Monday, October 5, 2009

The Rules of the Game

(Matt's reply:)
Oh yeah, our blog where we don't mention political parties, names of politicians or the title of the predominant political movement of our lifetimes! That ought to draw a lot of eyeballs. Bring a book!
OK, I screwed up. In truth, I have labored mightily to scrub the proper nouns from my blogging, and found it interesting. But I deserved the dope-slap, I suppose, and will labor anew.
I find we agree more than we disagree. No politician wants to have a General Motors -- or our entire financial sector -- fail on their watch, even if the decay set in many watches ago. So they intervened: Yes, to save their hides, but also to save ours.
Let's not forget, Ed, how bad things were last fall. The financial sector -- the biggest part of our economy -- froze up, and would have remained frozen if not for government intervention. How can government not act in such a case?
It was too late to act on the issue of "too big to fail," it was a fait accompli. The predominating political ideology of the previous decades had allowed these mammoth, crooked institutions to leverage themselves out over the cliff. Then they came crying to Uncle Sam when they fell off. Now the guys who won the battle of ideas get to stand around and see for themselves what they have wrought. Neither of us much likes the way the old game was played, or umpired. I'm saying we need a new game! One where we all admit the ref is fair and the honest player can really win.

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