The United States cannot save the world. It will be fortunate to save itself. President Bush’s proposed bailout is not simply a socialist measure. It is an attempt to avoid a return to correct valuations. It is an ignorant attempt, in effect, to extend the damage that has already been done.

Further:

“There is no use in interfering by means of a new credit expansion,” wrote Mises. “This would at best only interrupt, disturb, and prolong the curative process of the depression, if not bring about a new boom with all its inevitable consequences.” When Bill O’Reilly says that the disaster is too great, that despite his support for the free market he sees no alternative to the government bailout plan, he is denying the healing power of a depression. He is denying the fundamental lesson of economics. The damage to the economic system has already occurred during the period of false prosperity.

Our government officials are lying to themselves and to us. The false economy and false “boom” that is created by taking money from taxpayers and giving it away to businesses that should be allowed to fail because they are not viable only causes an extension of the pain. Worse yet it could cause our children to bear our pain in the name of saving our own hides. What kind of parent does that to their children?

I believe that President Bush means well. I believe that Senator Obama means well. They both don’t want our nation to be in the financial pain that it’s in, but they are wrong to take away the pain without allowing the wound to heal. The economy is damaged already by too much government interference in markets and private enterprise. Keeping values falsely inflated doesn’t allow the corrections needed to bring about a truly stable economy.

Read the rest of this article and think it over.

A major research institution (MRI) has recently announced the discovery of the heaviest chemical element yet known to science. The new element has been tentatively named Governmentium. Governmentium has 1 neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 224 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since governmentium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A minute amount of governmentium causes one reaction to take over four days to complete when it would normally take less than a second. Governmentium has a normal half-life of three years; it does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, governmentium’s mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause some morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes.

This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to speculate that governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as Critical Morass.

Mr. President… If you’re worried about a confidence gap don’t make symbolic guestures to try to improve your image.  CUT THE DAMN SPENDING!

So what’s next?  Are you now going to bail out the companies who you just cut out of those government contracts the the ones that creat logos?

I’m not buying what Chrysler is saying.  If you have an opportunity to borrow as a lower rate, especially if you are nearing bankruptcy, you are irresponsible if you don’t take it.  To say that you don’t need the money right now, but that you are going to borrow from other sources with higher interest rates points straight to the fact that pay limitations are in your future if you borrow from the government.

So what do you do in this situation?  Either you effectively hand over control of your company to the government, or you risk bankruptcy.  It appears that Chrysler has chosen the lesser of two evils.

I think that it’s a disgrace that a company would agree to pay any employee a “performance bonus” even when the company is in the tank.  The current financial status of the company should be considered in the contract as a common sense measure.  Sure, the car companies might have been ok if not for the economic downturn, but what kind of plan doesn’t have some kind of contengency just in case the economy doesn’t keep on its track of unsustainable growth?

On the other hand, the government should not be in the business of business in the first place.  To hand out my money to a company that’s failing simply does not happen in a true free market economy.  Have you realized yet that we don’t have a true free market economy?  The government controls so much of business both directly and indirectly in the name of the “common good” that we aren’t even close anymore, albeit closer than most other nations around the world.

Corporate subsidies exist because someone was convinced by a lobbyist that industries could not be allowed to fail, yet they weren’t self-sufficient enough to survive in a free market economy.  Amtrak and the airline industry are perfect examples.

Give tax breaks to business.  That’s the way to get industry moving, but don’t allow the government to buy into the company and begin dictating business strategy.  Look at the mess they’ve made with everything else they’ve tried to run and you will see why.

Wonder why GM is in such financial trouble?  Contracts like this:

Thousands of workers could be laid off but would still get most of their pay because their United Auto Workers union contract requires the company to make up much of the difference between state unemployment benefits and their wages.

Even when they stop production and have to lay people off to save themselves from bankruptcy, they still have to pay employees and of course, the union.  Every GM employee that agreed to that contract should be held accountable for it.

Greenville County may shut down businesses that knowingly hire illegal immigrants under an ordinance adopted by County Council on Tuesday night.

It’s about time that local governments began forcing small businesses to follow the rules.  Now if only the state would do the same there wouldn’t be a market for illegal workers and they would stop coming.

Brian Reidl, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, said all the spending may lead a Democratic-controlled Congress to “overreach and create expensive, unworkable new programs that will not be easy to fix or cut later.”

“There are significant economic risks to rapidly expanding the size of government,” Reidl said. “Countries with large governments produce less wealth and create fewer jobs than countries with minimal government.”

Like any spending the government initiates, it never goes down, always up.

President Reagan came into office believing that government was more the problem than the answer and his policies brought us into a long period of growth.  President Obama believes that government is the answer and only history yet to be made will determine who made the better call.  I know who my money is on.

(CNN) — Behind closed doors in recent days, senior White House aides have been saying that measuring President Obama’s first 100 days is the journalistic equivalent of a Hallmark holiday.

“They don’t mean anything,” quipped one aide, “but you have to observe them.”

But literally in the next breath the very same aide got pretty bold — saying anyone doing one of these anniversary stories would be “hard-pressed to find another administration that has done as much”

Here’s the part where he left out: done as much to move the country toward <insert word here>.  Words that could be inserted are: socialism, bankruptcy, apologetic diplomacy, nanny statehood, …

What words would you insert?

I don’t understand as much about this proposal as I’d like, but from what I can tell McCain is at least partially right on it.  I don’t think that any type of cap and trade system is necessary for one thing, but for another reasonable.

It gets back to the same old line.  The media is beating the drum of the far left and pushing us further to the left by making knuckleheads believe global warming is real.  Then they want you to believe that a huge bureacracy can buy their way out of it by charging people for everything from driving cars to running their home airconditioners or eating beef (cow farts are causing global warming you know).

I don’t know about you, but I’m sick and tired of extremists from both sides pushing their bs on the rest of us.  I’m a Republican but on social issues I’m more aligned with Libertarians.  Don’t tell me I can’t buy alcohol on Sunday because you don’t like it.  If it’s legal on Monday, why not on Sunday?  And don’t give me the whole wine wasn’t wine crap either.  Read YOUR HISTORY to see where that mess came from.

Believe it or not, you can’t legislate your way to heaven any more than you can legislate anyone else to heaven or hell, though you can make their life hell here on earth.  Just ask those who lived through Stalin’s rule of the great socialist experiment.

OK, I’m rambling now but since I pay the rent here and the thought police haven’t fully taken over the internet yet, I’ll say what I damn well please.