http://thehill.com/dick-morris/obamas-leap-to-socialism-2009-04-21.html I look forward to red putting his spin on this.
Conservatives are busting guts screaming socialism at everything these days, but it fails to pass muster. This is an absurd simplification and not a description of socialism at all. Socialism refers to collective ownership of all production and distribution of goods, and a society characterized by economic equality for all individuals. The bank bailouts are not socialism at all. First of all they were enacted by a Republican Administration with bi-partisan Congressional support, so they are not a Democratic scheme to institute socialism, as if democrats were inherently socialists. Secondly, the bailouts are temporary! They are an emergency measure to weather these banks through the financial crisis at which point they repay the government. The influential banking lobby wants to have its cake and eat it too. They want federal money with no strings attached. Well, the citizens have registered complaints at executive spending and bonuses as well as banks using money intended to buy toxic assets being used for acquisitions and other things. So the government has to exercise some control of it's money in bringing about the rescue of the banks. They have not opened up lending as they were supposed to do with this cash. They want to use the money for their best interests rather than the best economic interests of the nation as it was intended. At the heart of the debate over whether the government should temporarily control some of the big banks is the question of whether these banks are solvent. If the banks are solvent--if their assets exceed their liabilities--then the administration can continue propping them up until they fully recover. But if they are insolvent, it has to take them over. The Obama administration proposed subjecting the leading banks to "stress tests" that measure how they would fare in a worst-case scenario for the economy. The banks, which want to avoid government conditions, have protested, as you have seen above. "Creeping socialism" their lobbyists and bloggers proclaim, even though many banks will not be affected at all and the rest only temporarily. The best way to assure the public that they will get input into bank practices and eventually get their money back is to buy stock in these banks, so that when the crisis passes and the bailed-out banks start making a profit, the shareholding public will profit, too. In time, the banks can buyout and repay the government and go back to business as usual. If a bank fails and must be nationalized, then the government can sell it back to private interests after economic recovery. A temporary bailout is socialism in no way or form.
100% spin. If the banks want to pay back the Tarp money and they have the money to do it then it's none of the Government's GD business, unless the government's goal is to control the banks. The stress test BS is total crap.
I agree it makes no sense to make solvent banks wait to payback TARP funds. The banks who would fail the stress test are not the ones lining up to pay back TARP now. If this is truly a temporary measure why are solvent banks not being allowed to payback TARP? Why is there a need to convert the preferred shares to common stock? These are dangerous steps. Maybe W is the Sith Lord and Obama is his apprentice.
Obama needs to start acting like a man. Plain and simple. I was never in support of him, but he is the president so I want him to man up and not take any crap from Hugo Chavez or any foreign leader.
Absolutley nothing to do with this thread. If you want to go after him for foreign policy, find the right thread. There is plenty of them here praising or bashing the man.
