Who, what and how? Judge Obama
Wednesday, October 1, 2008 at 02:00AM "There will be time to punish those who set this fire. But now is the moment for us to come together and put the fire out."
This is a statement made by Barack Obama promoting action for the bailout. If we had a press doing their job, they would ask him to clarify this statement. Who should be punished? For what should they be punsihed? How will they be punished?
Since most of the resistance to the bailout has to do with resistance to bailing out Wall Street players who made bad decisions, I'm assuming Obama is referring to punishing them in time, rather than political arsonists who set up the shemes and created the exuberance for financial fire.
If Congress does nothing, the bad players will be punished by the market, although Obama and others claim that the innocent would also be punished. This remains to be seen, and as I've discussed, speaking of fires, this could be a smoke screen. If Congress bails them out, the bad players would be punished by limiting the money they make -- a slap on the wrist compared to total loss.
However, there are different types of punishment ,with legal punishment for crimes committed and financial punishment due to stupidity being two types. So far I haven't heard of any crimes being committed and unless Obama is planning on criminalizing stupidity and "greed", then I'm not sure what type of punishment will be carried out. If crimes have been committed, then we go back to the "multi-tasking" Obama claims should be handled by leaders, so why not put out the fire and punish at the same time. Because, no one is being charged with a crime.
I have read several articles covering this speech and all seem to believe Obama is making a strong case for the bailout, yet no one is asking him what he means -- again, who will be punished, for what will they be punished and how will they be punished? To me it's another example of the Obama/Democrat/Liberal (also prevalent among big government Republicans) mindset that government will punish bad players politically -- a threat of government power to decide winners and losers
Obama has made dangerous statements throughout his campaign, yet no one is calling him on them.
The mistake bad players on Wall Street made was getting in bed with politicians, and if that is the fire, then I can only say -- burn, baby, burn. Let a cleansing fire be their punishment and our resistance be gasoline.
Reader Comments (2)
Mike,
>"If we had a press doing their job"
The essence of today's (rapidly-declining) media. With all of the layoffs in the newspaper business, Obama is losing his campaign staff!
He may have to pay them to walk the streets with sandwich signs.