The Slaughter of the Free Market

Take your pick of any mainstream media source and see what they say about our economic troubles.  What you will see and hear is some sort of vague sense of blame being cast on the demons of unfettered de-regulation or capitalistic greed.  The implication that follows is that Bush is the real culprit because he is the President (and because everyone loves a good Bush-bashing).

 You’ve heard this all before.  I know.  Here is the logic in case you missed it:

 1. Bush is a Republican

2. Republicans believe in free-market capitalism and de-regulation

3. The US economy is in a recession/crisis

 Therefore,

Bush’s policies of free-market capitalism and de-regulation have brought on the recession/economic crisis.

 This makes a convenient script for the media to follow, but it is unfortunately untrue.  Not only is the argument unsound (just because it’s raining today and I’m wearing Santa Claus underpants, it does NOT follow that my Santa undies caused the rain), but premise 2 (or is it premise 1?) is now false as well:

 Drum roll please… 

 President Bush has officially slaughtered the free market.  It happened in a CNN Interview on December 16, 2008.  This article calls it a “sacrifice.”  Call it what you will.  He said:

 “I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system.”  Furthermore, “I’m so sorry we’re having to do it.”

Not only is this statement a complete contradiction, it is also pure massacre.  The follow-up question this butchery prompted from the interviewer was,  “Who do you blame?”  Bush goes on to mumble something about regulation and greed…  You’ve got to be kidding me.

 The Auto Industry bailout/nationalization is inevitable, yet there is one crackpot still calling it like it is.  Here is something that is not getting much if any attention in the media.

 Here is Ron Paul on the Bailout.  LISTEN TO THIS SPEECH.  You won’t regret it. 

 This is sad.  For all of the fear-mongering that Obama is going to “change” us all the way to Marxism, let me remind everyone that Bush is still president.  What, is he giving Obama a head start?

 I am not alone in noticing this.  Robert Sheer makes the same observation in this article.  The rest of Sheer’s analysis seems to follow some version of Santa underpants logic, yet he does admit that all this is “enough to drive one back to the invisible hand of Adam Smith.”  Finally some common sense.

 The real loser in all this is of course free-market capitalism and that pesky little scrap of paper we like to call the Constitution.  My question is how will we ever undo this?