Fuck the Free Market

So, the bailout plan proposed by Henry Paulson, et al.? Give us a whole pile of money to spend and let us be completely unaccountable in doing so. Don’t believe me? Here’s the relevant subsection:

Sec. 8. Review.

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

Excuse me, what? We’re talking about spending $700 billion here. That’s $700,000,000,000 dollars that have to come from somewhere and these ignuts want the decisions to be unquestionable? If you have any kind of a brain in your head, you should realize the magnitude of the colossally poor decision being discussed here. It should concern anyone with functioning brain cells when the government tells you it wants to spend this kind of money and avoid answering any questions about the details.

Let’s review: a bunch of dumb people borrowed money they couldn’t pay back from a second group of morons. Somehow, the poor decisions by the collective idiots in the crowd means we, collectively, have to pony up the entire GDP of the Netherlands or Turkey. Instead, we could buy Vietnam 10 times over.

I’d also like to note the proposal came from the efenants in DC. Let me quote you some choice tidbits.

Republicans will attack wasteful Washington spending immediately.

If billions are worth spending, they should be spent in the light of day.

Congress has a fundamental duty to conduct meaningful oversight on the effectiveness of government programs

We believe government should tax only to raise money for its essential functions.

We do not support government bailouts of private institutions. Government interference in the markets exacerbates problems in the marketplace and causes the free market to take longer to correct itself.

All of these quotes are from the RNC Platform. I guess Paulson and Bernanke didn’t get the fucking memo, huh?