First Things First

Michael Malone addresses the political dimension of the second bailout plan. He makes several good points:

From where I sit, the United States government has embarked on two pieces of social engineering in the last few years. One was to make oil expensive as expensive as possible to drive people to greater use of alternative energy sources – because anything less would be irresponsible and destructive to the environment. The other was to enshrine home ownership (i.e., easy-to-obtain mortgages) as a new American right – because anything less would be unequal and racist.

None of us voted on these decisions – indeed, neither was even spoken about directly, much less debated. But nevertheless, both became national policy... and both have sparked national, now international, crises. Then, once they became crises, both were blamed on ‘greedy capitalism’, instead of what they really were: legislative interference into market forces. . . . To my mind, what makes this economic crisis different from ones in even the recent past is that it has exposed the fact that there are, apparently, no real leaders left in Washington – that the intellectual capital in the National Capitol has fallen to a new low – if that’s possible. Most of all, it shows that we can no longer look to D.C. for leadership into the rest of the 21st century.

(Hat tip to Instapundit.)

He's right -- read more about the roots of the subprime mortgage mess http://blog.hsh.com/?p=784. More opening of eyes:

It all boils down to one simple problem: low-income borrowers, and borrowers with poor credit, applied for and were issued loans they could not afford. How did this happen?

Starting in 1992, Congress demanded that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac increase the amount of mortgages they buy which were made available to low-and moderate-income borrowers. By 2000, HUD, Fannie and Freddie’s regulator at that time, had required that the two dedicate 50% of their loan portfolio to accommodate low and moderate income borrowers. In order to reach that goal, lenders were forced to relax their lending standards. “You went from subprime loans being 2% of total loans in 2002 to 30% of total loans in 2006,” said Steven Schwarzman, the chairman of Blackstone Group. According to Wayne Barrett of the Village Voice, in 2003 alone, Fannie and Freddie spent $81 billion on subprime mortgages.

Do you remember any Congressional candidates running on that? I don't. Did you cast your vote because your Congresscritter vowed to drive up the price of energy in this country because "Coal makes us sick, oil makes us sick, it's ruining our country, it's ruining our world"? I sure don't -- and I sure as heck wouldn't have voted for any who did.

But back to the bailout - If this was indeed as crucial a bill as Treasury Secretary Paulson said numerous times (and he was right), and if the entire US economy was swirling the drain and the best course of action was for Congress to pass what was a three-page bill -- then why did it take Congress five days to get off its ass and pass it?

Either it wasn't that big a deal, or... Congress is run by, and populated with, idiots. Or, as Mr. Malone puts it:

It is impossible not to look upon all of this as a kind of a vast, predictable pantomime. The same people who created the mess are honored for (sorta) getting us out of it, a few scapegoats go to jail, the real perpetrators not only escape punishment but are often rewarded, a bunch of regular people get screwed (lose their jobs, go bankrupt) and a whole lot more end up paying the bill for two million failed mortgages that never should have been granted in the first place.

The American people know this, which is why:

1) They aren’t taking this current crisis as seriously as pundits say they should - after all, if our elected officials can play politics against their enemies, and take the time to lard the bailout bill with pork, why should they? And,

2) They have nominated for President two candidates who - ostensibly — represent ‘Maverick’ attitudes and ‘Change’.

It's time to retire a few Congresscritters. About 300 or 400 should do the trick. We won't, of course; they may be bastards, but they're our bastards. Sigh.

I won't have much to add to those who are pissed off outraged because Congress decided to legislate a blanket bailout assistance program to 'distressed' homeowners -- including speculators, flippers, and those who are crying because they might lose their three or five "owner-occupied" properties. After all, the argument goes, we need to help these people... and those of us who qualified honestly, who played by the rules, and who send in our mortgage payments every month get to pay for it.

Now we come to the bailout of the big companies -- Bear, AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, etc. -- and I confidently predict that as part of the price, Congressional Democrats (joined by a few Republicans) will demand its pound of flesh. Next year we'll see in-depth investigations of these fat cats; there will be plenty of time to painstakingly second-guess every investment decision they made while trumpeting the 'obscene' amounts those fat cats earned. In public. With lots and lots of bloviating. Never mind, as one analyst put it, that they weren't engaging in some massive Konspiracy; that they were fooling themselves and inadvertently setting the stage for this massive mess. Heads will roll.

That said, some heads should roll. There are indeed fat cats who pull down what we red-staters consider obscene salaries. But correlation does not equal causation - a phrase that means what it says: big salaries didn't cause these giant firms to join together and follow each other down the swirling gain. And while Congress wasn't interested in separating those homeowners who gamed the system from those who are genuine victims, again I predict: Congress will lovingly call for an inquisition of Wall Street. Class warfare works.

But we won't see any interest in how Congress figures into this. The names Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Charles Schumer, Andrew Cuomo, and others won't be called to account for their parts.

More later.

No, I don't have much to add to the debate, except to note (as have others) that the media and the left -- or am I repeating myself? -- have gone stark, raving mad over at Sarah Palin.

This piece sums up my feelings fairly well:

The private lives of the presidential candidates are off limits. Writing about people who do not hold elected office constitutes shameful scandal mongering. The families of the candidates should not be exploited for publicity.

I know all of this to be true because Barack Obama said it. And so did John McCain. And so did some liberal bloggers, who didn't like the National Enquirer's revelations about John Edwards's infidelity -- and proclaimed, in far-left argot, that what a candidate does behind closed doors should stay behind closed doors, and not be used to judge fitness for office.

Then Sarah Palin's 17-year-old daughter turned up pregnant. The liberal blogosphere flung open the bedroom door with gleeful apostasy while fleeing from their previous Sanctity of Privacy dogma.

...Now, just weeks later, the rules appear to have changed. An anonymous blogger on the Daily Kos published a rumor that Sarah Palin did not give birth to her most recent child, Trig. Instead, Mrs. Palin's 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, was said to be the mother. Liberal bloggers massed like ants at a picnic marching toward the coleslaw.

Unlike during the Edwards affair, the mainstream media instantly joined the fray...

So much for the credibility of Fourth Estate. Double your standards, double your fun, I suppose.

Speaking of Congress' perk of taxpayer-paid junkets masquerading as 'official business,' I can't help but wonder whether the Congressional Democrats' persistent refusal to increase domestic oil production is somehow related to the fact that our political class is fairly well insulated from the economic travails of the rest of us.

Think about it: Congressfolk get a very nice salary (over $160,000 if I recall correctly), with automatic annual cost-of-living increases... plus a housing expense... plus a travel expense... and free airline travel (often on a military aircraft) -- and other perks few of us could attain to.

Speaking of that travel expense, very few of them t drive their own cars, particularly when they're on 'official business.' Rather, they travel in SUV style -- and when their 8-cylinder Ford Behemoth or Chevy Megasaur runs low, the driver just flips out a credit card -- and the bill is paid by... well, you know.

The Democrats insist that it'll take five (or seven, or ten) years to bring any new oil production on line. The problem is that they've been telling us that for 13 years now. Congress didn't learn anything from the aftermath of 9/11, but they sure as heck should have got a clue from the problems caused by Hurricane Katrina. Instead of taking steps to ensure a steady supply of gas and oil, they've dithered. And why not? They aren't suffering.

It's obvious that the Congressional Democrats won't act until and unless a Democrat is elected president -- but their "Let them eat cake!" attitude could push America into a full-blown recession.

Maureen Dowd grouses that

If Obama keeps being stingy with his quips and smiles, and if the dominant perception of him is that you can’t make jokes about him, it might infect his campaign with an airless quality. His humorlessness could spark humor.

Actually, his campaign already sports a humorless affect, as do many of his supporters; witness the misplaced (if well-orchestrated) outrage over that dumb New Yorker cover.

Dowd reflects:

Andy Borowitz satirized on that subject. He said that Obama, sympathetic to comics' attempts to find jokes to make about him, had put out a list of official ones, including this:

"A traveling salesman knocks on the door of a farmhouse, and much to his surprise, Barack Obama answers the door. The salesman says, 'I was expecting the farmer's daughter.' Barack Obama replies, 'She's not here. The farm was foreclosed on because of subprime loans that are making a mockery of the American dream.'"

Sounds about right. So here's my contribution:

Why did Senator Barack Obama cross the road?

To bring Hope and Change to the American people disaffected by eight years of failed Bush policies.

Rimshot!