United Liberty

My list of examples of the unintended consequences of government intervention in the marketplace gets longer and longer. This time, I’m going to point out the latest irony: Investment banking’s profitable last quarter.

This would be wonderful news if it were genuine, but looking a little deeper reveals the truth. First, in one of Barron’s feature articles by Andrew Bary, we learn about a little-discussed fact: Goldman Sachs has only been able to issue low-cost debt due to the backing of the FDIC through a program called the TLGP, or Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program.

Barack Obama got a little touchy over a question from The New York Times during a recent interview:

President Obama was so concerned that he may have mishandled a question from New York Times reporters about whether he was a socialist, that he called the paper to clarify his position. The president initially answered the question aboard Air Force One saying, “Let’s take a look at the budget, the answer would be no.”

The president explained he wanted a return to the tax rates of the 1990s by giving a tax-cut to 95 percent of workers. But the president may have felt that was too dismissive, and called the Times from the Oval Office explaining: “It was hard for me to believe that you were entirely serious about that socialist question… it wasn’t under me that we started buying a bunch of shares of banks. it wasn’t on my watch.”

Peter Schiff explains that we need to stimulate savings and production that the stimulus bill well depress that, making the situation worse.  A severe recession is the price that must be paid for years of reckless borrowing and spending.

This is a great video follow up to the full-page ad CATO published listing hundreds of economists who don’t believe that a “stimulus package” is the best option for American taxpayers.

Dr. Paul correctly terms the stimilus package a “spending bill” and voices encouragement that other Republicans are standing against it.

Governor Sanford cautions America to reject the stimulus package, citing data from the Congressional Budget office that claims that a slower growth rate in the future will result from the spending bill currently being pushed by Obama.

After being berated by an angry tax-payer, Congressman Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) explains how the US and World Economies would have collapsed without fast action from Capitol Hill.

For some reason, I’m not convinced.

Glenn Beck is one of the few in the main stream media willing to call Obama’s change what it is- the path to socialism.

Ron Paul in answer to the idea that “the house is already on fire and we need to put water on it”:  “You’re correct, the house is on fire- you think we’re putting water on it. I think we’re putting kerosene on it.”

For my first post at United Liberty, I offer a cartoon about the government’s grand new ideas- I think it’s self-explanatory.

(Click on the image for a larger version.)