking from me and you, the middle class, and using it to furtively pad their own bank accounts: at least the GOP is pretty up front and open with its avarice)

Rather, that we should look to God’s Word which proves that a just balance is indeed delightful, and that by allowing banks and traders to run riot with the economy and prey upon the imprudent with impiety and utter avarice, that they may become the dog of Aesop’s fable that threw itself into the river to get the second illusory bone, only to come up a drowned dog.

Instead, prudent and conservative regulation to set up a fence on that bridge, and a short leash on traders, investment banks, and mortgage bundlers is in order to restore the just balance.

But for that to happen, we will need to elect righteous men, conservative men - men who obey the principles in God’s Word - men like Dr. Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party to public office.

Sometimes parody can be closer to the truth than what we care to think: the Onion, a widely read satire news site read by the 18-44 year old demographic recently published an article about the recent string of economic bubbles (namely the dot-com bubble and the housing bubble).

The article suggests several possible alternatives around which a bubble could form, including this one, which sounds like a bubble which may have already long since burst:

The most support thus far has gone toward the so-called paper bubble. In this appealing scenario, various privately issued pieces of paper, backed by government tax incentives but entirely worthless, would temporarily be given grossly inflated artificial values and sold to unsuspecting stockholders by greedy and unscrupulous entrepreneurs.

“Little pieces of paper are the next big thing,” speculator Joanna Nadir, of Falls Church, VA said. “Just keep telling yourself that. If enough people can be talked into thinking it’s legitimate, it will become temporarily true.”

Funny thing. Last I checked, there was quite the bubble for paper - Federal Reserve Notes or the US Dollar since 1913.