Woes of the Government Bailout

I write the following to share my conviction that government is the problem, not the solution. Do you remember just a few short years ago, the clamore (Indeed, the "Sky is Falling" rhetoric) that the world was in imminent danger unless the powers-that-be got Billions of Dollars and a huge regulatory over-haul of the financial system. It was called TARP. $700,000,000 was thrown at the problem. Now the Wall Street Journal writes: " . . . nearly three years after the panic of 2008, our all-seeing regulators have somehow not fixed what was arguably the single biggest justification for government intervention at the time."

What they regulated and what happened to the money was and is despicable. Proof? "Half the assets in U.S. prime money market funds were invested in European banks as of the end of May", according to Fitch Ratings. What? Our taxpayers have put up their hard-earned cash to bail out "our" financial crises and half of it ends up in Europe. Yes, the very Europe (Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland and others) that is in the news daily, with defaults, riots and bankruptcy looming. Did you know your money was going out of the United States for this? I guess our regulators were busy drafting new legislation of 2,300 pages (with 14 new felonies), most of which is to be determined by bureaucrats---un-named.
Again the Wall Street Journal States: "The real  systemic risk is a U.S. government that has regulated and redistributed everything under the financial sun while choosing not to enact the reform that everyone knew had to get done." It didn't work, and now we find out that our money has flown the coop for Europe. Who's watching the watchers?

It gets worse. They then moved on to passing more regulation. Tim Geitner (Treasury Secretary) and others shouted that if only we passed the Dodd-Frank Bill, " . . . the days of crisis and bailout were over." What are they smoking? The Dodd-Frank monstrosity in many ways is more onerous, intrusive and bone-headed than ObamaCare, which defies credulity.

But they will pass it off, blame others and look the other way until it is too late.

Coming Up: I'm readying my notes on the three-pronged attack of Liberal tax strategies. Watch for it.