THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 233, September 16, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
DON'T PANIC
By Alan Caruba
FINANCIAL SHOCKS: AMERICA'S FINANCIAL SYSTEM DEALS WITH YET ANOTHER GREED-DRIVEN CRISIS -- DON'T
PANIC, JUST HEED THE WARNINGS -- WHY THE WARNINGS HAVE BEEN IGNORED -- HOW AMERICANS SHOULD VOTE IN
ELECTIONS
FULL STORY:
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was best known for the two words on its cover, “Don’t Panic!” Of course,
when you have Vogons wandering around destroying entire planets to make way for galactic highways it’s hard to
remain calm.
Anyone familiar with the Hitchhiker as a book or a movie would be well advised to consider its advice as the
nation’s financial system deals, once again, with another greed-driven calamity.
Don’t panic! The nation has been through these financial shocks throughout its history. The one that historians point to,
of course, is the Great Depression, but that occurred in part because then President Herbert Clark Hoover did not want
the U.S. central government to get involved and matters just got worse. President Hoover was an engineer by profession.
Twice in the modern era, engineers -- Herbert Hoover and James Earl Carter -- managed to make a muck of the nation’s
economic well-being.
It was Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his New Dealers that rather frantically tried every program they could think of to
end the Great Depression, but it must be said that a nation rallying to the threats of World War II had much to do with
the turnaround. Up until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the nation was struggling economically.
What came out of the Depression, however, was a matrix of government agencies whose purpose it was to avoid another
Wall Street “crash” as occurred in 1929. Many of these agencies and New Deal programs linger on; some well beyond
their practical use. Government programs are rarely allowed to die.
Warnings about what is occurring to some large investment banks and the American International Group (AIG), the
insurer, have been circulating for a very long time. The mainstream media does not like to report such concerns. It is
focused on today’s Dow Jones Average and the rise and fall of individual companies. You have to read publications like
Business Week or The Economist to get the larger picture.
Since 1982, the nation has been through four major financial crises; five if you include the aftermath of 9/11.There was the
savings-and-loan collapse, the dip the stock market took in 1987, the hedge fund implosion of the 1990s, and now the
seizure of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the two government-backed financial entities that underwrote the sub-prime
mortgage mess.
In essence, greed drove the sub-prime mess because anyone with any sense at all knows you don’t loan money to people
who are unlikely to repay it. Driven by misguided notions that low-income people have a right to own homes just like the
middle class, the sub-prime mortgage program was doomed from the start.
Social parity or, to use one of Senator Barack Hessein Obama's favorite words, “fairness,” is not a substitute for sensible
loan requirements. Indeed, it is usually not a good reason for any government program, whereas personal responsibility is
always a good idea.
The poor are, as often as not, poor for perfectly understandable reasons. They drop out of school. They have poor work
habits. They prefer crime to a regular job. They engage in drugs and other bad habits. When you add in a middle class
that has grown accustomed to easy credit and taking on too much unnecessary debt, you have the makings of a financial
shockwave that spreads across the entire system.
Right now, some very big investment banks are in big trouble. The United States Treasury is tapped out and, having swiftly
learned the lesson of the Bear Sterns rescue, is saying you guys are on your own. Made bad loans? Have no idea what your
assets actually represent? You call yourself bankers? Not for long.
Wall Street will be in a funk for a while, but most of us need to sit back and wait out the bloodletting that must inevitably
follow. Bank deposits, to a certain level, are FDIC protected. Big, well-run banks like Bank of America just picked up Merrill
Lynch & Company at a bargain basement price and you can bet they believe the stock market will rebound at some point.
Why were the warnings ignored? For the same reason that people tend to ignore warnings. We don’t want to believe them.
Right now, Americans are being warned that Congress must open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and the
continental shelf to oil and natural gas exploration and drilling.
They are being warned that we need to build more coal-fired and nuclear plants to cope with the doubling of our need for
electricity.
They are being warned that we need to encourage the oil industry to build more refineries.
They are being warned that the nation’s electrical grid needs upgrading.
You think the financial crisis is bad? Just wait until you cannot turn on the lights.
Vote for people who want to cut your taxes.
Vote for people who want to reduce the size of the central government.
Vote for people who want to fix Social Security and Medicare.
Vote for people who want to drill here and drill now. And don’t vote for people who talk about “Big Oil” as if it is an evil
institution, instead of a vital national industry.
Vote for people who will eliminate the ethanol mandates.
Vote for people who will not support policies based on the United Nations-generated “global warming” hoax.
Vote for people who want to kill Islamic jihadists, not talk to them.
Vote as if your life and the future of the nation depend on it -- because it does.
And don’t panic!
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
The Earth's Natural History, Global Climate Changes,
& the Future of Human Life & Civilization on the Planet:
Science, Ideology, & Public Policy
American Politics, Political Competition, & the Control of
Public Policy: Elections, Political Parties, Political Factions,
Ideologies, & Special Interest Groups
American Government & the U.S. Presidency:
Presidential Politics & National Leadership
The American Political System:
Politics & Government in the U.S.A.
Alan Caruba is a veteran business and science writer, a Public Relations Counselor, and Founder of the National Anxiety Center, a
clearinghouse for information about media-driven scare campaigns. Caruba writes a weekly commentary, "Warning Signs," posted
on the Internet website of the National Anxiety Center, which is located at
www.anxietycenter.com.
Caruba has a daily blog at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com.
Caruba’s most recent book, Right Answers: Separating Fact from Fantasy, has been published by Merril Press. Books
previously authored by Caruba include A Pocket Guide to Militant Islam, The United Nations Versus the United States: The
UN's Plan to Control Planet Earth, and America: A Nation Without Borders -- A Pocket Guide to Immigration Issues.
© Alan Caruba 2008
Published with Permission of Alan Caruba
ACaruba@AOL.Com
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Conservative & Free-Market Analysis of Government, Politics & Public Policy, Covering Political, Legal, Constitutional, Economic,
Cultural, Military, International, Strategic, & Geopolitical Issues
Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity