Journal Roblimo's Journal: My Lottery Ticket Didn't Win. Where's My Bailout? 2
I find it amazing that so many people who talked a good "free market" game were so quick to use my tax money to save their wealthy friends' millions when said friends made poor bets -- and lost. This "bailout for the rich" scheme was originally hatched by Bush appointees. The only piece of blame Obama should shoulder -- and it's a large piece -- is his failure to stop the "too big to fail" yammer and let the Wall Street finaglers know, the day after his inauguration, that there was a new sheriff in town and that their previous antics would no longer be tolerated.
Making financial re-regulation (bring back Glass-Steagall!) his first priority would have been a far more productive move for Obama than immediately jumping on health care reform.
It looks like even the most optimistic health care scenario, based on the bills now before the House and Senate, will do little to change our current, broken system for the next two or three years, while some tough love for our financiers could have yielded near-immediate results.
Read a slightly different version of this essay at Roblimo.com
Such as? (Score:2)
I find it amazing that so many people who talked a good "free market" game were so quick to use my tax money to save their wealthy friends' millions when said friends made poor bets -- and lost.
What examples have you got? Most of the people I know of who did the latter, did not 'talk a good "free market" game' to begin with. Bush included. (And you should know quite well, as I spoke of it fairly regularly, that I did not believe Bush was a fiscal conservative, at least not after the first couple years of his first term, and I was publicly decrying his lack of conservatism going into the 2004 election, and beyond.)
This "bailout for the rich" scheme was originally hatched by Bush appointees.
Well, Timothy Geithner -- not appointed by Bush, but nominated by the Board of Dir