Excerpt from Obama's Perilous Compromise with Wall Street Looters by Jeffrey Klein, Huffington Post
Looters have taken over America's Treasury. The executives who
successfully ransacked their own banks, investment funds and insurance
companies have set their eyes on Obama's stimulus. Tragically, the
architects of the current economic fiasco have been placed in charge of
America's recovery.
President Obama has made an enormous mistake. Instead of cracking down on serial looters and complicit regulators, he wants to guarantee the financial sector's obligations, which are several times larger than America's economy. This is a Ponzi scheme far beyond Bernie Madoff's imagination. Simply put: The government is breaking the rules of capitalism to reward the most reckless capitalists.
Is it unfair to criticize President Obama before he and his experienced team have a chance to enact new laws and regulations? For guidance on this question, let's turn to the father of capitalism, Adam Smith. Here's how Smith concludes Wealth of Nations, Book I:
President Obama has made an enormous mistake. Instead of cracking down on serial looters and complicit regulators, he wants to guarantee the financial sector's obligations, which are several times larger than America's economy. This is a Ponzi scheme far beyond Bernie Madoff's imagination. Simply put: The government is breaking the rules of capitalism to reward the most reckless capitalists.
Is it unfair to criticize President Obama before he and his experienced team have a chance to enact new laws and regulations? For guidance on this question, let's turn to the father of capitalism, Adam Smith. Here's how Smith concludes Wealth of Nations, Book I:
"The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order [the capitalists], ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it."



