Remember Molly ?

In order to understand my point, you have to understand the time frame.

”You know, when a bleeding heart liberal like me has to sit around lecturing a Republican administration on fiscal responsibility, we're in a sorry pass. I watch the entire corporate and financial structure of this country running around raising money like crazy for the re-election of George W. Bush, and I am reminded once more that capitalism will destroy itself if you let it. “

Do you remember anyone telling you about how serious the financial crisis we were headed for was going to be ? Or that we were even headed for one ? Do you remember 2004 ? Howard Dean ended his Presidential bid with a scream. John Kerry was running for President. Abu Ghraib. Ronald Reagan died. SpaceShipOne became one. Some unknown guy named Obama gave the keynote address at the Democratic Convention.

If you didn’t know Molly, you’re too late. I discovered her way too late. She passed away in 2007. That was before Wall Street crashed. You might not know it from what she wrote (below) but Molly wasn’t a economics reporter. She was a editorial writer. I keep looking for one particular quote from Molly that I read years ago. It was something about wanting honest businessmen to succeed instead of the crooks. It frustrates me that I can’t find it, but it does mean that I run across little gems like this from time to time.

”What we have here is the same thing that happened after the famous S&L deregulation in the 1980s — privatized profit and socialized risk. You may recall that little adventure in deregulation — the universal panacea according to the right — cost the taxpayers half a trillion dollars.

Fannie and Freddie were created by Congress as private companies to encourage home ownership and — in theory, on paper — the taxpayers aren't responsible if they go bust ... but they're literally too big to fail.“

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. You might want to read the whole thing.

Don Brown
June 2, 2009