This interesting study from maplight should get more attention. It concerns the first first of overall no. “Members of the U.S. House of Representatives today voted against a $700 billion financial system bailout. MAPLight.org has found that, over the past five years, banks and securities firms gave an average of $231,877 in campaign contributions to each Representative voting in favor of the bailout, compared with an average of $150,982 to each Representative voting against the bailout–54 percent more money given to those who voted Yes. 205 Representatives voted Yes and 228 voted No, with 1 Not Voting.”
Source link: http://blog.mises.org/8700/the-bailout-they-finally-bought/
The Bailout they Finally Bought
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Jeff
$200,000 times 500 Representatives equals $100 million to get a $700 billion handout. That looks like, if my math is correct, a 7000 to 1 leverage! Perhaps we need a maximum on the handout to bribe ratio. Or perhaps we should just auction the congress off on e-bay!
What happened to the Constitution? It was bought!
Ongoing consolidations of mechanisms of social power into the federal system. Nock’s discourse could use a little revisit, eh?
“This regime was established by a coup d’Etat of a new and unusual kind, practicable only in a rich country. It was effected, not by violence, like Louis- Napoleon’s, or by terrorism, like Mussolini’s, but by purchase. It therefore presents what might be called an American variant of the coupd’Etat. Our national legislature was not suppressed by force of arms, like the French Assembly in 1851, but was bought out of its functions with public money; and as appeared most conspicuously in the elections of November, 1934, the consolidation of the coup d’Etat was effected by the same means; the corresponding functions in the smaller units were reduced under the personal control ofthe Executive. This is a most remarkable phenomenon; possibly nothing quite like it ever took place; and its character and implications deserve the most careful attention.”
From “Our Enemy the State” – Albert Jay Nock
Government by capitalism, nothing wrong there, except our efforts to stop it.
We might be better off is government were run based on shares bought, then we get efficient government by capitalism.
One of Roderick Long’s “Answers in response to objections to anarchy” is about corruption. As Mike D. points out, 7000 to 1 leverage, when using someone else’s money.
To corrupt a private individual, one would have to “bribe” more than the cost of the project itself.
I must admit, democracy sucks. I thought “Democracy, The God That Failed” was a catchy title, but as time has passed I am more and more convinced that the conflicts of interest Hoppe talks about are, if anything, UNDER stated.
We’ve been robbed, we are being robbed. I dispair for this country.
$700 BILLION BAILOUT CAN BE WIN-WIN-WIN FOR CITIZENS, BANKERS AND CONGRESS
My Senator, Barbara Boxer, responded to an email asking her not to vote for the bailout plan without considering more options. She said the primary reason she voted YES was because she heard from California the news that without the bailout California would not be able to ‘sell voter-approved highway, school, and water bonds.’
Congress simply does not get that they not only have to do something, they have to do it right. What if there is a way to make everyone a winner?
Unfortuntely, I am old enough to recall previous decades. One recollection is of a time when all gasoline taxes went to the department of highways, both state and Federal. Before Congress moved these taxes to the general fund, my memory is we had little problems paying for infrastructure in our country. We were the world leader in expanding and improving roads. It makes me wonder why now we can’t keep California highways ahead of growth even with selling bonds.
Another memory is from the same era: when taxes collected for Social Security were earmarked only for Social Security, again, before Congress moved this money to the general fund. By correlating average U.S. salaries, cost of living, annual interest earned and cost of administration over the last thirty years, it is very clear that had Social Security money been kept out of the general fund it would today be, at worst, solvent and able to bear the increased demands placed on it by Baby Boomers. At best, assuming an investment return of 2% over prime, it would currently have an enormous surplus — enough to get us past the Baby Boomer demographic. It might be interesting for you to have someone run the numbers.
One of the reasons so many people opposed the bailout has to do with Congress, the institution. We may still have faith in our individual elected officials but Congress as a whole has provided so many examples of short sighted thinking, graft and corruption, and lack of intelligent thinking in the bills passed in teh last thirty years that the majority of Americans have a difficult time trusting the collective members currently sitting Washington.
Why not place $2,000 in every American citizen’s Social Security account (roughly $700 billion) and then loan the money to the financial institutions in trouble. Think about it.
Good luck, God bless,
Steve Peek
we are all being robbed- almost every citizen in every country is a hamster running on a wheel of this global financial system….question is what can we do about it? Can we break out from this cycle?
MattYoung,
governance by capitalism is not a bad idea. The problem is the monopoly of force that defines the state. If you allow unlimited secession, I could support capitalism as governance 100%. Without secession, we would have the myth of the company town manifest and writ large.
This bailout is just one more example of the indivisible handjob stroking irresponsible CEOs and CFOs with billions so that they can run the American economy even further into the ground. So much for Keynesian economics. If the goal is to stimulate the economy, why not give the money directly to the American taxpayers? We could do twice as much good for the economy by giving half as much money directly to hardworking American taxpayers. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush administration.
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