Dem Platform:  Americans are Stupid

We are not witnessing the failure of capitalism. We are not a true capitalist economy. For years, we have been allowing big government and big business to blur their boundaries until we now have an economic system closer to Benito Mussolini’s corporate statism than true capitalism. In an ideal capitalistic society, all means of production are privately owned and operated. Corporate America and big government are now thoroughly enmeshed.

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As is typical, when big government got involved in corporate America, they wrecked it. The federal government has been encroaching on private enterprise with evermore increasing regulations and burdens. Witness the waddling back and forth that goes on between the public and private sector. The same players keep turning up on both sides of the same fence, one day you’re a bureaucrat in charge of harassing executives, the next day you’re in someone’s cabinet, only to return to the private sector another day. As predictable as daylight, increasing government interference assured the disruption of our economic system. We can track in a straight line the collapse of the housing industry right back to the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which was created during the happy and prosperous Carter years, creating a shakedown mandate for corrupt community organizations like ACORN. At taxpayer expense, groups like ACORN were able to literally force banks to make loans to borrowers who would not be able to repay them. In 1999, under pressure from the Clinton administration, Fannie Mae further relaxed credit requirements for subprime borrowers and generated staggering profits for itself and such luminaries as Jamie Gorelick and Franklin Raines. Fannie Mae is itself an example of a Mussolini-style economic unit. Fannie is some sort of monstrous government/private sector hybrid. This kind of ill-conceived breeding program keeps spawning bigger, more corrupt, and more inept agencies. There is nothing capitalistic about Fannie Mae or the government-backed mortgage system. Obama and the rest of the Left are taking advantage of the collective economic ignorance of the population by insisting that the meltdown of food stamp backed mortgages was caused by capitalism run amok. Without strict government controls, we are supposed to believe, capitalistic greed will devour the universe. Why are people buying this? John Stossel breaks down Michael Medved’s debunking of populist myths:

Medved’s second myth is that when the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. This is the old zero-sum fallacy, which ignores that when two people engage in free exchange, both gain — or they wouldn’t have traded.

Medved:

If you believe that when the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, then you believe that creating wealth causes poverty, and you’re an idiot.

As Obama rages about the gluttony and decadence of Goldman Sachs, it should be pointed out that his own administration is infested with Goldman Sachs alums. Of course, Obama, who received $994,795 in campaign cash from Goldman, has no genuine interest in real reform and he certainly does not want to advance capitalism. Michelle Malkin:

Obama is headed to Wall Street on Thursday to demand ‘financial regulatory reform’ — just as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has filed civil suit against Goldman Sachs for mortgage-related fraud. Question the timing? Darn tootin’. There are no coincidences in the perpetually orchestrated Age of O.

Malkin’s site provides a handy list of Goldman Sachs men now part of Obama’s regime, in case you’re having trouble keeping track. Medved on why we shouldn’t let the government run businesses:

Remember the last time you went into Starbucks, and then remember the last time you went into the DMV to get your license,’ Medved said. ‘Where did you get better treated? And it’s not because the barista is some kind of idealist or humanitarian. She wants a tip. She wants you to come back to the Starbucks … .

Obama’s proposed financial “reform” is not going to make life better for Americans. It’s not meant to—what Obama is proposing is a continuation of his efforts to seize more power for the executive branch. As Charles Krauthammer put it, passage of Obama’s bill would provide no check or balance on executive power, with Congress “voluntarily emasculating itself.” Democrats are desperate for an issue to run on in November. Populist rage is all the rage right now. The only reason Democrats are hoping to win on this one is because they think you’re stupid enough to fall for it.