Posted by
Andrews on Wednesday, October 01, 2008 1:21:20 AM
George Will has once again convinced me that he is interested in good rhetoric and the appearance of moderation that gets him slots in the best venues more than he is in the truth. He shows it by
reciting two tropes that have
NOTHING to do with this current bailout or the underlying financial fiasco.
First, he mentions our supposed addiction to credit and "
living beyond our means", and as evidence cites the number of credit cards. Mr Will, perhaps you have not noticed, busy as you are drawing improbable analogies to baseball or dredging up non sequitur quotes from noteworthy literature, but we have an electronic, on line economy. We have credit cards, as otherwise online purchases are impossible. The number of credit cards is not necessarily any indication of the amount of debt on those cards. We could have half as many cards and twice as much debt. So please don't trot out meaningless figures to help you indict the supposed irresponsible greed of the "common man".
Second, and more importantly, "Main Street" was not the cause of this problem. Main Street is not taking subprime loans then defaulting. Main Street did suffer form the housing prices elevated by the easy credit this subprime boom engendered, which forced anyone needing a house to pay inflated prices, but that has
NOTHING to do with this problem. The problem is not Main Street, but Skid Row, and the Democrat policies which thought it would be a good idea to give loans to people who can't even afford to feed themselves.
So, please no more denunciation of "greed". I know you are trying to be contrarian and contrast your scorn of middle class greed with the left wing's claim of Wall Street greed. But in truth, there was no greed, except for the Democrat greed for the votes of the poor. Far more to blame is the hubris of those who think they can force society to conform to their will, and can suspend the laws of economics if they just wish hard enough. It is not greed, but the insistence that the poor are only poor because we haven't tried hard enough to help them.
So, no more about greed. This has nothing to do with greed.