I know this may surprise some and many may think I’m being hyperbolic but this has got to be one of the most unenlightened threads I’ve read on this usually top-notch website in quite some time.
The problem I have with this thread is that there seems to be a more than healthy dose of righteous indignation as people claim how responsible they are, while decrying the handouts that, let’s face it, probably less than one percent of the citizenry will actually benefit from. So this is not some widespread program and, as many have pointed out, pales in comparison to previous bailouts. As Chris M. has shown with the math, this plan won’t help most people who it is designed to help. So it’s not as if millions of people are suddenly going to have their homes paid off by the government, which I think is what many (mostly in contexts other than this website) somehow believe. Also, as Chris M. has shown, this program is really yet another backdoor vehicle for propping up the fraudulent and parasitic banking and mortgage industry. It’s essentially a futile attempt to buy some time. Emphasis on futile.
To those who are concerned that this will somehow distort home prices, hurting your responsible home ownership. No go on that one. Housing prices will be falling for years to come – potentially as far into the future as 2014 – and in many of the most inflated places may fall to 10-20% of their peak bubble values. This Obama plan is impotent to influence these gargantuan macro trends. Maybe if he put several trillion into the program but not the pittance he’s calling for.
The mortgage mess is essentially a canard and one of many less significant byproducts of systemic rot and erroneous design, which Chris M. has done a great job distilling for the consumers of this site: debt-based, fractional reserve lending, necessitated growth, wealth created through extraction and not production, etc.
So I hope all of those who are offended by this legislation were also as deeply offended – and vocal about it – by the far more substantial and nakedly criminal TARP bologna and undocumented handouts by the Fed directly into Wall Street’s coffers. If you were/are then this post is not addressed to you. I know Chris M. was, as he called it a wide-scale looting operation or some other equally apt descriptor.
I know it’s hard for many to admit – and probably most won’t ever admit it – but to simply be American is to “get something for nothing” and to live beyond one’s means. This is not “anti-American,” so please spare me that and other reactionary rejoinders, but simply a fact of life. A stark truth in a dog-eat-dog paradigm-based world that‘s more a zero-sum game than proponents of globalization are willing to admit. As libertarian and Austrian Schooler Peter Schiff has pointed out, Americans en masse are the ones artificially reaping the wealth created by others, and this imbalance cannot continue because disproportionately prospering due to the work inputs of others is unsustainable and in Ayn Rand’s view immoral. This doesn’t necessarily mean one is a bad person or immoral or even unethical, it just means that one has been fortunate enough in the guiding hands of fate to have been born in the United States at this point in the course of history.
To be truly responsible, to be truly concerned with the path and trajectory of our world is too look deeply and acknowledge this reality. One must put aside – if one has it all – outmoded notions of nationalism or emotional responses such as, “Well, my granddaddy fought for this country…” This has nothing to do with global, objective reality only people’s narrow, emotional defense mechanisms.
So for one American to say to another, “You’re irresponsible because you bought a house you need help with and now the government is going to spend some tax dollars on you. You evil thing. You ruiner of our economy. You corrupter of capitalism,” leaves me somewhat hollow with a pinch of hypocrisy.
To those concerned with transfer of wealth:
The only significant transfer of wealth that has occurred in this country – dating back to colonial times – is from the bottom 80% or so to the top 20%. Propagandistic bogeyman such as Reagan’s “welfare queens” are just that, propaganda to whip up the masses against one another while the real getting-something-for-nothing is going on behind closed doors, out of sight, and with such subtle methods as to be intellectually ungraspable by most.
To fully understand the two-plus centuries of looting, war profiteering, big business subsidies, and currency devaluation that has occurred in this country, Kevin Phillips’ “Wealth and Democracy” is the gold standard.
To say the least, we are at a critical juncture in this country’s history and the last thing we can afford now is in-fighting amongst the masses, which, of course, is to the benefit of those running the show. The longer we cling to the truly false paradigm of political spectrums and affiliations the longer the real divide in this country – the one between the bottom 80 or 90% and those who determine the broad thrusts of government and business – will go unspoken and un-acted upon.
So to all the liberals and Democrats, I say: Get over your Obamas and Hillarys. These people are not more intelligent, more compassionate, more concerned about the little people than anyone else, especially so your Republican shibboleths of Bush and Cheney. Obama, as each day goes by, seems to me already to be one of the biggest charlatans I could have ever imagined.
So to all the conservatives and Republicans, I say: Return to your libertarian, intellectual, responsible roots and toss aside this conservatism-come-lately defined by anti-intellectualism, pro-war and interventionism, and the bogus and cynical “culture wars.”
To both groups: Please realize that when the truly terrible happens, both sets of your leaders will be flying overhead abandoning you because they are not your brothers and sisters, not your ideological counterparts, not your friends.
In the coming years and decades all we have is each other, how ever flawed, vulnerable, and deeply human those people turn out to be. Fighting amongst ourselves at the propagandistic behest of our political and media masters is a darkened road that can only lead to chaos.
