The Powers-That-Be (TPTB): Be scared. Be very scared!

America: What is it that I need to be scared of?

TPTB: A calamity on Wall Street.

America: What do you mean? I thought some bankers, insurance giants, and government agencies made mistakes and they are going bankrupt.

TPTB: Exactly, and it will mean the collapse of the economy if we don’t do something.

America: What exactly do we have to do?

TPTB: We need to bail out the companies with $750, maybe $900 billion.

America: If we bail them out, won’t that reward them? Everyone knows that if you reward those who do something wrong they will do it again.

TPTB: Oh, we are not going to reward the wrong-doers, we are going to extend loans and credits to others to take over the indebted companies and businesses.

America: Like whom?

TPTB: Morgan, Citibank, etc.

America: Yes, I noticed that you gave the Morgan Stanley Company $27 billion in loans to take over Bear Stearns. Now they have taken over Washington Mutual for fire-sale prices.

TPTB: We need to do that to stabilize the economy.

America: Yes, but even J.P. Morgan's chief economist has said that the bailout won't work. And the Wall Street Journal has reported: “The plan to bail out the U.S. financial system Congress hammered out over the weekend offers a much-needed salve to ailing credit markets, but it is unlikely to prevent the economy from sliding into recession.”

TPTB: Well, we have to do something.

America: What if "doing something" is the wrong thing to do?

TPTB: It won't be — we have safeguards.

America: Like what?

TPTB: The government and the Federal Reserve.

America: Didn’t we have the government and Fed before?

TPTB: Yes, but now they are smarter.

America: But aren’t the people who are involved in oversight either CEOs or ex-employees of firms that are part of the problem or getting the money? Treasury Secretary Paulson has been called the Armand Hammer of China when he worked with Goldman Sachs.

TPTB: It’s called experience.

America: You want all of this money but when you have asked for money before it always turned out to be a down payment followed by asking for more. Plus it seems to me you are giving it to the fox who is guarding the henhouse.

TPTB: We have to do something and we need to do it now.

America: The rush to this solution bothers me. Wealth seems to be consolidating into fewer and fewer hands. I have always wondered why the history books always talk about how people lost everything in the Great Depression, but they never say where it went.

Now you say these firms lost billions — to whom? Where did it go?

TPTB: You obviously don’t understand economics. We need this $700 billion to save you.

America: What if I say no?

TPTB: We are not asking for your advice because it is obvious that you do not understand. It is for your own good.

America: Excuse me, I just want to get this straight. You are going to tax me 700 billion or more so that I do not lose what?

TPTB: Main Street.

America: So, you want somewhere around $10,000 per household to save me — rather Main Street?

TPTB: That’s right.

America: How do I know it will stop there?

TPTB: I promise.

America: But the emails, faxes, and telephone calls are running 50 or a 100 to one against the bailout. Now you are calling it a “rescue.”

TPTB: It has to be done — we have to bridge the gap.

America: Bridge the gap? It sounds more like another bridge to nowhere.
 

The foregoing dialogue, though fictitious, is in essence the tactic the Powers-That-Be are using to stampede the American people into accepting the bailout.

The tactic has always been to scare the people when the Powers-That-Be want more control over the people and economy. In reality, control of the economy is control over the people. It is called socialism.

We see no change in the course government is on as a result of this election. The major candidates all talk about the CEOs making a lot of money but never the fact that the economy is coming under more centralized control, consolidation of wealth under fewer companies and personages — all using our money. In fact, they argue that the “other guy” doesn’t want enough control.

What the President and the Congress are doing is converting the American free enterprise system into socialism.

The free enterprise system must be free to work. Good decisions are rewarded with gain. Bad decisions are rewarded with loss. All do not pay for the mistakes of the few, no matter what the ripples.

Institutions that fail should be allowed to fail.

If a private person or company makes a wrong decision, a few suffer. If government does it, all suffer.

The next mistake, due to vastly increased government control, will affect everyone. Not just the few. All will be made to pay for mistakes. As the bubble gets bigger, the end result will be collapse.

The bureaucrats will continue on while politicians pontificate. They will scare us from looking behind the Wizard of Oz curtain to see what is really going on and who really controls the switch.

There is only one way out of this mess, and that is to allow the bad to go bankrupt; if fraud is involved, prosecute those responsible; abolish the Federal Reserve; and return to real money: gold.

The combination of more borrowing (even from China!) and allowing the Fed to print paper with different numbers on it, backed only by “faith,” is what got us into this mess to begin with.

The bailout bill failed to pass the House of Representatives by a vote of 205 to 228. To see how your representative voted, click here.

And for some blunt comments and sensible discussion coming from one congressman:

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