Nationalizing the Financial Sector

Now, I'm just a small-town country lawyer, but it seems to me that too much is being made of the government's massive "bailout" of major investment banks, commercial banks, and that one insurance company. If not the government, where else were they going to get $700B?

I think liberals are missing some key points about this situation, and without citing anyone specifically (because you can Google the discussion), here are three items for their reconsideration:

1. Democrats in Congress went along with the bailout, not simply because they are Bush lapdogs (which they may be), but because the crisis came on very quickly and as evidenced by the meltdown by the "geniuses" on Wall Street, nobody knew what to do about it. The only history to be examined on the matter concerned bailouts. At least we might learn from it this time (ie, you don't just rescue scumbags and let them walk away for a while, then return in a few years and start doing the same shit again).

2. What would my fellow lefties have preferred the government to do? Nothing? Same as the mortgage crisis that touched of the meltdown in the first place? Would we all be oh so much better off (as liberal commentators seem to be suggesting) if Bush, Cheney, Paulson, Bernanke, Greenspan, the CEOs of Fannie Mae, Citigroup, BofA, Merrill Lynch, AIG, WaMu, Wachovia, Morgan Stanley, Lehman, Bear Stearns, and so on, had all been frog-marched (a favorite fantasy jackoff term of leftists, for some reason) to a pit and shot? So, if I understand this hysterical mewling from the Democratic partisans correctly, we should have done absolutely nothing, let CEOs jump from windows or (more likely) fly off in private jets with (metaphorical, offshore) suitcases full of money, never to return, and then lynched the rest of them, and then every American could have lost even more money, suffered even more deprivation, fallen from an even higher cliff into the pit of ruin -- all so we could hold 'em responsible?!?

Fuck YOU ALL, says I, enjoying still having a place to live and a bank account with more than $0 in it.

3. My fellow Democrats and liberals, listen to yourselves. Many of you are complaining, at once, about the "scot-free bailout" for businesses while also wailing about the "nationalization" of the financial sector. What the hell are you complaining about (and can't you see the contradiction in your complaint)? "We" foot the bill, sure, in as much as we, the taxpayers, won't see any of that money again and it cannot now be spent for social programs, etc. But in all honesty, "we" weren't going to benefit from those funds, ever. Tax cuts, anyone? Didn't think so. No defense contractors, we, either.

Nationalizing the financial sector, in even the most limited sense, is the first step towards acknowledging that we live in a centrally-planned economy and society. Socialism is here, everybody. Holding the CEOs accountable and spilling their blood isn't the point. They are little fishes, wriggling away to avoid being swallowed up. Maybe they'll make it, maybe they won't. Who cares? They got away with some vast sums of money, but in every other sense they are ruined. And the government, faithless in it though most of us may be, after 8 years, has come out on top as the rightful regulator of the market. That's called a victory for ordinary Americans and for the idea of rational, fair, humanist economic policy from this day on. Take it and keep it, and make sure to know its power.

It is a small step, perhaps -- though I don't know how one could call this crisis and its fallout "small," it does remain to be seen just how deeply involved the federal government wants to be in day-to-day market activities -- but it's an important precedent. Fiscal sanity will reign in our lifetimes, thanks to the bright light that has finally shined on Wall Street. Even if that light cost "us" $700B.