Can it be true? Can it be possible that the very thing that has made America great is no longer? It sure seems that way; with a $700 billion dollar bailout (chocked full of pork and earmarks), the buyback by the government of bad mortgages (at the behest of a so-called Republican), and the overall cry that capitalism is to blame for this catastrophe. If greed on wall street is to blame for this mess, that would suggest that greed on wall street just recently came about. Come on now. There is not only greed on wall street, there is greed in each and every one of us (sorry to disappoint you). And I’m not saying that is a bad thing. Greed alone is not what caused this, or it wouldn’t have taken 70 years for it to happen again. What caused this mess was government interference in the market place – and does that surprise you? Greed forces people to watch out for their bottom line. Greed makes people want to be – gasp – paid back so they make a profit! It is no coincidence that these bad loans came about after the government “encouraged” them with the Community Reinvestment Act. Then Fannie and Freddie stepped in to guarantee loans that the banks wouldn’t have given out otherwise. Let us be sure, this mess was government created, and now they want to take our hard earned money (via inflation as well as the giant bailouts) to clean it up. Here is an excellent article from the Wall Street Journal called A Capitalist Manifesto. It reminds us that free markets are our best hope for the future, not more government intervention. What is funny, and a little sad, is that it was French President Sarkozy that had to remind us last November while speaking in front of Congress, that it was essentially capitalism and the freedom it brings that has made America great. How on earth could the rest of us have forgotten?
