The Libertarians’ Lament

Obama, the excuses are wearing thin. what excuse do you have for this one?:
http://www.againstobama.com/2008/10/obama-praised-searing-and-timely-book-by-ayers/

Obama, the excuses are wearing thin. what excuse do you have for this one?:
http://www.againstobama.com/2008/10/obama-praised-searing-and-timely-book-by-ayers/

Mr. Weisberg: No scurrying is requried to show that government caused the crisis. Free markets did not cause the credit crisis any more than water causes itself to be poured out of a bucket.

Let's do a Q & A session.

* The fundamental problem is what? A: loose credit.
* Who sets the underlying terms for credit in the economy? A: The Fed.
* Who expands the money supply? A: The Treasury.
* What is effectively extorting high-risk loans from banks by holding regulatory approval, etc. hostage to CRA ratings? A: The CRA.
* What government-charted organizations explicitly enable loans to high-risk customers? Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Mr. Weisberg: No scurrying is required to show that government caused the crisis. Free markets did not cause the credit crisis any more than water causes itself to be poured out of a bucket.

Let's do a Q & A session.

* The fundamental problem is what? A: loose credit.
* Who sets the underlying terms for credit in the economy? A: The Fed.
* Who expands the money supply? A: The Treasury.
* What is effectively extorting high-risk loans from banks by holding regulatory approval, etc. hostage to CRA ratings? A: The CRA.
* What government-charted organizations explicitly enable loans to high-risk customers? Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
* What happens to banks when they go along with the government's altruistic loan policies and fail? A: Nothing, they get bailed out.

Theses are the causes; all of them serve to encourage high-risk lending and none of them are the result of a free market. No matter how many times you repeat it, it is not true. Try again.
it, it is not true. Try again.

Who "Joe the plumber" may be is not the issue, though it's easy to see why the Dems want it to be. That's because the real issue is what Obama's comments to him revealed about Obama. In the exchange with "Joe the plumber" we find out that Obama really is as radical as his early political acquaintances, Davis, Ayers, Wright, etc., and that he is into the failed economic policy of wealth redistribution. Obama's tax and spending plans alone would be bad enough, but add Reid and Pelosi to the mix, with the three of them controlling both houses of Congress and the executive branch without any effective restraint, and you have something that should causes concern even among moderate Democrats.
See Wall Street Journal: A Liberal Supermajority:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122420205889842989.html

And whether McCain won or lost the third debate is also not relevant. He succeeded in the first half hour to plant the seeds of a Reagan style wipeout. Reputable historians and economists overwhelmingly agree that the taxation imposed by Hoover and FDR, and the "stimulus" spending and public works programs of FDR, actually deepened and prolonged the Great Depression. It was the production demands of WWII that got the economy going again. And when the war was over, the economy promptly went into recession.

See e.g. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/03/opinion/main4499465.shtml
And
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/FDR-s-Policies-Prolonged-Depression-5409.aspx

Point is, Obama's programs are to tax, and it does not really matter who he taxes, those taxes are going to be passed through the economy. He has to tax, because it is they only way he can pay for his massive social engineering experiments. Any first year economics student knows that taxation is a tool used to contract an economy experiencing inflation, because it reduces demand by reducing the amount of money individuals and businesses have to spend. It is contractionary, which is exactly what you do not want to do when the problem is that the economy is contracting already into recession. Like Hoover and FDR, Obama's plans will only make it worse for longer.

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Jacob Weisberg has fallen for fallacy that "governments can do no harm." It is truly sad to see a mind go so easily to waste.

Wow, this article is quite possibly the most misleading and ignorant piece of rubbish ever created. It shows the author's fundamental lack of knowledge of markets and monetary policy. It's honestly sad that men like this are given forums to showcase their ignorance. I can say that after reading this article here, I have lost faith in Newsweek.

Criticize us for what are, not what we aren't. A key element of the Libertarian critique is that dishonest journalists or lazy intellectuals confuse it with its detractors or the very defects it attacks, then blame it for the people it opposed or failings it sought to prevent. This seems to be what is going on here, with bizarre identifications of Palin as a Libertarian policymaker or the disastrous actions of the Bush war economy with Libertarian proposals.

M. Gilson
Coordinator, Libertarian International Organization
Charter founder, Libertarian Party USA

Just one more layer of absurdity in what is another meaningless, choice-less election cycle by a hack practicing his trade. The author of the above turd incredibly correlates Libertarianism with the failure of the current financial scheme as if Libertarians were in ANY position of power to control/influence its many decade genesis or as if Libertarians were not the lonely voices warning AGAINST the scheme and moral hazard inherent in a government guaranteeing loans.

Uncoupling from the last remaining vestige of the Gold Standard in 1971 and inflating currency is where most Libertarians see "vigorous government" at its most insidious. That is when our nation fully rejected the protections given by some earlier Libertarians "with views derived from abstract theories"-- like Jefferson and Madison. 1971 also marks the founding of the Libertarian Party where Americans concerned for both civil liberties and free markets could align.

"--or that financial systems without vigorous government oversight constitute a recipe for disaster......" is the jewel in the piece Weisberg has published cheerleading the State and maligning the messenger. It is also wonderfully generic in that one can substitute "financial systems" with a host of the other coming targets like: the internet, parenting, and free assembly.

Weisberg's insights are much like Government in that, it is exactly less of it we need right now.

This is all due to the Fed's policy of inflating the currency and pumping cheap money into the system. There is bound to be a commodity bubble when this happens. It is just unfortunate that it happened to be a housing bubble and even more unfortunate that Wall St. securitized these instruments. It was not the markets decision to practice a policy of inflation.

Let me ask you this.....if the government was not protecting these crooks from liability for their actions by letting them hide behind corporate entities then would all of this have happened?

I think not. So we have a government protecting the crooks from liabilty while inflating the currencty.....it does not seem like a stretch to point the finger at Washington.

It's a shame that the comments here degenerated into a forum for arguing about Obama & McCain. I would have found comments about the article much more interesting.

My goodness, libertarians must really stick in your craw eh?
I didn't know that libertarians wielded so much influence in government these days that they were able to destroy the global economy. I thought they were pretty much relegated to the political fringes and mocked, such as what you have done.
Funny thing is, what I've heard libertarians say is that we would not be in this mess if we had not handed the printing of our money over to private bankers (aka, the Federal Reserve) and if we had not discarded the gold standard. I didn't notice either of those points in your 'opinion'. In fact, it seems to me that your 'big opinion' is to conflate corrupt GOP corporate gifts with Libertarian ideals.
And I would like to know where is your evidence that we HAVE avoided a global depression? You have proof that the 700 billion dollar 'bail-out' is working? Wall street doesn't seem to agree with you.
Blaming the current global financial problems on libertarians is asinine. This is one of the most ill-informed opinion pieces I have seen in a long time. I am amazed this ignorant diatribe was ever published.

While I could say many things about this article, I'll say this: Most Americans' I've spoken to recognize that blame for current financial problems resets with the Democrat and Republican parties which have been in power for more than 100 years, not with Libertarians.

The US finanical system has been heavily regulated since at least 1913. Most larger banks spend more than $1M/day on regulatory compliance, this sort of "crisis" is exactly what the regulations were proportedly supposed to prevent.

While there is no pure libertarian homeland, societies which are more economically libertarian than the US, such as Hong Kong, haven't had these kinds of problems. Indeed, the main problem that more fiscally responsible countries currently have is that problems in the US, fueled by uncertainty over US government action, have reduced their exports.

Obama's view of the future of America - Socialism which is the next step to Communism!! He admitted to Joe the Plumber than he wanted to spread the wealth! He said that he wanted to make everyone equal! Is America ready for Socialism? The Iranian president, Ahmadinejad, said today that he is glad to see the end to capitalism in America!! Are you glad?????
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Under socialism a ruling class of intellectuals, bureaucrats and social planners decide what people want or what is good for society and then use the coercive power of the State to regulate, tax, and redistribute the wealth of those who work for a living. In other words, socialism is a form of legalized theft.

The morality of socialism can be summed-up in two words: envy and self-sacrifice. Envy is the desire to not only possess another's wealth but also the desire to see another's wealth lowered to the level of one's own. Socialism's teaching on self-sacrifice was nicely summarized by two of its greatest defenders, Hermann Goering and Bennito Mussolini. The highest principle of Nazism (National Socialism), said Goering, is: "Common good comes before private good." Fascism, said
Mussolini, is "a life in which the individual, through the sacrifice of his own private interests??realizes that completely spiritual existence in which his value as a man lies."

Socialism is the social system which institutionalizes envy and self-sacrifice: It is the social system which uses compulsion and the organized violence of the State to expropriate wealth from the producer class for its redistribution to the parasitical class.

Despite the intellectuals' psychotic hatred of capitalism, it is the only moral and just social system.

Capitalism is the only moral system because it requires human beings to deal with one another as traders--that is, as free moral agents trading and selling goods and services on the basis of mutual consent.

Capitalism is the only just system because the sole criterion that determines the value of thing exchanged is the free, voluntary, universal judgement of the consumer. Coercion and fraud are anathema to the free-market system.

It is both moral and just because the degree to which man rises or falls in society is determined by the degree to which he uses his mind. Capitalism is the only social system that rewards merit, ability and achievement, regardless of one's birth or station in life.

Yes, there are winners and losers in capitalism. The winners are those who are honest, industrious, thoughtful, prudent, frugal, responsible, disciplined, and efficient. The losers are those who are shiftless, lazy, imprudent, extravagant, negligent, impractical, and inefficient. [What about the role of luck­being in the right place at the right time or the wrong place at the wrong time? R. R. Pope}

Everyone of voting age should read these two books written by Obama, 'Dreams of My Father' and 'Audacity of Hope'. Don't buy them, get them from the library before they are removed from the shelves.

From 'Dreams of My Father', "I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites."

From 'Dreams of My Father', "'I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother's race."

From 'Dreams of My Father', "There was something about him that made me wary, a little too sure of himself, maybe. And white."

From 'Dreams of My Father', "It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names."

From 'Dreams of My Father', "I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father's image, the black man, son of Africa , that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself , the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela."

And FINALLY the Most Damning one of ALL of them!!!

From 'Audacity of Hope', "I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction."

If you want to find ONE person responsible for the economic collapse, that would be Republican Senator Phil Gramm.

After the great crash of 1929, our government realized that the Depression had been caused primarily by the fact that banks and investment companies were owned by the same corporations. When the stock market failed, so did the banks. Law were written that mandated the separation of banking, investment companies, insurance companies and mortgage guaranty companies. This created a fire wall so that if one sector of the economy failed, the entire system would not collapse.

Phil Gramm wrote legislation (the Gramm Rudman Act, the Gramm Leach Biley Act, etc.) that stripped away the regulations in the financial and insurance industies. He pushed them through the Republican Congress and they were signed into law by Geo. W. Bush. John McCain voted in favor. Everybody said how great it is to deregulate and create free markets.

Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch each gave over a million dollars to Senator Gramm's re-election campaign.

The economic collapse that happened later was a direct result of the deregulation. You like to blame the collapse on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but that is just not true. Firstly, Fannie and Freddie DID NOT originate those bad mortgages. They bought them from investment banks who had bundled them into securities that looked good but were rotten at the core. Fannie and Freddie got screwed by the Wall Street fat cats. And so did you, if you pay taxes.

Furthermore, even if the real estate industry went to hell in a handbasket it wouldn't have hurt the banks and stock market unless they had been guilty of passing off all of this bad paper, not only to Fannie and Freddie, but to investors al over the world, ensuring that the meltdown would be global in scale. They even got firms like AIG to insure the investments. It was all a house of cards.

What is Phil Gramm doing today? He works as a lobbyist in Washington, trying to make it legal for the Swiss bank he represents to sell Death Bonds in the United States.

Nice guy, Phil Gramm. He gets my vote as the first one to put in jail under your totalitarian rule, Jim Johnson.