I’m outraged .Not for the reasons that most people seems to be, I’m outraged that the government deregulated the financial sector, and that the government chose not to enforce the few laws that were left to enforce. The government made a conscious decision to let anarchy overtake the financial markets in the United States.
Corporate leaders are people, who are driven and creative, their job is to make as much money as possible for their stockholders, within the law. When you take the laws away, you’re letting their unbridled creativity take over. The people in the sector were basically bookies, taking bets on the rising stock market and housing market. The Government liked the idea of everyone in America becoming a homeowner, and the people loaning money saw it as a no risk situation, because home prices were rising as far as the eye could see. If people couldn’t afford the mortgage down the road, they could sell, walk away, and start over, no harm, no fouls. Then the economy started to slow, people couldn’t make the higher graduated payments and they started to walk away from their money pits. No one was waiting in line to pick up the property, and the house of cards began to teeter.
The mortgage companies had bundled mortgages in to securities that could be sold like stocks, sold them to the brokerage houses to sell to the public. That was going well, until the mortgages began to fall apart, then these instruments became an anchor around their necks, dragging them in to a sea of red ink. The mortgage companies could no longer sell the mortgages and they were out of money to loan, so no mortgages, and no home sales.
The government sat back and watched this all unfold, deregulation was good, everyone was happy and the lobbyists gave campaign contributions to the regulators to keep them from interfering. Now all this deregulation has led to the carefully constructed house of cards tumbling in around our ears. Economies are no longer limited by national boundaries and the world is fearful of what America has wrought. Obviously, there are International vultures circling who are ready to pick the bones of the carcass and gain a foothold in America. The government has to step in to keep our economy in the hands of Americans; they can’t let China or Israel, or even Russia buy American assets, so the government has taken the unprecedented step of nationalizing American businesses. Let’s face it, always before it has been socialist countries that have nationalized industries which was usually to reap the benefits and redistribute the wealth. In this case, the nationalization is to save those who have been reckless and put us a risk. The American economy depends upon it.
It seems that if we had mandated fiscal responsibility and common sense we could have avoided this catastrophe. I’m not a psychic, there have been a great many economists who saw this coming several years ago and warned of the issues, but apparently, as long as the campaign contributions kept coming, they clouded the politicians’ vision and will to place the needed boundaries on the process.
Should we attack the corporate leaders who hatched these schemes? I think not, we took the boundaries away and made a wide open playing field where they could do anything that they could imagine. The government’s job should have been to lay down rules to protect the public, and level the playing field. Now they are left with the task of deciding who to let go bankrupt and who to save. The job of corporate governance was to make money for their stockholders, and for quite a while they were wildly successful. The shareholders rewarded them with stock options, bonuses and money, hand over fist. In a free market, the shareholders control the company, and in those companies where the government is now the major shareholder, they can make the rules. In the companies that are still free, we need to let shareholders continue to operate the company. We can’t fall in to further socialist control of commerce. The people of America need to understand that the ballot, rather in politics or commerce, is the most important safeguard for our safety. We need to get control of the economy as soon as possible, put sane rules on all commerce, and walk away and let the markets do what they do best. We can’t continue down this slippery slope of government taking over businesses. It must stop.
GOOD LUCK
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