Chicken Little
By Jim Wiandt | September 28, 2008

Matt—the financial media (and government) are screaming like a bunch of little girls, and you call that censorship?

I have never seen so much alarmist talk since, uh, last week, or last month or last year, or 5 years ago. And Matt, welcome to the crowd. You've served us up with a good slice of fear and loathing: "We are in completely unchartered waters here."

Are we?

I remember when the sky was falling in around the savings and loan crisis. The tech collapse was going to be the 1970s all over again. And surely, the 1970s were a prelude to Armageddon. I'm telling you, I just sit here and GRIMACE at the bailout.

Capitalism, my backside. When people get greedy and take too much risk, they darned well ought to pay the price for it. And if that means 5 of the biggest banks going out of business, then so be it. I don't see anyone sitting in the wings waiting to bail ME out when I do something stupid.

Millions will be jobless, the biggest crisis since the Great Depression, these companies are too BIG to be allowed to go out of business. A bunch of little girls. I just groan at the site of corporate welfare, because that's what it is. The tax system and regulatory structure are already bent into impossible shapes by the fact that corporate America already writes the tax code in just about any area you look. And now that a crisis hits, we're supposed to BAIL THEM OUT because they made some dumb choices?

It stinks like the fishing docks around here, 6 hours after the catch in the hot afternoon sun.

LET THEM GO OUT OF BUSINESS. Let some smart institutions step into their place. The world is not going to fall to pieces. I'm not sure how many people are with me on this ... not many it appears. I'm not interested in the collapse of our financial system either, but basically sending the message that no matter what the mismanagement, there can always be a bailout, is one we want to be very circumspect about sending.

Whatever happened to the idea of, well, the market? Let the fire burn out the underbrush, because if we don't, the next fire is just going to be loaded up with enough kindling to burn down the whole forest. And in the face of that, no government, including that of the U.S., is going to be able to do a thing about it.

So I'm in a ranting mood. All of this DOES grate on me. That said, I DO think that we need to throw up some firebreaks. But we'd better ALSO be burning out some of that underbrush and making darned sure that the people taking the bailout money are PAYING A PRICE for their ineptitude and greed. The problem, to a degree, is that the foxes are running the henhouse.

Capitalism has its hard side to it, but that's what brings in the ... capital. And if we're going to hold our society to capitalist principles, I say we should include the large companies in that mix.