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In addition to take a huge bite out of representative democracy, the
epic bailout will have a tangible cost. The Treasury Secretary has
asked Congress for the power to buy illiquid, toxic assets of
"unknowable value". It is possible that these assets are valueless
simply because they are worthless. Plain and simple. If this is the
case, and especially if the Treasury Secretary plows any results of
miracles back into the slot machine again and again until it finally
busts, taxpayers will simply lose this entire sum.
The Bush Administration, hat in hand, asks for $2,333 from every man,
woman, and child in the United States. (Ironically, this is roughly the
maximum allowed individual general election campaign contribution this
year.)
My personal perspective:
I am currently a full-time student and a part-time wage earner. It
takes me a fair amount of time to earn this amount of cash. For other
Americans, it takes much longer. So I only speak for myself.
In exchange for this epic bailout...
if we can finally put Reaganonmics to rest, it will be worth it.
if we can finally collectively declare, as Sen. Bernie Sanders did last
week, that if a corporation is too big to fail, it is too big to exist,
and should be broken into smaller parts in all instances, it will be
worth it.
if from now on whenever someone proposes privatizing social security, I
can win the argument simply by laughing in their face, it will be worth
it.
if we can now restore personal bankruptcy protection, it will be worth
it.
if Phil Gramm leaves Washington in disgrace, and will not be Treasury
Secretary next year, it will be worth it.
if the Republican Party ever again claims to be the party of "small
government" and "fiscal responsibility", it will taunted mercilessly and
universally, it will be worth it.
if the Republican Party is relegated to the third-party status its
extremist ideology deserves, clearing the way for a functional centrist
party, it will be worth it.
if privatization of essential services is labeled as just another
debunked Republican idea, to which the response is "we tried that
already", it will be worth it.
if the next person to bring up trickle-down economics is dragged into
the street and beaten senseless with a bundle of mortgage-backed
treasury notes, it will be worth it.
finally, if we can put this wholesale deregulation, free-market
love-conquers-all mentality to bed, that is, if the grand experiment of
industry's mystical self-regulation has at last been knocked permanently
out of the mainstream, it will be worth it.
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