The meltdown and the bailout - why, how, and what they mean

February 13, 2009

Backwoods Home Magazine
By John Silveira

To understand how the recent meltdown and bailout came about, you have to know what brought them on. According to some, there are PhDs who have problems grasping what happened. I don't know if that's true, but I don't think it has to be made that difficult.

.......This has been described as a failure of the free-market system and leaders from both parties, including John McCain and Barack Obama, made the charge that the meltdown came about because of corporate greed. Both refused to acknowledge that the seeds of the meltdown began in Washington, D.C., and, when measures could have been implemented that would have started undoing the bad government decision, members of Congress got in the way.

Many congressmen have proclaimed the meltdown occurred because there wasn't enough oversight and that it was preventable—but they had fought against any changes for years.

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Hank Paulson, Naked Emperor

Friday, November 14, 2008

by Michelle Malkin

Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson finally confirmed what lonely bailout opponents tried to tell the American public all along: The man doesn't know what the hell he's doing.

Paulson held a bazooka to taxpayers' heads. He groveled on his knees in front of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He lured leaders from both political parties into linking arms in a panicked Chicken Little line dance for the beleaguered mortgage industry. Paulson demanded an unprecedented $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program for the good of the country. For the health of the housing market. For the survival of the economy. No time for deliberation. No time to review the failures of such interventionist approaches around the world. Now, now, now!
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