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Republicans to big business: drop dead
I hope big business has noticed that the republican party, which it worked so hard to elect, is letting it bleed to death through a combination of gross incompetence and blind adherence to the philosophy of "free markets" that are free of "government interference".
Big business is unfortunately reaping what it sowed. It has sponsored the ascension of a philosophy that dictates the government do nothing to interfere with business, thinking it would help them avoid regulation and taxation, but what it also got is a philosophy that denies the government itself bears any responsibility for the collapse of the economy, and does not have a responsibility to help fix the problem it helped create.
It seems to be pretty well accepted that keeping interest rates too low led to a flood of cheap and easy credit, and that the SEC and others didn't keep companies leveraged at a reasonable level. Greenspan refused to regulate CDS's, and congress deregulated investment banks (see Gramm; Phil). These seem to be the fundamental sources of all that followed: the failure of credit ratings companies, the insane asset bubble fueled by mortgages with virtually no underwriting standards in the pursuit of ever higher returns, balance sheets that were levered 30:1 rather than 12:1. If indeed the root of the problem was federal inaction or irresponsibility, should the government not share in the costs of fixing it?
The final perversity is that as the economy weakens and citizens become more vulnerable to severe problems, the government will be less able to help, because it will not have the revenue to do so, especially considering the debt we racked up under republican leadership. And the less the government is able to help, the worse it will get, etc. So it's impossible to say you are acting on behalf of your constituents when your inaction guarantees that you will do less for them, and the business community (through jobs, charity, etc.) will be unable to help either.
State and city governments are now being criticized for spending beyond their means, and many of them did. But when people lose jobs, they stop paying state, local and federal taxes, so the local governments will have to raise taxes or cut services, and the state and federal governments will have to cut spending - unless they use more deficit spending to finance the programs they needs to help their citizens deal with the sudden loss of income from their jobs.
So if you loan the automakers 25 billion dollars, you know you have loaned them that amount. If the industries collapse, and the government needs to finance itself through increased deficit spending, are you willing to bet, to even state publicly anywhere, that you think we will borrow only $25 billion?
So republicans have a message for big business, and Americans everywhere: Drop Dead
Big business is unfortunately reaping what it sowed. It has sponsored the ascension of a philosophy that dictates the government do nothing to interfere with business, thinking it would help them avoid regulation and taxation, but what it also got is a philosophy that denies the government itself bears any responsibility for the collapse of the economy, and does not have a responsibility to help fix the problem it helped create.
It seems to be pretty well accepted that keeping interest rates too low led to a flood of cheap and easy credit, and that the SEC and others didn't keep companies leveraged at a reasonable level. Greenspan refused to regulate CDS's, and congress deregulated investment banks (see Gramm; Phil). These seem to be the fundamental sources of all that followed: the failure of credit ratings companies, the insane asset bubble fueled by mortgages with virtually no underwriting standards in the pursuit of ever higher returns, balance sheets that were levered 30:1 rather than 12:1. If indeed the root of the problem was federal inaction or irresponsibility, should the government not share in the costs of fixing it?
The final perversity is that as the economy weakens and citizens become more vulnerable to severe problems, the government will be less able to help, because it will not have the revenue to do so, especially considering the debt we racked up under republican leadership. And the less the government is able to help, the worse it will get, etc. So it's impossible to say you are acting on behalf of your constituents when your inaction guarantees that you will do less for them, and the business community (through jobs, charity, etc.) will be unable to help either.
State and city governments are now being criticized for spending beyond their means, and many of them did. But when people lose jobs, they stop paying state, local and federal taxes, so the local governments will have to raise taxes or cut services, and the state and federal governments will have to cut spending - unless they use more deficit spending to finance the programs they needs to help their citizens deal with the sudden loss of income from their jobs.
So if you loan the automakers 25 billion dollars, you know you have loaned them that amount. If the industries collapse, and the government needs to finance itself through increased deficit spending, are you willing to bet, to even state publicly anywhere, that you think we will borrow only $25 billion?
So republicans have a message for big business, and Americans everywhere: Drop Dead
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