It sounds like her usual populist rubbish. She’s apparently still making her claim about “government death panels”, which is basically called “lying”.
The problem the US financial system has is not too much government interference – it’s the WRONG sort of interference. The bottom line is that lenders were able to use a business model of making risky loans (without being forced to – that’s a load of bunk) on the assumption that house prices would keep rising. Then they lied about the level of risk to mortgage brokers. A number of banks were also lying about their assets, or actually just plain didn’t KNOW what their assets were, so they had to close their doors. Those are things that regulation should prevent, and only the guv has the power to make it so.
Now I know I keep using australia as an example, but our banks (with the exception of one merchant bank) have sailed through this financial crisis and they’re still posting healthy profits. The only government intervention has been to guarantee deposits in order to prevent a run (caused by other countries doing the same). That was pretty controversial here, but in practice those deposits have been shown to be quite safe anyway – nobody’s had to collect on the deal.
We have a properly regulated financial system. Our regs get reviewed every decade or so and reforms are made where necessary. Everyone’s making a nice profit, nobody gets screwed and our financial system sailed through the asian financial crisis AND the global financial crisis with barely a ripple.
And our GDP per capita is higher than yours. Oh – and we get the same (or better) health outcomes than the US while spending 1/2 the amount (per capita) that you do, because we have a properly-regulated health system that includes universal health cover. We’ve had that for decades.
Any rich americans who’d like to move to a warm, sunny, safe place where things just work, filled with friendly people who’d love to have you here – contact your local australian consulate and have a chat about emigrating. You’d be very welcome. You can even keep your guns (except the semi-automatic ones) – you just have to promise to store them properly and join a shooting club (no, you can’t carry them around – but you won’t need to anyway).
Wow. THAT went off-topic.
