La Cucaracha by Lalo Alcaraz for May 15, 2009

ohhh I believe it! I believe it! I heard Hannity say it too.

It doesn’t matter which straw broke the camel’s back. What matters is the camel is dead under two tons of straw.

Government pressure to encourage home-ownership is just one of the many, many instances of meddling in the economy that finally snapped its spine.

speaking of hannity, what happened to his agreeing to be waterboarded for charity to demonstrate it is not torture?

PSchearer, it was DEREGULATION that did it. Government refusing to meddle got us where we are. SEC refusing to investigate and stop Ponzi schemes in their tracks before a Madoff-level collapse. Permitting crazy loan schemes that anyone with a high school education could see through provided they paid attention in economics class. Greenspan and his Randian economic policies. Please, get off the objectivist Kool-Aid.

Um, if you want the root cause of the meltdown, follow the money.

Buyers didn’t get rich, and neither did the government.

Banks, however, had huge financial incentives to hand out as many loans as they could, because they were making money hand over fist selling mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations.

BlueR.: If you knew anything about Objectivism, you would know that Alan Greenspan spent his entire government career rejecting everything he ever superficially learned from Ayn Rand.

As for a “failure of deregulation”, note that by the standard of preventing all abuse there can never be enough regulation, leading eventually to a centrally managed economy as has failed around the world throughout history.

The existence of someone like Madoff is not an excuse to further regulate an already over-regulated economy. Note the difference: a district attorney to prosecute criminals is one thing; a massive regulatory agency to make honest businessmen prove they aren’t crooks is completely different.

Of course the real issue is do you believe in a free society or not. A free society, where the government’s sole purpose is defending rights, will automatically be a capitalist economy. Once the government takes on any other task, it can only grow and grow to the detriment of all.

As for the stale old jabs at Ayn Rand, if anyone is interesting in learning the truth about her, just read her own words in her novels like “Atlas Shrugged” and her essay collections like “Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal”. You can find a reading list at the Ayn Rand Institute www.AynRand.com.

Pschearer says “A free society, where the government’s sole purpose is defending rights…”

I hear that a lot lately. C.F. Bastiat espoused that view of the role of government.

Bastiat also cited public education as an example of redistribution of wealth.

And yet, we have ample evidence that nations that do not provide public education are among the poorest in the world. So why should we believe that our govt should stop building highways, bridges, and sewer systems, and restrict itself solely to the enforcement of property rights?