Sunday, December 21, 2008

Enough Said

A cartoon from Tom Toles of the Washington Post...

OK... I can't resist throwing in a few words...

What do you expect of a guy like Bush who argues that "government is the problem, not the solution"? Why would a free market fundamentalist like Bush ever think "bank regulation" is needed?

I see the financial crisis as the Katrina-esque unraveling of a consistent philosophy of government that always arrives a day late and a dollar short. This "gang who can't shoot straight" have destroyed the US and taken the rest of the world down as they worshiped on the alter of neo-con theories of government and Chicago School economics with their deification of efficient markets as the final arbiter for all social questions. Obama inherits the empty cupboards, he gets to close the barn door after the horses have all bolted, and he gets the problem of trying to run an economy after -- as the above cartoon illustrates -- the Bush admin has looted the vaults. Bush's advocacy of "small government" through the policy of spend and bankrupt government so the liberals will not be able to institute any social programs has achieved success with his masterfully timed bankruptcy of the US just as he leaves office. (Details on this strategy by the Right can be read in Thomas Frank's The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule.)

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