Organized Theft

From I Dissent: An Essay Against A Government Bailout by Kenneth D. Peterson, Jr.

I will not go softly! There is a terrible, horrible crisis looming we are now told. But the Government will save us if only we will allow the most extravagant intervention into private affairs that this country has ever contemplated. The politicians and the media blare breathless sound bites about fear of collapse, fear of the future, fear of real estate, fear of failure. Have we forgotten that FDR said the only thing we need to fear is fear itself? Have we forgotten that six years ago when there was a similar full court press by the political and media elite to exploit our fears the reality in Iraq did not live up to the hype?

The political classes of both parties said that in the face of this unimaginable crisis they would take the weekend – imagine that, a whole weekend! – to create a Solution. The Solution must now be implemented immediately before we can even fully understand what it is. This is a classic “rush to judgment” so that we may not notice that the Solution aims to destroy the fundamental ideals of individual freedom, accountability and responsibility that our nation’s Constitution was meant to defend.

I dissent and ask that you communicate your own dissent.

Our financial situation has two issues: Liquidity and Solvency. If a bank lends money to someone and the person defaults and the collateral is not worth the outstanding loan we can call this a “bad loan.” Who should suffer the loss? Should we make the renter who lives next door absorb the loss? Should we make the shareholders of a bank that made good loans suffer the loss? This seems ridiculous! To suggest, as do our earnest politicians, that all the citizens of the United States should suffer the loss is literally nonsense. The one who must suffer the loss is the one who made the loan. Anything else is organized theft. If the bank did not inquire as to whether the borrower could repay the loan, or if it did not require an adequate equity cushion, then it must be responsible for such “stupid loans”. The same goes for those who bought those loans and thereby became the lender. The result of enough such loans should be insolvency. Moreover, a lender that leverages itself 30 to 1 and then pleads for a bailout when values fall 4% does not define a national emergency and should not be taken seriously.

Read the rest here.