Posted on 04/16/2010 6:44:48 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
On Tuesday, Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, called for the abolition of municipal fire departments.
Firefighters, he declared, “won’t solve the problems that led to recent fires. They will make them worse.” The existence of fire departments, he went on, “not only allows for taxpayer-funded bailouts of burning buildings; it institutionalizes them.” He concluded, “The way to solve this problem is to let the people who make the mistakes that lead to fires pay for them. We won’t solve this problem until the biggest buildings are allowed to burn.”
O.K., I fibbed a bit. Mr. McConnell said almost everything I attributed to him, but he was talking about financial reform, not fire reform. In particular, he was objecting not to the existence of fire departments, but to legislation that would give the government the power to seize and restructure failing financial institutions.
But it amounts to the same thing.
SNIP SNIP
In his speech, Mr. McConnell seemed to be saying that in the future, the U.S. government should just let banks fail. We “must put an end to taxpayer funded bailouts for Wall Street banks.” What’s wrong with that?
The answer is that letting banks fail — as opposed to seizing and restructuring them — is a bad idea for the same reason that it’s a bad idea to stand aside while an urban office building burns. In both cases, the damage has a tendency to spread. In 1930, U.S. officials stood aside as banks failed; the result was the Great Depression. In 2008, they stood aside as Lehman Brothers imploded; within days, credit markets had frozen and we were staring into the economic abyss.
So it’s crucial to avoid disorderly bank collapses, just as it’s crucial to avoid out-of-control urban fires.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Krugman is a simpleton Dum. Thinks he is talking to the “little” people.
Fascists will take over the financial infrastructure of the country and dispense hundreds of billions of dollars (forcibly extracted from taxpayers) and never tell you who got it or why they got it.
Now, if you are in favor of the first item (fire departments), surely you must also be in favor of the second thing (fascist economics).
Right?
Fires obey the laws of physics and are, therefore, predictable. Financial fires obey the laws of despicable people and, therefore, have no predicability.
“O.K., I fibbed a bit.”
Given the fact that nearly every sentence out of Krugman’s hole is a lie or inaccurate, I’d say he’s about as correct with his statements as he is with his economic assessments. What an a$$ clown...
Somehow I can’t help but feel that a Nobel Prize winner in economics don’t get no respect around these parts....
As if fire inspectors seize buildings before they burn.
But what happens when your fire department is encouraging arsonists to run illegal fireworks factories in their basements? Saving the building will just encourage even more risks. Let the fire burn, protect the nearby building from damage and then don't let the fire insurance allow the idiot burning down his own building to profit from it.
...and then give them away to friends. THAT is what will happen. Govt will decide who can stay in business, and who must be replaced with friends.
Yeah, after Kelo decision especially.
Somehow winning the Nobel Prize has lost its credibility.
Krugman is ONLY a shill for the Dums.
He will NEVER opine on reality. Only unending columns spouting Leftist propaganda.
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