The Sky Is Falling!

My daughter commented this morning on her way home from work, "I don't believe the polls. I think the media just wants you to keep tuning in to bolster ratings."

Her theory is borne out by Walter E Williams' recent column:

There is a(n) H.L. Mencken quotation that captures the essence of this year's politics: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed, and hence clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." The media, economic "experts" and both presidential candidates are making bad-talking our economy key features of their campaign messages. For politicians and their hangers-on, keeping the populace alarmed is a strategy to seize more control over our lives....

...Things are not nearly as gloomy as the pundits say. Most of today's economic problems, whether it's energy, health care costs, financial problems, budget deficits or national debt, are caused by policies pursued by the White House and Congress. As my colleague Dr. Thomas Sowell suggested in a recent column, we don't look to arsonists to put out fires that they've created; neither should we look to Congress to solve the problems they've created.

And when hasn't government underestimated the cost of anything it's done, especially when things have gone bad? Some reports are that this bailout will cost us up to $1 trillion...and who can even get their brain around that number? $700 billion to the Treasury Secretary who didn't do anything to stop the abuses of Wall Street? Ask yourself where his alliances lie, where he previously worked, and who he is protecting first. Not the American taxpayer, that's for sure.

Some wisdom from Thomas Sowell,

People usually stop making ill-advised decisions when they are forced to face the consequences of those decisions, not when politicians come to their rescue and make the taxpayers pay for decisions that the taxpayers had nothing to do with.

The Wall Street Journal, which has for years been sounding the alarm about the riskiness of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, recently cited Senator Christopher Dodd along with Senator Charles Schumer and Congressman Barney Frank among those on Capitol Hill who have been "shilling" for these financial institutions, downplaying the risks and opposing attempts to restrict their free-wheeling role in the mortgage market.

We need to be more vigilant. Our public servants are serving themselves rather than their masters....us!

I want them to lose their houses, their money, their reputations, and to cool their jets in jail for a while. They need some serious time in the financial accountability "thinking chair" before they are allowed to start over...completely from scratch. I want all this before the taxpayers pay a dime.

Hmmm...Perhaps we could re-route some of those big UN bucks we donate to people around the world who hate us to prop up this system if it is so important for all the world's stability.

It's what we at home will have to do when we can't pay our fat new bailout tax bill--cut back on donations to the needy, politicos, our churches and synagogues and, oh yes, and making purchases that will also bolster our businesses. Can anyone spell recession? Just remember who to thank.

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