Do we live by mob rule or the rule of law? The more I think about it, the more I see it as mob rule. Better yet, mobster rule.
I don't believe in any kind of bailouts. I'm a simple guy. I believe in living by the law and having the government enforce the law. The law should protect people from theft, fraud and assault. The law should enforce contracts. The law shouldn't favor one group of people over another.
When you start straying from those limited duties and allow the government to show favor to one group or another, you either get mobster rule or mob rule, which turns into mobster rule.
What do bailouts do? They take money from the many and funnel it to the few. Who decides who gets the money? There always has to be decision makers for that. The more you influence the decision makers, the more likely you'll get a piece of the bailout.
In mobster rule, you get corrupt government officials manipulating the system to the benefit of their benefactors. You have to be a Good Fella and play the political game. If the common folk don't pay, they have Guido, the IRS agent, pay them a visit.
Unfortunately, the common schmuck just doesn't have much influence. So they get upset and angry when they see favors being dished out to insiders who have the means and connections to influence the decision makers.
If they band together and form a majority, they might be able to get the system to steer some benefits to them. Many call this democracy. I like to refer to it as mob rule. Mob rule is great if you are part of the mob. But I'd hate to be the chicken when it's me and two foxes deciding what's for dinner. Mobs have to eventually get organized and have leaders, so it eventually gets back to mobster rule.
Human nature is what it is. Our founding fathers recognized it and set up a great system to account for this human nature. They created the Constitution that put strict limits on what the Federal government was allowed to do. Unfortunately, we have allowed these limits to be ignored and now with the passage of time, have forgotten how important these limits were.
I feel sorry for everyone who is upside down on their home. Real estate prices weren't supposed to go down. Like much in life, timing is everything. But should we tax everyone, homeowners and renters, in order to help the few home owners in trouble? Is that fair to the renter who sat on the side lines because they thought the prices people were paying for homes were crazy? Should we prop up home prices to help current home owners. Many non-owners haven't benefited yet from past home appreciation and unless prices come down, they'll never be able to hop on to the homeowner bandwagon. So by propping up prices, you help some but hurt others.
So what should be done? Maybe you are the smart and wise one who can decide who pays and who receives. That's a very powerful position to be in. Can you handle that power? Should you really have that power?
I say that the big government experiment has been tried and shown to be a failure. It's time to get back to basics and back to very limited government as stipulated in the Constitution.
Let's get the government out of guaranteeing everything. It has taken a generation or two to finally see that the nanny state just doesn't work. I think it's becoming clear that the system has removed personal and corporate responsibility from decisions.
Whenever there's too much of a guarantee, people take more risks or they don't do good due diligence.
Why worry about what bank you put your money in? The FDIC is there to bail you out if you make a bad decision. So you go with the bank that pays you the most interest. Why not? There's nothing to lose. In order to pay you that extra interest, the bank has to make riskier, higher paying investments. If they luck out, you win and they win. If not, the taxpayer bails out the banks because they are too big to fail.
Fear of loss is a good thing. It's one of the checks that keeps things balanced.
Maybe some long held beliefs need to be changed.
- Real estate prices always go up.
- Your home is an appreciating asset.
- Renting is just throwing money away.
- Some banks are too big to fail.
- Trust me, I'm from the government.
Let's stop the insanity of relying on the government to bail us out. No good will ever come of it. It just gets us going down the road of dependency and away from self reliance.
The best way to start to change things is to vote out every Congressperson who voted for any bailouts. Throw them out and replace them with people who respect the limits imposed by the Constitution. When government gets to be an insignificant player in the lives of people, and gets back to enforcing the laws, freedom will be given the opportunity to work it's magic again.
I trust the actions of free people over the actions of big government.
With
;)
;)
Tim,
Great blog! I know to some this will seem like a simplistic answer to a very complex problem, but you are exactly right in your analysis. We've got to get back to the basics of what made this country great in the first place. I think it was Gerald Ford (although it has been attributed to Thomas Jefferson, too) who said,
A government big enough to give you all that you want is big enough to take everything you have.