Selective Socialism II
I am flabbergasted. After my tirade yesterday about this I can not believe that the powers that be did not listen to me on this matter. I am surely being accidentally overlooked by them in this matter, as I am sure if they had read my blog that they would surely not have went ahead with and 85 billion dollar bailout of American International Group, (AIG) Inc. I really have a had time with this bailing out of private companies to begin. However, when earlier in the week there was so much commentary that ran to the effect of the federal reserve is sending a message to Wall Street – there will be NO more bailouts. Letting Lehman Brothers go ahead and fail to emphasis the point was what happened earlier in the week recall.
And what did this accomplish? The bailout of this company on late Tuesday – early Wednesday lead to the second 400 point loss to the Dow Jones Industrial Average in an extremely rough week for the markets. Why? Largely because at that point there were so many other companies that were on the very edge that it had the investors as a whole just wondering where it all would end and if the feds would have enough money to cover everyone that needed bailing out in the end. As a matter of fact it basically set the stage for promises of additional public funding, which came in several different fashions late Wednesday / early Thursday, which is a large reason for the modest recovery in the market again on Thursday.
Aside from my obvious beef about the usage of taxpayer dollars being used for the funding of private corporations, some of those dollars of which I am sure are mine. There is a larger problem at stake here if this continues. No corporation in certain sectors is ever going to be worried about risk leading to failure in the future, as they know they have a rich uncle (Sam) who is going always be there to take care of them. In the words of some friends that know of such things, in people terms, we call this uncle an enabler of the irresponsible behavior.
Beyond all of this of course is something that I think most of our modern American population do not realize and it is interesting to note things that are coming to pass now. A large number of our founding fathers were actually against the concept of corporations. They suggested instead that businesses should be ran by individuals or even partners, but ultimately the success or failure of such a venture was the responsibility of the individuals that were involved. In other words, most of our founder fathers did not think giving a corporation its own legal entity and standing was a good idea. Reasons varied, but most were in the general theme of it would lead to irresponsible business practices.
One last thing, as I think to have noted elsewhere, my car is in the shop. The repair bill is looking to be somewhere near $1100. Do you think I could get a bailout? After all I am a contributing member of society and I even pay my share of taxes and such. Not to mention, think of the impact on all the coffee shops between Lexington and Danville (and McCarthy’s) if I were no longer able to contribute to their bottom line due to lack of my own revenue stream. Yeah, I am thinking that merits it and further I am thinking I am going to hold my breath on that handout coming.
