Monday, September 29, 2008

The price tag of political correctness: $700 billion

Would you like to blame, as Nancy Pelosi puts it, "The failed economic policies of the Bush administration" for this financial situation? How about Wall Street fatcats, and their deregulatory enablers back in Washington?

These are convenient targets, but they exist primarily in the minds of journalists. To see how we got into this situation, look no further than Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - take a look at their hideously huge campaign contributions to the likes of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, along with many others, and indeed, on both sides of the aisle.

And before you seal the envelope of the letter blaming capitalism for this folly, take a look behind the scenes, at Chris Dodd's shameful defense of Fannie and Freddie back when the likes of - suprise, surprise - John McCain was trying to pull the reins on these mortgage behemoths via legislation that would have strengthened oversight and accountability procedures - Chris Dodd, who now points the finger everywhere but at himself, as managers for Fannie and Freddie who took the last train out of town after pocketing their hefty bonuses for - what, exactly?

For years, the pressure was on mortgage lenders to open up their lending practices in the goal of increasing home ownership among - yep, everyone's favorite recipients of taxpayer largesse - "Minorities" and "The Poor". Imagine that you owned a business that had to make decisions on whom and whom not to lend money to. Now imagine that a government flunky walks in and tells you that you have to start making loans to customers with the worst possible credit ratings, or even with no credit ratings at all, and that if you don't, you are "Redlining", "Racist", or some combination of the two. You've now traveled from one end of the race-spectrum to the other, arriving at the point where not lending to a minority - no matter what job or credit history he or she has - is a "Racial" action. Why not just legislate that you have to pay the mortgage of anyone who walks in the door, as long as it's not a white guy? What's the difference?

That's what went on, and the danger was hidden as long as home prices kept rising - which, of course, everyone likes to imagine will never end. When the party ends, as it must, who is left picking up the tab for those mortgages gone sour? The Government, meaning the taxpayers, meaning you. So what if these loans were extended to those who had no means to pay if the market didn't rise? It's your responsibility to cover their losses, according to the government. You might ask, "Why were these practices allowed to go on for so long that they wound up requiring my money?", and the answer would be an attempt to ignore all lending practices, and tell you that it doesn't matter, but that now that it has come this far, it's such a dire crisis that we absolutely have to use your money.

So you can blame the "Fat Cats" if you wish, but be very clear on who they are, because the only difference between this meltdown and that of Enron is that no one in the media is calling for the heads of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's leaders, who have already pocketed their gigantic bonus payoffs, and ridden off into the sunset. Why they are not being taken directly to task has a lot more to do with the mindset of journalists, for whom it's much easier to write stories blaming the situation on vague and greedy capitalists, rather than questioning their own fervid devotion to the Democrat party.

Update: Since the current bailout plan failed, the race is already on to blame Republicans, but take careful note of the fact that Democrats could have passed the bill by themselves due to their majority status, but couldn't even convince enough of their own to go along with it.

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Hypocrisy, meet willful blindness

It took about ten seconds for the "News" media to open fire on Sarah Palin, John McCain's pick for Vice-Presidential candidate.
Yahoo!, a reliably left-wing feed of left-wing AP stories, displayed a story called "Presidential Scholars question Palin credentials", in all seriousness. Of course, Ms. Palin's governance of an entire state is to be somehow dismissed, at least from this perspective.

So now we are not only meant not to question anything at all about Barack Obama's plans or person, but this established career woman is entirely suspect. Forget completely Obama's vagueness about his policy proposals, and focus instead on how Ms. Palin's down syndrome baby needs mommy to be at home. Forget all the shining praise heaped on Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Michelle Obama - if Ms. Palin were a member of the Democrat party, we would be hearing encomiums on her accomplishments, her gutsy battles against entrenched and corrupt political machinery, and her shattering of the glass ceiling - odd, isn't it, how the usual voices are entirely silent on these points?

Remember the Reagan days? Remember how he was dismissed as an "Actor", a lightweight, all style, no substance? If such a criticism has any validity at all, how could it possibly not be applied to Barack Obama? Oh, well, it's different, you see, because....(fill in the blank with your own on-the-spot excuse) - e.j. Dionne apparently had no embarrassment in claiming that Obama has been "Put through the journalistic wringer" - as illegitimate claims go, that's a howler: take a random major media news story about Barack Obama, and you can pick from a list of approved, positive buzz-phrases - everything from his "Community Organizing" to his "Coalition Building", to his "Organizational effectiveness", his "Quick mastery of complex policy questions", and on and on and on - wringer? It's more like his own personal p.r. machine.

And now Ms. Palin enters the picture, and the media is spinning madly, trying to figure out how to diss her without opening the door for the exact same attacks to be (more accurately) directed at Obama.

Feminists pan and sneer, while trying to push the view that Ms. Palin is somehow out of the mainstream, when it is they themselves who condescendingly dismissed the middle class decades ago. Blacks regularly support Obama in lockstep, which is supposed to be just fine, until, that is, whites support a white candidate in lockstep, or Ms. Palin appears to take the women's vote, at which point we are supposed to be troubled. Troubled by what, they cannot articulate, which is just as well, because the moment they do, they have finally revealed themselves as the frauds that they truly are.

It will be annoying as hell, but very enlightening, to see the contortions that the traditional news media engages in to trash Sarah Palin. The same blinders that allow these "Analysts" to accept Mr. Obama's contentions that he'll engage in line-item vetoes to eliminate waste while simultaneously raising every tax in sight are the ones they'll use to tell the American Public that Ms. Palin is "Untested", "Inexperienced", "Questionable", and every other conceivable crticism. The problem is, those same labels far better describe their anointed candidate, Barack Obama.

Whatever else you may think of John McCain, you can't dismiss this act of tactical brilliance.