Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Rush weighs in on this whole thing in case you don’t ever get to listen to him. There is a link here to the transcript, it is quite lengthy, but worth the read.

Here is a little:

I was going to say, I can’t believe how wrong everybody’s getting this. Then I have to stop and think, yes, I can believe how wrong everybody’s getting this, because the Drive-Bys are in the tank for the Democrats and for Obama, and they’re stupid, they’re dumb. They do not understand economics. They understand the narrative that Washington has the solution to every problem, and when Washington fails, the country fails, and it’s just the exact opposite. Glenn Reynolds, who runs the blog Instapundit, somebody sent him an e-mail yesterday, a reader of his at a major Drive-By Media newsroom, and this little e-mail will set up the rest of the program today.

“Off the record, every suspicion you have about MSM being in the tank for O is true. We have a team of four people going thru dumpsters in Alaska and four in Arizona. Not a single one looking into ACORN, Ayers or Freddiemae. (sic) Editor refuses to publish anything that would jeopardize election for O, and betting you dollars to donuts same is true at NYT, others. People cheer when CNN or NBC run another Palin-mocking but raising any reasonable inquiry into Obama is derided or flat-out ignored. The fix is in, and it’s working.” This is a reader of Instapundit working in a major newsroom sending an e-mail to Glenn Reynolds. We knew this; we’ve known it all along. So it really shouldn’t come as any surprise.

(…)

Everybody is misunderstanding what happened yesterday. CNN is destroying the Republicans. Our friends at National Review Online and their blog The Corner are destroying the Republicans. Well, I know, Snerdley, you may not read ‘em but people on the Hill do, and the Republicans on the Hill do not understand what’s happened to Mr. Buckley’s organization because they’re being ripped to shreds by conservatives at The Corner and other places. The fact of the matter is Nancy Pelosi got exactly what she wanted yesterday. She got an economic disaster, perceived economic disaster. The bill went down to defeat. It was by design to go down to defeat. Nancy Pelosi didn’t do one thing to stop renegade Democrats from voting against the bailout. There are a lot of Democrats in very unsafe seats, unsafe districts right now. They had to vote “no” because the overwhelming majority of the American people wanted no part of this, as written. They understand. As complicated as the language of this is, it’s not complex for the average citizen, which understands that the market and the government are two different things.

They understand that the government has botched every attempt it’s made to toy with, fix, promote, whatever, the market. They instinctively understand that this is not how these things are to be done. They also understand that for $700 billion, you could give every American $75,000 toward retiring their mortgage, and if this is a mortgage crisis, then give every American $75,000 or $50,000 bucks instead of giving it someplace elsewhere shore up so-called liquidity. They understand if you’re going to start passing out money, give it to us. Our mortgages are the things that are in trouble. If you’re really concerned about this, they’re saying, if you’re really, really concerned, imagine the economic activity that would be spurred on — if we’re going to give $700 billion away, now, don’t misunderstand, I’m not suggesting this should happen, but I’m saying the American people say, “If you’re going to give $700 billion away why give it to people who made these bad loans in the first place just to make them healthy? Give it to us, let us retire a lot of our mortgages and watch us go to town here in the economy causing economic growth. I mean, if our objective here is to bring the economy back, save the economy, then hell, give it to us.” They instinctively understand this.

(…)

J.G. Wentworth come along, have you seen his latest commercial, 1-877-NEEDCASHNOW. Somebody’s out there willing to loan money. “Talk of Armageddon, however, is ridiculous scare-mongering. Further, the current credit freeze–” and this is crucial, folks “–is likely due to Wall Street’s hope of a bailout; bankers will not sell their lousy assets for 20 cents on the dollar if the government might pay 30, 50, or 80 cents.” So his point is, they could be making loans; they’re just not going to do it yet, to wait and see what happens with the bailout to find out how much. So even the credit market drying up is a bit of a scam being perpetrated here because once the biggest pile of money in the world says it’s going to get in the game, the people who stand to benefit from that big pile of money are going to wait around and see how much of it they’re going to get. Why use your own money when you can use other people’s money, in this case ours?

“The costs of the bailout, moreover, are almost certainly being understated. The administration’s claim is that many mortgage assets are merely illiquid, not truly worthless, implying taxpayers will recoup much of their $700 billion. If these assets are worth something, however, private parties should want to buy them, and they would do so if the owners would accept fair market value. Far more likely is that current owners have brushed under the rug how little their assets are worth. The bailout has more problems. The final legislation will probably include numerous side conditions and special dealings that reward Washington lobbyists and their clients. Anticipation of the bailout will engender strategic behavior by Wall Street institutions as they shuffle their assets and position their balance sheets to maximize their take. The bailout will open the door to further federal meddling in financial markets.”

Let me translate that for you. It means that nothing is happening on Wall Street because everybody’s waiting to see what the government does, which means the market has been brought to a screeching halt because of the government, under the guise of fixing it and staving off collapse, Armageddon, Great Depression 2. The lending markets, the credit markets, are theoretically stalled. Government is preventing market activity. However, consumer confidence is up, unexpectedly. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 270. How does this happen? How can this possibly be after yesterday’s near crash? Would it be, ladies and gentlemen, that people actually do believe in the fundamentals of the United States economy, hmm?

(Rush)