Disenfranchised republican, sick over the bailouts and nanny government

What are the alternatives for those that want less government? Libertarian party? They always put out the worst candidates.

 

There was a presidential election in 1998?

 

It was for President of the William Shatner Fan Club.

 

wish we could vote "no confidence" and then start a new american revolution.

 

Funny thing is if we had a nanny gov't, it may have prevented this whole wall street bailout.

Instead of regualtiing wall street, gov't let's them do it their way and then bails them out when they rip off the public.

 

Yes, this would not have happend in China.

 

I thought Obama had a great line today. McCain want to futher privatize medical care and maybe even social security. Just like we did with wall street and look where that got us.

This country can't afford to have medical care and social security take the same path as the financial market. But I supopose if repbulicans have their way, they will be hands off, leave it to the private markets and abil those industries out when they fail and screw the little guy.

 

About seven years ago I went to a LP caucus. It was a trip. Some guys were walking around in suits (less taxes), others were walking around with long hair and jeans (more weed).

 

Maybe I should be a libertarian. : )

 

I don't get where the impetus for abolishing regulation comes from. Regulation adds confidence to the markets, gives consumers faith to invest, increases safety of our products, etc. It is just the industries that want free reign to do what they want, and the result is companies like Enron, whose collapse destroyed the lives of thousands of people. How they've convinced the general population that non (or self) regulation is a good thing is beyond me.

A friend of mine, though, has argued with me that he thinks all government agencies should be abolished--even the FDA. He'd prefer that people died, and then got to sue for damages (like they'd really collect, and as someone who lives near Love Canal you'd think he'd know better).

 

IMO, what you are missing, is that the reason there is any support for these bailouts is because the government got involved in the first place. If the government hadn't been so involved, they could just let some of these companies that took too much risk, fail, and the taxpayers would not be taking the burden. Instead the CEOs making hundreds of millions would be held more accountable.

If the government had never been involved in the mortgage industry, we could have let these reckless lenders take full responsibility. But, instead, Fannie May and Freddie Mac, which now own SO much of the mortgage industry, are basically government agencies that I feel we should never have had.

The point is that ithe problem isn't the lack of government regulation. It was putting the idea out there that the government would be involved and help take some of the burden. If the firms practicing sketchy and reckless business and lending practices knew all along they would HAVE to take FULL responsibility for their greed and actions, they would have been much more strict in their policies.

 

You're talking about poor oversight, which is a different issue. It isn't enough to make regulations, or create programs--there must be strict oversight to ensure that there is no waste, fraud, or abuse. One problem I've found is that, in a lot of government programs, a lot of thought is put into how they will be run, and then once they are in operation, there are minimal reporting requirements, lax oversight, no accounting standards, few audits, etc. It's a big problem.

 

Exactly. For every Republican I hear whining now about us becoming socialist to fix this, I can't help but wonder, "Where were you 7 years ago when our Republican administration and our congress weren't making it absolutely clear that federal deposit insurance didn't extend to every big financial institution in this country?"

This is the exact same crap that happened in the late 1980's with savings and loans, and it happened then also as a result of deregulation (albeit initially started under the Carter administration, but carried out in full under Reagan).

The "socialism" didn't start now. It started with deregulation. The essence of socialism is that people make whatever decision they want, and the government picks up the pieces. That's what's happening, because those are the rules we put in place in deregulation. At least in the old system there were basic rules in place to limit the exposure the government faced.

Oh, and do you know the richest irony of all? McCain was one of the Keating Five, who took campaign contributions in exchange for ensuring the Lincoln Savings and Loan got buried much deeper in debt. And McCain and his chief economic adviser, Phil Gramm, had their fingers all over the re-writing of the regulations that got us where we are now. The guy is up to his armpits in being on the wrong side of these messes.

The reason he's railing against "greedy Wall Street types" is because the only one else he can whine about is himself.

New rule:

If you want to deregulate financial institutions, you have to make it clear AT THE SAME TIME that the government has no interest in bailing out anybody if crap hits the fan years down the road.

Followup rule:

If you want to cut taxes, you have to cut government AT THE SAME TIME, and not have faith in "starving the beast" some decades down the road.

Because this is a pretty consistently recurring pattern we see here. "Government is bad. Don't pay for it. Get it off your back. But if something goes wrong, government will cover everybody's ass. For free. (Or at least we'll borrow from the Chinese.")

If you want to cut taxes and cut regulations, fine. Just make it clear whose services you plan on cutting RIGHT NOW and which industries will NEVER EVER see any federal protection.

All Republicans have been selling is that "A spoonful of sugar" without getting around to the "medicine." And here's where we are as a result.

 

I'm not against regulation per se, but more freedom and competition. There's a big difference. For some reason, some people seem to feel that absolute capitalism is a society with no rules.

 

The mission and oversight of FDA has been effectively castrated under the Bush administration. Drugs are approved after MINIMAL testing.

Agencies like FERC ensure that standards are in place for companies to interact with each other . . . and ensure that customers are not gouged for the price of (necessary) utilities like gas and electricity.

Are you including reporting requirements in that also like those required by the SEC, which increase faith in the markets and in the finantial information released by companies?

 

In general I would agree. The problem is that the republicans want to deregulate everything (airlines, wall street...) and the democrats want to regulate & control everything (farmer subsidies...) for their whims & kickbacks. It would be nice to find a solid middle ground.