23Sep Where did the republican party go?!?
Whenever I describe my political views, I generally state: “I am socially liberal, financially conservative”. This means I generally vote for conservative Democrats and Liberal Republicans. I am not into extremes. One of the main reasons I tend to lean Republican is: fiscally the Republican Platform makes more sense to me. As a businessman and an individual, I have studied the pros and cons of a free market society and I believe in most cases, the free market is the best way to insure growth and prosperity for ALL citizens.
Today I am scratching my head wondering how the fiscally and socially conservative Republican Party has seemingly overnight turned into a socialistic society. Those on the Democratic side of the street claim the bailouts being proposed and executed (a good word for it) is simply cronyism, which is completely absurd. I believe the real issue is the current Republican Government (good old GWB) is attempting to stabilize the economy in a fairly transparent effort to bolster support for John McCain. First and foremost, I do not believe McCain needs that sort of help, secondly, IT IS STUPID, DESTRUCTIVE, AND EXACTLY WHAT WE DO NOT NEED!
The idiots running these large companies need to be punished! Not for making a bunch of money, but for running a business recklessly. Market corrections are a part of the free market model, if Uncle Georgy wants to save all of the big companies, it only encourages this type of misbehavior! What about all of the banks and financial institutions that did not recklessly invest or loan money to people they had not business loaning money to? Is that fair?
There is only one logical outcome from this course is governmental ownership of most banking, financial, and insurance companies, socialism. We are on the path towards socialism and arguable we are on the path to communism! It did not work for the Soviet Union, why would it work for us?
This “crisis” has been brewing for many years. Dave Ramsey (radio host and financial guru) has been talking about this for AT LEAST 6 years! Why are we acting surprised by this? We are we allowing our lawmakers to pass nearly a TRILLION DOLLARS in bailouts?!?!
The solution? Clearly we have had the last 20+ years to get into this mess, it will take some time to get out of it. Here are my thoughts:
- TODAY: write your US Congressman and Senator and tell them to STOP socializing our economy. Let them know that you will vote against them in any and all elections they run in if they vote yes on the bailouts.
- The US Government should immediately privatize Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Load the new private companies with debt via an interest free loan.
- Do not bailout any other companies. Help companies in trouble sell themselves to stronger companies. By helping, I mean establish a process to guarantee much quicker FTC and SEC approvals for sales of large companies.
- Ride out the down market! Yesterday I listened to a podcast, where the financial guy compared a huge downturn in the financial market to a forest fire. While it may not be pleasant, the long term product is a stronger more sustainable forest! Economic downturns should be allowed to happen!
If you are reading this thinking “Boy, this guy is sure dumb, why not let the government bail us out? It will make things less painful for the citizens.” My answer is: a) WE ARE THE GOVERNMENT, WE WILL BE PAYING FOR THIS BAILOUT FOR YEARS!!! b) Once we pay for this “bailout”, our free market, capitalism based economy will be put in serious jeopardy. This means we will have less innovation and entrepreneurship. Our economy is fundamentally strong, because it is based on capitalism. Once we lose the capitalism driver, we will sink into the morass of other great countries AFTER their golden age.
September 23rd, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Finally the republican party has shown it’s true colors. The bailout will not help any of the people who owe money to the creditors. The government agency is still going to have to foreclose on people who cannot pay the mortgage payments. Many of these people were hard pressed to pay there mortgage payments without the interest hikes. The banks lent them money betting on the come and they lost. The government will take the losses rather than the shareholders or other companies. At a time when we are looking at a 500B deficit, a rising unemployment, social security and medicare that no one wants to deal with — to give out this bailout is insane. Stopping sell shorts was probably the best thing the government could do. If you are selling short you have every reason to want to price to fall. This should be a permanent rule in the stock market — no selling short.
September 23rd, 2008 at 3:36 pm
I think you misunderstand this situation. If you follow what is happening with the stocks, the investors are also getting screwed. Freddie and Fannie investors will lose most if not all of their money. These stupid moves are NOT protecting the investors (BTW: ANYONE WITH A 401K is likely an investor in one or more of these companies, it is not just rich folks). We all will lose in this bailout. These bailouts are being done to artificially improve the economy. Trust me, this is not the Republican Party showing their true colors, this is big government, trying to get bigger. Republicans and Democrats need to speak out about this.
On the selling short issue, I do not really care about that as much. Betting on shorts is no different than betting on longs. It is apply an investment philosophy to your research (I have never done it however, it just seems to have the wrong spirit to it). The only issue I have with short sellers would be if they are doing something to influence the price of the stock, or acting on insider information.
September 24th, 2008 at 7:24 am
Perhaps you should start looking for a new party and/or candidate outside of the big 2. I became disillusioned with the Republican party during college (not its ideals, just its actions). This primary cycle I actually gave money to Ron Paul. While I don’t agree with all of his views by any means, he definitely provides a choice that I agree with on many things, and that will actually stick to them if elected.
September 25th, 2008 at 7:18 am
My issue with that is Ron Paul and other like him have no chance of being elected, or even making any sort of significant impact on the elections.
Sadly, the majority of citizens in the US seem to act like sheep and will vote party lines or not not vote at all. Few strive to understand the issues we are facing and what our legislators are doing about it. It is sad really, we have the greatest (albeit flawed) governmental system in the world, and the majority of American’s do not even strive to have a deeper understanding of world events beyond what CNN or Fox is feeding them.