Money Speaking Socialism
posted by on August 13 at 16:13 PM
Finally, Greenspan is speaking my language:
His quarrel is with the approach the Bush administration sold [the government backing of Fannie and Freddie debt] to Congress. “They should have wiped out the shareholders, nationalized the institutions with legislation that they are to be reconstituted — with necessary taxpayer support to make them financially viable — as five or 10 individual privately held units, and auctioned off,” he says in an interview this week.Instead, Congress granted Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson temporary authority to use an unlimited amount of taxpayer money to lend to or invest in the companies…
Yes!
Nobody speaks your language, Charles. Nobody.
No! Besides, we are on the path to Socialism... We're just starting with socializing risk (while profits remain privatized).
Your language? That's odd - I didn't see a reference to Italian women, rap or taking it up the ass anywhere in there.
COMMENT DELETED: Off-Topic/Spam
We'd rather not moderate your comments, but off-topic, gratuitously inflammatory, threatening, or otherwise inappropriate remarks may be removed, and repeat offenders may be banned from commenting. We never censor comments based on ideology. Thanks to all who add to the conversation on Slog.
Interesting that Greenspan is publically proposing nationalizing the Mae and the Mac.
I suspect he's quite aware that socialized societal organelles are more efficient than our current all-private, all-the-time system.
If only business money-power could be checked to allow us to do that here.
Oh, and we couldn't obviously call it socialism... at least not immediately.
How about we call it "economic democracy".
You know what I mean by that Charles. ;)
ahhh... well now that you put it that way...
Did nobody see the 'reconstituted as 5 or 10 privately held companies' part? He's talking about breaking up a monopoly, which is pretty much the opposite of socialism. Or rather using a socialist tool - nationalization - towards the capitalist goal of more competitors in the market.
No!
1.) This would have caused a precipitous decline in the U.S. dollar since much of the equity in Freddie and Fannie is owned by foreign governments. If the government won't stand behind its commitment to the Fs, there's little reason to believe that it's credible elsewhere.
1b.) This would lead to inflation.
1c.) Which leads to higher interest rates.
1d.) Which leads to more defaults when mortgages reset.
2.) The nationalization would be followed shortly thereafter by the sale of the broken up units to private ownership... you'd be paying to shore up the institutions so that big banks can make money from it.
Charles, you really don't get the economics do you? Please go back to your bad philosophy. I so much more enjoy your foibles in that camp ("Let's play 'Has Charles been reading Bataille?").
Comments Closed
Comments are closed on this post.