I watched Hope ‘n Change’s news conference last night. 13 questions, prearranged. A ‘statement’ read off a monitor. A flat panel screen in his podium so that aides can feed him lines. Good God.
But there were three things that really chapped me.
1. His flat-out lie about ‘reducing our deficit’ by spending more. That printing and spending more money will ‘secure our economic future’. Here’s the CBO’s analysis of his idea of deficit reduction:
And these projections are based on an uninterrupted growth rate of 3-4%. Right. That’s gonna happen.
2. His dissembling about charitable deductions. His plan to reduce deductions is part of a two-part strategy: to confiscate more wealth and make all charities dependent on the state’s largess. This from a man who collected a $500K book advance five days before his inauguration. Fact: his stupid plan will harm charities. If you work on for a 501(c)(3) organization, he’s taking aim at you.
3. His quest for the power to seize more private businesses.
Now, understand that AIG is not a bank. It’s an insurance company. If it were a bank and it had effectively collapsed, then the FDIC could step in, as it does with a whole host of banks, as it did with IndyMac, and in a structured way renegotiate contracts, get rid of bad assets, strengthen capital requirements, resell it on the private marketplace.
So we’ve got a regular mechanism whereby we deal with FDIC- insured banks. We don’t have that same capacity with an institution like AIG. And that’s part of the reason why it has proved so problematic.
I think a lot of people understandably say, “Well, if we’re putting all this money in there, and if it’s such a big systemic risk to allow AIG to liquidate, why is it that we can’t restructure some of these contracts? Why can’t we do some of the things that need to be done in a more orderly way?”
And the reason is, is because we have not obtained this authority.
It’s really hard for me to contain my contempt. Quite apart from the state’s clear incompetence, there’s a mechanism already available to dispose of failing businesses in an orderly way.
It’s called the bankruptcy court.
It’s going to be a very long four years.
Related posts:
Twitter
Facebook
RSS
LinkedIn