Fox News
by Jon Kraushar
12/25/08
Pardon my humbug … but how many people have considered that the trillion-or-so dollars the Bush and Obama administrations might spend on bailout and stimulus efforts could turn out to be a worse Ponzi scheme than Bernard Madoff’s fleecing of investors, estimated at up to $50 billion? Before we rush headlong and panicked into throwing even more good taxpayer money into believing that, yes Virginia, government programs like this actually work, have we looked at the model for all this — similar government ‘rescue’ spending during the Great Depression? That ‘New Deal’ turned out to be a bad deal. … When was the last time that government spending on such a large scale turned out to be anything more than a stimulus to special interests?
http://tinyurl.com/8tctxz
The seven deadly deficits
Mother Jones
by Joseph E. Stiglitz
November/December 2008 issue
When president George W. Bush assumed office, most of those disgruntled about the stolen election contented themselves with this thought: Given our system of checks and balances, given the gridlock in Washington, how much damage could be done? Now we know: far more than the worst pessimists could have imagined. From the war in Iraq to the collapse of the credit markets, the financial losses are difficult to fathom. And behind those losses lie even greater missed opportunities. Put it all together … and the gap between what we could have produced and what we did produce will easily exceed $1.5 trillion. Think what that kind of money could have done to provide healthcare for the uninsured, to improve our education system, to build green technology … The list is endless.
http://tinyurl.com/5vg23z
Bush’s no regrets tour
Boston Globe
by Ellen Goodman
12/28/08
I was doing fine until I saw the rocking chairs. My attacks of Bush-bashing were in remission. I told myself it was time to move on, to embrace the change you can believe in and, well, you get the idea. So when the president — he’s still the president? — popped up on television, I would repeat what Republicans told Democrats in 2000 after the Supreme Court ruling made George W. Bush president: Get Over It. Snap Out Of It. … But then came the moment when the senior staff of Bush enablers gave two comfy rocking chairs to the man who described himself as ‘an old sage at 62 … headed to retirement.’ The symbolism was too much...
http://tinyurl.com/83qasl
Theft by government
Intellectual Conservative
by Nancy Morgan
02/23/09
Question: How does con man Bernie Madoff differ from the state of California? Answer: Bernie’s victims surrendered their life savings voluntarily. In California, the victims’ money was taken under threat of force by the IRS. As pundits, politicians and the media focus America’s wrath on Bernie Madoff for conning willing dupes out of over $50 million bucks, the same scam carried out by elected government officials in both Kansas and California goes virtually unnoticed...
http://adjix.com/csf5
“Something must be done”
Campaign For Liberty
by Anthony Gregory
02/23/09
Historians have long understood that during social and national calamity, political oppression often takes root. This is principally because politicians try to seize power and the people let them. In uncertain times, people tend to turn toward their governments in desperation. Social scientists like Oppenheimer and Murray Rothbard have observed the vital role of public opinion in shaping the government. The relationships between crises, public ideology, and government growth have been fleshed out in scholarly detail by Robert Higgs in his various studies on political economy. Whether we’re looking at the march to World War I, the New-Deal response to the Great Depression, the construction of a national-security state and global empire to counter the Communist threat, the war on terror or today’s war on recession, existential fear is channeled into support for a growing government and its predations on our liberty and wealth. What’s more, the big-government racket is formulated so as to make it difficult to falsify. If things get worse, it is an excuse for more government. If things get better, government claims the credit...
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=17
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=bailout
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=stimulus
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=ponzi
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Madoff
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=taxpayer
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Great+Depression
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=government+spending
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=credit+market
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=stolen+election
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=checks+and+balances
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Jon+Kraushar
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Joseph+E.+Stiglitz
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Ellen+Goodman
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Anthony+Gregory
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Nancy+Morgan
