The Banking Crisis

Just about everyone has made reference as of late to the financial crisis, so I'm going to put in my two cents. 

Initially, as with everything, people wanted to blame Bush and lenient regulations that were promoted by his administration and party.  Then people started to get it right and blamed the money managers and CEOs of AIG, Lehman's, Freddie and Fannie for overextending themselves into risk averse loan situations without consideration of the ramifications. Then people went back to blaming Washington, which is a generic cop out strategy, to not put the blame exactly where it lies. Many factors were involved. Yes, it involves many greedy bankers, yes it involves the FED, and yes, it could have been prevented. However, I am horrified by the solution.

The US first bails out Freddie and Fannie, then it lets Lehman Brother's go bankrupt. The next day they bail out AIG, and now they have devised a plan to loan 700 billion dollars to ad liquidity and save the entire financial industry in America and the world. What that amounts to is a free ride for these companies. It's like saying, "Well I know you were irresponsible for more than a decade and a half, causing millions of people to lose their money, but we'll bail you out anyway and you can live happily off your 7-8 figure pension or severance." But, this bail out is not just helping American companies. Paulson has included foreign companies who have a lot at stake here as well, because as he correctly claims "It is a global problem." However, that being said, it should be a global solution, not the American taxpayers bailing all these companies out. We are marching towards socialism. We will soon have a completely state run financial system. And, the best part about it is no one consulted the American people. I suppose they didn't have to, but it sure ads insult to injury. 

Who really should get the help from this crisis are all the people who put money into this failed system, not the system. The lenders screwed up royally and can't pay back their debts, so why should we the people who lost our money to them, bail them out? I know some will argue, "desperate times call for desperate measures," but I would have stopped at Freddie and Fannie. 

Oh, and on another note, the former CEO of Fannie works for Obama, gave a load of money and picked his VP.

McCain, my reluctant choice.

I know many of you out there know I was anything but pleased to have McCain as the "presumptive" republican nominee, but I must now come out and say, I'm okay with it now. I was bothered by McCain's attempt to allow illegal immigrants to gain legal status while millions of others who were doing it the right way got shafted. I was bothered by the fact that he has constantly plagued American businesses, especially Pharmaceuticals with anti-big business legislation. Big business is what keeps America employed (despite its many drawbacks). I was bothered by the fact that he almost defected to the democratic party. I was bothered by the fact that he had no real world economic experience. I was bothered by the fact that he's a grumpy, weird old man.

However, I have now seen the light (this may have a lot to do with my options). Both Hillary and Obama want to bring socialized medicine to America. Obama has the "audacity of hope" to create 2 million new jobs in the public sector (hmmm...kinda like overtly bureaucratic poorly run nations like Russia and France). Hillary even made the comment that, "It's time for the government to fix the economy." I nearly spat out my gum. Since when does the government control the economy? Don't get me wrong, the government has certain controls over things like interest rates, trade embargoes and the like, but what controls the economy is big Joe down at the deli, consumer confidence, your investment portfolio and what color Kmart chooses to use to advertise its blue-light specials. On top of it all, both Obama and Hillary want an immediate pullout of troops in Iraq regardless of the situation on the ground. Let me get this straight. After we invaded the country, toppled its corrupt but stable regime and trudged around without a decent strategy against the growing insurgency leaving it in social and political anarchy, and finally got it right and are working to fix the mess WE caused, WE all of the sudden are going to leave. That's like me going over to my friends house, ransacking his pantry, then sweeping up part of the mess, peeing on the rest and running away. That's brilliant. That brings me to McCain.

McCain is a battle-tested, torture-endured military man. He knows what it takes to win a war. He knows what it takes to survive. He sees the big picture. He wants to see more political reconciliation in Iraq. He wants to see more work on rebuilding and creating new infrastructure. He wants to allow the Generals to have the full support of the government to do what they need to do in order to bring internal stability to a war-torn, secularly, religiously and ideologically divided nation. Many might think his support of the surge is for political expediency. Others may think his support is political suicide. To me his support shows he GETS the big picture. McCain knows we erred. Hindsight is so nice. But we cannot live in the past and undo what has already been done. We need to look forward and fix what we can and leave Iraq better than we came in.

On another note McCain admitted he was wrong on how he approached immigration. Good start. Hopefully he stays that way. McCain also is vehemently opposed to pork-barrel spending (all those little multi-million dollar earmarks that allow congressmen and senators to take home projects to their home states and districts with our federal tax money). This is good. We need a government that can run smoothly, effectively and transparently. We need to know where and how our money is spent. Furthermore, the correct way to slim the debt is not only through careful and well-regulated spending, but tax cuts. We should only pay what we have to, and nothing more. McCain was reluctant to call the Bush tax cuts a good idea, but now that he's latched on to them, he most likely won't be swayed back so easily (because he's a grouchy, stubborn, stick-to-his guns type of guy). For these reasons, and many others McCain has my vote. For those of you who think Obama is cute and has a nice voice, I can't really argue. Yes he's charismatic. However, he's also a socialist with staffers who worship leftist guerilla Che Guevarra. Not a good reason to vote for him. He's a political neophyte. McCain is old, wise and as stubborn as hell. I'd take that over a supple, 46-year-old shaven chest from Chicago's south side any day.