Bull by the Horns

Early in the financial crisis I recall the economist Simon Johnson describing the FDIC as a very effective and economical tool to resolve the perilous state of the financial system. It caused me to consider Sheila Bair, the former head of the FDIC, and her actions in a different light from what up to then was a predisposition to less regulation. FED Chairman Alan Greenspan's tenure was a disaster in spite of his Ayn Rand libertarian philosophical predilection because he forgot that free markets do not work as described by Adam Smith in a system spiraling toward concentration of economic power. The mix of government intervention and laissez faire economics is particularly noxious, and Alan presided over a witches brew that as a Libertarian I will not forgive.

Sheila Bair has a clear view how government guarantee's require private equity be completely at risk when reckless management puts a company in a difficult position. She understands how those who play prudently expect to prevail when others fail and how it is resented it does not happen because special favors are called. It appears from her book, Bull by the Horns, that Tim Geithner is Mr. Moral Hazard and that his tenure as Secretary of the Treasury has been a huge drag on the Obama administration. The AIG bonus debacle in the spring of the term, the laughable disrespect given by Wall Street Banker's that summer and the general public outrage over bailouts for fat cats over the years was the genesis of the Tea Party on the right and Occupy Wall Street on the left. That Obama was re-elected has more to do great electioneering than developing a mandate.

As a Libertarian I resent that neither side understood that the mandate from the beginning is to be a Teddy Roosevelt style Trust Buster. Punish with ruin the reckless goliath's in finance for the havoc they reeked on our citizens. Obama could really set a proper course for his second term by nominating Sheila Bair as his new Secretary of the Treasury. While she is a regulator at heart she understand's how to protect the public purse and authority.  Secondly, now that the market is less stressed, will someone go out and rip Citigroup apart.  It has no right to exist as presently constructed and it would do a lot of good to set the possibility of failing even though it is big. 

My President is busy

Tom Friedman's editorial in today's New York Times regarding Israel clarifies how authoritarian it has become.  Because of a history of easy wins over less prepared opposition the extreme element asserts greater influence and transforms the country toward a garrison state.  America's thorough repudiation of the evangelical right this past election leaves Israel abandoned by a hawkish ally.  All  I can say is, "Thank God".

 My President is Busy

Republican Hand Wringing

I am delighted by how the authoritarian element of the electorate got so thoroughly trounced in this last election.  Until Republican's can learn to answer in the manner of Joe Biden in the Vice Presidential debate, that while holding strong religious beliefs that they are not willing to impose them on others, the GOP is doomed.  There may be hope of a turn on this point by the Evangelical Right's recognition that they failed, but not for lack of effort.

“Millions of American evangelicals are absolutely shocked by not just the presidential election, but by the entire avalanche of results that came in,” R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in Louisville, Ky., said in an interview. “It’s not that our message — we think abortion is wrong, we think same-sex marriage is wrong — didn’t get out. It did get out.

“It’s that the entire moral landscape has changed,” he said. “An increasingly secularized America understands our positions, and has rejected them.”

Christian Right Failed to Sway Voters on the issues

I disagree with the Reverend Mohler that it is the moral landscape that has changed.  I believe it is our core value separating Church and State that is rejecting religious positions that have no business being a part of government.  If this is the land whose first proclamation of independence includes the pursuit of happiness as a right, then how can we tolerate a religious movement that dictates what that happiness should be?  People voluntarily congregating into a community church is a expression of the pursuit of happiness for some and if it is a community of gay and lesbians, whose business is it but their own?

Gary Johnson for President

It's not a wasted vote.  A vote for Obama is a vote for more Government and Romney is a vote for less liberty.  I don't think either of the two major parties are ever gong to get it right until more of us stop wasting our votes on the lesser of two evils.