JERRY POURNELLE ON THE BAILOUT DEAL:

Off the top of my head observations:

Golden parachutes: we may detest them, but they are not the cause of the problem. And every one of the Democrats involved in this bailout benefited from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and every one of them was in favor of the CRA provisions requiring more and more sub-prime loans in order to increase home ownership.

And listening to Pelosi and Reid’s press conference, I am guessing that their provisions for helping keep people in their homes probably means that those who should not have been buying houses in the first place will be protected in one way or another. People who made horrible decisions and bought houses without down payment and interest only loans will be bailed out by those who put up a down payment and took out a normal 30 year amortization loan and have made their payments all along. Perhaps this is a good thing. Ownership promotes a certain independence. But I suspect that things will be gimmicked so that in order to keep the house you should never been able to buy, you will have to continue to support the Democrats. But then I have a nasty suspicions mind.

On protecting Wall Street:
Of course when government forces banks to make bad loans, is there then a moral obligation from all of us to make the banks whole again? They were only doing what we told them they must do. I know, I know, we the people didn’t vote to force the banks to make bad loans; but our government did, and the Congress did, and we continued to elect those who did that, and we are now to cheer them as heroes for rescuing us from the financial collapse. Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Pelosi, Reid — they were all for regulations requiring more sub-prime loans. Banks that didn’t comply were in a world of hurt.

Biden is asking where McCain was! Well, Biden, McCain was in 2003 trying to curb Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and cut back the pressure from the CRA, that’s where he was. Where were you? And where was Obama?

Well, in 2003 Obama was an Illinois State Senator. But look who abandoned the no-earmark condition to support money for ACORN.