While Rome burns (the Paulson-Bernanke-Dodd-Frank bailout bill being written in secret* this very weekend) some doofus from Harvard somberly hands out moral lessons and tiresome, second-hand opinions about regulating the financial industry that isn't likely to repeat its current sins any time soon (the country has years to figure out how to re-regulate).

* I just can't wait to hear the thoughtful, productive questions -- better described as rambling speeches full of self-approval and craven admiration for the respected witnesses -- the uninformed committee members will be asking Paulson and Bernanke this coming week.

"Please Mr. Secretary, please Mr. Chairman -- tell us what to do."

Tedlow hit the nail on the head, very well spoken. What has happened during this Republican administration has been far worse to this country than anything external enemies could have accomplished.

Using "the brains God gave us" surely includes acknowledging (1) that blind faith in governmental action is no good substitute for blind faith in the "free" market, (2) that if political leaders were capable of articulating "positive" and "informed" solutions of substance and in quantity we would be hearing more about them and fewer platitudinous mantras, and (3) that if voters had the interest, aptitude, and patience to carefully weigh the issues they would be less tolerant of the disgusting and childish soap opera that has supplanted political debate in this election cycle.

This latest crisis reminds me so much of people sitting on their homes built below sea level holding up signs reading 'Help Me'.

This has become such a symbol, for me.

1. Don't build your house below sea level next to water.
2. But if you do and you hear a hurricane is coming tomorrow--Find a way to leave.
3. If you can't leave, buy a life preserver. Wal-mart sells them, and they are ubiquitous.
4. If you have to go to your roof-- take a hammer or a crowbar with you. Build a temporary flotation device out of duct tape, milk jugs, and a broom handle.

Just don't sit there waiting for a helicopter.

How could it come to this? No. Really. How could it come to this?

They will bail out bad businesses to the tune of 1 trillion dollars--but they will let Social Security go insolvent before they raise Social Security taxes 10 cents a week on every American--something that would assure its solvency for the next 100 years.

I don't think I am missing anything here. How is it possible that one cabinet level guy can write a check for 1 trillion dollars on his own--without anybody else being able to talk him out of it?

The first order of business this weekend should be changing the national motto "In God We Trust" to "Christ, What Next?"

Hundt quotes Tedlow comment that the free markets advocates spin a good tale. While true, this overlooks some of the dynamics of our economic system.

First,I believe that many of our politicians have lost the concept of working in the name of the "public trust". They have become the lackeys of corporations.

Second, the executives who run the companies have also lost sight of working on behalf of the shareholders. All one has to do is look at their excessive pay packages. (As an aside, if someone is paid $XXX millions, how do they invest this money economically???. I doubt that they can invest this efficiently to promote economic growth. Also managing this quantity of money must detract from managing their business.)

The free market system can work, our government and corporate leaders need to represent the people who, in theory, they represent.

ORIGEN OF THE INSIBILE HAND ALLUSION

Adam Smith's "invisible hand" was a literary allusion to "The Scottish Play", Macbeth, Act III, scene 2, lines 46-50 (New Cambridge Shakespeare) wherein Macbeth apostrophizing the death of Banquo:
"Come, seeling night,
Scarf up the tender eye of ptiful day
And with thy bloody and invisible hand
Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond
Which keeps me pale."
Now what is it that Smith is really saying?
The Scottish novelist and cultural historian, James Buchan, has asserted that the allusion of the "invisible hand" was really to Daniel Defoe's character Moll Flanders who also spoke of the invisible hand.

However, today, the time has more than come to put on the agenda the three measures that LaRouche has defined as indispensable for overcoming the crisis. The most important of those three is to immediately convoke an emergency conference on a heads-of-state level where a prominent role would have to be played by the U.S., Russia, China, and India--in order to replace the hopelessly bankrupt system of globalization by a public-credit system in the tradition of the Bretton Woods system, as Franklin Delano Roosevelt intended it for the 1944 conference, and as is provided for in the U.S. Constitution.

The monetarist ideology of the so-called free market has now collided with reality. Governments are now called upon to act, in compliance with their oath of office, to protect their populations from danger.

"The key thing here," LaRouche said, "is, who is to blame? It was inevitable. Why was nothing done about it? It was inevitable. We warned about it. Why was nothing done? We warned that the whole thing was happening, back in our international webcast of July 2007. And we defined the precautions that should be taken all the way through. Why was nothing done about it?

"All of the current liquidity bail-out plans being floated by the U.S. Federal Reserve and Treasury, and other idiots, are total nonsense. They have to take the actions I have specified, right now--which is to freeze absolutely everything, go to a bankruptcy reorganization mode, and move immediately to call the Congress back to session. And instruct the Congress to pass my legislation, now, starting with the Homeowners and Bank Protection Act (HBPA), or else.

"This is a time to hit with clout, because if we don't hit fast, there's not going to be any U.S. economy or other economy left."

LaRouche addressed all the politicians, pundits, so-called economists, and average citizens who rejected his warnings and advice. "What did you do about it? What was your position? What was your estimate? And what right do you have to advise somebody on what they should do now, on the basis of your record, as a forecaster, given your political judgment? What about your political judgment? Do you trust it, after what you did?

"The members of the Congress, especially the leaders of the Congress, have failed miserably ever since July 2007, when they were both given a warning, and were given in rapid succession a series of actions that would have prevented this crisis. And they wouldn't do it! Especially Cong. Barney Frank, Sen. Chris Dodd, Cong. Nancy Pelosi, etc. These guys were warned, and these guys didn't do it. They said `no.' Well, they said `yes' to hell, didn't they? Maybe they should resign. It might be a good thing, especially the Speaker of the House. What the hell did she do? She was warned, repeatedly. What did she do?"
LaRouche further explained: "The banks and financial institutions are all sick, but you have to start minimizing what you try to bail out at this point. We cannot saddle the future of the U.S. infinitely. Therefore we have to be very judicious about what we start to bail out, as I said before. This is a question of triage. Now the triage begins. The question is, who can we afford to bail out? I've already established the criteria, in my proposal to establish a two-tiered interest rate and credit policy."

"It's called bankruptcy reorganization, putting something in bankruptcy for the purpose of saving the economy. But the current gang in control wouldn't do it. They were willing to sacrifice the system for the sake of not putting their friends into bankruptcy.

"As of today, with today's developments, we now have sectors of the federal system, or bankers, or in a sense, central bankers, who are going to be open to a change, because they were already talking about it. Today's events have to be viewed, not as this is the time to try to choose the alternative and try a new idea; now is the time to try the idea they had earlier rejected. There are many who did not reject it entirely, but who were induced to reject it, and they will now come back triumphantly and say: `Okay, we were right.' And anyone who is worth anything is one who can say, honestly, in some degree: `We were right, and you guys were wrong.' Nobody else is worth listening to.

"For example, only idiots are listening to Alan Greenspan these days. You want to listen to him, and others like him? You listened to him too much already, didn't you? If you had not listened to him, we wouldn't be in this mess, would we? Are you going to do the same stupid thing again? Are you going to listen to these jerks again?"

LaRouche concluded: "Okay, now that you guys have been proven wrong, I don't have to take your crap anymore. Now you listen to me, and improve your ways!"

Lyndon LaRouche will deliver an international webcast from Washington, D.C. on October 1, 2008, beginning at 1:00 p.m. EDT. It will be broadcast internationally with simultaneous translation in Spanish, German, Italian, French, and Russian.

http://www.larouchepac.com/