WORSE THAN SOCIALISM by RON SMITH

Worse Than SocialismThursday, September 25, 2008 - Ron Smith


The lovely Mrs. Reason turned to me last night while watching our lame duck president “explain” the current economic situation and what we must do to avert the ruin that’s already upon us, and said, “There hasn’t been this much bi-partisan consensus since NAFTA. We’re really in for it.” Amen, my dear.

Texas Congressman Ron Paul, he who was widely decried as a kook when he explained our disastrous monetary policy while running for president, put the same thought this way: “Whenever a Great Bipartisan Consensus is announced, and a compliant media assures everyone that the wondrous actions of our wise leaders are being taken for our own good, you can know with absolute certainty that disaster is about to strike.” (more Paul here)

This bailout soon to be ratified with minor, cosmetic changes administered by the cosmeticians in Congress – that’s right, like putting lipstick on a pig – is worse than socialism; it is, as Jeffrey Snyder explains so well here, far more shocking than socialism. “It’s a continuation,” Snyder says, “of what we already have – creating profit-making opportunities for the wealthy off the backs of taxpayers.”

“With hundreds of billions at its disposal,” Snyder explains, “the Fed has the ability to preserve and create new titans of finance. The bailout process will not be unlike Russia’s creation of overnight billionaires through the public sale of rights to its natural resources for ludicrously low sums of money, all accomplished at the expense of the taxpayer. I believe we here in the U.S. call this ‘crony capitalism’ when practiced in Russia. The taxpayers will bear the losses; receive nothing for it, while new profit opportunities are created for the ruling class. Nothing prevents this. Congress will receive reports.”

The reason for the harrumphing by senators and congresspersons is that they are hearing nasty things from the voters who put them in office. The people don’t want this gargantuan fraud to be enacted. But in the end that doesn’t matter at all, and the rulers will get what they want.

And don’t think your representatives weren’t busy with other items of importance yesterday. In a quick, quite secret process, the House passed a $630 billion-plus spending bill, mostly for our mighty war machine, but wrapped in other pork parts as well. $488 billion goes to the Pentagon, $40 billion to the totally inept Homeland Security Department, plus $73 billion for veterans programs and military base construction projects – it’s very expensive to maintain more than 700 bases around the world – and as the sweetener for members $6.6 billion is allocated for 2,322 home-state pet projects.

According to the Associated Press, the debate on this lasted less than an hour. That pretty much says it all, doesn’t it?

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