We Don't Need No Stinkin' Fantasies!
by tristero
Krugman on Obama's plans for Lemon Socialism:“Say I’m a banker and I created $30 million. I should get a part of that,” one banker told The New York Times. And if you’re a banker and you destroyed $30 billion? Uncle Sam to the rescue!
There’s more at stake here than fairness, although that matters too. Saving the economy is going to be very expensive: that $800 billion stimulus plan is probably just a down payment, and rescuing the financial system, even if it’s done right, is going to cost hundreds of billions more. We can’t afford to squander money giving huge windfalls to banks and their executives, merely to preserve the illusion of private ownership.
The question is, in the middle of the worst financial crisis since You Know When, who cares so freakin' much about preserving such illusions that they would rather perpetuate and deepen the real crisis than face reality?
Yes, you got it. And why president Obama, the most powerful man in the world, would want, even for a second, to pander to the modern Republican party, whose illusions - scratch that, make it "delusions" - have created planetwide misery and havoc on every front, looms as a larger and larger puzzle with every passing minute.