The Economist's Cookbook

No, this is not some sort of cliche reference to The Matrix.

This is about the financial mess the US seems to have found itself in. The house of cards created by the US government and the Federal Reserve, and individuals that were out to pad their own pockets at the expense of their stockholders. These were men and women who were put into positions of power, through political channels rather than actually channels of competency, to "manage" these mortgage giants that I wouldn't trust to cut my lawn!

I've waited to bother commenting about this FreddieMac/FannieMae mess. Well, during this contemplative time I've been reading more and listening and trying to figure much of this out.

Then Lehman Bros. Holdings folded.

Then AIG got a bailout.

And I realized that for the first time in all this mess I'm frightened. How deep does the hole go? Fannie and Freddie were two of the largest lobbying groups in the beltway. They threw around tons of money. And you know who they contributed campaign monies to? Mostly left-wing democrats with a penchant for pushing for more regulation/control/nationalization of certain elements of the market that are "too important" for the market to handle.

I have had enough. Now we're bailing out people left and right. In doing so we're subsidizing people to DO POOR WORK! Essentially we're subsidizing incompetence and risky investments!

I think it was Rush Limbaugh who had a soundbyte from the former President/CEO of AIG who said "Regulation cannot fix or prevent bad management." It's about time SOMEONE came out and said it.

The more I look at this, the more I begin to see the game. And the game is socialism. The more Government can strangle the private sector with rules and regulations and the more they destroy the market for money with inflationary policy and deficit spending, the worse things will continue to get. This leads of course to the economically ignorant masses screaming for yet more control.

We'll get control all right. And who do you think will be in charge? Why the enlightened politicians in Washington of course. After all, central planners know so much more than your average American.

Don't worry citizens, we'll take care of you. Please go back to watching Dr. Phil and American Idol.

Of course this sounds nutty and extreme and "Oh no, he's a conspiracy theorist." A few years ago if I had said Fannie and Freddie were going to collapse like the houses of cards they were, what would the critics have said? Hmmm?