You Can Bank On It

The original dollar hemorrhage, begun during the Bush administration, was called TARP.  A bit of research reveals that Tarp is a common abbreviation for TARPAULIN, a heavy cloth or plastic sheet used to cover things up.  That should have been our first clue.

Whatever the intent, it seems not to have worked, inspiring the new administration to propose yet another gash in the Treasury, starting yet another hemorrhage.  Let us review…

Last fall, just in time for the election, we noticed we were in a recession, just as the Dems and the MSM had been telling us for months.  Then, some entity or entities, currently unknown, started a panic in the Bush administration by liquidating a huge amount of money market funds.  This frightened the Bushies so much that they determined only a massive handout to certain banks could right the situation.  Their idea being that, if showered with sufficient funds, these banks would return to business as usual (BAU), lending money without regard to the borrower’s ability to repay.

The same situation, seen from the favored banker’s point of view looked a bit different.  To them it seemed that, having damaged themselves by caving in to government demands that they make stupid loans, all they had to do was stop lending, start whining, and the government handed them money.  Given the ease with which they were rescued from their own stupidity, the very LAST thing they wanted to do was go back to BAU.  Not when continued refusal to lend, along with continued whining, might keep the handouts flowing.  None of the financial wizards at the government seemed to have thought of this.

Let us do a quick and concise review…

• Government puts pressure on financial institutions to lend to unqualified borrowers.  This was done in the name of Community Investment.
• Somewhere along the line, government also forced the lenders to value the collateral behind these stupid loans using “Mark to Market” accounting, thereby ensuring a number of banks would be rendered artificially bound to fail.
• Meanwhile, the financial institutions begin unloading their bad loans by packaging them with some good loans then selling the whole package to other stupid financial institutions, who were guilty of what was once called “buying a pig in a poke”.
• The financial house of cards begins to collapse, sparked by a MSM-inspired recession and a run on money market funds.
• Government begins to shower money on favored financial institutions, providing the funds needed to devour the smaller artificially-failing financial institutions, making the big boys “too big to fail”.  (Hmmm… I wonder if I could overeat until I become too big to die?  But I digress.)
• Government assumes the favored financial institutions, once their greed is sated, will return to BAU and restart the economy.
• The favored financial institutions, having learned that accepting handouts is far easier and more profitable than working for income, whine for even more handouts.
• Enter new Treasury Secretary Timothy (why pay taxes) Geithner who has a plan.  A plan so brilliant that, as he describes it to a Senate committee, the stock market drops with every word from his mouth.

OK.  You are now up-to-date on this financial soap opera.  But, be not afraid because the Anointed One has assured us that “only government is big enough” to deal with this problem.

So, stop laughing and get angry.  Get very, very angry.

Remember, our only apparent options for ending this travesty are:

1. Convincing the states to call a Constitutional Convention, then adding words to the Constitution that will put the federal government back into the box it belongs in.  Failing that,
2. Convincing the sane states to secede and form a new federal contract along the lines of the original Constitution.  Failing that,
3. Enter a state of open rebellion against our own government.

Or, we could just sit here and wait for a president to publicly proclaim themselves “president for life” and join the ranks of dictatorship.

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